Associated Press

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Ford, Argo AI to deploy autonomous vehicles on Lyft network

Ford Motor Co. and a self-driving vehicle company it partly owns will join with the Lyft ride-hailing service to offer autonomous rides on the Lyft network. The service using Ford vehicles and a driving system developed by Pittsburgh-based Argo AI will begin in Miami later this year and start in Austin, Texas, in 2022. It […]

Macron among 14 heads of states on potential spyware list

French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday. “The unprecedented revelation … should send a chill down the spine of world leaders,” Amnesty’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, […]

Robinhood sees valuation of up to $35 billion as public co.

Robinhood, the online brokerage that found itself embroiled in this year’s meme stock phenomenon, will go public next week seeking a market valuation of up to $35 billion. The company said in a regulatory filing Monday that it hopes to price 55 million shares in its initial public offering in a range of $38 to […]

South African firm to make Pfizer vaccine, first in Africa

A South African firm will begin producing the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the first time that the shot will be produced in Africa, Pfizer announced Wednesday. The Biovac Institute based in Cape Town will manufacture the vaccine for distribution across Africa, a move that should help address the continent’s desperate need for more vaccine doses amid […]

New Merck pneumonia vaccine OK'd in US weeks after Pfizer's

U.S. regulators have approved a new pneumonia vaccine from Merck, more than a month after OK’ing an improved version of rival Pfizer’s shot. Both new shots offer better protection against bacteria that can cause pneumonia, meningitis and blood infections, as well as garden-variety ear and sinus infections. Merck said Friday that the Food and Drug […]

EXPLAINER: How Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos will soar into space

When Blue Origin launches people into space for the first time, founder Jeff Bezos will be on board. No test pilots or flight engineers for Tuesday’s debut flight from West Texas, just Bezos, his brother, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer and a teenage tourist. The capsule is entirely automated, unlike Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket plane […]

Why the Anthony Bourdain voice cloning creeps people out

The revelation that a documentary filmmaker used voice-cloning software to make the late chef Anthony Bourdain say words he never spoke has drawn criticism amid ethical concerns about use of the powerful technology. The movie “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” appeared in cinemas Friday and mostly features real footage of the beloved celebrity chef […]

EXPLAINER: Could balloons power uncensored internet in Cuba?

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, called this week on the administration of President Joe Biden to greenlight a plan to transmit the internet to people in Cuba via high-altitude balloons when their government has blocked access. CAN INTERNET BE DELIVERED BY BALLOON? Yes. For years, Alphabet — the parent company of Google — worked to […]

DeSantis presses Biden to help keep internet flowing in Cuba

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials pressed the White House on Thursday to support efforts to preserve internet service to antigovernment protesters in Cuba, even advocating the use of giant balloons as floating Wi-Fi hotspots to allow images of dissent to stream unabated from the authoritarian nation. Cuban authorities blocked social media sites in […]

Biden: Social media platforms 'killing people' with misinfo

President Joe Biden said Friday that social media companies are “killing people” by failing to police misinformation on their platforms about COVID-19 vaccines. Biden’s comments came a day after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared misinformation about the vaccines a threat to public health, and as U.S. officials advised that deaths and serious illness from […]