Uber customers in Atlanta now have the option of hailing a driverless Waymo robotaxi, the company announced today. Atlanta is the second market, after Austin, to play host to Uber and Waymo’s burgeoning autonomous ridehail partnership.At launch, Waymo’s vehicles will be available exclusively on the Uber app in Atlanta. The two companies first announced a deal to put Waymo’s robotaxis on the Uber app back in 2023, indicating that Austin would be first, followed by Atlanta. Waymo’s own ridehail app, Waymo One, will not be operational in Atlanta; customers who open Waymo One will be redirected to Uber’s app.Waymo’s vehicles will only operate within a 65-square-mile service area that includes Atlanta’s Downtown, Buckhead, and Capitol View neighborhoods. The vehicles don’t drive on highways yet, nor will they make trips to the airport. Another thing to consider: simply calling an Uber in Waymo’s service area doesn’t guarantee a robotaxi will show up. Like in Austin, the companies will start with a small fleet of vehicles and grow from there.Customers can increase their chances of being matched with a Waymo vehicle by opting into autonomous rides in the Ride Preferences section of their Uber app. The rides will cost the same as a typical UberX, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric ride. Once the Waymo vehicle arrives, customers can unlock the door, open the trunk, and start the ride from the Uber app. Rides can also be started by pressing the button on the rear touchscreen in the vehicle. Uber will manage fleet services, including vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, EV charging, and depot operations. The company is contracting with Avmo (formerly Moove Cars) to handle these tasks. Waymo is still responsible for vehicle testing, roadside assistance, and certain elements of rider support. The companies will obviously share in the costs and the revenue produced by the robotaxi service, though both companies have declined to share the split.Uber and Waymo, former rivals turned unlikely partners, have said they will work together to get more people to use driverless vehicles. But the partnership isn’t exclusive; Uber also is working with over a dozen other autonomous mobility companies, including sidewalk robot operators for its Uber Eats business. The company says it has quickly grown to an annual run rate of 1.5 million robotaxi and delivery robot trips on its network. While many Atlanta residents will be experiencing a driverless car for the first time, Waymo isn’t new to the city. The company first started gathering mapping data and manually testing its vehicles in Atlanta back in 2018. Fully driverless testing started in January 2025, followed by early passenger trips in May 2025. For those keeping score, there were approximately 283 days between identifying Atlanta as a future robotaxi city and launching the service on the Uber app. Waymo’s success depends partly on narrowing that window for future cities in order to prove its scalability, while keeping an eye on safety. Waymo currently conducts approximately 250,000 rides each week in its four main markets. The company has also said it will launch in Miami and Washington, DC with its own Waymo One app.

Verizon is trying to streamline its customer service experience by overhauling it with more chatbots and AI tools. The My Verizon app is being relaunched today with a new “AI-powered Verizon Assistant” that aims to help consumers “manage upgrades, add new lines, ask billing questions, take advantage of savings, and more,” according to the telecom giant’s announcement.The idea is that this chatbot service will be able to quickly complete tasks that typically need to be handled by human service reps, providing a more efficient and flexible experience for customers. Dory Butler, senior vice president of customer experience at Verizon, told The Verge that the Verizon AI assistant will transfer customers to a human agent either upon request or if it’s unable to handle the enquiry it’s been given.Butler says the company had “worked very closely with Google” to prevent the Verizon AI agent from hallucinating by creating small language models that are personalized to Verizon services and customers. “To date, we are seeing north of 90 percent accuracy with very minor mistakes being made.”Verizon says it’s now providing a so-called “Customer Champion” that will leverage Google’s Gemini and Cloud AI models to help customers resolve “complex issues.” The press release is vague, but in 2025 we’re going to assume that those champions are still humans utilizing Google’s AI tools. The goal is for customers to contact Verizon once, and for the champion to then provide updates via the My Verizon app, text messages, or call backs.Verizon is also expanding the operating hours of its live customer service agents and introducing 24/7 live chat support that can cater to “diverse customer schedules and preferences.”

The Raleigh One commuter e-bike in white. The Raleigh One e-bike is now official after The Verge first published details of it last week. It was developed for the Accell Group’s Raleigh brand with help from VanMoof’s cofounders, Ties and Taco Carlier, according to my sources. The announcement never mentions their involvement, which could be viewed as good or bad — good if you view the brothers as innovators, bad if you got burned during the VanMoof bankruptcy or the turmoil that preceded it.I think everyone can agree, however, that the decision to put several functions behind monthly subscription tiers that start at £6.99 / €7.99 (around $9) per month is annoying, especially for a list price of £2,399 / €2,699 (around $3,000 USD) when Raleigh One sales begin next month in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. That’s expensive for a Raleigh, but it’s still close to the €2,681 average for European e-bikes.The Raleigh One looks very VanMoof-ish but with several features that fans and critics alike have asked for: the 360Wh battery can be removed for easy charging, and it’s fitted with a single-speed belt drive paired to a motor housed in the hub of the rear wheel. If you squint, it could be easily mistaken for a Tenways CGO009.When asked about the Carlier brothers’ involvement with the e-bike, Ertu Bilgin, Accell Group brand lead, confirmed that “some former VanMoof team members have brought their experience” to the Raleigh One, but it’s “very much a product of the Accell Group.“The urban commuter comes with beefy tires to soak up bumps and a few mounts to help haul your gear around the city (with more to come). The integrated lighting adapts to conditions with a “dual-front” light that can be moved off the frame and onto the optional front rack. There’s a simple controller on the bike to adjust power, which can also be set in the Raleigh app. The app lets riders tap into additional features like an integrated alarm system and GPS tracking.The bike weighs 21kg (46.3 pounds) and is only available in a single step-over frame model. It ships with a 5A brick that can charge the e-bike to 50 percent in one hour or to full in a fast 2 hours and 20 minutes. Range is estimated at 80km (50 miles) in eco mode or at 50km (31 miles) when adding more pedal-assisted power. This is Europe so there’s no throttle here, and there’s no button to provide a temporary boost.Unlike VanMoofs, the Raleigh One uses a lot of off-the-shelf parts. I’m seeing hydraulic disc brakes from Tektro, a Gates Carbon belt, a 250W Mivice motor, and bike mount from SP Connect. “Built to last and easy to maintain, the Raleigh One delivers on reliability, with high-quality and low maintenance parts, backed up by a comprehensive dealer network,” the announcement promises. Those are important claims given the historical context.VanMoof’s downfall under the Carliers’ leadership can be directly attributed to bikes that shipped before they were ready, using custom parts of their own design that were assembled without enough emphasis on durability and serviceability. Concerns that VanMoof’s new owner — McLaren Applied — has addressed with its new S6 e-bikes. Now, about those subscriptions, or “memberships” in Raleigh vernacular. The Basic tier provides a rider dashboard, basic security, a stolen mode, and updates over Bluetooth for free. You can then pay £6.99 / €7.99 (around $9) per month, or £84 / €96 ($110) per year, to become a Core member, which adds automatic stolen mode activation and smart maintenance alerts. And for a limited time, you’ll also get over-the-air updates, some kind of bike-sharing feature for up to four people, “touch-and-go” functionality, and remote arming — but only until those features are moved to a new, more expensive “Icon” tier sometime in 2026.Subscriptions have become an unfortunate norm for just about everything we used to own outright, and e-bikes are no different. VanMoof is developing its own €4.99 (about $6) per month or €49 ($57) per year subscription offering, and even industry heavyweight Bosch can’t resist the lure of that recurring revenue stream as the industry continues to grapple with too much inventory and declining demand.Raleigh’s parent company, Accell — the bicycle giant responsible for brands like Batavus, Sparta, Carqon, and Babboe — has suffered financial troubles of its own in recent years, including a pair of recalls. But unlike VanMoof, Cake, and many other mobility companies that have gone bust since the COVID-19 pandemic boom, Accell had the resources to survive the “Bikeaggedon” created by a sudden collapse of the supply chain followed by a period of massive oversupply. The Carlier brothers are undeniably trailblazers. They introduced sleek, desirable e-bikes to a category of transportation once dominated by bolt-on batteries and septuagenarians. But can they be trusted, even under Accell’s tutelage, after bankrupting the company they founded 16 years ago?Raleigh has also seen better days since its founding in 1887, its brand sullied by an embrace of mass-market retailers that push its lower-end bicycles. That’s probably why the Raleigh One is launching on a new website — to set it apart from its siblings and mark a new beginning for everyone involved.Images provided by Raleigh

At a pristine, multimillion-dollar lab on the Manhattan waterfront, just down the street from a men's homeless shelter and the medical examiner's office, a slice of summer plum is being converted into fragrance code. This is the work of Osmo, a fragrance tech startup claiming to build artificial olfactory intelligence. Osmo has parlayed this innovation into offering turnkey fragrance compounding that promises a 48-hour sample turnaround from initial client prompt. In the time it takes your Amazon Prime order to arrive, you may now order a custom perfume. Traditionally, creating a fragrance isn't fast. After a client provides a brief - usually a mood, memory, or concept - a perfumer begins weeks or months of formulation trials, compounding and revising dozens of modifications, or "mods." Each must settle before it can be evaluated for balance, projection, and drydown. Raw materials often need years of cultivation. Bottling, regulatory reviews, packaging, and testing follow. From concept to shelf, a single perfume can take six to 18 months - even longer in luxury. And like fine wines, fragrance materials vary with climate concerns. One year's yield will not smell like the next one …Read the full story at The Verge.

Riot Games is closing the studio behind Hytale, its Minecraft-like game that has been in development for nearly a decade. Hypixel Studios, which Riot acquired in 2020 for an undisclosed sum, is shutting down “over the next few months,” according to Hypixel CEO Aaron “Noxy” Donaghey.“After years of pushing forward, adapting, and exploring every possible path, it became clear we couldn’t bring Hytale to life in a way that truly delivered on its promise,“ says Donaghey in a post on X. ”This is a painful decision. We still believe in Hytale. We believe in the team, and are forever grateful to every member, past or present, who poured their love into the game.“Hytale has been in development since 2015, when Hypixel was founded as a small indie studio by members of a popular Minecraft server network. A trailer was released in late 2018, and Hypixel was supposed to deliver a beta of Hytale in 2021 following the Riot acquisition a year prior. That beta never arrived, and in 2021 there was a major change to the game engine powering Hytale that set development back.“Our technical ambitions grew more complex, and even after a major reboot of the game engine, the team found that Hytale still wasn’t as far along as it needed to be,“ says Donaghey. ”It became clear we’d need a lot more time to get it to a place where it could support the ambitious vision for the game.“The Hypixel closure won’t affect the Hypixel server on Minecraft, which is run separately from Hypixel Studios. Despite the studio closure, Donaghey says he’s “deeply grateful to Riot” and that the team is being “supported with generous severance and resources to help them find what’s next.”

Nvidia has increasingly given more control to users with its recent software updates. Settings have slowly migrated out of the Nvidia Control Panel into the Nvidia app, GeForce Experience is dead, and you now have access to features like DLSS overrides directly within Nvidia's software. Even with more control, there's one free, open-source tool I always leave installed on my PC: the Nvidia Profile Inspector.

I have been self-hosting several apps in Docker containers on my home server out of sheer convenience. Taking a leaf from the books of my XDA colleagues who use Docker in their home labs for productivity or streaming media, I started experimenting with containers months ago. I gather that many people may want to or have just started using Docker containers to self-host different apps. Like many, I started off with Docker CLI to test out some of the apps. However, after weeks, I found myself using an alternative method — Docker Compose — to install containers on my home server. Here are the reasons why I prefer using Docker Compose to deploy and manage containers.

Jony Ive onstage at the Code Conference in 2022. Thanks to a related trademark lawsuit, we know what OpenAI and Jony Ive's first AI device won't be.In court filings submitted this month, leaders from io - the consumer hardware team OpenAI recently acquired from Jony Ive's design studio for $6.5 billion - testified that the first device they plan to release won't be an "in-ear device" or a "wearable." They also say the AI device won't ship until "at least" 2026. "The prototype Sam Altman referenced in the video is at least a year away from being offered for sale," Tang Tan, io's chief hardware officer and a former Apple design leader, said in a June 16th declaration. "Its design is not yet finalized, but it is not an in-ear device, nor a wearable device."Over the weekend, OpenAI was forced to remove public references to the io brand (which stands for "input/output") due to a temporary restraining order that was granted on behalf of an audio device startup called Iyo. To support its case that OpenAI willfully infringed on its trademark, Iyo provides emails showing that leaders from io and OpenAI, including CEO Sam Altman, knew about its existence and even asked to demo the product - a yet-to-be-released, in-ear headphone bil …Read the full story at The Verge.

I spend hours a day on my Windows 11 laptop, and optimizing my settings helps me to work faster and more efficiently. Making a few changes reduces the number of steps to access certain features and creates one-click shortcuts to others. I would also like to change the appearance of my operating system to make it more user-friendly and increase the visibility of certain windows and tabs.

The hardware indicator pop-ups can now appear in the top-left of a screen. Microsoft is testing a new feature in Windows 11 that will let you move hardware indicators pop-ups like volume and screen brightness to the top-left and top-center positions of a display. The customization feature is part of a new Dev Channel build of Windows 11 that also includes a new Recall homepage that lists the top three apps and websites you’ve used in a 24-hour period.Currently, Windows 11 shows the volume, brightness, and airplane mode indicators in the bottom center of a screen. In the latest Dev Channel build you can now choose the position of these on-screen indicators so they’re less in the way of apps you’re using. You won’t be able to pick the top right position though, presumably because that would place the indicator too close to the minimize, maximize, and close buttons for apps.Alongside the indicator changes, Microsoft is also testing a new Recall homepage. “The new homepage brings your recent activity and top-used content front and center, enabling you to easily get back to your previous tasks,” says Microsoft’s Windows Insider team. The homepage shows recent snapshots as well as top apps or websites that have been used in the past 24 hours.Recall is also getting a new navigation bar on the left side, which lets you quickly switch between this new home interface and the Timeline feature to scroll through all your snapshots. Microsoft is currently testing these changes with Windows Insiders, so expect to see them appear more broadly in Windows 11 in the coming months.

If you want to relive the retro days of the 80s and 90s computing scene, but you don't feel like buying authentic hardware that looks the part, why not 3D print one instead? Okay, maybe 3D printing an entire fully-sized PC is a bad idea, but you can compromise and instead create a tiny replica of your favorite PCs. That way, you can get a miniature blast from the past that doesn't take much to make, sits on your desk, and makes for an excellent talking point.

I really like it when people use their time, effort, and knowledge of electronics to recreate really teeny-tiny versions of real-world devices. There's just something really cute about a miniature replica of a PC, console, or other computing device that jmakes me really happy.