Waymo will move rides in Austin and Atlanta to its own app in January
2028, ahead of the Uber deal’s May 2028 expiry. Riders on Uber never knew
Sign Up [1] |Advertise [2]|View Online [3]
TLDR
TLDR HARDWARE 2026-11-06
📱
HEADLINES AND LAUNCHES
WAYMO CONFIRMS IT WILL LEAVE UBER IN AUSTIN AND ATLANTA IN JANUARY
2028 (1 MINUTE READ) [4]
Waymo will move rides in Austin and Atlanta to its own app in January
2028, ahead of the Uber deal's May 2028 expiry. Riders on Uber never
knew whether they'd get a robotaxi or a human driver. Waymo wants a
direct rider relationship.
AGILITY ROBOTICS LISTS ON NASDAQ AS AGLT WITH $1.8M OF REVENUE AND A
$138.1M NET LOSS (3 MINUTE READ) [5]
Agility begins trading Thursday after merging with Churchill Capital
Corp XI, becoming the first US-listed company focused on humanoid
robots. The deal values it at roughly $2.5 billion and expects about
$465 million in gross proceeds, including $100 million already
received. In 2025, it booked $1.8 million of revenue, over half from
five robots bought by one investor, against a $138.1 million net loss.
About $38 million of that was non-cash stock compensation, and it
burned $99.8 million in cash.
🔨
ENGINEERING AND APPLICATIONS
QUALCOMM TO SUPPLY MIMO RADIOS AND BASEBAND FOR STARLINK MOBILE'S
TERRESTRIAL 5G NETWORK (2 MINUTE READ) [6]
SpaceX has signed a multiyear deal for Qualcomm's Dragonwing
infrastructure platforms: the QRU100 radio unit and QDU100 distributed
unit, with 64T64R massive MIMO and physical-layer RAN software.
They'll go into base stations at what's planned as tens of thousands
of US sites, starting in 2027, to complement Starlink's satellite
service. Qualcomm calls this its biggest 5G deal yet.
BLUE ORIGIN ADDS A BE-7 THIRD STAGE TO NEW GLENN AND UNVEILS THE
NORTHSTAR ENGINE (3 MINUTE READ) [7]
Northstar is a methalox booster engine that Blue Origin says cuts
mass by 30% and parts count by 50% versus the BE-4 while raising
thrust from 640,000 to 715,000 lbf, with assembly in under a day. No first-flight date is given, and New Glenn is still recovering from a
pad explosion that happened in May.
🧠
RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPES
FLIP SOFTWARE SUBTRACTS STARLIGHT IN JWST CORONAGRAPH DATA WITH UP TO
15X BETTER SENSITIVITY (3 MINUTE READ) [8]
A Northwestern-led team built FLIP, which makes a physics-based
digital twin of the telescope's optics and adjusts it until it
reproduces the observed starlight, then subtracts that simulated
glare. On existing NIRCam data at 4.3 microns, it improved sensitivity
up to 15x over the conventional KLIP method and recovered the giant
planet 51 Eridani b, which standard processing couldn't separate from
residual glare.
LUMITAC IS A CAMERA-FREE SIX-AXIS TACTILE SENSOR, 12 MM WIDE AND
ABOUT $7 IN PARTS (2 MINUTE READ) [9]
LumiTac pairs five photoemitters with five RGBW photoreceivers on
opposing circuit boards joined by translucent silicone, so load-driven
motion between the layers shifts the internal light field under
compression, shear, bending, and torsion. The head is 12 mm across,
4.75 mm thick, under 2 g, and made with about $7 in components.
Independent testing gave R² of 0.966 to 0.994, with mean absolute
errors of 0.054 to 0.190 N in force and 0.304 to 1.419 mN·m in
moment.
🎁
MISCELLANEOUS
TEXAS GOVERNOR-ELECT HINOJOSA'S DATA CENTER MORATORIUM PLEDGE PUTS
13.3 GW OF ANNOUNCED PROJECTS AT RISK (2 MINUTE READ) [10]
Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has pledged to halt all data
center approvals until the legislature passes new laws when it meets
in January. Outgoing Governor Abbott had already paused new grid
connections and ordered an audit. Texas holds about 25% of planned US
data center capacity. It is estimated that 13.3 GW of announced
projects are at risk.
CXMT'S CHAIRMAN TOPS CHINA'S NEWCOMERS AT $13B ON AN UNVERIFIED CLAIM
OF A 4F² DRAM BREAKTHROUGH (3 MINUTE READ) [11]
CXMT says its 4F² DRAM uses a vertical surrounding gate transistor
and builds the memory cells and peripheral circuitry on separate
wafers joined by hybrid bonding, which an analyst says could raise
density by about 30%. Yields are unknown, and a server product is
promised before year-end. The claim cut Samsung and SK Hynix about 13%
in a day, even though CXMT holds roughly 10% of DRAM against Samsung's
38%.
⚡
QUICK LINKS
STARFISH'S FIRST OTTER SERVICING SPACECRAFT IS LOST TO A
FAULT-PROTECTION FAULT, ENDING A $15M NASA INSPECTION MISSION (2
MINUTE READ) [12]
Starfish's Otter 24C launched October 1, made two-way contact, and
downlinked telemetry, then lost contact during commissioning.
WALMART ADDS 300 ZIPLINE DRONE DELIVERY SITES, BUILDING ON 2M+
DELIVERIES (2 MINUTE READ) [13]
Walmart signed a multi-year deal to add 300 Zipline drone sites.
SHIELD SPACE PLANS SWARMS OF UP TO 100 LASER-ARMED CUBESAT
INTERCEPTORS, STARTING WITH A 2027 RENDEZVOUS DEMO (4 MINUTE READ)
[14]
UK startup Shield Space wants carrier-deployed cubesat swarms using
lasers, microwaves, or kinetic standoff to defend satellites, even
when ground contact is lost, for under £100M per 100.
THEA ENERGY AND MIT WILL TEST A FULL-SIZE FLAT SUPERCONDUCTING COIL
FOR THE EOS STELLARATOR (3 MINUTE READ) [15]
Thea Energy's Eos stellarator uses flat coils instead of
hard-to-build 3D magnets.
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[5]
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