Waymo's self-driving vans will carry UPS packages in Phoenix

Waymo is expanding its foray into self-driving delivery vehicles. The Alphabet brand is teaming with UPS on a pilot that will have autonomous Chrysler Pacifica vans carry packages in the metro Phoenix area. They’ll be shuttling cargo from UPS Store…

Apple Is Never Gonna Give Up On Its AirPower Dreams

We all know that Apple’s definitely gonna put out a new iPhone (or four) this year, and probably a fresh iPad and Apple Watch, too. But the company is also rumored to have a few unexpected accessories in the works, one of them being an attempt at a wireless charging mat. Again.

Read more…

Kristen Bell: Dax Shepard And I Had A Fight So Bad, We ‘Both Blacked Out’

“The Good Place” actress talked about a recent argument on the “Life Is Short With Justin Long” podcast.

Publisher Of Controversial ‘American Dirt’ Cancels Author Tour Amid Security Concerns

The book by Jeanine Cummins, a white woman, has been criticized for stereotypical depictions of Mexicans and migration.

Bernie Sanders’ Electability Is On The Ballot In Iowa

Under attack, the Vermont senator still prefers to address his ability to beat Trump indirectly.

Stanford’s Doggo quadrupedal robot and siblings Pupper and Woofer are coming to TC Sessions: Robotics+AI

Animal-like, four-legged robots have been a crowd pleaser since Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, and Stanford’s Doggo shows how the technology can be made open source, accessible, and educational. Doggo’s creators will bring the diminutive robot, plus its smaller and larger siblings Pupper and Woofer, to TC Sessions: Robotics+AI on March 3.

P.S. Early bird ticket sales end this Friday – book your tickets today and save $150.

We first heard of Doggo last year when the Stanford Robotics Club showed off the highly capable design, which uses mostly off-the-shelf parts and can be assembled by anyone… as long as “anyone” has considerable experience building robots and a couple thousand dollars to spend.

Still, a couple thousand is an order of magnitude or two lower than most quadrupedal robots go for, and project lead Nathan Kau told TechCrunch they’ve seen a ton of interest.

“I had no idea how many people were going to pick it up,” he said. “It’s complicated! But I get emails every day from people building this thing, from all over. The first team to get it running, to my knowledge, was in Sri Lanka.”

In order to further push the lower bounds of who can build and experiment with a robot like this, the team is building a smaller, even less expensive robot called Pupper. They hope to get the cost down to the level where even high school clubs can afford one.

“It’s less than $500 in development materials if you make it by yourself,” said Kau. “We imagine that if it becomes a kit and we have a partnership with the part manufacturers, it could be much less. We built it as a platform for learning, so it uses a Raspberry Pi and everything is programmed in Python. It’s about as complicated as building a drone, I’d say.”

You’ll be able to see Doggo and Pupper in action at the event, and they’ll be joined by one more robot: Woofer, a jumbo-sized step up from the others. It’s earlier in development than the other two, but to keep things simple it shares much of its codebase with the others.

Grab your tickets to the show today and get to see these awesome robots in person and hear from today’s leading minds in the industry. Early bird tickets expire this Friday, Jan. 31, so book yours today and save $150 before prices go up.

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Study warns adding chlorine to drinking water may produce major toxins

A new study out of Johns Hopkins University has found that ordinary drinking water in the US — the kind you get straight from the tap — may contain unintended and highly toxic compounds that result from the method used to disinfect water. The issue revolves around chlorine, which is the most popular method of disinfecting drinking water in the … Continue reading

Warcraft 3: Reforged is here and gamers don’t seem happy

For more than a year, Blizzard has been building up to the release of Warcraft 3: Reforged. Blizzard has been tapping its classic games a lot in recent years, releasing both StarCraft Remastered and WoW Classic ahead of Warcraft 3: Reforged, so expectations were certainly high for this game. Unfortunately, it seems that Blizzard has failed to meet those expectations, … Continue reading

Play the arcade classic 'Tecmo Bowl' on PS4 and Switch tomorrow

Ahead of Super Bowl LIV on Sunday, you’ll be able to replay the original 1987 release of Tecmo Bowl when it comes out on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch tomorrow. Not to be confused with the NES version most people associate with the game, the $8 A…

NASA is fixing a Voyager 2 snag that deactivated sensors

Voyager 2 might already have crossed into interstellar space, but that isn’t stopping NASA from providing some technical help. The administration is in the midst of fixing a problem with the probe that led it to shut off its science equipment. When a…