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Uber and Rivian Announce Major Partnership for Autonomous Robotaxi Fleet Uber Technologies and Rivian Automotive have forged a strategic partnership to deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis. As part of this landmark deal, Uber is set to invest up to $1.25 billion in the electric vehicle manufacturer, with the investment contingent on Rivian meeting specific autonomous performance milestones. An initial commitment of $300 million has been made, pending regulatory approval. The first deployment phase will introduce 10,000 vehicles, with initial rollouts planned for San Francisco and Miami in 2028, expanding to 25 cities by 2031. These fully autonomous Rivian R2 robotaxis will be exclusively bookable through the Uber platform. ...

Humanoid Robots for Rent: LG’s CLOiD and On-Demand Services Democratize Robotics The field of advanced humanoid robotics is rapidly expanding into consumer and public applications. At CES 2026, LG is set to debut its new dual-armed humanoid robot, CLOiD, designed as a home assistant to automate daily household chores. In a parallel move to increase public access, Chinese company Qingtianzhu Technology has launched a “1 RMB robot rental” service across 10 major cities. This “flash rental” service aims to normalize on-demand access to humanoid robots for events, featuring a promotional price of 1 RMB (14 cents USD) to drive adoption. The service includes rapid booking and on-site staff to ensure reliable operation. ...

Tech News Roundup: Anthropic, Quantinuum, and Kubernetes Updates This week’s technology digest highlights major developments across the industry, from a landmark legal settlement in AI that could reshape how models are trained, to massive funding in quantum computing, and crucial updates for cloud-native infrastructure and open-source software. Anthropic’s $1.5B Settlement Over AI Training Data Sets Industry Precedent AI company Anthropic has agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a major lawsuit concerning the use of pirated books to train its AI models. The lawsuit, filed by authors, alleged that the company used their copyrighted works without permission to develop its chatbots. This settlement represents a significant moment for the AI industry and could establish new standards regarding the use of copyrighted materials for training large language models (LLMs). ...