What do traffic cops do if they spot a car making an illegal move? Well, they pull it over and ticket the driver, of course. But of what if no one is behind the wheel?
Cops in California recently saw a vehicle make an illegal U-turn at a traffic light. But when they stopped the car, they noticed it was empty. Investigating further, they soon realized that they were dealing with a self-driving car operated by Waymo.
The bizarre incident was shared on social media by the San Bruno Police Department, which described it as “a first for both officers.”
With no one behind the wheel, the officers had no driver to question, and no one to hand a ticket.
The officers decided to get in touch with Waymo and explain what had happened.
“Hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves,” the police department said.
In a statement to the LA Times, Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said that its autonomous cars, which operate as robotaxis on public roads in several cities including San Francisco, are “designed to respect the rules of the road,” adding that California regulators are always monitoring their performance.
According to the Associated Press, the department’s Facebook post about the incident has received hundreds of comments, with some annoyed at the police’s failure to ticket the company. San Bruno police’s Sgt. Scott Smithmatungol said that while parking tickets can be left with a vehicle, in the case of a moving vehicle a ticket can only be issued to a human driver or operator.
In a classic case of regulators playing catchup with new and fast-developing technology, a new state law will come into effect in 2026 that lets police report violations to the Department of Motor Vehicles should they involve moving autonomous vehicles.
This isn’t the first time that the police have been confused by an empty self-driving car. In 2022, a couple of cops pulled over an autonomous car operated by Cruise for not having its front lights on while driving at night. A video showed the cops pondering what to do after realizing that no one was driving it.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.