Author: Rob
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The UN Just Cleared the Road for Self-Driving Cars
We’ve all heard the promise for years that someday soon, you’ll be able to hop in your car, kick back with a coffee, and let the vehicle handle your morning commute. But despite all the hype, a world where cars truly drive themselves has always felt like it was perpetually ten years away. Well, the…
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Are Robotaxis Safer Than Humans?
Are Robotaxis Actually Safer? Waymo’s New Data Might Change How You Think About Driving Let’s be honest: humans are messy drivers. We spill our coffee, we sneak glances at our phones, we get stressed in rush-hour traffic, and we drive home exhausted after a long day at work. For years, the ultimate promise of autonomous…
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Driverless in Madrid
The future of autonomous driving in Europe has just taken a massive leap forward. In a landmark announcement, autonomous driving technology leader WeRide, ride-hailing giant Uber, and fleet operations specialist AVOMO have been granted Spain’s very first national operating permit for Level 4 autonomous passenger vehicles. Authorized by Spain’s Directorate General of Traffic (DGT), this…
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The Future Has Arrived: Uber Launches Self-Driving Taxis in London
London’s busy and iconic streets are getting a major technological upgrade today. On September 3, 2026, Uber teamed up with British AI innovator Wayve to officially launch the city’s first self-driving taxi service. For Londoners calling a ride, the future is now just a tap away, though it comes with a characteristically British and cautious…
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Reflections from ICR’26: Data Science, Health Informatics, and Exploring Berlin
I recently had the opportunity to travel from Spain to attend The Fifth International Conference on Innovations in Computing Research (ICR’26). The event was held in Berlin, Germany, spanning from August 24 to 26, 2026. It was a fantastic week filled with rigorous academic discussions, topped off with some much-needed sightseeing. Monday and Tuesday My…
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The Internet Is Becoming An App
I have been online long enough to remember when “the internet” and “the web” were different things, and when the web was genuinely a web. Pages linked to other pages and you could view the source of anything. The internet is becoming an app I have been online long enough to remember when “the internet“…
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The Hard Part Moved
Why AI didn’t make programming easier, and what that means for anyone learning it now. I learned to program on a ZX Spectrum in the 80s, and an Amiga in the 90s, typing listings out of books and magazines, and getting them wrong in ways that could swallow an entire afternoon before I found the…
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The Chatbot Made a Promise.. the Airline Had to Keep It.
I keep thinking about a fairly minor legal case from a couple of years back. Minor in the sense that it involved about eight hundred Canadian dollars and one grieving customer, not exactly a landmark. But it gets at something every organisation bolting AI onto its website is going to run into eventually, which is……
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Notes from INFOCOMP 2026 in Lisbon
Writing this from Lisbon with INFOCOMP 2026 winding toward its close tomorrow. It has been a full week at the Mercure Lisboa for the DataSys 2026 cluster of conferences, and as a member of the steering committee I tend to arrive with a bias toward optimism about the program. This year’s edition really did deliver…
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Google Is Standing Up for Web Users – And It’s About Time
Have you ever clicked the back button on your browser and ended up somewhere completely unexpected? Instead of returning to your search results, you found yourself on an ad page, a recommendation feed, or some random destination you never asked to visit. You didn’t misclick. You weren’t confused. The website deliberately trapped you. This is…
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