Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your go-to hub for all things transportation! Hey everyone, it’s great to be back after a brief hiatus. We’re diving right back into 2026, and boy, has it been a whirlwind few weeks in the mobility space. Let me catch you up on some of the highlights. CES 2026 was a big deal, and I spent the first week of the year there. One thing was clear: the US automakers have really left the building. In their place, we saw autonomous vehicle tech companies like Zoox, Tensor Auto, Tier IV, and Waymo (which rebranded their…
Author: Naveed Ahmad
**Vercel’s Game-Changing Agent Skills: Streamlining AI Coding Agent Management** In a move that’s sure to revolutionize the way we work with AI coding agents, Vercel has just launched Agent Skills, a groundbreaking package manager designed to turn best practice playbooks into reusable skills for these intelligent agents. The project is centered around React and Next.js optimization rules, web design review, and claimable deployments on Vercel. **What’s the Big Deal About Agent Skills?** Agent Skills is an open format that makes it possible to package capabilities for AI agents. Think of a skill as a folder that contains instructions and optional…
**The Truth About AI Assistants and Your Private Life: A New Player in Town** Let’s face it, when it comes to AI-powered chat buddies like ChatGPT and Claude, it’s natural to feel a little uneasy about sharing our deepest thoughts and secrets with a company that can monetize our conversations. The thought of our personal data being used to fuel advertising can be downright chilling, especially when you consider the kinds of companies behind these services. Enter Moxie Marlinspike, the Sign co-founder who’s shaking things up with his new project, Confer. This AI assistant is designed to give you the…
**NVIDIA Introduces Game-Changing Speech-to-Speech Mannequin for Pure and Full Duplex Conversations** Hey tech enthusiasts! I’ve obtained some thrilling information to share with you all. NVIDIA has simply launched PersonaPlex-7B-v1, a real-time speech-to-speech mannequin that’s about to revolutionize the way in which we have interaction with chatbots and conversational AI. This mannequin is a recreation changer, and I can’t wait to dive in and share the small print. So, what’s PersonaPlex-7B-v1? In brief, it’s a single full duplex speech-to-speech conversational mannequin that replaces the traditional pipeline of Automated Speech Recognition (ASR), Language Mannequin (LLM), and Textual content to Speech (TTS). This…
**Microsoft Copilot Hack: The One-Click Way to Steal User Data** I’m still trying to process the shocking discovery made by Varonis Risk Labs. It turns out that there’s a security flaw in Microsoft Copilot that allows hackers to steal sensitive user data with just one click. The attack method is called “Reprompt” and it’s a game-changer for cybercriminals. So, how does it work? Well, it’s a multi-step process that involves chaining requests, parameter-to-immediate (P2P) injection, and a clever double-request technique. Essentially, an attacker can send a malicious link to a user, which will prompt Copilot to run a series of…
**Silicon Valley is Losing Its Mind Over California’s Proposed Wealth Tax (It’s Not Just the 5% Tax Rate)** You might have noticed the recent exodus of billionaires from California, and wondered what’s behind the chaos. It’s not just the 5% tax rate, folks. According to a recent report, the proposed wealth tax would hit founders on their voting shares, not the actual equity they own. Take Larry Page, for example. As the co-founder of Google, he owns around 3% of the company, but controls a whopping 30% of the voting power through dual-class stock. Under this proposal, he’d owe taxes…
**Who Gets to Inherit the Stars? A Space Ethicist on What We’re Not Talking About** As I sat in the audience at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when Will Bruey, co-founder of space manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries, made a bold prediction: within 15 to 20 years, it will be cheaper to send a “working-class human” to orbit for a month than to develop better machines. The tech-forward crowd barely batted an eye at this provocative assertion, but for me, it raised a host of questions. Who will be working among the stars,…
**Building a Self-Evaluating Agentic AI System with LlamaIndex and OpenAI: A Comprehensive Guide** Hey, developers! As we strive to create more reliable and controllable AI systems, we’re often faced with the challenge of designing a system that can not only retrieve relevant information but also evaluate its own responses. In this tutorial, we’re going to explore how to build a self-evaluating agentic AI system using LlamaIndex and OpenAI, with a focus on retrieval-augmented technology (RAG) agents. **Getting Started** Before we dive into the code, let’s set up our environment. We’ll need to install the required dependencies, including LlamaIndex and OpenAI.…
**Victory for Offshore Wind: Trump Administration’s Halt on East Coast Projects Overturned in Court** A federal judge has dealt a significant blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to block three major offshore wind farms on the East Coast. In a move that’s sure to be welcomed by renewable energy enthusiasts, Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, has ruled in favor of the developers of the Empire Wind project, allowing the project to proceed despite concerns raised by the administration. This is the latest in a series of court battles over the administration’s attempts to slow down offshore wind development. In…
**From Aerospace to Ocean Pioneer: The Unlikely Rise of Oshen** I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean, but it wasn’t until I failed to compete in the Microtransat in 2021 that I realized the true extent of its mysteries. As an aerospace engineer, I had taken on the challenge thinking I was up for it, but I quickly learned that the ocean was a whole different beast. That experience sparked a realization that would change my career path and lead to the creation of Oshen, a company dedicated to building autonomous micro-robots that can survive for 100 days straight in…