TNB Tech Minute: NHTSA Demands Robotaxi Makers Improve Interaction with First Responders

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the makers of Claude. We're in the middle of a generational shift in how companies are built, says entrepreneur Anton Ossica. That's the vision of his startup, Lovable. To make app development more accessible to all, hear from him at the break.

**Julie Chang** (0:16)
Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, July 9th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has demanded that robotaxi makers improve autonomous vehicles' interaction with first responders. In a Wednesday letter, the agency cited incidents where self-driving cars entered active emergency scenes, blocked ambulances and firefighters, and failed to recognize traffic cones, flashing lights, and other safety threats such as smoke and fire. Nhtsa plans to meet with each company by the end of the month to hear their solutions. The robotaxi industry has moved quickly to expand driverless rides in Texas, California, Arizona, and other states.
China is considering restricting its AI models, which are widely used by Silicon Valley companies as cheaper alternatives to OpenAI and Anthropic. Models from Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI have become core to daily work at US businesses large and small. People familiar with the matter say Chinese officials have recently held discussions with domestic AI labs about how to safeguard their proprietary technology. These include more stringent regulatory reviews, public release deferrals, and foreign investment restrictions. Sources say such discussions are still in the early stages. Reuters earlier reported some exchanges between Chinese officials and companies.
And demand for PCs could be subdued for the rest of the year. That's according to research firm Omdya, which says more than half of surveyed corporate partners report that clients are delaying hardware upgrades. It notes that global PC shipments declined 3.6% on year in the second quarter, as surging memory and storage costs pushed retail prices up by 20 to 40%.
The research firm says early cost spikes already prompted some buyers to pull purchases forward. Omdya highlighted Apple's recent MacBook price increases as a broader industry trend of passing component inflation directly onto customers. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:34)
Anthropix collaboration felt like a true partnership, according to Loveable's Anton Osyche. That helped fuel the startup's greater mission.

**Anton Ossica** (2:41)
I'm super excited about this world where more things are possible. There is fundamentally more human agency that's unlocked when frictions for starting a company and building your product, they start disappearing. I think we're entering an era where there are more societal problems that are getting solved. We're seeing that live with millions of people building on top of our platform.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:05)
And how does he think other startups can tap into that energy?

**Anton Ossica** (3:09)
My advice to founders working with Anthropix would be to dig into a partnership and ask for help and spend time with the team because these are humans that actually really care. It starts feeling more like we're building something together than just a customer-vendor relationship.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:26)
How can Claude bring your vision to life? Get started at claude.com/problemsolvers.