Waymo recalled over 3,800 robotaxis, NASA is sending an orbiter to Mars with Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space, and Tim Cook says that Apple price increases are 'unavoidable'

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Waymo recalled over 3,800 robo-taxis that might drive onto closed freeways.
NASA is sending an orbiter to Mars with Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space.
And Tim Cook says that Apple price increases are unavoidable.
It's Thursday, June 18th, and here's a quick look at some of the news happening in and around tech this morning from Engadget.
Waymo is recalling over 3,800 of its self-driving taxis due to a software issue that could cause them to enter closed freeway construction zones at speed. That's according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bulletin seen by Reuters. The company is reportedly working on a fix and has restricted freeway driving. It's not known if Waymo had an incident that prompted the recall. Waymo told Engadget that it identified an area of improvement regarding performance around freeway construction zones, adding that the company voluntarily restricted freeway operations last month while making improvements, proactively notified state and federal regulators, and decided to file a voluntary software recall with the NHTSA.
The company has previously noted that such recalls are a notice of intent to fix the related software issue and do not mean that vehicles are taken off the road. Waymo's Jaguar I-Pace RoboTaxis were first allowed to hit freeways in Phoenix back in 2024, first with employees, then paying customers. Prior to that, the cars could only run on highways with a safety driver aboard. The company released a video at the time showing how its vehicle would navigate freeways. This is the second recall for the alphabet-owned RoboTaxis company in a bit more than a month. Back in May, Waymo recalled 3,791 RoboTaxis after a vehicle drove onto a flooded road in San Antonio. Fortunately, no one was injured as the taxi was unoccupied, but the vehicle was swept away by the flood. Prior to that, the fleet was recalled for a particularly dangerous situation when some of its RoboTaxis were seen failing to stop for school buses that had their stop signs and flashing lights deployed. Despite these issues, Waymo's autonomous fleet has largely performed well, according to the company, on its safety impact page, Waymo says its vehicles have been involved in 92 percent fewer serious injury or worse crashes compared to human drivers and 92 percent fewer pedestrian crashes.
NASA has teamed up with Relativity Space, whose CEO is former Google chief Eric Schmidt for a Martian orbiter mission called Aeolus. Similar to its partnerships with SpaceX and other private companies, NASA will rely on Relativity Space to ferry its payload to its final destination. Schmidt's company will provide spacecraft, rocket and cruise operations to deliver the agency's science instruments to Mars. They're hoping to launch sometime in 2028 The agency says Aeolus will build on all the previous missions that have studied Martian atmosphere, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey and the MAVEN mission, which it recently declared dead after six months of no contact. Aeolus will carry four complementary science instruments to Mars that will provide the first integrated daily global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust and clouds. NASA explains that by learning more about Martian dust, winds, temperatures and seasonal atmospheric behavior, that we can reduce risks for future landings on the planet, whether crewed or uncrewed. The agency and other private space companies can use data collected by this project to fine-tune future spacecraft's entry, descent and landing systems. Aeolus will serve as a proof of concept for future missions in the company's Interplanetary Sciences Program. At the moment, the company has yet to provide technical details about the spacecraft and rocket that will be used for the mission. It has also yet to prove whether it can fulfill big missions like this. Schmidt acquired Relativity Space in March of last year. A couple of months later, he confirmed to Ars Technica that he took a controlling interest in the company with the goal of putting data centers in orbit.