Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Japanese automaker Toyota is revving up acquisitions in mobility technology, adding Renovo Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley software developer, to its Woven Planet team, which is working on automated driving.
The addition, announced Tuesday, follows the purchase earlier this year of CARMERA Inc., a U.S. venture that specializes in sophisticated road mapping updates made cheaper and faster by using crowdsourced information obtained from millions of net-connected Toyota vehicles.
The company has not disclosed the value of either deal.
Renovo develops automotive operating systems, which Toyota Motor Corp. sees as essential for developing programmed vehicles so it can transition to what it calls "a mobility company" that includes more than just cars. Renovo means "new life" or "renew" in Latin.
Renovo's data-management platform enables automakers to continuously learn from their vehicles, using a so-called "complete loop" approach, so vehicles can become safer and more reliable.
"In Woven Planet and Toyota, we've found partners committed to doing exactly what we have always wanted to do, on a global scale, and that's a great feeling," said Renovo Chief Executive Christopher Heiser.
Woven Planet, Toyota's wholly owned subsidiary, earlier acquired San Francisco-based Lyft's self-driving division Level 5. Chief Executive James Kuffner said more acquisitions may be coming.
"The big picture is Woven Planet creating a `dream team' of software and vehicle engineering people globally to deliver the world's programmable and safest mobility. That's the context," he told The Associated Press.
"Always as an executive, you are trying to balance the speed and the growth versus the focus and maintaining company culture. The larger you grow, the risk is that you slow down," he said.
"We will keep growing, but we are going to be careful."
Kuffner declined comment on an recent accident at the Paralympics Athletes Village in Tokyo, when a Toyota bus equipped with automated driving technology bumped into a Paralympian athlete and injured him. The accident is still under investigation and may be an example of the kinds of hurdles to be overcome before the technology can be widely used on public roads.
The bus isn't approved for widespread use on public roads but was shuttling athletes and officials at the Village during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. A human driver was on the vehicle as a safety precaution. President Akio Toyoda has apologized and promised improvements.
Major automakers are working on various driving technologies. Vehicles of electric car maker Tesla Inc. equipped with its Autopilot driver-assist system have been in several crashes, including fatal ones, in the U.S.
Some analysts say companies should avoid suggesting cars sold today with such technology can safely drive themselves.
Woven Planet, known previously as Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development, is working on technologies spanning "smart" cities, green energy and mobility solutions and robotics that are meant to eventually become consumer products, said Kuffner, who has worked on Google's self-driving cars and robots at Boston Dynamics.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.
The owner of an e-bike business says he has doubts police will find the roughly $500,000 worth of product that was stolen from a shipping container last week, while police say he “complicated” their investigation by posting video of the theft.
At least one Costco store in Ottawa has implemented a digital card scanner for member entry, a departure from the traditional in-person card check, in an effort to crack-down on shoppers who have not paid a membership fee.