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cars

Robo.ai turns smart cars into economic actors with built-in digital wallet

by admin October 4, 2025

Robo.ai has unveiled a prototype where a vehicle’s unique VIN forms the core of its compliant digital wallet, merging the car’s legal identity with its new capacity for economic activity.

Summary

Robo.ai and Changer.ae unveiled Roboy339, a smart car with a regulated digital wallet tied to its VIN.
The prototype enables autonomous payments for tolls, charging, maintenance, and leasing.
Backed by $300 million funding, the project aims to scale the model to aircraft, taxis, and logistics vehicles, forming a machine-driven digital economy.

In a press release dated Oct. 3, Robo.ai Inc. and Abu Dhabi-based custodian Changer.ae announced the joint unveiling of “Roboy339,” a smart vehicle prototype, at the TOKEN2049 event.

The demonstration marks the first public showcase of a car equipped with its own natively integrated, regulated digital wallet, a project born from a strategic partnership forged between the two firms this past August.

From prototype to blueprint for the machine economy

The Roboy339 prototype is designed to function as a self-sufficient financial entity. Its compliant digital wallet, secured by Changer.ae’s ADGM-regulated custody, enables the vehicle to conduct autonomous, real-time micropayments for essential services, according to the press release.

This includes settling tolls, paying for charging sessions, financing its own maintenance, and even processing lease payments. The system also allows the vehicle to receive authorized income, creating a closed-loop economy where the asset can theoretically earn revenue to offset its own operational costs.

Per the statement, the broader ambition is to extend this framework beyond a single prototype. Robo.ai and Changer.ae plan to connect other devices such as eVTOL aircraft, autonomous taxis, and unmanned logistics vehicles to the same ecosystem. The goal is to create a foundation where machines act as economic agents, carrying their own digital identities and participating in financial markets at scale.

“The era of autonomous economics for intelligent devices is upon us. The name Roboy339 is derived from the last three digits of its unique VIN number — it is not only its bank account but also its digital ID. With the support of investors, partners, manufacturers, financial institutions, and regulators, Robo.ai stands at the intersection of the ‘machine economy’ and the ‘digital economy’,” Robo.ai CEO Benjamin Zhai said.

This ambitious vision is backed by significant capital. The development follows Robo.ai’s recent announcement that it secured approximately $300 million in strategic investment from U.S. firm Burkhan Capital LLC.

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October 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Mario Kart World’s NPCs are secretly stealing cars in their own game of miniature GTA

by admin September 19, 2025

It turns out Mario Kart World’s NPCs are basically playing their own game of Grand Theft Mario.

A video shared on social media by Supper Mario Broth explains how NPCs can actually steal a car belonging to another character.

Specifically, the video shows a green Shy Guy parking a vehicle and walking away. A Toad NPC then saunters up to the vehicle, jumps inside, and drives off, leaving the oblivious Shy Guy plodding down the road. Incredible!

Mario Kart World Review – Is It The Perfect Launch Title?Watch on YouTube

Supper Mario Broth explained there are a few scenarios for the Shy Guy after this: the NPC will either keep walking until the player leaves and they despawn; they’ll enter a building to despawn; or they’ll steal a car themselves.

In Mario Kart World, NPCs will park their cars, exit them, and walk around. However, the game does not actually keep track who each car belongs to. As such, a different NPC than the owner may drive away with a car, seemingly stealing it. pic.twitter.com/KTXsDHXwiL

— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) September 16, 2025

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As much as Mario Kart World is full of these little details designed to make its open world feel alive, jacking cars seems very un-Nintendo for such a family-friendly game. Children, avert your eyes!

Have you spotted NPCs stealing cars in Mario Kart World?

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September 19, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Xbox is coming to cars thanks to an LG and Microsoft partnership

by admin September 9, 2025

Microsoft and LG are partnering up to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to internet-connected vehicles. A new Xbox app will soon be available on cars that use LG’s Automotive Content Platform (ACP), allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to access cloud versions of Xbox titles directly on in-car screens.

The Xbox app will be able to stream games when you’re charging an EV or trying to entertain passengers on a road trip. LG’s ACP is already available on Kia’s EV3 in Europe, and is also coming to the EV4, EV5, and new Sportage. ACP runs LG’s webOS platform, the same software that powers its smart TVs, and provides access to a variety of content like Netflix, Disney Plus, YouTube, and more.

Microsoft already partnered with LG to bring its Xbox app to smart TVs earlier this year, and the extension to compatible cars comes as the software maker gets ready to expand Xbox Cloud Gaming to Game Pass Core and Standard subscribers. “Our work with LG is the latest example of Xbox expanding to new places, building on partnerships that already bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to mobile devices, PCs, and TVs,” says Christopher Lee, vice president of Xbox marketing. “By adding vehicles to the mix, we’re giving players more choice than ever in how they enjoy their games.”

Speaking of cars, Microsoft also announced overnight that it’s returning to the Tokyo Game Show later this month. An Xbox stream will be held on September 25th at 3AM PT / 6AM ET / 11AM UK, where Forza Horizon 6 is widely expected to be announced. The Xbox teaser for the Tokyo Game Show includes an urban neon aesthetic street scene that looks like it would be ideal for a new Forza game set in Japan.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Tesla Proposes a Trillion-Dollar Bet That It’s More Than Just Cars

by admin September 6, 2025

Tesla launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, earlier this summer, but it’s unclear whether the vehicles driving around the city are technologically advanced enough to count toward that 1 million robotaxi goal. (The proposal specifies that the robotaxis must not have a “human driver,” and the vehicles in Texas have safety monitors sitting in their front passenger seats for city rides and in the driver’s seats for highway trips.)

Meanwhile, the company is reportedly falling well short of its goal to produce 5,000 units of Optimus, its humanoid robot, by the end of this year, having produced only a few hundred. Musk has said that Optimus could one day revolutionize the global economy by replacing the majority of human labor, but The Information reported in July that the Optimus team was having particular trouble with the robot’s hands. The company’s vice president of Optimus robotics, a nine-year Tesla veteran, left in June.

“For Musk to receive the full pay package, Tesla will need to be the leader of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots in a number of countries,” says Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, a financial services firm.

Musk’s past pay packages have been unconventional and controversial. Unlike other CEOs, Musk does not receive annual compensation or incentives but is instead paid according to Tesla’s long-term performance. His 2018 pay package, worth more than $50 billion, is still in legal limbo after a shareholder lawsuit accusing the Tesla board of insufficient transparency and independence led to a Delaware judge striking it down last year. (Tesla responded by reincorporating in Texas.) The board granted Musk an interim $29 billion stock award last month.

The proposal demonstrates that, despite Musk’s controversial moves, Tesla’s board sees him as a crucial part of the automaker’s success and that the Musk era is far from over. “This new pay package should keep Elon Musk at Tesla for at least the next decade,” says Goldstein.

The package’s goals double down on the messages of Tesla’s “Master Plan Part IV,” a lofty mission statement posted this week exclusively on X, Musk’s social platform. Tesla’s Master Plans were once cheeky blogs posted directly by Musk onto Tesla’s website, complete with back-of-the-envelope energy cost calculations. The new plan points to Tesla’s more civilizational ambitions. “Autonomy must benefit all of humanity,” one section reads; “Greater access drives greater growth,” reads another, complete with renderings of Optimus robots serving cocktails and watering plants.

But if Musk wants to change the world and make his trillion, he’ll have to stay in his lane—and out of President Donald Trump’s, for whom he once served as “First Buddy”. The board-run committee that put together the pay proposal has met with Musk 10 times since February, the Tesla board wrote in its filing. Among other things, the filing reads, the committee received “assurances that Musk’s involvement with the political sphere would wind down in a timely manner.”

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September 6, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Princeton scientists bend wireless signals around walls, hinting at wild terabit data speeds in homes, cars, and crowded cities

by admin August 27, 2025

High-frequency signals collapse when walls or people block their path
Neural networks learned beam bending by simulating countless basketball practice shots
Metasurfaces integrated into transmitters shaped signals with extreme precision

For years, researchers have struggled with some vulnerabilities in ultrahigh-frequency communications.

Ultrahigh frequencies are so fragile that signals that promise immense bandwidth can collapse when confronted with even modest obstacles, as walls, bookcases, or simply moving people can bring cutting-edge transmissions to a halt.

However, a new approach from Princeton engineers suggests those barriers may not be permanent roadblocks, although the leap from experiment to real-world deployment still remains uncertain.

From physics experiments to adaptive transmissions

The idea of bending signals to avoid obstacles is not new. Engineers have long worked with “Airy beams,” which can curve in controlled ways, but applying them to wireless data has been hampered by practical limits.

Haoze Chen, one of the researchers, says most prior work focused on showing the beams could exist, not on making them usable in unpredictable environments.

The problem is, every curve depends on countless variables, leaving no straightforward way to scan or compute the ideal path.

To make the beams useful, researchers borrowed an analogy from sports. Instead of calculating each shot, basketball players learn through repeated practice what works in different contexts.

Chen explained the Princeton team aimed for a similar process, replacing trial-and-error athletes with a neural network designed to adapt its responses.

Rather than physically transmitting beams for every possible obstacle, doctoral student Atsutse Kludze built a simulator that allowed the system to practice virtually.

This approach greatly reduced training time while still grounding the models in the physics of Airy beams.

Once trained, the system was able to adapt extremely quickly, using a specially designed metasurface to shape the transmissions.

Unlike reflectors, which depend on external structures, the metasurface can be integrated directly into the transmitter, which allowed beams to curve around sudden obstructions, maintaining connectivity without requiring clear line-of-sight.

The team demonstrated that the neural network could select the most effective beam path in cluttered and shifting scenarios, something conventional methods cannot achieve.

It also claims this is a step toward harnessing the sub-terahertz band, a part of the spectrum that could support up to ten times more data than today’s systems.

Lead investigator Yasaman Ghasempour argued that addressing obstacles is essential before such bandwidth can be used for demanding applications like immersive virtual reality or fully autonomous transport.

“This work tackles a long-standing problem that has prevented the adoption of such high frequencies in dynamic wireless communications to date,” Ghasempour said.

Still, challenges remain. Translating laboratory demonstrations into commercial devices requires scaling the hardware, refining the training methods, and proving that adaptive beams can handle real-world complexity at speed.

The promise of wireless links approaching terabit-class throughput may be visible, but the path around the obstacles, both physical and technological, is still winding.

Via Techxplore

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August 27, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Nvidia Unveils High-Tech ‘Brain’ for Humanoid Robots and Self-Driving Cars

by admin August 26, 2025

Could humanoid robots get a lot more human? Nvidia may have made that possibility a bit realer today with a smarter robot brain that has less energy demands.

The tech giant’s latest robotics offering is Jetson Thor, a super computer built for real-time AI computation on humanoid robots and smart machines alike, Nvidia announced in a press release on Monday.

The new module is built to handle larger amounts of information at less energy than previous model Jetson Orin. Powered by the latest Blackwell GPUs, Jetson Thor has more than seven times the AI compute power and twice the memory at more than three times speed and efficiency than its predecessor, Nvidia claims.

All this new power is supposed to unlock higher speed sensor data and visual reasoning that can help humanoid robots get better at autonomously seeing, moving, and making decisions.

“Jetson Thor solves one of the most significant challenges in robotics: enabling robots to have real-time, intelligent interactions with people and the physical world,” the company wrote.

It’s a considerable performance leap that Nvidia hopes will appeal to engineers. The company says early adopters include Amazon, Meta, Caterpillar, and Agility Robotics, a startup that makes commercially available humanoid robots for warehouses and other manufacturing facilities. The model is being considered for adoption by John Deere and OpenAI.

It’s also being adopted by research labs at Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Zurich, to power autonomous robots in medical research settings and more, Nvidia said in a blog post on Monday.

The developer kit Jetson AGX Thor, which includes the Jetson T5000 module plus a reference carrier board, power supply, and an active heatsink with a fan, is now on sale on the company’s website starting at $3,499.

Coming soon—and available now on pre-order—is Nvidia Drive AGX Thor, a developer kit using the same technology but for autonomous vehicles instead. Deliveries for that are slated to start in September, the company said.

Nvidia’s growing bet on robotics

Although AI chips are Nvidia’s bread and butter, the tech giant is betting big on robotics and autonomous vehicles.

“This is going to be the decade of AV [autonomous vehicles], robotics, autonomous machines,” CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC in an interview in June.

Huang elaborated on his trust in just how much the robotics industry can scale at the company’s annual shareholders meeting later that month.

Along with AI, Nvidia expects robotics to provide the largest growth for the company, and combined, the two represent “a multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity,” Huang told investors.

Earlier this year, the company also released a family of AI models that can be used to train humanoid robots, called Cosmos.

Huang’s bet isn’t an empty one. Humanoid robots are advancing.

Just last week, China, one of the key players in the global robotics race, hosted its first-ever robot Olympics, World Humanoid Robot Games. At the three-day spectacle, companies showcased robots that can complete a 1,500-meter race in just a little over six seconds and achieve practical job skills like sorting medicine or taking food orders.

But still, the technology is hugely limited and far from widespread adoption. Even at the great robotics showcase in China, many of the robots suffered technical difficulties. One robot in the track and field race even ran straight into and knocked over a bystander walking off-course.

Big week ahead for Nvidia

Nvidia made the announcement at a rather convenient time for the company. The tech giant is reporting fiscal second quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon, and the market is buzzing already.

Nvidia dominates the AI market, so the company’s earnings always draw huge speculation, but the importance this week is boosted by volatile policy changes and questions around the economic value of wide-scale AI adoption.

The company has been on a policy rollercoaster ride in its efforts to sell AI chips in China amidst the escalating trade war between Beijing and Washington. China is a major market for Nvidia, and the uncertainty is keeping company investors at the edge of their seats.

Also keeping investors occupied is a concerning new AI report from MIT researchers. The report found that despite the bold bets on AI in the corporate world, fewer than one in 10 AI pilot programs have translated to real revenue gains.

Nvidia just hit $4 trillion market value last month, becoming the first public company to achieve the feat. Now, the stakes are high, as it’s up to the tech giant to prove that it’s valuation is not just built on AI hype.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

A Digital Underground Is Using the Flipper Zero to Break Into Cars

by admin August 21, 2025

Its creators call it a “multi-tool” device. For many users, it’s a hacking accessory. Since it first debuted in 2020, the Flipper Zero has been considered a fun, low-key pen-tester, but a new report bolsters claims made by the tool’s critics, many of whom have argued that it makes nefarious hacking just a little too easy.

404 Media reports that claims the Flipper has become a favorite in a digital underground where low-level hackers create and sell their own software to modify the tool’s abilities. 404 spoke with a hacker who goes by the moniker “Daniel,” who has been responsible for peddling patches that can turn the Flipper into a car-unlocking device. This customized software is bought and sold with cryptocurrency, the outlet notes. It has two tiers: one worth $600, in which the buyer gets the latest version of the software, and the other costs $1,000 (wherein the buyer gains access to “future upgrades and support”). The hacker told 404 Media that he had sold his wares to approximately 150 people. “Maybe someone is using it to steal from cars or steal cars,” Daniel told them.

Using the simple software workarounds, would-be car thieves seem to have quite a lot of options. Indeed, Daniel’s software patches are alleged to work on a broad variety of car brands. 404 writes:

Daniel shared a PDF which lays out the vehicles the patches allegedly work against. It names nearly 200 specific models of vehicles, including many 2025 versions. As well as Subaru, Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Peugeot, Citroën, Volkswagen, Skoda, and Audi, the document also says Honda is in development.

Daniel, who markets his software on YouTube, also told 404 that he had instituted guardrails to keep users from “cracking” his software and thus using it without paying him. However, 404 reports that software like the kind Daniel sells is being cracked, which allows for its broader (and free) distribution.

Flipper doesn’t seem to feel that any of this is its problem. In a statement shared with 404, the company claimed that it was “not aware of any officially confirmed cases of theft using a Flipper Zero.” It added: “We have seen reports from researchers who have used Flipper Zero with third-party software and hardware to exploit brazen vulnerabilities in certain cars. We hope car manufacturers will take the security of their products more seriously and patch them up immediately, as carjackers have access to extremely sophisticated black market tools.” Gizmodo reached out to Flipper Devices for more information.

Authorities have long accused the Flipper of aiding and abetting car thieves. In February of last year, the Canadian government moved to ban the tool, along with other “devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry.” At the time, Flipper’s developers said that they were being unfairly scapegoated as the hacker boogeymen behind the nation’s car theft problem. The COO of Flipper Devices, Alex Kulagin, argued that there were many other devices sold online that were specifically marketed as car entry devices. Developers have also argued that the Flipper helps expose shoddy corporate security practices. Canada subsequently walked back the ban.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Toyota explores blockchain to turn cars into tradable RWAs

by admin August 19, 2025

Japanese automaker giant Toyota is exploring the financialization of car ownership, turning fleets into assets.

Summary

Toyota has proposed a blockchain that links all key data on cars
NFTs can represent vehicle ownership, and traders can bundle them in a portfolio
The concept is especially useful in EVs, robo-taxis, and fleets

Toyota is actively exploring the concept of tokenizing cars. On Tuesday, August 19, Toyota Blockchain Lab released a white paper on the Mobility Orchestration Network (MON). This new blockchain would be able to track key vehicle data, potentially turning cars into tokenized assets.

The proposal explains that every vehicle, including logistic trucks, rental fleets, or even robo-taxis, leaves a trail of information behind it. This information, including registration, manufacturing, and maintenance, could be bundled as proof on the network into a token.

Diagram showing Mobility Orchestration Network connecting information across several regions | Source: Toyota Blockchain Lab

Each vehicle would have its own NFT, which comes together with all its history and key info. Potential buyers could then use this information to assess the car’s value. What is more, the network could enable users to buy these NFTs without having to physically control the vehicle.

How Toyota sees the future of car ownership

Toyota Blockchain Lab envisages several use cases for this network. For one, vehicles are expensive. However, unlike housing, they have so far eluded the trend toward financialization. With a blockchain network tracking their use, car ownership and use don’t have to be closely tied together.

For instance, carmakers could bundle multiple car NFTs into a fund, effectively enabling investment in car fleets. The same type of investment vehicle could be used to fund robo-taxi fleets or logistics fleets in emerging markets.

What is more, if cars can be securitized, fleet operators could be able to raise capital more cheaply than through loans. Still, the white paper does not go into how this financialization of car ownership could affect regular car owners or car prices.

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August 19, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Cars have had real-life DLC for a while, but now Volkswagen’s gone full pay to win, locking a car’s max horsepower behind a subscription

by admin August 17, 2025

Some of the execs at Volkswagen must like Gacha games⁠—so much so that, as reported by Auto Express, you now have to “subscribe” to get your car’s full horsepower output with one of its new models.

VW’s proposition is this: buy a new ID.3—the brand’s “entry level” (I remember when that used to mean <£20,000, not over £30k) electric hatchback—in some of the mid-level trims, and you get a somewhat piddling 201 horsepower. But if you’re feeling frisky, you can tack on a £16.50/mo subscription, or a one-time £649 fee, to break the paywall and unleash an extra 27hp. Sound familiar? Even to a novice gamer, this business model is probably old hat.

I’m no stranger to aftermarket car modifications “unlocking” more power. There’s more of a special DIY feeling there, like overclocking your RTX 5080 or modding Skyrim to make elderly people graphically coherent. But when features of your car are built in, and then the marque upcharges you to access them? That’s where you lose me.

Back in my day, you bought Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for the Nintendo GameCube, and that was it. You got the full game. But over the last two decades, as triple-A publishers learned to master the art of consumer exploitation via DLC and subscription models, buying a game these days can feel like buying a work in progress. Trust me, I play Paradox grand strategy games.

Auto manufacturers, a notoriously conservative bunch, were much slower to adopt this particular technique of wringing their buyers dry. But subscription features did start slowly creeping in in the late 2010s, as cars became integral parts of the “internet of things,” or the increasing number of formerly analogue objects and appliances that now have internet connectivity for some reason.

BMW gained particular infamy for locking Apple CarPlay and heated seats (seriously, you can’t make this up) behind a paywall. Luckily, consumers reacted so poorly that the company reversed course on both. But as any survival game expert will tell you, the horde of zombies outside your shelter don’t go away just because they failed to break down your door the first time.

I play 98% of my PC games on Steam—including some pretty darn old releases. But recently I’ve been wondering, what happens if/when Valve goes under, or computer hardware advances to a point where my previous purchases are no longer compatible, or my library loses support in some other way? I bought my games on Steam, but do I really own them? When cars debut in early access, with paywall-locked features and live-service models, what happens when your trusty jalopy bricks while driving down the road? Oh wait; we already know.

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August 17, 2025 0 comments

cars

From prototype to blueprint for the machine economy

From physics experiments to adaptive transmissions

You might also like

Nvidia’s growing bet on robotics

Big week ahead for Nvidia

How Toyota sees the future of car ownership