Daily digest · Friday, September 18, 2026
Waymo says it will launch robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028, as new funding backs super-hot-rock geothermal and “physical AI” startup building. The rest of the issue spans iOS Focus changes, military AI red-flag report details, F1 viewing info, Anthropic’s embedded evaluator and markdown support, new Samsung-to-Google photo syncing, and Microsoft’s Rust port of the Copilot runtime.
1 · The Verge
Waymo plans to launch a robotaxi ride-hailing service in Singapore in 2028, after beginning mapping and autonomous testing there with human safety drivers in 2027 and with vehicles arriving in the “coming months.”
2 · TechCrunch
Mazama Energy raised $135M in an oversubscribed Series B to develop horizontal geothermal wells in super-hot rock, targeting 15 megawatts per well.
3 · TechCrunch
Vantora raised $100M from Silversmith Capital Partners and is shifting to build “physical AI” startups for corporate customers only, with partners able to fold the ventures into their own businesses via a proprietary M&A pipeline.
4 · Engadget
iOS 27 lets you resize the Focus icon in Control Center from a 1x1 circle up to 2x2 (instead of being limited to a 2x1 space in iOS 26 and earlier).
5 · Engadget
A partially AI-generated intelligence report nearly led the US military to attack a Chinese ship in the Middle East after it was assessed to be carrying components for a nuclear weapons program, but officials later found the conclusions were AI-generated.
6 · CNET
Kimi Antonelli leads the Drivers’ Championship by 81 points entering the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after winning the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend, with the race set for Saturday, Sept. 19 at 3 p.m. AZT (7 a.m. ET / 4 a.m. PT).
7 · TechCrunch
Anthropic says Accenture—via its acquired AI unit Faculty—will start embedded work inside the lab to evaluate and red-team its models, conduct alignment assessments, and test model safeguards, with both companies expecting at least $1B in investment over the next five years.
8 · The Register
Anthropic will have Claude Code 2.1.277 read AGENTS.md as the default instructions when CLAUDE.md is missing in a folder, starting Friday.
9 · CNET
Samsung Gallery app users on compatible Samsung devices (Android 13+ with a personal Google account) can now opt to sync photos and videos to Google Photos as native Microsoft OneDrive integration ends on Sept. 30.
10 · The Register
Microsoft rewrote the Copilot runtime from TypeScript/Node.js to Rust using AI agents, with the port costing about $120,000 in AI token usage plus ~3 weeks of developer time and completing via 135 releases over 14.5 weeks.
