The man who once ran Tesla Autopilot now says dropping radar is a weird religious stance that ignores physics. GM is betting on lidar, radar and cameras for its 2028 eyes-off system, Waymo says weak sensing flattens the safety curve, and Tesla is sending camera-only Cybercabs into Austin anyway. Meanwhile humanoid and outdoor robot makers are running the same experiment on a very different budget. Which side of the sensor fight ends up right?

Sparknify’s picks for October 31–November 6, 2026: an artist-built Halloween world, Indigenous technologies at Berkeley, live music inside a gallery, and five more Bay Area discoveries.

Aspen Neuroscience raised about $140.6 million in its Nasdaq IPO to take sasineprocel, a one time Parkinson's therapy made from each patient's own skin cells, toward a Phase 3 trial. Early data looks encouraging, the shares priced at the bottom of the range and manufacturing takes months per patient. Can medicine built one patient at a time become a public company business?

The Education Department has finalized the biggest rewrite of college accreditation in decades. New accreditors can win federal recognition faster, colleges can switch accreditors more easily, transfer credit gets new protections and outcomes take center stage. Supporters call it competition for a closed club; critics see federal reach into academic freedom. What happens when the gatekeepers of $100 billion in student aid have to compete?

With XREAL AURA, Android XR, Gemini and a private spatial workspace now come in tethered glasses. Here is what $1,099 buys and what early adopters ought to test.

Under a per-mile service arrangement, Kodiak AI and DTL Transport have come to terms on 75 planned driverless trucks. Our piece looks at the hardware, the evidence of uptime and the route plans that go with it.

With NASA’s Swift observatory no longer conducting science operations we have put the attempted rescue under the microscope, as well as the rapid-response gap and a public archive that can support future discoveries.

With GXO and Agility Robotics planning more Digit warehouse deployments in 2027, we look at the rollout. Our analysis covers the safety systems that underpin repeatable robot work as well as what can be made of the tote-count headlines.

With the November update to Creator Studio, Apple is placing AI assistants next to creative work. Here we look at what the new tools can do, any beta limitations and the decisions that are left to the creator.

BlueChip is the new laptop venture from Anduril Industries and Qualcomm with an eye to reestablish computer manufacturing in America. The company plans to take orders in 2027, but will be put to the test in turning its prototypes, homegrown production and the work of allied suppliers into a product that can be relied on.

Through November 18, Alcatraz Island will be off limits to visitors as crews repair the ferry dock. Tours are expected to start up again on November 19. For those with tickets, here is information on refunds, other cruises and the work to keep the island accessible.

Starting today, 29,000 Cal State professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches are voting on whether their union may call a strike. Pay, class sizes and job security are on the ballot, and so is a demand no faculty contract at a system this size has settled: written, enforceable rules on how the university uses AI, less than two years after it became ChatGPT's biggest customer in higher education. Will the faculty strike again, and will AI end up in the contract?

California welcomed the first 34 students into a Cal State LA bachelor's degree program taught inside San Quentin's new $239 million Learning Center, a building with an open-stack library, media studios and views of San Francisco Bay. The state says college in prison cuts recidivism and lifts employment, while critics question the cost. Can a degree earned behind bars change what happens after release?

A plain office building in North San Jose where NVIDIA tests chips is now a data center on paper, after the city council unanimously rejected an appeal against its 20 megawatt permit. The vote landed five days after San Jose unveiled draft rules for data centers and while San Francisco and Oakland paused new ones. With 20 data centers running and more in the pipeline, what does the decision mean for the tech workers who live and work next door?

New York's most famous cookie is heading to Silicon Valley. Levain Bakery plans its first Northern California shop at Santana Row in San Jose for summer 2027, three decades after two triathlete bakers turned a training snack into a national brand. Here is what is coming, why Santana Row fits Levain's playbook, and what the opening could mean for local bakeries and diners. How long a line would you stand in for a six-ounce cookie?

Anthropic has opened a research preview of Claude Duet, an AI agent that checks your connected work apps, sends a morning brief and keeps working on tasks after you step away, asking for approval before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything. It joins Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots in Silicon Valley's race for proactive agents. Will small business owners trust an assistant that speaks first?

Bottom of the Hill, the Potrero Hill rock club that planned to close after 35 years, has been bought by biotech executive and longtime fan Michele Bronson. Here is how the sale happened, who she is, what changes in 2027, why it matters for Bay Area culture, and a bigger question: can an independent club thrive in San Francisco again?

Phison, the flash controller maker behind one in five SSDs, has set up a NT$600 million investment company to back startups, and its team told founders at TechCrunch Disrupt it wants partners for joint development and strategic investment. Here is what the venture arm will fund, how founders can get in the door, and a bigger question: will strategic money from a chip supplier help AI startups or tie them down?

A full-scale model of Space Rider, Europe's first reusable spacecraft, was lost when its steerable parafoil detached during a drop test over Sardinia. Here is what happened, what the vehicle is built to do, why landing matters to the return business in California, and a bigger question: can Europe bring its spaceplane home?

A cancer vaccine designed from one patient's own tumor DNA just passed its biggest test. In a Phase 3 trial of 1,137 people with high-risk melanoma, Moderna and Merck's intismeran plus Keytruda cut the risk of relapse or death by 42 percent, yet Moderna's stock still fell. Here is how a made-for-one vaccine is built, the debate over its value and the signals to watch. Will personalized cancer vaccines become routine care?