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Even if Elon Musk’s dream of robotaxis for everyone is a long way off, sleek electric cars powered by artificial intelligence packed the Consumer Electronics Show, promising to liberate people from the tedium of driving.Letting go of the steering wheel is no longer a fantasy: Waymo’s robotaxis in the United States and China’s Apollo Go, which has been growing rapidly over the past year, have demonstrated the reliability of fully autonomous driving, where responsibility lies with the machine and not the human.Rivals such as Uber are fast emerging. The ride-sharing giant used the CES event in Las Vegas to debut a Lucid robotaxi, aiming to put a fleet of them to work in San Francisco later this year.Offering the fully autonomous experience — known as Level 4 autonomy — to vehicle owners on a mass scale remains the industry’s goal.”I don’t see it happening for years,” said Marc Amblard, of Orsay Consulting. Only Tensor, a Silicon Valley start-up, is present in Vegas with a Level 4 passenger car. A first model is expected to hit the road in the coming months.Touted as the “first personal robot car on Earth,” it is a luxury vehicle equipped with 34 cameras, five lidar lasers, and over a hundred sensors, with analysts estimating its price tag at around $200,000.Its autonomous driving will be limited. The company currently is authorized to conduct tests in California and could benefit from favorable legislation in Texas, Nevada, and Arizona, as well as its partnership in the United Arab Emirates.- Roadblocks -But regulatory approval and societal acceptance have remained roadblocks to self-driving cars becoming commonplace.”From a technology standpoint, it is there,” said Pier Paolo Porta, marketing director at Ambarella, which specializes in autonomous driving systems.”But from a legal and from a liability standpoint, it is still a gray area.”Given the roadblocks, it is in the area of Level 2 assisted driving — where the driver must be ready to take back control — the industry’s flagship projects are flourishing.And these are going further in terms of automation, largely thanks to advances in AI that make computers more efficient with fewer expensive sensors.Driving where the steering wheel and pedals can be fully operated by a computer, while remaining legally under the driver’s responsibility, is the experience already offered by Musk’s Tesla in the United States with its Full Self-Driving system, and by Xiaomi and BYD in China.- ‘ChatGPT moment’? -It is at this level of autonomy that competition is intensifying.Chip powerhouse Nvidia on Monday unveiled Alpamayo, an AI platform specially designed for autonomous driving, which will be available on electric Mercedes CLA models in the United States this year.”Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex scenarios and explain their driving decisions,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said during a presentation at CES.Huang declared that a “ChatGPT moment for physical AI” was here, essentially enabling cars and robots to interact with the real world independently.During a demonstration for AFP in December, a self-driving Mercedes negotiated congested San Francisco traffic with a human safety driver only intervening to navigate around an ambulance stopped in the middle of the road.Unlike autonomous driving systems that rely on mapping data, the Alpamayo system can handle driving on streets that vehicles have not previously encountered.Nvidia rival Qualcomm was at CES with its own autonomous driving software project involving on-board AI powered by its Snapdragon chip.Nissan announced last month that it will soon integrate AI-enabled autonomous driving software from British startup Wayve in much of its vehicle line.All these innovations have the same goal: to offer the feeling of autonomy while leaving legal responsibility to human beings.

The United States on Wednesday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic after pursuing it from off the coast of Venezuela, in an operation condemned by Moscow.Washington says the tanker is part of a so-called shadow fleet that carries oil for countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran in violation of US sanctions, and seized it despite the ship being escorted by the Russian navy.The vessel had thwarted an earlier attempt to board it last month near Venezuela, where a US raid on Saturday toppled the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro.”The vessel was seized in the North Atlantic pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court,” US European Command, which oversees American forces in the region, said in a statement on X.After the operation, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted that the US blockade on Venezuelan oil was in full effect “anywhere in the world.”Russia’s Transport Ministry slammed the seizure, saying “freedom of navigation applies in waters on the high seas, and no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered under the jurisdiction of other states.”The US military also announced a second sanctioned tanker ship had been seized in the Caribbean Sea.Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem posted on X that both vessels “were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it,” and included a video of US forces roping down from a helicopter onto an unidentified ship and proceeding toward the bridge with weapons ready.- US to control oil sales ‘indefinitely’ -Last weekend, US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Caracas and flew them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Since then, President Donald Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela and US companies will control its critical oil industry.In Caracas, after several days of shuttered shops and intermittent public transport, the capital’s streets were again busy Wednesday with pedestrians, street vendors, cars and motorbikes.The North Atlantic operation came despite Russia reportedly sending a submarine and other naval assets to escort the empty tanker and saying the vessel was sailing under the Russian flag.The vessel, formerly known as the Bella-1, in recent weeks switched its registration to Russia, changed its name to the Marinera and the tanker’s crew reportedly painted a Russian flag on the tanker.It had been en route to Venezuela before it evaded the US blockade, and has been under US sanctions since 2024 over alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah.Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela said 30-50 million barrels of “high‑quality, sanctioned” Venezuelan crude will be shipped to US ports, with the revenue — perhaps more than $2 billion at current market prices — placed under his personal control.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright added Wednesday that Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil “indefinitely.”It was not clear whether Venezuela’s new ruler — interim president Delcy Rodriguez — had agreed to hand over the oil, how the plan would work, or what its legal basis would be.Rodriguez — a long-time member of Maduro’s inner circle as vice president and energy minister — has vowed cooperation with the United States amid fears that Trump could pursue wider regime change.

Hiring in the US private sector bounced back in December, data from payroll firm ADP showed on Wednesday, but the figure still missed analyst expectations as the employment market cools.Private sector hiring rose by 41,000 jobs last month, ADP said, but came in below the 48,000 expected in surveys of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.However, this marked a rebound from a revised loss of 29,000 jobs in November.All eyes have been on the jobs market in the world’s biggest economy, with the US central bank cutting interest rates three times in a row in 2025 while employment weakened.As households grapple with high costs of living, solid employment growth and salary increases can help soften the blow.Although private sector hiring data can be volatile, investors will be monitoring it ahead of a government jobs report due Friday.”Small establishments recovered from November job losses with positive end-of-year hiring, even as large employers pulled back,” ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said.The hiring rebound was led by education and health services, alongside leisure and hospitality.But manufacturing shed jobs, as did the information sector and professional and business services.In a call with reporters, Richardson noted that health services are expensive for many, while leisure and hospitality are discretionary services.”These two sectors are consistent with a K-shaped economy where higher income consumers are driving spending,” she added.This refers to an uneven situation where higher-income Americans see wealth and salaries grow while lower-income households grapple with fewer gains and high costs.Pay growth was 4.4 percent on a year-over-year basis in December, unchanged from November’s rate, ADP said.For workers who changed jobs, the pace of pay increases accelerated to 6.6 percent from 6.3 percent.The US Federal Reserve is set to meet in late January to mull further changes to interest rates.A rapidly deteriorating employment market could nudge it toward another rate cut sooner but for now, it is widely expected to keep rates steady at its next meeting.”One month does not make a trend, but the increase in private payrolls as reported by ADP supports our forecast for the Federal Reserve to keep policy on hold until midyear,” said economist Matthew Martin at Oxford Economics.

The United States has started an operation to seize a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic after it evaded a partial blockade around Venezuela, multiple US media said Wednesday.US officials say the tanker is part of a so-called shadow fleet that has carried oil for countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran in violation of US sanctions.Tracking data from MarineTraffic showed the tanker nearing Iceland’s exclusive economic zone on Wednesday.The operation, first reported by Reuters citing two US officials, comes after Russia sent a submarine to escort the empty tanker that the United States has been pursuing for weeks.The vessel thwarted an attempt by the US Coast Guard to board it late last month as it neared Venezuela.Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said it was “following with concern” the US pursuit of the tanker.The ministry told state-run media prior to reports of the escort that the vessel was sailing under the Russian flag and was far from the US coast.”For reasons unclear to us, the Russian vessel is receiving heightened attention from the US and NATO militaries — attention that is clearly disproportionate to its peaceful status,” the ministry said.- Venezuelan oil -Since being pursued by the US Coast Guard, the vessel has switched its registration to Russia, changed its name to the Marinera and the tanker’s crew reportedly painted a Russian flag on the tanker.The developments are the latest in US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela.The tanker had been en route to Venezuela but was not carrying cargo before it evaded the US blockade. It has been under US sanctions since 2024 over alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah.Russia sent “a submarine and other naval assets” to escort the tanker, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing unnamed US officials.Reuters said the US Coast Guard separately intercepted another Venezuela-linked tanker in Latin American waters.Trump said this week that Venezuela will hand over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States, just days after a US raid toppled the country’s anti-American president, leaving a more cooperative leader in charge.It was not immediately clear whether Venezuela’s new ruler — interim president Delcy Rodriguez — had agreed to hand over the oil, how the plan would work, or what its legal basis would be.Last Saturday, US special forces snatched president Nicolas Maduro and his wife from Caracas and whisked them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Since then, Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela and US companies will control its oil.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela will hand over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States, just days after a US raid toppled the country’s anti-American president, leaving a more cooperative leader in charge.Trump said 30–50 million barrels of “high‑quality, sanctioned” Venezuelan crude will be shipped to US ports, with the revenue — perhaps more than $2 billion at current market prices — placed under his personal control.It was not immediately clear whether Venezuela’s new ruler — interim president Delcy Rodriguez — had agreed to hand over the oil, how the plan would work, or what its legal basis would be.If confirmed, it would be the first major sign that Venezuela’s new leader and her military-backed government were willing to meet an extraordinary set of US demands.Venezuelan authorities did not immediately respond to request for comment. Last Saturday, US special forces snatched president Nicolas Maduro and his wife from Caracas and whisked them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Since then, Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela and US companies will control its oil –the largest proven reserves in the world.Interim president Rodriguez — a long-time member of Maduro’s inner circle as vice president and energy minister — has vowed cooperation with the United States amid fears that Trump could persue wider regime change.Trump has warned that Rodriguez will pay “a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she does not comply with Washington’s agenda — ceding control of the oil industry and weakening ties with Cuba, China, Iran and Russia.But she has also, at times, sounded defiant and appeared shoulder-to-shoulder with hardliners that control the military, police and intelligence services.”The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no-one else”, Rodriguez said Tuesday. “There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela.”Trump, by contrast, has claimed Washington is now “in charge” of the South American nation and has vowed a new doctrine of US dominance in the western hemisphere.”Trump is unapologetically establishing a US Protectorate over a sovereign country and claiming to have a right over its resources” said former Venezuelan diplomat Alfredo Toro Hardy, describing it as “something not seen in Latin America for over a century”. Trump tasked Energy Secretary Chris Wright with “immediately” executing the planned transfer and sale of the 30-50 million barrels.- No surrender -Experts say that Rodriguez faces a difficult task to stay in power — balancing competing demands from Trump and government hardliners who control the security forces and paramilitaries.Rodriguez has sought to project unity with powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, two hardliners seen as the main powerbrokers in the Maduro administration.Since Saturday the security services have had a visible presence on the streets and Cabello has led thousands of Maduro supporters through Caracas demanding the s release.Venezuela has yet to confirm the number of people killed in the operation in which US forces grabbed Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and took them to the United States to face trial.Venezuela’s military on Tuesday published a list of 23 troops, including five generals, killed in the US strikes.Top ally Havana separately issued a list of 32 dead Cuban military personnel, many of whom were members of Maduro’s security detail.Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab spoke Tuesday of “dozens” of civilian and military dead, without giving a breakdown.Rodriguez has declared seven days of mourning for those killed.”We are a people that does not surrender, we are a people that does not give up,” she declared Tuesday, paying tribute to the “martyrs” of the US attacks.- Cannot be trusted -The White House has swatted aside the idea that Venezuela’s democratic opposition — which is widely believed to have been the real victors in last year’s elections — could take power.Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, sidelined by Washington in the post-Maduro transition, said in a Fox News interview that Rodriguez was not to be trusted.”She’s the main ally and liaison with Russia, China, Iran, certainly not an individual that could be trusted by international investors,” Rodriguez told Fox News.In a sign that a repressive security apparatus remains in place, 16 journalists and media workers were detained in Venezuela on Monday, according to a journalists’ union.All were later released.Trump told Republican lawmakers Tuesday that Maduro was a “violent guy” who “killed millions of people” and claimed that Rodriguez’s administration was “closing up” a torture chamber in Caracas.The constitution says that after Maduro is formally declared absent — which could happen after six months — elections must then be held within 30 days.

US President Donald Trump is discussing options including military action to take control of Greenland, the White House said Tuesday, upping tensions that Denmark warns could destroy the NATO alliance.Trump has stepped up his designs on the mineral-rich, self-governing Danish territory in the arctic since the US military seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro last weekend.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “acquiring Greenland is a national security priority” for Trump to deter US adversaries like Russia and China.”The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal,” she said in a statement to AFP.The Wall Street Journal reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that Trump’s preferred option is to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding the threats did not signal an imminent invasion.Denmark has warned any move to take Greenland by force would mean “everything would stop,” including NATO and 80 years of close transatlantic security links.Any US military action against Greenland would effectively collapse NATO, since the alliance’s Article Five pledges that member states will defend any of their number that come under attack.Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt wrote on social media that they’d sought a meeting with Rubio throughout 2025 but “it has so far not been possible.”Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said meeting Rubio should “clear up certain misunderstandings.” And Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen insisted that the island was not for sale, and only its 57,000 people should decide its future.- ‘Not acceptable’ -Allies have rallied around Denmark and Greenland while simultaneously trying not to antagonize Trump.The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain joined Denmark in a statement on Tuesday saying they would defend the “universal principles” of “sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders.”French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer both sought to play down the row as they attended Ukraine peace talks in Paris alongside Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner.”I cannot imagine a scenario in which the United States of America would be placed in a position to violate Danish sovereignty,” Macron said.French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Wednesday he believed the US was committed to NATO, but he suggested European leaders were prepared to strike back against potential US “intimidation.” The United States has 150 military personnel stationed at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland.Greenland residents have rejected Trump’s threats.”This is not something we appreciate,” Christian Keldsen, director of the Greenland Business Assocation, told AFP in the capital Nuuk. “It is not acceptable in the civilized world.”Trump has been floating the idea of annexing Greenland since his first term. In the last year, Copenhagen has invested heavily in security, allocating some 90 billion kroner ($14 billion).- Big and strong -Still steaming over Trump’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, US legislators spoke out against the idea of military action against Greenland on Tuesday.In social media posts, Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, vowed to introduce a resolution “to block Trump from invading Greenland,” saying the 79-year-old Republican simply “wants a giant island with his name on it. He wouldn’t think twice about putting our troops in danger if it makes him feel big and strong.”In a sharp departure from the party’s typical partisanship, Republicans also pushed back against Trump’s military-backed expansionism. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters Tuesday night that he didn’t think it was “appropriate” for Washington to take military action on Greenland, Politico reported.Republican Senator Jerry Moran of the midwestern state of Kansas, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HuffPost “it’s none of our business” and warned that the move would lead to “the demise of NATO.”Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon put it even more bluntly in a post on X: “This is really dumb. Greenland and Denmark are our allies.”burs-dk/sla/jgc/abs/lga/fox

Aldrich Ames, the Central Intelligence Agency spy who was sentenced to life in prison for selling secrets to Moscow, costing the lives of a dozen double agents, died Monday in custody, US authorities said.He was 84, according to the Bureau of Prisons.Ames worked as a counterintelligence analyst for the CIA for 31 years and, along with his wife Rosario, was convicted of selling information to the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1993 — compromising secret missions and costing lives — in exchange for more than $2.5 million.Ames had been head of the Soviet branch in the CIA’s counterintelligence group, and gave the Kremlin the names of dozens of Russians who were spying for the United States.The couple’s luxurious lifestyle at the time — they kept cash in Swiss bank accounts, drove a Jaguar and ran up $50,000 annually in credit card bills — drew suspicion. Federal prosecutors said Ames spied for the Soviet Union — and kept selling Russia information after its collapse — until he was exposed in 1994.Relying on bogus information from Ames, CIA officials repeatedly misinformed US presidents Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and other top officials about Soviet military capabilities and other strategic details. Ames’ prosecution heated up tensions between Washington and Moscow as Russia and the US were trying to normalize their relations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.Then-CIA director James Woolsey resigned over the scandal, after refusing to fire or demote colleagues over it in Langley, Virgina, where the spy agency is headquartered. His successor, Belgian-born John Deutch, oversaw an overhaul of the spy agency, resulting in arrests and charges.  Then-US president Bill Clinton called Ames’ case “very serious” and suggested it could harm ties with Moscow, while the Kremlin downplayed the incident, with one Russian diplomat calling Americans “extremely emotional.”The White House eventually expelled a senior Russian diplomat, Aleksander Lysenko, who was accused of involvement with Ames, after Russia refused to withdraw him.Scandals have long bedeviled spycraft, as Washington and Moscow vie for secrets in quiet battles for power and diplomatic leverage. Despite their claims of innocence, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair in 1953, accused of selling atomic secrets to Moscow at the height of McCarthyism — an anti-communist movement characterized by political persecution of the left in the United States, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.Former Navy communications expert John Walker was convicted after pleading guilty in 1986 to decoding more than a million encrypted messages for over 30 years, to feed information to the Soviets, and was jailed for life.

Washington on Tuesday marked five years since a mob overran the US Capitol, with rioters pardoned by Donald Trump retracing their steps even as Democrats revived hearings to hold the president accountable.The anniversary highlights a nation divided between irreconcilable accounts of an attack that reshaped American politics — one supported by official findings of a violent bid to overturn an election, the other portraying it as a protest unjustly criminalized.”Five years ago today, a violent mob brutally attacked the US Capitol on January 6. Their mission was to overturn a free and fair election. We will never allow extremists to whitewash their treachery,” top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries posted on X.Trump supporters gathered in Washington on January 6, 2021 after the president urged them to protest Congress’s certification of his election defeat to Joe Biden.Several thousand breached the Capitol grounds, overwhelming police lines and wounding more than 140 officers, smashing windows and doors, ransacking offices and forcing lawmakers into hiding as the electoral count was halted for hours.On Tuesday, the White House published a website attempting to rewrite that history, labeling the rioters “peaceful patriotic protesters” and accusing police of provoking the violent clashes. Democrats, meanwhile, convened an unofficial hearing inside the Capitol featuring police, former lawmakers and civilians who experienced the violence firsthand. And they later held a candlelit vigil, joined by relatives of five police officers whose deaths on the day and in the aftermath have been directly or indirectly linked to the violence.”While Donald Trump pardons insurrectionists, lets those who attack our police officers walk free, we stand here with our first responders. “We’ll make sure that your sacrifices that day are never forgotten, or will we ever, ever forget the lives of those we lost in connection with the attack.”- ‘Martyrs’ -Many involved in the original congressional investigation say the aim is not to relitigate the past but to prevent it from being erased — particularly after Trump returned to office and pardoned or commuted sentences for nearly all defendants charged in connection with the attack.A new Democratic report documents dozens of pardoned rioters later charged with new crimes — from child sexual assault and rape to conspiracy to murder FBI agents, robbery and reckless homicide — and the party warns that the clemency risks normalizing political violence.Outside the building Trump supporters, including figures linked to the far-right Proud Boys, staged a march retracing the route taken by rioters in 2021.A crowd of at most 200 marchers — a fraction of the attendance on the day they were commemorating — donned Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” hats and waved banners demanding “justice 4 jan 6ers.”Tami Jackson, who flew from Texas, said she was rallying “in remembrance of the people that lost their lives that day” while her husband Brian called some of the rioters “martyrs.”The event was promoted by former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy before Trump pardoned him.Organizers said they wanted to honor those who died, including pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt, and protest what they describe as excessive force by police and politically motivated prosecutions.The competing events mirror a broader political dispute, with Democrats saying Trump incited the attack to overturn the election. Republicans reject that view, instead citing security failures and criticizing the Justice Department.Trump alluded briefly to the riot in remarks at a House Republican strategy retreat, accusing Democrats and the media of misrepresenting his role in the violence, while the White House published its own account of the riot that was riddled with inaccuracies. The Trump administration’s new website praised Trump for issuing the rioters sweeping pardons and labeled the investigation into the attack a “partisan witch hunt.” It repeated Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Former special counsel Jack Smith has said the attack would not have occurred without Trump, but abandoned the federal case after the Republican leader’s reelection, in line with Justice Department policy barring prosecution of a sitting president. Trump was impeached soon after the riot by the Democratic-controlled House but acquitted by the Republican-led Senate.

Auto industry experts expect US car sales to moderate in 2026 after last year’s churn of trade announcements and environmental policy changes spurred increased sales.Analysts attribute some of 2025’s sales gains to President Donald Trump’s announcements early in the year of huge tariff increases. Although the president ended up striking deals that moderated levies from the threatened level of 40 percent or more, initial headlines led to a noticeable spring surge in sales.A similar uptick in electric vehicle sales occurred at the end of September after Trump signed legislation phasing out a tax credit. Again, consumers flocked to dealerships before the $7,500 EV tax credit went away.Such a landscape was treacherous for car executives like Ford CEO Jim Farley, who complained in February 2025 that Trump’s tenure was producing “a lot of cost and a lot of chaos.”But by the end of year, automakers still did okay. US auto sales for all 2025 came in at 16.3 million, up about two percent from 2024, according to Edmunds.com.”A lot of the activity we had in 2025 was driven by the president’s announcements,” said Cox Automotive economist Charlie Chesbrough.Ford on Tuesday announced final sales for the year of 2.2 million, up six percent from 2024 and the best year since 2019.- Higher prices? -But with the changing of the calendar, industry insiders expect a modest pullback in 2026 sales, pointing to tepid consumer confidence and a slowing job market, partly offset by more favorable factors like lower interest rates.Cox expects “the market to be similar to (2025) but just a little bit slower,” said Chesbrough, who described surveys of auto dealers as “very pessimistic.”Cox has projected 2026 sales to drop to 15.8 million, while Edmunds sees them coming in at 16.0 million.The new car market is heavily impacted by the split-screen nature of the US economy, with wealthier households strengthened by stock market records, while working-class consumers struggle with increased prices.Economists now speak of the US economy as “K-shaped” to reflect the opposite fortunes of these subsets, with new cars out of reach for lower-income shoppers.Average transaction prices for new autos approached $50,000 for most of 2025, compared with under $35,000 less than a decade ago, according to Edmunds data.One wildcard heading into 2026 is pricing. Even with lower tariffs, automakers still face billions of dollars in added costs from the levies — but with retail prices already so high, they are reluctant to pass them on to consumers.Carmakers have opted to charge more for delivery costs, reduce incentives or strip away features that might once have been included, a step Chesbrough likens to “shrinkflation.”Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, described deep reluctance to raise retail prices further. “The sticker shock is kind of flooring,” said Drury, who notes that there are currently no new models under $20,000.The landscape is particularly difficult for first-time buyers, consigning many to the used car market, Drury said.While the cadence of tariff news has slowed in recent months, the Trump administration is set to negotiate a new version of the USMCA, a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, later this year.Given that Detroit automakers and other car companies have established much of their supply chains around the three countries, significant tariff changes could potentially impact prices. But Drury believes car consumers will be less tuned-in to tariffs in 2026.”At some point, it becomes a bit of a white noise,” he said.

AI companies are on the hunt to design the ideal device to deliver AI’s superpowers, and some new enterprises are convinced that headphones or earbuds are the way.Startups have for a while tried to beef up headphones beyond their basic functions, like listening to music and making phone calls.Nearly a decade ago, tech startups Waverly Labs and Mymanu added real-time translation to that list, and Google quickly followed suit, creating a voice-activated AI assistant in 2020.Riding the AI wave, other tech industry leaders Samsung and Apple have also entered the fray, with noise cancellation now almost a product standard.Startups, many of which are attending this week’s CES consumer electronics extravaganza in Las Vegas, are now trying to refine this technology and apply it to specific uses.Such is the case with OSO, which wants to take the concept of a professional assistant further.Its earbuds will record meetings and retrieve conversation elements on demand using everyday language.Viaim, a competitor, offers similar services and intends to focus on interoperability in a world controlled by major smartphone manufacturers that impose their own platforms.”If you use a different brand of cell phone, it doesn’t have any AI functions at all. That’s the opportunity for our earbuds,” explained Shawn Ma, CEO of Viaim, whose devices are compatible with all brands, including iPhones in China.Timekettle, meanwhile, is enjoying success in a completely different context, with “90 percent of its sales coming from schools,” according to Brian Shircliffe, head of US sales for the Chinese company.Many schools equip their non-English-speaking students with the devices so they can follow lessons without the need for a translator.- Reading minds -As for whether earbuds can replace smart glasses, connected speakers, or even smartphones as the dominant physical extension of generative AI, remains unanswered.For now, any AI functionality “is really dependent on the phone that it’s connected to,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.”Earbuds are certainly a more accessible entry for AI than smart glasses,” said Avi Greengart, president of Techsponential, a consultancy.”They’re a lot less expensive, they’re a product most smartphone users are buying anyway, and they don’t require a prescription.”However, “people generally don’t wear them all the time,” unlike glasses, “and they can only interact with voice, so you’ll need to be in an environment where talking is acceptable,” the analyst cautioned, adding that the lack of a camera limits the device’s potential.Some won’t be constrained by the shortcoming, notably Naqi Logix, whose Neural Earbuds are equipped with ultra-sensitive sensors that detect tiny movements.Thanks to these sensors, a quadriplegic user can control their wheelchair or surf the internet simply by looking at their computer screen.Operations manager Sandeep Arya sees great potential for these innovations, “because people would like to be able to interact with their environment in a more discreet, subtle way,” without having to call out to Siri on their smartphone, Alexa on their speaker, or Meta on their glasses.Arya envisions the technology going further, thanks to improved sensors capable of deciphering facial movements that a chatbot can use to find the right tone and words according to mood.Neurable, another startup whose MW75 Neuro LT headset measures brain activity, dreams of using its equipment to enable communication through thought, without gestures or words.”It’s remarkable,” says Ben Wood of these breakthroughs, “but it’s still a niche market for now.” Until further notice, “the hundreds of millions of headphones that have been sold will remain focused on listening.”