Rivian and Uber have entered into a major partnership, with the former to provide the latter with 50,000 robotaxis in a deal worth $1.25 billion in funding. This starts with Uber purchasing 10,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis, which will be deployed in San Francisco and Miami by 2028.

If all goes well, Uber will scoop up 40,000 more robotaxis by 2030. The company plans to scale the initiative to 25 major cities by 2031. The full $1.25 billion investment is contingent on several autonomous milestones, according to a report by Yahoo Finance. However, Uber has already committed $300 million as an initial investment, though this is subject to regulatory approval.

Kevin Spacey has reached a settlement with three men who sued him over sexual assault claims, according to BBC News, avoiding a civil trial in London that was set for October.

The men alleged that Spacey had assaulted them between 2000 and 2013, and in November it was determined that the actor would face a new trial. Details of the settlement were not given.

The New York Times has started blocking the Internet Archive’s web crawlers, going beyond standard robots.txt rules to cut off access entirely. The Guardian is doing the same. The stated reason: fear of AI companies scraping their content. But the Internet Archive isn’t an AI company — it’s a library, and it’s been one for nearly 30 years.

The Wayback Machine holds more than one trillion archived web pages. Wikipedia links to over 2.6 million news articles preserved there across 249 languages. Journalists use it to check what a page said before it was quietly edited. Researchers use it to track how stories evolve. Courts cite it as evidence. When articles get changed, removed, or memory-holed, the Archive is often the only place the original version still exists.

Pophouse Entertainment has acquired Tina Turner’s name, image and likeness rights as well as the majority share of her music catalog rights from music company BMG, it announced Thursday.

The Swedish company, co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, is known for their digital avatars and immersive experiences.

Pophouse CEO Jessica Koravos would not disclose the deal’s financial details or describe the company’s plans for the Turner acquisition but told The Associated Press “that one of the reasons that we were so interested in Tina is because she has such an incredible visual presence and such an incredible stage energy. And so, we’re very much looking at projects that can portray that and try to recreate that to some degree.”

För nionde gången i rad anses Finland vara världens lyckligaste land. Sverige hamnar på en femte plats, enligt en ny rapport.

Den FN-sponsrade rapporten ”world happiness report” mäter upplevd lycka i befolkningen. Ungefär 1 000 personer från varje land deltar årligen i undersökningen.

Costa Rica – en raket

De nordiska länderna hamnar år efter år i topp och Finland allra högst upp – för nionde gången.
Sverige tappar en placering och hamnar nu på en femteplats, en placering över hamnar Costa Rica – som 2023 låg på plats 23.