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Electric vehicle maker Tesla rolled out a long-awaited software update Friday night that allows customers to request access to its controversial Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) software.

The move delighted fans of CEO Elon Musk and Tesla, but it risks drawing the ire of federal vehicle safety authorities who are already investigating the automaker for possible safety defects in its driver-assistance systems.

FSD Beta is an unfinished version of Tesla’s premium driver-assistance software, FSD, which the company sells in the U.S. for $10,000 upfront, or $199 a month.

FSD is marketed with the promise of enabling a Tesla to automatically change lanes, navigate on the highway, move into a parking spot, or roll out from a parking spot to drive a small distance at a slow pace without anyone behind the wheel.

FSD Beta gives drivers access to an “autosteer on city streets” feature, which has yet to be perfected and enables drivers to automatically navigate around urban environments alongside other vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists and pets without moving the steering wheel with their own hands. Drivers are supposed to remain attentive, however, with both hands on the wheel and prepared to take over driving at any time.

None of Tesla’s driver assistance systems — including the company’s standard Autopilot package, premium Full Self-Driving option, or FSD Beta — make Teslas autonomous.

The company previously made FSD Beta available to about 2,000 people, a mix of mostly employees and some customers, who test it out on public roads even though the software hasn’t been debugged.

The new download button could ostensibly lead to a rapid expansion in the number of participants who are not trained regulatory officials.

Government response

Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures as he visits the construction site of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, August 13, 2021.
Patrick Pleul | Reuters

Last week, when CEO Musk announced new details about the FSD beta button, Jennifer Homendy, the head of the National Transporation Safety Board, voiced concern over the company’s plans in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Homendy said, “Basic safety issues have to be addressed,” before Tesla expands FSD Beta to other city streets and regions. The NTSB chief was also displeased that the company was conducting testing of the unfinished product with untrained drivers on public roads in lieu of safety professionals.

Homendy also remarked — and in interviews with Autonocast, an industry podcast, and the Washington Post — that Tesla’s use of the term Full Self-Driving for a “level 2” driver assistance system is misleading and confusing.

Musk himself said last week in a tweet that FSD Beta now seems so good it can give drivers the wrong idea that they don’t need to pay attention to driving while FSD Beta is engaged, even though they are supposed to remain attentive and at the wheel at all times.

On Saturday, after Tesla enabled the “request full self-driving beta” feature in its vehicles — a fan blog named Teslarati shared a post on Twitter asking, “Does Tesla have a fair chance after NTSB Chief comments?”

Musk replied to them on Twitter with a link to the Wikipedia biography of Homendy. While Musk has previously urged his tens of millions of followers on Twitter to alter a description of his own career on Wikipedia, he shared this link to Homendy’s bio there without comment.

CNBC reached out to Tesla and the NTSB — neither was immediately available to comment on Saturday.

Safety score

Musk has been promising Tesla owners an FSD beta download button for months. In March 2021, he wrote in a tweet that the forthcoming button would give users access to the latest FSD Beta build as soon as their car connected to Wi-Fi.

He changed that approach, however. Now, Tesla has a calculator it uses to give drivers a “safety score,” and determine who will be allowed to get and use FSD Beta software.

Screen-shots shared with CNBC by Tesla owners with FSD indicate that the company’s “safety score” is akin to an insurance risk factor score.

Tesla’s systems tabulate a drivers’: “Predicted Collision Frequency, Forward Collision Warning per 1,000 Miles, Hard Braking, Aggressive Turning, Unsafe Following Time, and Forced Autopilot Disengagements,” according to correspondence and screenshots viewed by CNBC.

Tesla’s system does not, at this time, appear to measure and account for how often drivers fail to keep their hands on the wheel, how quickly they take over driving when prompted, or how consistently they keep their eyes on the road.

Only users who have a great driving record for a full week, in Tesla’s view, may gain access to FSD Beta.

Before Tesla released its FSD Beta button (and the 10.1 version of FSD Beta, which is expected this weekend, too) CNBC asked the California DMV Autonomous Vehicles Branch how pervasive and safe FSD Beta-equipped vehicles have been in use in the state so far.

The DMV declined an interview request but said, in an e-mailed statement:

“Based on information the information Tesla has provided the DMV, the feature does not make the vehicle an autonomous vehicle per California regulations. The DMV continues to gather information from Tesla on its beta release – including any expansion of the program and features.  If the capabilities of the feature change such that it meets the definition of an autonomous vehicle per California’s law and regulations, Tesla will need to operate under the appropriate regulatory authorization. Regardless of the level of vehicle autonomy, the DMV has reminded Tesla that clear and effective communication to the driver about the technology’s capabilities, limitations and intended use is necessary. The DMV is reviewing the company’s use of the term ‘Full Self-Driving’ for its technology. Because it is ongoing, the DMV cannot discuss the review until it is complete.”

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

Mario poses at the “SUPER NINTENDO WORLD” welcome celebration at Universal Studios Hollywood on February 16, 2023 in Universal City, California.

Rodin Eckenroth | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Nintendo on Tuesday cut forecast for Switch sales for its fiscal year ending March 2025 as demand wanes for its ageing console.

The Japanese gaming giant said it now expects to sell 12.5 million units of the Switch over the course of the period. That’s down from a previous forecast of 13.5 million units.

Nintendo has been contending with fading demand for its flagship Switch console, which is now more than seven years old.

Investors are waiting for news surrounding a successor to the Switch, which they hope will re-energize Nintendo’s gaming business. In the past, the company said that the Switch successor will be announced in its current fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.

Nintendo also cut full fiscal year forecasts for sales and operating profit. The company said it now expects sales of 1.28 trillion yen versus a previous forecast of 1.35 trillion yen. The operating profit outlook for the period was slashed from 400 billion yen to 360 billion yen.

Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 versus LSEG estimates:

  • Revenue: 276.7 billion Japanese yen ($1.8 billion), compared with 273.34 billion yen expected.
  • Net profit: 27.7 billion yen, versus 48.06 billion yen expected.

Revenue fell 17% year-on-year. Net profit plunged just over 69% versus the same period last year.

Super Mario, Zelda boost fading

The Switch is Nintendo’s second best-selling console in history, behind the Nintendo DS. Despite the recent fall in sales, Nintendo has prolonged the console’s appeal for an extended period of time since its launch in 2017 by relying on its recognizable characters.

In its last fiscal year, Nintendo managed to reinvigorate sales of the Switch thanks to the the success of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the highly anticipated release of the “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, which underscored the appeal of its iconic characters.

But that effect is fading.

On Tuesday, Nintendo noted the boost that the company received in the first half of its last fiscal year, but said “there were no such special factors in the first half of this fiscal year, and with Nintendo Switch now in its eighth year since launch, unit sales of both hardware and software decreased significantly year-on-year.”

Sales of the Switch totaled 4.72 units in the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with 6.84 million units in the same period of last year.

In the face of falling sales, Nintendo has tried to license out its intellectual property for use everywhere, from movies to theme parks. A new Super Mario movie is slated for release in 2026.

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.

The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.

Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.

The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.

Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.

Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”

Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.

Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.

Watch: Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products.

Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at $2.4 billion valuation

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at .4 billion valuation

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.

Reuters

Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.

Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.

Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.

The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

The news comes days after OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the AI startup to better compete with search engines like GoogleMicrosoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Last month, OpenAI also closed its latest funding round at a valuation of $157 billion.

Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.

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