Autonomous truck company taps breaks on Houston-Dallas route

re-routing

Driverless semis traveling from Dallas to Houston — originally expected to launch this year — have been put in park until April. Photo courtesy of Aurora

Autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation says it won't start hauling freight without humans on board until April of next year, a delay from previous statements that commercial service would begin by the end of 2024.

The Pittsburgh company on Wednesday said the April launch of driverless semis traveling from Dallas to Houston — originally announced last year — will be “modestly later” than the company had intended. The company also previously announced a partnership with Uber.

The company told investors on its third-quarter earnings conference call that it has made progress toward ensuring its trucks will operate safely.

Remaining obstacles are “primarily in the areas of some elements of surface street driving and some elements of construction that we see on the freeway,” CEO Chris Urmson said. “We want to have extremely high confidence in the system as we as we go forward.”

The company will start with about 10 autonomous tractor-trailers and move to “tens” of trucks by the end of next year, Urmson said.

“This shift to our timeline will have a negligible financial impact and does not affect our scaling efforts on our path to self-funding," Urmson said.

Aurora also intends to haul freight without human drivers from Fort Worth, Texas, to Phoenix later in 2025, Urmson said.

Aurora in August added nearly $500 million to its balance sheet with a capital raise in August, which the company expects to fund the initial phases of its strategy to scale up driverless trucking.

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The new program hopes to democratize self-driving freight trucks. Photo courtesy of Aurora

Autonomous freight co. with Houston-Dallas pilot opens early access program

join the fleet

Texas has been a key testing area for autonomous freight technology for years, and one major player in the space has made its latest move to put the pedal to the metal on self-driving trucking.

Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ: AUR) announced a new program with Uber Freight. Premier Autonomy, which will provide "early access to over 1 billion of Aurora’s driverless miles to Uber Freight carriers through 2030," is launching to deploy autonomous freight vehicles on the Uber Freight network.

Uber Freight, an end-to-end logistics company managing over $18 billion of freight, is also reportedly going to be among Aurora's first customers for its Dallas-to-Houston freight route that anticipates driverless hauls beginning at the end of 2024.

“Uber Freight and Aurora see a tremendous opportunity to democratize autonomous trucks for carriers of all sizes, enabling them to drive more revenue, scale their fleets, and strengthen their bottom lines,” Lior Ron, founder and CEO of Uber Freight, says in a news release. “Autonomous trucks will make moving goods more efficient, and this industry-first program will help facilitate and accelerate the adoption of autonomous trucks with our carriers. We’re proud to work alongside the amazing team at Aurora to bring this technology into the hands of carriers and ultimately usher in a new era of logistics.”

The new program, a first for the industry, allows customers to purchase and begin implementing Aurora Driver, a self-driving system that can work with multiple vehicle types, including freight trucks and passenger vehicles. Aurora provides driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing industries and has a slew of partners in addition to Uber and Uber Freight, including FedEx, Toyota, Volvo Trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, and more.

“With Uber Freight, we can provide hundreds of carriers priority access to autonomous truck capacity that they wouldn’t otherwise have. Working with carriers of all sizes is one of the many ways we will transform the industry and see thousands of driverless trucks on the road,” Ossa Fisher, president of Aurora, says in the release. “It’s exciting and validating that companies like Uber Freight are reserving our long-term capacity for their customers. We all see collective value in this offering.”

With enrollment into the new Premier Autonomy Program, customers receive a subscription to the Aurora Driver for autonomous freight hauling, the opportunity to access over 1 billion driverless miles through 2030, and access to autonomous trucks via a planned, seamless integration of the Aurora Driver into the Uber Freight platform, according to the news release.

Since 2020, Uber Freight and Aurora have hauled millions of pounds of cargo through their pilot program that operated on the Dallas-Houston route.

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Houston Public Library to open new state-of-the-art TECHLink center in 2025

Innovation Station

Work is underway for a new state-of-the-art TECHLink space from Houston Public Library (HPL). The free center for innovators and creatives is expected to open in fall 2025 at Vinson Neighborhood Library this year.

The new 3,480-square-foot space will replace the branch’s existing HPL Express area, which closed January 25 in preparation for construction. This will be HPL's fifth TECHLink center, and it will serve one of South Houston's busiest libraries, notes a release.

“I always look forward to seeing our customers’ creative wheels turning and formulating plans once they recognize all of the technologies and equipment that they can freely access,” Roland Lemonius, TECHLink Division Manager, said in a news release.

TECHLink Vinson will include HPL's largest TECHLink video studio and also a dedicated studio/set for podcasts and vloggers.

HPL TECHLinkVideo studio at TECHLink Dixon. Courtesy of HPL

It will also feature a music recording studio, an editing lab, and a Makerspace lab for 3D printing and laser engraving. Virtual and in-person training opportunities will be available in a training lab in the future, according to HPL.

For kids, the Tiny Techs Zone offers a dedicated area to educate youth on 3D printing and robotics.

“Being able to enhance their quality of life in this way along with our other library services is very rewarding,” Lemonius added in the release.

TECHLink Vinson will join four other locations:

  • TECHLink Alief
  • TECHLink Dixon
  • TECHLink Scenic Woods
  • TECHLink Walker
Find a virtual tour of the Dixon location here.


croployaltyshopping_cartlocal_librarydeleteTECHLINKTECHLink Vinson will join four other locations, including DIxon. Courtesy of HPL


Texas universities develop innovative open-source platform for cell analysis

picture this

What do labs do when faced with large amounts of imaging data? Powerful cloud computing systems have long been the answer to that question, but a new riposte comes from SPACe.

That’s the name of a new open-source image analysis platform designed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston.

SPACe, or Swift Phenotypic Analysis of Cells, was created to be used on standard computers that even small labs can access, meaning cellular analysis using images produced through cell painting has a lower barrier to entry than ever before.

“The pharmaceutical industry has been accustomed to simplifying complex data into single metrics. This platform allows us to shift away from that approach and instead capture the full diversity of cellular responses, providing richer, more informative data that can reveal new avenues for drug development,” Michael Mancini, professor of molecular and cellular biology and director of the Gulf Coast Consortium Center for Advanced Microscopy and Image Informatics co-located at Baylor College of Medicine and TAMU Institute for Bioscience and Technology.

SPACe is not only accessible because of its less substantial computational needs. Because the platform is open-source, it’s available to anyone who needs it. And it can be used by academic and pharmaceutical researchers alike.

“The platform allows for the identification of non-toxic effects of drugs, such as alterations in cell shape or effects on specific organelles, which are often overlooked by traditional assays that focus largely on cell viability,” says Fabio Stossi, currently a senior scientist with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the lead author who was at Baylor during the development of SPACe.

The platform is a better means than ever of analyzing thousands of individual cells through automated imaging platforms, thereby better capturing the variability of biological processes. Through that, SPACe allows scientists an enhanced understanding of the interactions between drugs and cells, and does it on standard computers, translating to scientists performing large-scale drug screenings with greater ease.

"This tool could be a game-changer in how we understand cellular biology and discover new drugs. By capturing the full complexity of cellular responses, we are opening new doors for drug discovery that go beyond toxicity,” says Stossi.

And the fact that it’s open-source allows scientists to access SPACe for free right now. Researchers interested in using the platform can access it through Github at github.com/dlabate/SPACe. This early version could already make waves in research, but the team also plans to continually improve their product with the help of collaborations with other institutions.

The Ion names new coworking partner for Houston innovation hub

Where to Work

Rice University subsidiary Rice Real Estate Co. has tapped coworking company Industrious as the new operator of the Ion’s 86,000-square-foot coworking space in Midtown. Industrious replaces WeWork-owned Common Desk in that role.

The Ion, owned by Rice Real Estate and located at 4201 Main St., is a 266,000-square-foot office building and innovation hub in the 16-acre Ion District.

Features of the coworking space include private suites and offices, dedicated desks, phone booths and conference rooms. In 2022, Common Desk said it was expanding the space by 28,000 square feet, bringing it to the current size.

“(Industrious’) unparalleled expertise in delivering quality, hospitality-driven workspaces complements our vision of creating a world-class ecosystem where entrepreneurs, corporations, and academia converge to drive innovation forward,” Ken Jett, president of Rice Real Estate, said in a statement.

Natalie Levine, senior manager of real estate at Industrious, says her company will work with Rice Real Estate “to continue to position the Ion as an invaluable contributor to the growth of Houston’s innovation community.”

Dallas-based commercial real estate services company CBRE said Jan. 14 that it had agreed to acquire Industrious in a deal valued at $400 million.

The Ion is Industrious’ second location in Houston. The company’s other local coworking space is at 1301 McKinney St.

Office tenants at the Ion include Occidental Petroleum, Fathom Fund, Activate, Carbon Clean, Microsoft and Chevron Technology Ventures.

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