This is the Daily Tech News for November 12th, 2025.

We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand.

Today, driverless cars hit the highways.

Watch out. There's no one driving. I'm Tom Merritt.

And I'm Sarah Lane.

Let's start with what you need to know with the big story.

Alphabet's Waymo has become the first autonomous taxi service in the world to offer routes that take you on the freeway without anybody else in the car.

Just you and the computer.

And by freeway, I mean controlled access motorway, expressway, whatever you call it.

It's the one where you go fast and there aren't stoplights.

Waymo rides in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco may now include freeways in their routes,

which Waymo expects might reduce times by up to 50%, at least in some

cases. The feature will roll out slowly and only to Waymo riders who note the preference in the app.

So by default, you're not going to go on the freeway. You have to go in and say, I'm okay going

on the freeway. And even then, you might not get one every time. They're going to roll it out

slowly. However, you could get one any time a day. It will be available 24 hours a day. It also isn't available on all the freeways in these cities. In fact, these cities don't even have the service available in the entire metro area. For instance, Sarah gets it, but I don't, just based on where we live in L.A. But they are going to

expand it over time. And one of the cool things is it will now let them add more airport service.

So you can do curbside airport service at San Jose Airport. They were already doing Phoenix

Sky Harbor. They also are working on adding it to SFO, San Francisco's airport, where they have a permit for

tests right now. They just want to add the ability to pick up actual people. Now, some aspects of

highway driving are simpler for autonomous systems. You may think, well, yeah, that's why they work,

my driver assist stuff only works on the freeway for following and lane

...