Bridgestone and Goodyear Tire and Rubber are developing tires for last-mile delivery vehicles that use sensors and artificial intelligence to detect potential problems. Goodyear's SightLine tires also have a battery to measure temperature and other conditions.

Waymo, a self-driving car startup owned by Alphabet, raised $2.5 billion in its most recent funding round. The company will use the new capital to expand its workforce and continue work on its self-driving vehicle technology.

Leaf Home outsources its manufacturing across 13 companies while focusing on its enterprise resource planning system, product design, marketing and sales, a strategy that has helped the company accelerate growth since 2019. "We need to do it ourselves to be as agile as we are," says CEO Jeff Beck.

Luminar CEO Austin Russell wants to help build "the uncrashable car," and he thinks his company's lidar can play an important role. Luminar plans to supply major automakers with roof-mounted lidar sensors, which were recently demonstrated on a Toyota RAV4.

Among enterprises that gave in to ransomware demands, 4 of 5 were hit a second time, finds a survey of 1,263 security pros in countries including the UK, US, Singapore, Germany and France, conducted for Cybereason. About half of respondents suspected the second cyberattack came from the same source as the first.

Metal 3D printing can be used to improve existing manufacturing processes, including those related to semiconductors, says Scott Green, principal solutions leader for 3D Systems. Green explains some of the ways metal 3D printing can help fabricators without sacrificing quality.

Stanley Black & Decker's North Star platform unifies the company's business, operations and commercial technologies into a cohesive and secure system that offers real-time configurable data, says Chief Information Officer Rhonda Gass. "While each area uses digital technology in different ways, the technologies themselves are similar, and these technologies are the core of our business," Gass says.

Manufacturers have to show potential employees that there are clear career paths, work-life flexibility and a commitment to diversity, according to a report by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute. "We need to do a better job of talking about what those skilling and upskilling opportunities are," says Carolyn Lee, executive director of the Manufacturing Institute.

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