Self-driving cars have gotten pretty good at driving. The harder problem is teaching them to drive safely in situations nobody planned for. We have heard horror stories of self-driving cars, behaving erratically in emergency situations, often times delaying first responders from reaching the scene.

A team at Seoul National University, led by professor Jun Won Choi from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, thinks they have cracked part of that puzzle with a new AI model called SafeDrive. The research was recently selected as a highlight paper at CVPR 2026, a distinction that goes only to roughly 3% of all submissions.

How does SafeDrive make driving decisions safer?

Most end-to-end autonomous driving models work by studying massive amounts of real driving data and trying to mimic how humans react on the road. It works well most of the time, but these systems tend to struggle when it comes to explaining why they chose one path over another, and that becomes a real problem when safety is on the line.

Choi’s team built something called Fine-grained Safety Reasoning to fix this. Instead of picking one driving path and going with it, SafeDrive generates several possible trajectories, combines them with what the car’s sensors are perceiving, and scores each option for safety. The car then picks the path that scores best. It sounds simple, but it directly tackles the two biggest weaknesses of current end-to-end systems, safety and explainability.

Why is this such a big deal for Korea?

As TechXplore reports, this is the first time a Korean-made end-to-end autonomous driving paper has landed a highlight spot at CVPR, one of the biggest AI and computer vision conferences in the world. It is a strong signal that Korea is no longer just watching from the sidelines while the US and China race ahead with their self-driving ambitions.

SafeDrive is not staying stuck in the lab either. It has already been folded into EAD, a reference model backed by Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and Choi’s team is now working with domestic autonomous driving companies to test it in real vehicles. Choi says the plan is to keep improving the model with bigger datasets and eventually push it toward full commercialization using their own collected data.

public sector 

Nine-department ERP overhaul judged unachievable without urgent action

The UK government has admitted that two major planks of its multibillion-pound shared services strategy are in serious trouble.

Matrix, a project that involves moving nine government departments to shared ERP and HR systems, has been rated red by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), which monitors the planning and delivery of major government projects.

This rating means the project has “major issues” with its schedule, budget, quality, or delivery of benefits, and the problems “do not appear to be manageable or resolvable” at this stage.

Matrix is just one of five clusters the government is betting will save £4.3 billion by migrating a total of 17 departments and 300 arms’-length bodies onto shared tech platforms.

The NISTA report for fiscal 2025-26 says the rating reflects “a number of material issues” identified during project planning.

In 2024, Matrix awarded Workday a contract for SaaS finance and HR software and Cognizant a system integration deal with a combined value of £144.3 million.

Matrix was scheduled to begin going live in May 2026, but experienced delays. In March, the Matrix Programme Board met “to consider the case for re-baselining the programme, including the development of a rectification plan and the consideration of several planning scenarios.”

“Replanning is intended to establish a more realistic, credible, and achievable forward plan in response to ongoing delivery challenges. Current emerging analysis indicates a delay of 3-6 months, which would move the Phase 1 user go‑live to late 2026,” the NISTA report says.

Although “system issues have now been resolved,” the “single biggest risk to this is departments being unable to find functional subject matter expert capacity to undertake the high level of testing they have identified as being required, given their low risk appetite.”

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is leading Matrix. It is joined by the Cabinet Office, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Business and Trade, Attorney General’s Office, and the Department of Health and Social Care.

His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and the Department for Education have delayed their decisions to join Matrix despite the Cabinet Office saying they had “unconditionally bought into joining shared services at the outset” and their “participation in shared services is not optional.”

MPs said last week that their reluctance to join could undermine the project. The Treasury, for example, already uses relatively modern Oracle Fusion SaaS to run its HR and finance functions.

NISTA also rated the Unity shared services project as red, although it said progress had improved. Unity concerns His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs – Britain’s tax collection agency – and two other departments moving to a cloud-based SAP ERP system.

A spokesperson at DSIT told The Register: “Delivery challenges were found in the Matrix Program after a planned review. We have decided to replan the program to make sure we have a realistic and achievable delivery schedule, while continuing work to modernize shared services across government.” 

Officials said the department’s program team is developing the next iteration of the business case for HMT and Cabinet Office approval later this year. It is due to set out a timetable for the next wave of departments and arm’s-length bodies to onboard to the new system and service, including HMT. DSIT remains committed to the program and expects it to offer £1.67 in benefits for every £1 invested. ®

Most people would have tossed the red Nintendo 3DS XL the moment they opened the package. Bought for twenty-seven pounds and already looking like it had spent years outdoors, the handheld arrived with a rusty hinge, a body that bulged open, no battery, and clear signs of serious water damage. Elliot of The Retro Future saw something worth saving instead.

Opening the rear cover reveals actual rust, the kind that takes a long time to accumulate after being left out in the elements, with no artificial “weathering” BS. Some screws were so tight that they required to be loosened using a Dremel, and things only got worse after that. The shoulder button connector has virtually pulled itself apart from the ribbon cable and the board. The SD card reader was shot, with thick clumps of rust caked on the motherboard, which had deformed slightly. The screens were dusty and dirty. The joysticks appeared to belong in a museum of broken pieces. The cameras were in a horrible state. The rubber portions had turned into mush. Threads in the shell had been removed completely. One look at the state of things made it clear how large of a task you were facing.

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Cleaning began with a thorough cleaning in an ultrasonic bath with some watch-cleaning solution for the metal components. Shell pieces soaked overnight in a solution of bicarbonate of soda and boiling water. To remove all of the filth, the boards and other pieces required to be scrubbed with hot soapy water and then wiped off with isopropyl alcohol. Vinegar baths and a baking soda paste applied with a toothbrush were required to remove the most persistent corrosion. Some of the chrome plating on the screws had worn so thin that it could no longer be saved, necessitating the replacement of new ones. However, the idea was not to make it look like it had just rolled off the assembly line.

Almost every critical component needed to be removed and replaced. A replacement motherboard from Japan, which costs roughly £50, was first on the list. New displays, ribbon cables, shoulder buttons, joysticks and covers, volume sliders, cameras, a microphone, a touchscreen, and a new battery came next. Aftermarket shell pieces were necessary to fill in the gaps where the original plastic had nearly collapsed. Small 3D printed tabs replaced the broken light-pipe mounts. Swapping so much out was a matter of practicality. Water-damaged components cannot simply be wiped away.

Buttons were functional again, and the touchscreen responded to input. The cameras were ready to go now. The left and right triggers had returned to normal. The 3D slider still did not work, which is a shame because it is linked to the aftermarket screen rather than the actual problem. Later on, certain software updates would remove the Japanese region lock, allowing it to play a variety of titles.

The finished 3DS XL retains the original shell’s weathered appearance, but it now functions like a normal system. Elliot placed it in a clear container, resulting in a great playable console as well as a silent little museum piece, serving as a reminder of what happens when you leave a system out to get wet for months on end. Some of the online restoration videos you see make the broken system appear to be as good as new with just a wash down and some water, but this thing was not going to recover from being left out in the weather for so long. Over time, sun and rain will leave scars.

• Leather jacket belonging to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells for $960k, way above the $40-60k estimate
• Huang’s jackets have become a tech sector icon and a staple CEO ‘uniform’ piece
• The proceeds wil help fund fellowships and more across tech

A black Tom Ford leather jacket worn and signed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has sold at a New York auction for $960,000.

“The response to this sale surpassed even our highest expectations,” Sotheby’s head of modern collectibles Brahm Wachter explained, with the jacket selling for around $900,000 more than auctioneers had anticipated, given the auction house’s estimate of $40,000 to $60,000.

The “AI” label no longer makes companies special. In today’s world, that is a fact that needs to be accepted.

Even just a year ago, if a business simply mentioned being “AI-powered” it was enough to immediately gather attention and appear innovative. Investors quickly grew excited, and media outlets were quick to pick up the next “hot story.”