Amazon is preparing to expand Prime Air drone deliveries into Australia and potentially other Asia-Pacific markets, with a new regulatory role tasked with securing the approvals needed to launch service there. The Register reports: "As Prime Air evaluates Australia and other countries, we are hiring a Head of Regulatory Approvals, Australia -- the person responsible for navigating Australia's aviation regulatory system and securing every approval required to deliver to Australian customers by drone," reads a recently published job ad. Whoever gets the gig in Australia will report to someone who holds the title "Leader, Prime Air Expansion -- Asia Pacific." Whoever gets the job "will be measured by the approvals you obtain, the timelines you hit, and -- ultimately -- Australian customers receiving drone deliveries." That wording suggests Amazon intends to operate Prime Air in Australia and is doing rather more than market evaluations.

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Waymo's self-driving car technology "continues to outperform human benchmarks," the company claimed this week. "It was involved in 841 fewer injury-causing crashes — an 82% reduction compared to human drivers." Electrek reports: We've seen various Waymo crash data before, with Waymo claiming crash reductions. That's all well and good when the company says it, but we've also seen independent data confirming similar (though lower) crash reduction numbers... Waymo has enough miles that it's ready to start quoting how many injuries it has prevented, and the number is pretty high. Its newest crash data states that it had operated a total of 271 million driverless miles through June of this year, which is 50 million more miles added in the 3 months since its end-of-March update. Over those miles, Waymo says there was an 82% reduction in crashes that caused injury, and a 95% reduction in crashes that cause "serious injury or worse" [compared to human drivers]. Waymo also says that compared to human drivers it's reduced injury-causing crashes involving pedestrians by 93%, cyclists by 86%, and motorcyclists by 82%. Waymo's analysis comes from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Phoenix, and its blog post includes video showing some near-misses where it says its automated system prevented an injury-causing collision.

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