Cruise, a self-driving car service out of San Francisco, was granted a driverless vehicle permit for the state's autonomous vehicle pilot program. Cruise, a self-driving car service out of San Francisco, was granted a driverless vehicle permit for the state's autonomous vehicle pilot program. The California Public Utilities Commission announced Friday that Cruise, a self-driving car service out of San Francisco, has been authorized to participate in the state's first pilot program to provide driverless ride services to the public. The company is not allowed to charge passengers for rides. Eight companies have permits for testing driverless vehicles in California, but Cruise is the only company approved for giving rides to passengers without a safety driver on board.

King County, Wash., banned the use of facial recognition by county agencies like law enforcement, following cities such as San Francisco. In most of the U.S., activists are finding bans a tough sell.

When a person dies in a car crash in the US, data on the incident is typically reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Federal law requires that civilian airplane pilots notify the National Transportation Safety Board of in-flight fires and some other incidents. The grim registries are intended to give authorities and manufacturers better insights on ways to improve safety. They helped inspire a crowdsourced repository of artificial intelligence incidents aimed at improving safety in much less regulated areas, such as autonomous vehicles and robotics. The AI Incident Database launched late in 2020 and now contains 100 incidents, including #68, the security robot that flopped into a fountain, and #16, in which Google's photo organizing service tagged Black people as "gorillas."

Amazon's Echo Show devices are among those that will automatically be added to its shared Wi-Fi network scheme, called Amazon Sidewalk. Amazon's Echo Show devices are among those that will automatically be added to its shared Wi-Fi network scheme, called Amazon Sidewalk. Amazon is building a Wi-Fi network – using your Wi-Fi. It's called Amazon Sidewalk, and the company touts it as a way to help its devices work better, by extending the range of low-bandwidth devices to help them stay online. It does that by pooling neighbors' Wi-Fi to help connectivity for devices that are out of range.

The Army is paying for investigations on the physics of elephant trunks -- and researchers say these versatile appendages may hold clues for designing better soft-bodied robots.

The event chaired by Mark Maybury (Chief Technology Officer, Stanley Black & Decker, mark.maybury@sbdinc.com) From steam power and electrification in the first industrial revolution to assembly line driven mass production of the second industrial revolution to computerization in the third industrial revolution, disruptive innovations have driven key change including urbanization, global travel, and information discovery and sharing. Equally if not more profoundly, the current cyber-physical fourth industrial transformation is driving fundamental changes not only in the way we manufacture but also because of the kinds of products and services created ways in which we live, work, and play. Studies from intelligent manufacturing experts at the World Economic Forum have identified a set of key foundational elements for Industry 4.0. These include the Internet of Things (IOT), big data, cloud computing additive manufacturing, augmented reality, autonomous robots, and modeling and simulation.

England's South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) is rolling out robotic paramedics to perform mechanical CPR, the BBC's Science Focus reports. The model, dubbed the LUCAS 3, can perform chest compressions on patients, freeing up paramedics to perform other urgent tasks. "These devices don't fatigue or change the delivery in any way, meaning high quality CPR can be delivered for as long as is required while freeing up the paramedic, keeping them seated and belted and able to focus on other critical aspects of patient care on a journey," John Black, the ambulance service's medical director, said in a statement. "It ultimately acts as a robotic third crew member for our teams." Rise of the robot paramedics: The administration of proper and consistent chest compressions can greatly improve the odds of a patient's survival, especially in cases of cardiac arrest.

Eric Schmidt, who leads a U.S. government initiative to integrate AI into national security, warned Monday that the EU's AI transparency requirements would be "very harmful to Europe." Speaking at POLITICO's AI Summit, Schmidt criticized the provisions of the EU's AI bill that require algorithms to be transparent. "It's just a proposal, but if you would adopt it without modification, it would be a very big setback for Europe," said Schmidt, who chairs the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) and is a former CEO of Google. The EU's proposal "requires that the system would be able to explain itself. But machine learning systems cannot fully explain how they make their decisions," Schmidt said.

A military drone may have autonomously attacked humans for the first time without being instructed to do so, according to a recent report by the UN Security Council. The report, published in March, claimed that the AI drone – Kargu-2 quadcopter – produced by Turkish military tech company STM, attacked retreating soldiers loyal to Libyan General Khalifa Haftar. The 548-page report by the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on Libya has not delved into details on if there were any deaths due to the incident, but it raises questions on whether global efforts to ban killer autonomous robots before they are built may be futile. Over the course of the year, the UN-recognized Government of National Accord pushed the Haftar Affiliated Forces (HAF) back from the Libyan capital Tripoli, and the drone may have been operational since January 2020, the experts noted. "Logistics convoys and retreating HAF were subsequently hunted down and remotely engaged by the unmanned combat aerial vehicles or the lethal autonomous weapons systems such as the STM Kargu-2," the UN report noted.

The days of drivers sneaking dangerous downward glances at directions on their phones may soon come to an end. Automakers are poised to introduce technology on new cars, trucks and SUVs that projects directions onto the windshield and draws a circle around pedestrians or deer on the roadway. Depending on the vehicle, these augmented reality windshields may also display vehicle information, identify ice patches and, eventually, serve as a screen for entertainment purposes when self-driving cars become a reality. Brands poised to debut the technology include Kia, Hyundai, Cadillac and Audi. Advocates say that the windshields show how technology can be used to reduce driver distraction, keeping drivers' eyes on the road instead of darting toward an infotainment screen or phone.