Genetically modified babies may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but recent innovations in both gene editing and artificial fertilization technology mean that this idea could become a reality. Scientists focus on gene editing to eliminate certain debilitating hereditary diseases, but the technology could accomplish a lot more. Recently, the team at Superdrug surveyed the public on what they would modify in their future children if they could, and the results are surprising. According to the survey, carried out by Superdrug Online Doctor, prospective parents who viewed baby modification as ethical explained that they would most likely alter their child to make them healthier and more intelligent, followed by increased creativity and attractiveness. When it came to specific physical characteristics, Europeans answered that they would genetically modify their child to be a blonde-haired blued-eyed girl of average height. Americans, on the other hand, identified their ideal child as a black-haired blued-eyed male of above average height.

So, I compiled all the grand promises that the world's traditional carmakers have made in the past two years or so, and one thing is clear: Either the automotive world is going to undergo a radical transformation around 2020, or these companies have seriously erred in their planning. Volkswagen corporate is engaged in a major initiative they've dubbed "Together-Strategy 2025," which ties together the electrification and smartening of cars. As part of that, they've promised to "bring highly automated driving functions to market as a core competency from 2021." Recently, they introduced an on-demand self-driving car-like thing, which sort of looks like a character in Thomas the Tank Engine: Future Edition. Audi, which is a part of the Volkswagen Group, has been more aggressive.

COVER A conceptual illustration of an artificial neuron evokes a technology that is transforming many fields of science: artificial intelligence (AI). One common form of AI is a neural network, which "learns" as connections between simulated neurons change in response to inputs. Such systems can find meaningful patterns in vast data sets, ranging from genomics to astronomy, and are even beginning to design experiments.

Samsung's technological reach is formidable, shipping more phones than any other manufacturer. The company boasts nearly 23% of the global smartphone market, and its Gear VR headset, available since late 2015, is already among the most popular virtual reality devices going. But when it comes to voice-activated speakers, a medium that some believe is on the cusp of becoming the next major computing platform, there's reason to question whether Samsung has the wherewithal to keep up. The South Korean technology giant may be developing a new Amazon Echo-like smart speaker powered by its Bixby virtual assistant, reports the Wall Street Journal. But it's arrival would likely come long after category pioneers like Amazon, Google and Apple have either released or announced plans to launch voice-activated gadgets of their own.

With billions of users and hundreds of billions of tweets and posts every year, social media has brought big data to social science. It has also opened an unprecedented opportunity to use artificial intelligence (AI) to glean meaning from the mass of human communications. The University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, for example, uses machine learning and natural language processing to sift through gobs of data to gauge the public's emotional and physical health, including levels of depression and trust, and several personality traits. That's traditionally done with surveys. But social media data is cheap and abundant. It is also messy, but AI offers a powerful way to reveal patterns.

STEP into a taxi in south London later this year and you might not have to think about paying a tip. The UK's first fully public trial of autonomous vehicles will soon be under way. For four weeks, a fleet of driverless shuttles will each ferry up to five passengers and a "safety warden" along a 2-kilometre route in Greenwich. Previous trials there and in the town of Milton Keynes required participants to register in advance. This time the vehicles will pick up anyone wanting a ride.

Samsung is working on a standalone virtual reality headset that can work without a smartphone or connected computer. A prototype of the VR headset has now appeared, and it comes with eye and hand tracking technology. The prototype VR headset by Samsung is labeled as Exynos VR III, and it comes with a 10nm hexa-core processor with an ARM Mali G71MP20 graphics, according to Liliputing. This seems to be an Exynos 9 Series chip, specifically the Exynos 8890 SoC. This setup will be able to run dual WQHD displays (2,560 x 1,440 resolution, or close to it) at 90Hz, or a single 4K display running at 75Hz.

London's Royal Free hospital failed to comply with the Data Protection Act when it handed over personal data of 1.6 million patients to DeepMind, a Google subsidiary, according to the Information Commissioner's Office. The data transfer was part of the two organisation's partnership to create the healthcare app Streams, an alert, diagnosis and detection system for acute kidney injury. The ICO's ruling was largely based on the fact that the app continued to undergo testing after patient data was transferred. Patients, it said, were not adequately informed that their data would be used as part of the test. "Our investigation found a number of shortcomings in the way patient records were shared for this trial," said Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner.

Paul Tang was with his wife in the hospital just after her knee replacement surgery, a procedure performed on about 700,000 people in the U.S. every year. The surgeon came by, and Tang, who is himself a primary-care physician, asked when he expected her to be back at her normal routines, given his experience with patients like her. The surgeon kept giving vague non-answers. "Finally it hit me," says Tang. "He didn't know." Tang would soon learn that most physicians don't know how their patients do in the ordinary measures of life back at home and at work--the measures that most matter to patients.

Volvo's self-driving car is unable to detect kangaroos because hopping confounds its systems, the Swedish carmaker says. The company's "Large Animal Detection system" can identify and avoid deer, elk and caribou, but early testing in Australia shows it cannot adjust to the kangaroo's unique method of movement. The managing director of Volvo Australia, Kevin McCann, said the discovery was part of the development and testing of driverless technology, and wouldn't pose problems by the time Volvo's driverless cars would be available in 2020. "Any company that would be working on the autonomous car concept would be having to do the same developmental work," he said. "We brought our engineers into Australia to begin the exercise of gathering the data of how the animals can move and behave so the computers can understand it more."