Comma.ai founder George Hotz, who promises to ship a 999 self-driving car aftermarket package by the end of the year. SAN FRANCISCO - Would you pay 999 to give your car self-driving chops? George Hotz is betting the answer is yes. The 26-year-old iPhone and PlayStation hacker turned entrepreneur is behind Comma.ai, a new Bay Area company that is powered largely by his brains and chutzpah, as well as 3 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz. "It is fully functional, and about on par with Tesla Autopilot."

Qawiyah Muhammad can see her own future. An Uber driver in Pittsburgh, she knows that one day her job will be replaced by a robot car. She knows the robot cars are coming because she sometimes spots experimental models driving themselves around town. "You can tell them apart," she said, "because they have a thing on the top of the car, like'Back to the Future.' " There's a reason they stand out so much, and it's not because Uber or anybody else thinks they look cool. On top of Uber's new driverless cars is an array of bulky sensors – cameras, radars, lidars – that eventually will be shrunk into a more discreet system that will replace Muhammad and thousands of other Uber drivers.

As a cease-fire in Syria entered its third day, authorities said Wednesday that the government was to begin withdrawing forces from a strategic road in the besieged rebel-held area of Aleppo, a move that would open the way for U.N. relief shipments. Syrian forces, with Russian air support, closed the road in July, thereby completing the encirclement of rebel districts with a population of as many as 300,000. A withdrawal south of Castello Road was to begin Thursday morning, according to Russian state news agency TASS. Rebel forces reportedly were to retreat simultaneously to positions north of the road. But it remained unclear whether residents of the city would accept the sacks of flour and food baskets the United Nations hopes to deliver.

Self-driving cars are raising hopes that we'll get a lot done when we don't have to drive anymore. According to a University of Michigan study, that's about as likely as a parent finishing two memos and a big presentation while taking a teen-age learner out to drive. The average U.S. driver spends an hour a day in their car, but the study concluded that for 62 percent of Americans, freeing up that driving time won't make them any more productive. And the findings suggest riding in a self-driving car may be a white-knuckle nightmare of nerves, car sickness, unsafe seats and flying gadgets. Maybe ordinary people have sensed this already.

U.S. chipmaker Nvidia nvda showed off on Monday a smaller and more efficient artificial intelligence computer for self-driving cars, saying it would power Baidu's bidu mapping and autonomous vehicle technology. Chinese web services company Baidu will deploy Nvidia's new Drive PX 2 as its in-vehicle car computer for its self-driving system, Nvidia said in a press release as it unveiled the computer at the GPU Technology Conference in Beijing. As more carmakers develop plans for self-driving technology to roll out in their vehicles in the next decade or less, Nvidia is trying to lower the barriers to entry, providing powerful computers to help automakers enter the market. Earlier this month, Nvidia and Baidu announced a partnership to develop a full self-driving car architecture from the cloud to the vehicle using both companies' expertise in artificial intelligence (AI). Nvidia said its new Drive PX 2 computer uses 10 watts of power and is half the size of the original version, launched in January.

The fitness class at the Do Life Shinagawa nursing home begins at 10:30 a.m., drawing about two dozen eager participants -- many of them pushing 70, 80 and even 90 years of age. At the front of the room is a human instructor, but it is the 16 inch tall robot standing on a table to his right that the crowd is paying attention to. The sleek, white humanoid robot is turned on and with fluid motion, stands up and spreads out its arms. "Why are you waking me up?" the robot asks in Japanese in an almost child-like voice. "Oh, you want to exercise?"

Dear Everyone, This is part two of Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future. Part two is going to delve into why a highly automated society has all sorts of benefits--even if it creates high unemployment. Technology is the greatest destroyer of jobs since the industrial revolution. With automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence moving into society at an exponential rate, unemployment could hit close to 50%--and that's just in America. Numbers in China could reach an estimated 77%, and 69% in India.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the new autopilot software might have prevented the crash that killed a man in Florida in May. Model S dash displays what the car sees. SAN FRANCISCO - Tesla Motors is grappling with yet another fatal crash involving one of its electric Model S sedans, an incident in China that preceded the May death of a customer in Florida. Back in January, a Model S driven by 23-year-old Gao Yaning of Hebei province crashed into a street sweeper at highway speed. The news was first reported by Reuters Wednesday citing China's CCTV.

While driverless cars may be a few years away, it appears self-driving shopping carts are right around the corner. Walmart has been awarded a patent illustrating'disc-shaped' robots that use sensors and cameras to transport and navigate shopping carts throughout stores. This application comes two months after reports surfaced that the firm was developing driverless carts that scan a customer's shopping list and then guide them to the aisles and shelves. Walmart has been awarded a patent illustrating'disc-shaped' robots that use sensors and cameras to navigate shopping carts for customers throughout shopping centers. Walmart was awarded a patent called'Shopping Facility Assistance Systems, Devices and Methods' is the patents title which was filed on March 4, 2016.

Useful quantum computers are closer to becoming a reality as some of the world's biggest corporations try to bring the technology from the lab into the practical world. A quantum computer utilizes subatomic particles called qubits to speed up the solving of complex computations. Near-term expectations for quantum computers range from solving optimization problems to quantum-encrypted communications, and more. With the help of CB Insights' investment, acquisition, and partnership data, we identified 18 corporate groups involved in the development of commercialized quantum computing hardware and software. They are a diverse group of players, ranging from tech industry behemoths to defense contractors to national telecommunications companies.