High and low rollers alike can climb aboard what officials say is the first driverless electric shuttle operating on a public U.S. street. The oval-shaped shuttle that carries 12 people began a 10-day, free pilot program Tuesday along Fremont Street in the downtown entertainment district. The driverless electric shuttle has begun carrying passengers in a test program in a downtown Las Vegas entertainment district. Arma shuttles began providing free rides along a three-block stretch of Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, a vintage part of Sin City that is a tourist attraction away from the casino-lined main strip. The pilot public transit program will last a week, and was touted as the first time a fully autonomous, electric powered shuttle was left to its own devices to deal with traffic on a public street in the United States.

A study of screen time and mental wellbeing among teenagers has suggested moderate use of devices may be beneficial in a connected world. The researchers collected self-reported data from 120,000 English 15-year-olds about their digital device habits. They found a "Goldilocks effect" where a few hours of device-use seemed to boost mental wellbeing. One developmental psychologist welcomed the paper but said there was still room for more study. "Moderate engagement in digital activities is not harmful," notes the paper, published today in the journal Psychological Science.

Editor's Note: With 2017 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from across the mobile telecommunications space on what they expect to see in the new year. There's no doubt that the "internet of things" has immense potential for business impact, but customers and end users need to get fully comfortable with the anticipated return on investment in order to move beyond maker projects and proof-of-concepts to real investment. Without understanding business value and potential ROI, IoT adoption will stifle and slow. There's a bit of a catch-22 in these early days because companies that have successfully deployed an IoT solution typically don't want to share metrics of their success with competitors. We're seeing progress on this front with more companies willing to document measurable gains in case studies, but it will also take time for the masses to trust that gains made elsewhere will translate to their organizations.

The Nintendo Switch video game console will sell for about $260 in Japan, starting March 3, the same date as its global rollout in the U.S. and Europe. The Japanese company promises the device will be packed with fun features of all its past machines and more. The Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games announced details of the Switch's release Friday at the Tokyo Big Sight events hall. It said the console will sell for $299.99 in the U.S. Customers in Europe would need to ask retailers there for prices. In teaser videos, Nintendo Co. has shown players using a handheld whose remote controller section detaches from the left and right sides of the main part of the device's display.

More than half the world's population uses two or more languages every day, and it appears that being bilingual could have brain boosting powers. New research has shown that bilingual people have more efficient brains than those who only speak one language. Experts believe that this could explain why the brains of bilinguals are better equipped at staving off the signs of cognitive ageing or dementia. The researchers asked two groups of elderly people to perform a task that involved focussing on visual information (the colour of an object), while ignoring spatial information (the position of the object). Using fMRI scanning to look at their brains during the task, the researchers found that monolingual brains allocated a number of regions linked to visual and motor function and interference control, which are located in the frontal lobes.

The NHS recently announced plans to trial an artificially intelligent mobile health app to a million people in London. The aim is to help diagnose and treat patients by engaging them in a real time text message conversation which will complement the NHS 111 phone based service (which was criticised by the Care Quality Commission watchdog). The app's designers, Babylon Healthcare Ltd, use algorithms to make initial diagnoses which are then followed up with human consultations. It has already received a glowing CQC evaluation. The app is likely to provoke a mixed response, with enthusiastic technophiles up against those concerned that more technology means a less human healthcare service.

In a bid to keep up with its rivals including Tesla and Google, Nissan has announced its plans to bring real-world demonstrations of autonomous vehicles to the UK. The on-road demonstrations will take place in London in February, where passengers will be able to experience the technology in a modified Nissan LEAF. The demonstrations mark the first time Nissan's autonomous drive technology will be showcased on public roads in Europe. Since December, Nissan has been using driverless cars to tow other vehicles around its production facility in Japan. The technology is currently being tested at Nissan's Oppama production in in Yokohama, near Tokyo.

The next BriefingsDirect Voice of the Customer digital transformation case study highlights how online travel and events pioneer lastminute.com To learn how a culture of IT innovation helps make highly dynamic customer interactions for online travel a major differentiator, we're joined by Filippo Onorato, Chief Information Officer at lastminute.com group in Chiasso, Switzerland. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Gardner: Most people these days are trying to do more things more quickly amid higher complexity. What is it that you're trying to accomplish in terms of moving beyond disruption and being competitive in a highly complex area?

If autonomous cars are to be made available in the UK, car makers first need their vehicles to do hard miles on domestic roads. Nissan knows this, so today it confirmed that it will deploy a fleet of LEAF vehicles in London next month, giving it the opportunity to publicly test its autonomous drive technology for the first time in Europe. Nissan says that while it hasn't yet finalised the routes its cars will take, they "will be public roads with full agreement from the relevant local authorities." The government, which has already spent millions funding intelligent car trials, supports the pilot, noting that such trials will help the UK become "a world leader in the development and testing of auto technology." It's not the first time Nissan has demonstrated its self-driving capabilities on public roads. The first tests began in Tokyo in October 2015, expanding to Silicon Valley in January 2016.

Robots should one day have rights as "electronic persons," members of the European Parliament recommended Thursday -- but not until the machines are all fitted with "kill" switches to shut them down in an emergency. Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee wants the European Commission to propose legislation that will settle a number of ethical and liability issues in the field of robotics -- including who is to blame when an autonomous vehicle is involved in a collision. Granting the more sophisticated autonomous robots some kind of electronic personhood could settle issues of who is responsible for their actions, the committee suggested. More urgent than the question of robot rights, though, is the setting up of an obligatory insurance scheme that would pay out to the victims of a self-driving car if it caused an accident in the European Union. The MEPs also want an EU agency to advise on the technical, ethical and regulatory issues around robotics, and a voluntary ethical code of conduct for those who design and work with robots.