Several companies are already working on flying car prototypes. NEW YORK -- While most of the auto industry is focused on getting self-driving cars rolling, Uber already has its eyes set to the skies. In a white paper published this week, the company detailed plans for Uber Elevate, its new division for offering rides through flying cars. The company hopes to have the program up and running within a decade. In addition to being incredibly cool, Uber stresses the many benefits of this method of transportation in this new mode of transportation, time saving being the biggest.

This decrease was mainly due to the Note 7 issue, despite the increase of sales in the memory and OLED businesses. The gross profit for the quarter was KRW18.4 trillion, about KRW1.7 trillion year-on-year decrease. But the gross profit margin as a percent of sale held steady due to higher gross profits from the sales expansion of premium products in the OLED and consumer electronics businesses. Our SG&A expenditures increased Y-on-Y, mainly due to the recall cost related to Note 7. The operating profit decreased by KRW2.2 trillion, year on year to KRW5.2 trillion, and the operating profit margin declined by 3.4 percentage points to 10.9%. The earnings of the component business decreased marginally year on year due to price correction of DRAM during the first half of this year. However, on Q-on-Q basis, this operating profit increased due to sales expansion of high-end products such as SSD, flexible OLED under the stabilized ASP environment. In the set business, earnings declined in the IM division due to the loss resulting from the Note 7 issue, but the consumer electronics business continued to grow year on year, driven by the sales growth of SUHD TVs and premium home appliance products. In this quarter's strengthening of the Korean won against the major currencies such as U.S. dollar and euro had a negative impact on the operating profit quarter on quarter. We figured it's approximately KRW700 billion effect, mostly on the component business. The non-operating profit was KRW540 billion, mainly from the sales of various investments including investments in ASML. Now I would like to address the business outlook. In the fourth quarter we expect the overall earnings to improve year on year. The mobile business is expected to recover its earnings to the similar level as 4Q last year through solid S7 sales, while earnings in the component business is projected to improve year on year. For the semiconductor business, we expect the earnings to improve due to the sales expansion of the V-NAND-based SSD. For the display business, we expect the earnings to improve also from LCD business recovery year on year.

The artificial intelligence of IBM's (IBM) Watson will be used to make millions of General Motors (GM) cars smarter through a new partnership between the automaker and tech giant, the companies said Wednesday. Using what is known as a "cognitive mobility platform," the system will take the name OnStar Go and be installed in cars starting in early 2017. GM and IBM, in a joint statement, touted the platform's ability to help drivers save time and increase efficiency. Watson is the IBM technology once used to defeat humans on the quiz show "Jeopardy." Among the tasks the system will perform: help drivers avoid traffic when low on fuel, allow them to pay from their dashboard when they do get fuel, order coffee on the go or get news and in-vehicle entertainment tailored to their personalities and location in real time.

U .S. military officers watched grainy video feeds at a small operations center in Baghdad on Tuesday as Predator drones tracked and killed three reputed Islamic State leaders -- one after another -- in the offensive on Mosul. The targeted air strikes were due in large part to intelligence extracted from cellphones, computer hard drives, memory cards and hand-written ledgers recovered from battlefields and towns taken from Islamic State fighters. Recently captured intelligence also has proved useful in providing clues to detecting potential terrorist plots, tracking foreign fighters and identifying Islamic State supporters around the globe, U.S. officials said. The largest data trove was recovered when U.S.-backed Syrian rebel forces recaptured Manbij, an Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria, in mid-August. Intelligence agencies recovered more than 120,000 documents, nearly 1,200 devices and more than 20 terabytes of digital information, officials said. Islamic State militants came early in the morning, riding atop trucks that lumbered into this northern Iraqi oil town.

There is a palpable, ominous feeling in the air that something huuuge and unstoppable is about to happen to our world -- a tectonic shift in our understanding of who we are, and how we define our reality, that we excitedly anticipate, but are deathly afraid of at the same time. Whatever this "next level" in humanity's evolution is, this much is clear, it will be powered by Artificial Intelligence in unimaginable ways that will potentially propel us to utopian heights, or destroy us in a great ball of fire, depending on who you ask [insert Elon Musk "AI robots will kill us" quote here!]. In short, AI has arrived. Either get on the train, or get run over by it. Most people, however, don't know what to do -- they're sort of stuck standing in the tracks, like dear in headlights, with the train barreling towards them full speed ahead.

Uber-owned Otto partners with Anheuser-Busch to successfully test self-driving truck technology in Colorado. NASHVILLE -- This metropolis among five global cities chosen for a self-driving cars initiative launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York and the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute. The program, called the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles, includes Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, Paris and Buenos Aires, along with five other cities to be added this year. The cities will have access to data and coaching from urban planners and technologists meant to help them prepare for self-driving cars and use them to address city challenges. "The advent of autonomous cars is one of the most exciting developments ever to happen to cities --- and if mayors collaborate with one another, and with partners in the private sector, they can improve people's lives in ways we can only imagine today," former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the CityLab conference for mayors in Miami.

This metropolis among five global cities chosen for a self-driving cars initiative launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York and the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute. The program, called the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles, includes Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, Paris and Buenos Aires, along with five other cities to be added this year. The cities will have access to data and coaching from urban planners and technologists meant to help them prepare for self-driving cars and use them to address city challenges. "The advent of autonomous cars is one of the most exciting developments ever to happen to cities --- and if mayors collaborate with one another, and with partners in the private sector, they can improve people's lives in ways we can only imagine today," former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the CityLab conference for mayors in Miami. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said earlier this year that Tennessee's Davidson County could become a testing ground for self-driving cars as part of a regional push for improved transportation.

While transportation, hospitality, and financial services are all industries being disrupted by technology, the next big area poised for massive, tech-driven change may be the human workforce. "We are going to move from people to things," explained Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup's Latin America business, speaking Monday at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif. "We are expecting 500 billion objects to become connected to the internet and this automation is going to hollow out middle and working class jobs," explained Fraser. "Technology is replacing these jobs." The technology Fraser is referring to is artificial intelligence--the machine learning that powers driverless cars and other intelligent machines that are slowly taking over human tasks.

Uber is giving out free flu shots in 17 U.S. cities Time SAN FRANCISCO -- Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is helping other civic stewards prepare for the coming self-driving car revolution. The billionaire announced Monday at the CityLab 2016 summit of 400 global leaders in Miami that his Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute have selected five cities that will receive expert advice and data analytics to prepare their streets for autonomous vehicles. The cities are Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, Buenos Aires and Paris. Five more cities will be announced later this year. "If mayors collaborate with one another, and with partners in the private sector, they can improve people's lives in ways we can only imagine today," said Bloomberg, who served as New York City's top pol from 2002 to 2013.

AUSTIN, Texas -- The race is on in Formula One. Not just to the checkered flag, but to see which team can marshall the best technology. In its 70th year, the preeminent auto-racing circuit has become a tech arms race. At the U.S. Grand Prix here this past weekend, the Internet of Things, big data, virtual reality, machine learning, 3-D printing, flash storage, predictive analytics and design play integral roles in the success (or failure) of the 22 drivers that compete in 21 races globally each year. The slightest advancement, or tweak, can mean the difference between first place and 10th place -- often the difference of one second.