We'll want high-performance driving skills in self-driving cars. Are you a good driver? Your answer depends upon what the phrase "good driver" means. Across the United States, each state provides various licensing requirements for those that want the privilege to drive a car. Keep in mind that driving is considered a privilege and not some form of constitutional right.

If recent television shows are anything to go by, we're a little concerned about the consequences of technological development. Black Mirror projects the negative consequences of social media, while artificial intelligence turns rogue in The 100 and Better Than Us. The potential extinction of the human race is up for grabs in Travellers, and Altered Carbon frets over the separation of human consciousness from the body. And Humans and Westworld see trouble ahead for human-android relations. Narratives like these have a long lineage.

"I do plan to bring back my father," Ray Kurzweil says. He is standing in the anemic light of a storage unit, his frame dwarfed by towers of cardboard boxes and oblong plastic bins. He is in his early sixties, but something about the light or his posture, his paunch protruding over his beltline, makes him seem older. Kurzweil is now a director of engineering at Google, but this documentary was filmed in 2009, back when it was still possible to regard him as a lone visionary with eccentric ideas about the future. The boxes in the storage unit contain the remnants of his father's life: photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, and financial documents. For decades, he has been compiling these artifacts and storing them in this sepulcher he maintains near his house in Newton, Massachusetts. He takes out a notebook filled with his father's handwriting and shows it to the camera. His father passed away in 1970, but Kurzweil believes that, one day, artificial intelligence will be able to use the memorabilia, along with DNA samples, to resurrect him. "People do live on in our memories, and in the creative works they leave behind," he muses, "so we can gather up all those vibrations and bring them back, I believe." Technology, Kurzweil has conceded, is still a long way from bringing back the dead. His only hope of seeing his father resurrected is to live to see the Singularity -- the moment when computing power reaches an "intelligence explosion." At this point, according to transhumanists such as Kurzweil, people who are merged with this technology will undergo a radical transformation. They will become posthuman: immortal, limitless, changed beyond recognition. Kurzweil predicts this will happen by the year 2045. Unlike his father, he, along with those of us who are lucky enough to survive into the middle of this century, will achieve immortality without ever tasting death.

Cisco Systems (ticker: CSCO), IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), Seagate Technology (STX), Western Digital (WDC), Xerox Holdings (XRX), HP Inc. (HPQ), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) still employ a total of 900,000 people. They account for $363 billion in annual revenue and $840 billion in stock market value. But their sales, accounting for inflation, are mostly going in reverse. The best of the bunch, Western Digital, is forecast to grow 4.4% next year. Xerox, the worst, is likely to see a 4.7% decline. Wall Street bankers have begun to mount a rescue effort.

With a long history, Web Summit has been held once a year since 2009. After ten years of development, it has become a world-renowned and large-scale technology event, and the 2019 Summit has attracted attention from all walks of life. The event not only brought together more than 70,000 leaders of technology enterprises, founders of start-ups and policy makers from more than 160 countries, but also invited more than 2,600 media from all over the world to attend the summit, which has a powerful influence in the world. Although the concept of artificial intelligence is hot, the specific empowerment of artificial intelligence in all walks of life cannot be accomplished at one stroke. At the "Davos Forum of Tech-geeks", many guests shared wonderful perspectives, and expressed their opinions around transportation technology, artificial intelligence, financial technology, earth technology, future technology, wearable devices, big data, front-end design, content creation, fashion and music industry technology and other fields.

Artificial Intelligence has had many breakthroughs in 2019. In fact, we can go as far as to say that it has trickled down to every single facet of modern life. With its intervention in our daily life, it is imperative that everyone knows about how it is affecting our lives, bringing about change in it, the threats and possible solutions. While there are some people who still think AI is only robots and chatbots, it is important that they know of the advancements in the field. There are many online courses and books on artificial intelligence that give a comprehensive understanding to the reader whether it is a professional or an AI enthusiast.

Organisations across the world are witnessing talent shortage in AI and are struggling to hire competent employees in this ever-changing landscape. Since every company is striving for a data-driven approach, there is a rise in the integration of technologies such as artificial intelligence, data science, among others, to achieve business objectives. However, the absence of superior talent in the market is impeding the growth of firms. In fact, research tells us that 85% of AI projects fail due to risk, confusion and lack of upskilling in the employees. "It is very challenging to get excellent developers in the space even though AI and Data Science has been the most sought-after skill," says Gaurav Mehrotra, vice president and head of business data solutions at Innoviti Payment Solutions. A recent report published by noted online learning platform Coursera states that out of the 45 million learners on the platform, two million enrolled in AI-based content in 2019.

Tue 17 Dec 2019 02.00 EST Last modified on Tue 17 Dec 2019 02.02 EST Need a new smartphone but don't know which one is the very best? Here's a guide comparing the current top-end smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus and others to help you pick the best handset for you. There has never been a better time to buy a new flagship smartphone with many quality handsets available at a wider range of prices than ever before. Whether your priority is two-day battery life, fantastic camera performance or a spectacular screen, there's plenty to choose from. This Guardian buyer's guide to top-end smartphones was last updated on 17 December 2019, and represents the best available models at the time. As new models are released and tested, this guide will be updated to help you choose the right flagship phone for you. Welcome to one of the Guardian's new buyer's guides.

Honda Motor Co. will be the first automaker in Japan to release a domestically produced car with "level three" autonomy, sources have said. Level three autonomous driving technologies will be mounted on Honda's new Legend luxury sedan, set to be launched as early as summer 2020, the sources said. With the level three technologies, drivers will be able to leave operation of their car to the vehicle itself during traffic congestion on expressways. Next spring, Japan will enforce a revised road traffic law to permit the driving of level three autonomous vehicles on public roads. With the technologies that Honda will mount on the Legend, drivers will not need to operate the accelerator or the wheel during congestion on expressways.

A new method for making deepfakes creates realistic face-swapped videos in real-time, no lengthy training needed. Most of the deepfakes that are shared online are created by feeding an algorithm hundreds or thousands of images of a specific face. The algorithm "trains" on that specific face so it can swap it into the target video. This can take hours or days even with access to expensive hardware, and even longer with consumer-grade PC components. A program that doesn't need to be trained on each new target is another leap forward in making realistic deepfakes quicker and easier to create.