"Self-driving cars are here," Dmitri Dolgov told the audience at MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital event this week. It's a matter of how fast we can grow and how fast we can scale this technology in a responsible manner." Waymo's CTO is right: The outfit that started off as Google's self-driving car project is running a limited robotaxi service in the Phoenix metro area. Dolgov also told the audience that the company has tech yet to crack.) GM Cruise plans to launch a service this year. Uber is testing in Pittsburgh. Lyft and Aptiv have a limited self-driving service in Las Vegas. Nuro's delivery bots are hauling groceries around Texas and Arizona. May Mobility is running robo-shuttles in Detroit. So for the public sharing the roads with these things, a few long lurking questions are now more pressing than ever: How do we know these things are safe? And how can the companies that promise they are prove it to us? One thing is for sure: The way we certify human drivers ain't going ...

Spotify has launched a new offer that finally allows you to share your subscription with the most important person in your life. The feature – named "Premium Duo" – allows people to buy a cheaper subscription between two people, letting them sign up with their partner or someone else important in their life. As well as offering a way of getting a Spotify subscription more cheaply, the new deal gives people extra features that aren't usually available on the service. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

Apple has apologised over its MacBook's broken keyboards, and asked that anyone affected get in touch with the company's customer service team. Controversy has raged for years over Apple's latest keyboards, now found across its laptops, which use a mechanism that was first introduced along with the new laptops in 2016. Users complain that the "butterfly" mechanism found in those computers is prone to breaking, meaning that keys will simply stop working and their users will no longer be able to type. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

Samsung claims to have fixed one of the biggest concerns surrounding its new Galaxy Fold device. Part smartphone, part tablet, the Galaxy Fold is part of a new generation of foldable phones coming out in 2019, though secrecy still shrouding the handset has led to speculation that the device still has some issues. A recently leaked video appeared to show a visible crease down the centre of the main screen, which was said to appear after around 10,000 folds of the phone. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

Microsoft has banned its staff from taking part in hoaxes and lies on April Fools' Day. Making things up and tricking people into believing them has become a staple of the tech industry at the beginning of April in recent years. Google, particularly, has led the way – but much of the technology industry has undertaken increasingly overwrought and convincing pranks as time has gone on. Many of those hoaxes and lies have accidentally led to negative coverage, as well as the spreading of the kind of misinformation that companies like Facebook and Google have repeatedly been accused of spreading. We'll tell you what's true.

LG has announced that the G8 will arrive on April 11th, with pre-orders starting March 29th at major carriers including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget's parent company). It'll undercut its South Korean rival's price by a fair margin -- pricing starts at $820 up front versus Samsung's $900, and that's before the usual promos that knock as much as $150 off the price. Whether or not it's worth the savings over the S10 will likely depend on just how much you like LG's rather unusual priorities. You don't get a telephoto lens or 8GB of RAM ('just' 6GB) for the money, but you do get party tricks like in-the-air hand gestures, an OLED display that doubles as the speaker and a more secure, depth-based face unlock. That's not including more familiar staples like the quad DAC and a dedicated Google Assistant button.

When you're shopping, you probably have a general look in mind. But how do you describe that to a shopping site? It's implementing a feature that uses computer vision to find items that resemble what you're looking at. Tap the three-dot menu next to a product and it'll give you both simple category buttons (such as "athletic shoes") as well as a "looks like this" option to find visually similar items. Eye a green set of sneakers, for instance, and you should see comparable footwear without having to construct an elaborate search. This AI-guided shopping is available in eBay's Android and iOS apps right now, though it's currently only available in the US, UK, Australia and Germany.

President Donald Trump and his top U.S. military adviser met with Google's CEO about concerns that Silicon Valley's AI collaborations in China may benefit the Chinese military. Such worries reflect awareness of how certain technologies developed for civilian purposes can also provide military advantages in the strategic competition playing out between the United States and China. The meeting comes after General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, leveled pointed criticism at Google for pursuing technological collaborations with Chinese partners, during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 14 March. The spotlight's glare on Google grew harsher when President Trump followed up on Twitter: "Google is helping China and their military, but not the U.S. Terrible!" But beyond the focus on Google, the Pentagon seems more broadly concerned about U.S. tech companies inadvertently giving China a leg up in developing AI applications with military and national security implications.

Scientists have developed and tested an artificial intelligence (AI)-based computer system to predict the risk of early death due to chronic diseases in a large middle-aged population. The system of computer-based'machine learning' algorithms was very accurate in its predictions and performed better than the current standard approach to prediction developed by human experts, according to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE. Researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK used health data from over half a million people aged between 40 and 69 recruited to the UK Biobank between 2006 and 2010 and followed up until 2016. "Most applications focus on a single disease area but predicting death due to several different disease outcomes is highly complex, especially given environmental and individual factors that may affect them," said Stephen Weng, Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham. "We have taken a major step forward in this field by developing a unique and holistic approach to predicting a person's risk of premature death by machine-learning," Weng said in a statement.

The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) is organizing the Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence Forum on April 5. The event will take place at Concordia's 4TH SPACE, an innovative and immersive venue for state-of-the-art installations, which will permit leading experts from around the world to gather to discuss this emerging technology's implication for human rights. MIGS has convened thought leaders and practitioners with the goal of understanding how new technologies are disrupting global affairs. MIGS has worked with Global Affairs Canada and Tech Against Terrorism to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) can counter online extremism and how non-state actors might use AI for nefarious purposes. MIGS has also presented work on AI at the Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp organized by the Dutch Foreign Ministry.