The lidar grid is visible using night vision during the test of the Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous car. Ford researchers took a Fusion Hybrid autonomous test vehicle to its proving grounds in Arizona to put its lidar sensors through their paces – in pitch black darkness. It was so dark the researchers who were monitoring the test wore night vision goggles. The test was important not just for the cool factor of driving without lights in the darkness like a sci-fi spy. Many autonomous car systems use several types of sensors, including cameras and radar in addition to lidar.

A new research initiative could provide the building blocks for a program that would send robots trillions of miles into space to better understand our neighboring star system. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Starshot project, the latest in Mr. Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives started in 2015. Breakthrough Starshot aims to send data-seeking nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the solar system, using laser propulsion. While the Breakthrough board of Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg just announced Starshot on Tuesday, they say it may not launch for 20 years, conservatively – and wouldn't reach Alpha Centauri for another 20 after that, despite traveling at one-fifth the speed of light. "We came to the conclusion it can be done: interstellar travel," Milner told The New York Times.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attacked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's extreme stance on refugees and immigrants during a speech on Tuesday, criticizing "fearful voices for building walls and distancing people they view as others." The founder of the social network spoke about Facebook's goal of sharing ideas during his company's annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco, when he said "instead of building walls, we can help build bridges," by welcoming refugees and immigrants. "It takes courage to choose hope over fear," he said. "Whether we are welcoming a refugee fleeing war or an immigrant seeking opportunity." Facebook launched the FWD.us immigration reform lobbying group in 2013, which advocates for legislation that supports a more open worker visa process.

Facebook plans to unveil two projects on Wednesday that promise to improve Internet connectivity for users in cities and urban areas. The two, called Aries and Terragraph, will be detailed at its F8 conference in San Francisco, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. Together, they represent an extension of Facebook's connectivity efforts that so far have been most closely identified with Aquila, a high-flying drone designed by the company to beam down an Internet signal to remote areas. Getting people online and keeping them connected is key to Facebook's expansion plans. After all, it won't be able to persuade new users to come to its services if the Internet connection isn't reliable.

Facebook's F8 developer conference has only been going for a few hours, and already there's been some huge announcements. Gone are the days when F8 was just for announcing newsfeed redesigns - in the opening keynote speeches, we've heard about a brand new Messenger chatbot platform, a solar-powered WiFi plane, and all kinds of live video innovations. Here's some of the main things we learned at the F8 opening event. Zuckerberg straight away took a thinly-veiled swipe at the Republican presidential candidate while talking about Facebook's plan to'connect the world'. Speaking to the assembled crowd of developers, Zuckerberg said: "As I look around the world, I'm starting to see people and nations turning inwards, against the idea of a connected world and global community."

The marriage of computing power and data is finally bearing fruit in the field of cognitive computing, sometimes called machine learning or, more controversially, artificial intelligence. In its most everyday form, we see it in tools such as Google Translate or Microsoft's Bing Translate, which can translate phrases and documents effortlessly across multiple languages. More futuristically, the promise of self-driving vehicles, which can complete entire road journeys without driver intervention, is already being realised. Yet the biggest revolution in work is happening at some of the most basic levels, such as reading and dissecting legal documents to extract meaning and useful information. The tedious slog of work can be transformed by computers which are able to read and parse legal phrases, and summarise them or enter relevant details into a database or spreadsheet.

The Bible is an unusual book, as it is not only the most controversial but also the best-selling book ever written. Now, a ground-breaking digital analysis has revealed how many writers have penned it. The research and innovative technology behind it stand to teach us about the origins of the Bible itself. "It's well understood that the Bible was not composed in real time but was probably written and edited later," Arie Shaus, a mathematician at Tel Aviv University told Gizmodo. "The question is, when exactly?"

Here is how I think about these issues. The Artificial in AI can sometimes mislead so let's start by getting rid of the A and asking instead whether more NI, Natural Intelligence, will decimate the middle class. As I said in my TED talk, the brainpower of China and India in the 20th century was essentially "offline". Instead of contributing to the world technological frontier the people of China and India were just barely feeding themselves. China and India are now coming online and I see the increase in natural intelligence as one of the most hopeful facts for the future.

Artificial intelligence is poised to automate lots of service jobs. The White House has estimated there's an 83% chance that someone making less than 20 will eventually lose their job to a computer. That means gigs like customer service rep could soon be extinct. But it's not just low-paying positions that will get replaced. AI also could cause high earning(like top 5% of American salaries) jobs to disappear.

The bots are, for sure, coming to Facebook. After nearly a year of rumors circulating about Facebook creating a bot store and several other apps releasing such a system, the company has announced its own system for users to communicate with businesses without another human on the other line. "I don't know anyone who likes calling businesses," said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "We think there's got to be a better way to do this. Facebook released Messenger Platform Tuesday, Zuckerberg announced at the company's annual F8 developers conference. Launch partners include CNN and 1-800-Flowers. The system now lets a Messenger user get news from CNN and order flowers, for example, by chatting with a bot. "To order from 1-800-Flowers, you never have to call 1-800-Flowers again," Zuckerberg said, inspiring laughs from the audience. Additionally, Facebook released an application programming interface for live video, which means app developers can integrate Facebook's live product into their own apps or websites. For example, drone manufacturers can integrate Facebook Live into their devices to live-stream video from a drone. Not every developer at F8 or beyond the conference may choose to build a company on Facebook's chatbots, but it can be a quicker way to grow and establish a business than trying to market one's own app. "You're going to see a lot of really successful small businesses that are chatbot-based.