Waymo announced today that it's partnering with the Phoenix area's regional public transportation authority, Valley Metro, in order to explore whether self-driving vehicles are an effective way to get people to and from public transportation. Starting in August, Valley Metro employees will be able to hail a Waymo ride via the company's app for their first- and last-mile transit connections. Waymo said in its announcement that as cities grow, "the'last mile' -- how people connect to public transportation efficiently, affordably and safely -- is one of the main challenges communities struggle to solve." With its Valley Metro partnership, Waymo aims to test how autonomous vehicles can help fill those mobility gaps. Following the first phase of the partnership, Waymo will then open up its transportation service to those using Valley Metro's RideChoice service, which provides discounted rides to seniors and people with disabilities.

MoviePass is going to stop people seeing popular films as it struggles to remain afloat. Subscribers will have to pay more for their subscription and will be banned from using their free tickets to see some of the biggest movies when they are released, the company announced. MoviePass has been struggling in recent weeks, as it has been hit by service outages, and complaints. At least some of those problems appear to have been caused by money problems at the company, amid suggestions that the cheap subscription price and free cinema tickets is failing to generate enough revenue. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

The big apple's traffic is getting much much worse thanks to carpooling services like Uber and Lyft. Uber has been using its self-driving trucks to transport goods in Arizona. SAN FRANCISCO -- What a long, strange trip it's been for Uber's self-driving truck division. The ride-hailing company announced Monday that it was, for now, parking its effort to develop commercially viable self-driving trucks in order to focus on bringing autonomous cars to its service. "We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh," Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, said in a statement provided to USA TODAY.

Drive.ai's autonomous ride-hailing service has launched in Frisco, Texas, providing transportation between Hall Park offices and The Star. The company announced in May that the service was on the way, and while a safety driver will be present in the vehicle at launch, Drive.ai plans to transition to a passenger seat chaperone and then passenger-only rides going forward. "Today is the exciting start to our on-demand ride service, which we hope will benefit a community and increase understanding of and confidence in self-driving technology," the company said in a blog post today. Drive.ai said that it has not only spent the last few months collecting data on its geofenced route in Frisco, but it has also logged over one million simulated miles along the route. "Simulations are a major component of our approach to self-driving, as running comprehensive simulations improves our vehicles' ability to foresee and handle a wider variety of driving scenarios -- those that are common, and those that are less so," said the company.

Solvvy's innovative AI-powered conversational platform enables effortless support interactions between businesses and customers Solvvy, a conversational platform powered by AI, announced today that Aragon Research, Inc. has named the company a 2018 Hot Vendor in Conversational AI1. Solvvy was selected based on its advanced AI and NLP technology and the measurable impact of cost savings and quality of service it delivers to its fast-growing customer base that includes leading brands such as Under Armour, SoundCloud, Weebly, and Atlassian. "Solvvy's advanced self-service capabilities and conversational platform can be put into production with minimal effort and immediately begin solving customer issues," said Jim Lundy, CEO and Lead Analyst at Aragon Research, Inc. "They provide fast time-to-value while improving the overall customer experience." According to the report, "Self-service is becoming accepted and pervasive across industries and roles: From supermarkets and big-box stores to online shopping, people are becoming accustomed to less interaction with human help. They are discovering that they can check out faster, find better answers, or explore new ideas more easily and less expensively if they control the processes themselves."

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced that several new European clients have selected IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, the company said. New contracts signed with Spanish electricity grid operator Red Elà ctrica de Espaà a, Italian elderly care provider Cooperativa Sole, Dutch telecommunications operator Tele2 and Israeli manufacturer of smart air conditioning Electra Group are examples of IBM s commitment to transforming business and improving operations with the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled, IBM Cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Red Elà ctrica de Espaà a (http://www.ree.es/en), the sole transmission agent and operator of the national electricity system in Spain has selected IBM Watson IoT technologies as part of its Intelligent Asset Management initiative project. Israel s manufacturer and distributor of consumer goods, is collaborating with IBM to create smart air conditioning solutions, which incorporate Watson IoT technology.

Dubai: The UAE and India on Saturday signed an agreement to spur discussion and explore options for both countries to grow their artificial intelligence economies. The UAE Minister for Artificial Intelligence and Invest India signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the India-UAE Artificial Intelligence Bridge. The partnership will generate an estimated $20 billion (Dh73.4 billion) in economic benefits during the next decade. The UAE-India collaboration will seek to evaluate the dynamic nature of innovation and technology by convening a UAE-India AI Working Committee (TWG) between the UAE Ministry for Artificial Intelligence, Invest India and Startup India. The TWG will meet once a year with the mandate to increase investment in AI start-ups and research activities in partnership with the private sector.

How does the banking industry plan to get rid of money and what should be changed in people's daily life? More than 2,000 bank branches were closed in the US in 2017. Some of them are shut for financial reasons; however, digitalization of the banking sphere has also contributed to this number. To reduce the number of onsite offices in favor of digital ones, banks should address a range of technological issues. For example, provide 24/7 client access to their banks from anywhere globally.

Amazon's online facial recognition system incorrectly matched pictures of US Congress members to mugshots of suspected criminals in a study by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU, a nonprofit headquartered in New York, has called for Congress to ban cops and Feds from using any sort of computer-powered facial recognition technology due to the fact that, well, it sucks. Amazon's AI-powered Rekognition service was previously criticized by the ACLU when it revealed the web giant was aggressively marketing its face-matching tech to police in Washington County, Oregon, and Orlando, Florida. Rekognition is touted by the Bezos Bunch as, among other applications, a way to identify people in real time from surveillance camera footage or from officers' body cameras. The results from the ACLU's latest probing showed that Rekognition mistook images of 28 members of Congress for mugshots of cuffed people suspected of crimes.

WIRE)--MapR Technologies, Inc., provider of the industry's leading data platform for AI and Analytics, today announced the line-up for its North American Convergence Conference. The full-day event focus on how to solve real-world problems by harnessing disruptions in data, artificial intelligence, cloud, containers and edge technologies. "Very thought provoking sessions by big data practitioners. Learning new ways to build data intensive applications was the most beneficial part of the event," remarked a Convergence London attendee. Convergence will kick-off in San Diego on Wednesday, August 15 at 9:10 am with keynote speaker Dawn Barry, co-founder and president, Luna DNA.