SAN FRANCISCO – In a few weeks, Uber will start using self-driving cars to carry passengers in Pittsburgh, raising the stakes in an intensifying race to deploy autonomous vehicles. The ride-hailing company said Thursday that customers will be able to opt into the test program, which will use autonomous Ford Fusions summoned through the touch of a smartphone. Although other companies are testing self-driving cars on public roads, this is the first time the public can get access to them. The rides, which come with a human backup driver to handle situations that the autonomous cars haven't seen, will be free to those willing to take part, the company said. Uber, which has a self-driving research lab in Pittsburgh, has no immediate plans to deploy autonomous cars beyond the Pittsburgh experiment.

Users arriving at, say, an airport would book a seat on a so-called zenHop "CityAirbus" drone, then proceed to a "zenHub" helipad, according to the concept. They'd be flown to their destination for about the same cost as a taxi, since the ride would be shared by several passengers. Luggage would be delivered by another service (zenLuggage, of course), and the whole thing would be safeguarded from hackers by (wait for it) zenCyber. The company said that the CityAirbus multi-rotor, electric aircraft design has been "kept under wraps," though it did supply an artist's impression (above). The Airbus Helicopter subsidiary has been working on the drone-like design for two years, and it "could soon become reality without having to wait for too many regulatory changes," according to the press release. Airbus is also working on a drone delivery service (below) and plans to start testing it at a Singapore university by mid-2017.

Ride-hailing service Uber will start hauling passengers with self-driving cars on the streets of Pittsburgh in next several weeks. The company says the self-driving Volvo XC90 cars will have human backup drivers to begin with, but the announcement will surely ring alarm bells amongst the country's 327,000 Uber drivers and millions who drive for a living who could be out of a job. Uber's cars are outfitted with cameras, lasers and sensors to help them navigate the city's streets. Ride-hailing service Uber says it will start hauling passengers with self-driving Volvo CX90 cars on the streets of Pittsburgh in next several weeks. But the company said they will also have back-up drivers.

An Uber driver sits in his car near San Francisco International Airport on July 15, 2015. Uber and Volvo will invest a combined 300 million into a joint project to develop self-driving vehicles, the companies announced Thursday. In a statement, the companies said they will equip base vehicles with autonomous driving technology, ultimately moving toward manufacturing self-driving vehicles. Volvo will make the vehicles, while Uber purchases those vehicles and implement its own self-driving tech. "Over one million people die in car accidents every year," said Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in a statement.

BBC Worldwide today announces a partnership with start-up Thoughtly, leaders in artificial intelligence solutions. With the rate and magnitude of content produced, consumed and disseminated growing the support of even more sophisticated technology is crucial. This, the latest partnership for BBC Worldwide's Insight team, offers an opportunity to explore how machine learning can support its commitment in gaining a deeper understanding of which genres are most in demand, and where. Following an initial trial, BBC Worldwide and Thoughtly have recently completed a more detailed piece of analysis – which includes looking at synopses and descriptions of programmes alongside data mining- to tease out more detail as how best to categorise individual titles. David Boyle, EVP Insight, BBC Worldwide said: "We are excited that Thoughtly can help us reveal patterns and trends previously unknown and hidden in our content. "Through working with Thoughtly, and utilising machine learning, we are building a deeper understanding of our content so that it can be paired with the most relevant audiences for both the BBC Worldwide and our partners." We are working together to answer some key analytical questions including: What are the recurring and elusive patterns that transcend the various genres in our catalogue? And how have themes evolved over the years - which have grown, declined, appeared and dissipated?"

Mphasis,a leading IT services and solutions provider, today launched Digital Acceleration Program – Sparks;. Sparks accelerates digital transformation for organizations without them having to invest in future proof technology or research labs by constantly bringing in industry disruptors revolutionizing the global banking and insurance sectors. These partnerships are a catalyst in verticalyzing cutting-edge digital technology to help Mphasis; customers pragmatically deliver end-to-end solutions. Sparks currently introduces two vital elements Customer Experience; and Data, Information Intelligence; aspects of digital. Sparks evolution roadmap consists of bringing in three other elements: Commerce, Operations, and Architecture Technology Transformation.

Mphasis, a leading IT services and solutions provider, today launched'Digital Acceleration Program - Sparks'. Sparks accelerates digital transformation for organizations without them having to invest in future proof technology or research labs by constantly bringing in industry disruptors revolutionizing the global banking and insurance sectors. These partnerships are a catalyst in verticalyzing cutting-edge digital technology to help Mphasis' customers pragmatically deliver end-to-end solutions. Sparks currently introduces two vital elements'Customer Experience' and'Data, Information & Intelligence' aspects of digital. Sparks evolution roadmap consists of bringing in three other elements: Commerce, Operations, and Architecture & Technology Transformation.

Ford announced a due date for its self-driving future. Stepping on the gas could soon be a thing of the past -- as well as hitting the brakes, or getting behind the wheel altogether. Ford has announced its plan to develop fully autonomous cars by 2021. The company sees fully autonomous cars as having "as big of an impact on society" as its moving assembly lines did a century ago, Ford President and CEO Mark Fields said in a press conference yesterday. "A driver is not going to be required."

The race for who will come to the market with an auto-piloted car is heating up again. Ford has announced that it will have a fleet of autonomous cars on the road by 2021. The driverless vehicles will be available for ride sharing. The company said it will more than double its team devoted to developing autonomous driving, and invest even more money in its Silicon Valley campus. Ford's CEO Mark Fields has said that the company will triple its investment in the technology which includes currently available help with parking and avoiding traffic jams.

The MegaFace dataset contains 1 million images representing more than 690,000 unique people. It is the first benchmark that tests facial recognition algorithms at a million scale.University of Washington In the last few years, several groups have announced that their facial recognition systems have achieved near-perfect accuracy rates, performing better than humans at picking the same face out of the crowd. But those tests were performed on a dataset with only 13,000 images -- fewer people than attend an average professional U.S. soccer game. What happens to their performance as those crowds grow to the size of a major U.S. city? University of Washington researchers answered that question with the MegaFace Challenge, the world's first competition aimed at evaluating and improving the performance of face recognition algorithms at the million person scale.