As Uber rolls out its first self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh, Tesla and Mercedes roll out limited self-driving capabilities and cities around the world negotiate with companies who want to bring self-driving cars and trucks to their cities, I thought it might be interesting to think through the implications of a fully implemented self-driving transportation network. Depending on who you listen to, a driverless world could happen as soon as 3 years or as far out as 20 or 30 years or more. Below are my thoughts about what a driverless future will be like. What could happen when cars and trucks drive themselves? Transport will delivered as a service from companies who own fleets of self-driving vehicles. There are so many technical, economic, safety advantages to the transportation-as-a-service that this change may come much faster than most people expect Software/technology companies will own more of the world's economy as companies like Uber, Google and Amazon turn transportation into a pay-as-you-go service.

The other day, my 13-year old brought home a not-so-great report card. I wanted to motivate him to do better, so I asked, "What do you want to do with your life?" Then, he looked down at our dog, sleeping contentedly on the floor. He looked back at me, and said, "Dad, I want to be a pet of the robot overlords." Then I realized…throughout history, those who do best leverage the technology of the day.

For the casual internet user, a quick Google search is often all it takes to find plenty of information on any particular topic. But for specialized financial research, analysts often find themselves laboriously searching proprietary databases, regulatory filings, and paywalled sources that aren't even indexed by the big search engines, says Jack Kokko, the founder and CEO of financial search engine company AlphaSense. That's why he and cofounder and CTO Raj Neervannan created AlphaSense, which applies natural language processing and machine learning techniques to let users find relevant information in financial documents. "It started from my first job out of college as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, where I was, as every analyst, going through these huge piles of paper on my desk and trying to find information very manually--nights and days spent toiling through that information and still fearing that I'm missing a lot," Kokko says. The San Francisco-based company takes in information from thousands of licensed data sources, as well as public web sources like news reports, and automatically processes them to extract meaning on a sentence-by-sentence level.

The growing competitiveness of China and shifting political landscapes mean that 2017 holds some uncertainties for supercomputing. Yet familiar technologies remain strong and provide a stable foundation with fewer surprises. Here are four predictions of where the industry is headed in 2017. Despite gaining ground as a marketing term, and being a rich field for basic and applied research, it's highly doubtful we'll see the emergence of AI as a dominant force in the next 12 months. We're still far from the "singularity" that so many of us tech-geeks fear, so don't expect AI to jump out of marketing copy and begin hunting us down a la The Terminator by next Christmas.

Why Samsung May Release A Foldable Smartphone Next Year -- Even If It Won't Make Them Any Money By all accounts, 2016 has been an extraordinary year for Silicon Valley. Not only have the technology behemoths mustered a growing influence on Capitol Hill, their sheer market capitalization also testifies to one undeniable fact: They are the ones who change the world. The tech industry's missions are unapologetic and filled with passion. Their corporate myths are often wrapped up in their early days as startups. That some awkward twenty-year-old could turn their social ineptness into their biggest advantage and build a global enterprise from their garage is the highest expression of the American dream.

You might not expect an oceanographer to be high on NASA's speed dial, but when the space agency needed help mounting a mission to Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, it called one: Chris German. Ever since the geochemist found hydrothermal vents teeming with life in the Atlantic Ocean in 1997, he's been an Indiana Jones in the search for vents, creatures, and the origins of life. A senior scientist at Woods Hole, German was among the first to use programmable underwater robots to explore the seafloor. The skill to operate them in difficult conditions--15,000 feet deep and under 10-foot-thick ice--is what NASA likes about him. Last September, they teamed up for a two-month Arctic expedition, a dry run for what NASA might one day try on Europa.

The idea of a firm whose employees' actions are completely dictated by a computer may sound like the plot of the latest science fiction blockbuster. But the futuristic idea could soon be a reality for the world's biggest hedge fund (stock image) From teleporters to holodecks: Here are five Star Trek... France unveils the world's first solar panel road: Half-mile... Stunning satellite image reveals historic snowfall over the... Cyber doomsday is coming: Experts warn the ENTIRE internet... From teleporters to holodecks: Here are five Star Trek... France unveils the world's first solar panel road: Half-mile... Stunning satellite image reveals historic snowfall over the... Cyber doomsday is coming: Experts warn the ENTIRE internet... Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, is leading a secret project, called'The Book of the Future' that would automate the firm's management A young thug is filmed fly kicking a lady in the back Male guests in a Chinese wedding flock to harass a bridesmaid Guests throw chairs as huge fight breaks out during wedding Woman goes on racist rant while waiting in line at J.C. Penney Shocking video shows a Texas mother hitting her daughter Angela Rye shares video of her invasive ordeal with TSA agent Cop brutally arrests black mom who reported assault on her son Dramatic moment man removed from flight for'speaking Arabic' Girl walks around London with no jeans - can the public tell? Body cam footage shows moments before two Georgia cops are shot Black blues musician explores racism by befriending the KKK Hilarious moment boy's sneeze knocks prairie dog off its feet Woman goes on racist rant while waiting in line at J.C. Penney Dramatic moment man removed from flight for'speaking Arabic' Girl walks around London with no jeans - can the public tell? Hilarious moment boy's sneeze knocks prairie dog off its feet REVEALED: The Brooklyn lawyer who chased down Ivanka on a... Sick ISIS savages film themselves burning two Turkish... Surprise! The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Newswire) Investorideas.com, a global news source and investor resource covering actively traded sectors announces this week's additions to its membership global stock directories in technology, mining, energy, biotech and marijuana/hemp. The biggest addition is an entire new section to the Tech Stocks lists featuring Artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotics companies. Robotics have been with us for some time now - assisting with simple chores (like the Roomba vacuum) all the way though space flight and to police bomb squad and military uses. Some names in our list will be recognizable as having been in the tech sector for some time and robotics/AI is just another branch for them - companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook that have become an everyday part of our lives. Also included are assembly-line robotics companies and companies making robotic parts, all the way to makers of machine vision technologies and automotive intelligence tech.

By all accounts, 2016 has been an extraordinary year for Silicon Valley. Not only have the technology behemoths mustered a growing influence on Capitol Hill, their sheer market capitalization also testifies to one undeniable fact: They are the ones who change the world. The tech industry's missions are unapologetic and filled with passion. Their corporate myths are often wrapped up in their early days as startups. That some awkward twenty-year-old could turn their social ineptness into their biggest advantage and build a global enterprise from their garage is the highest expression of the American dream.

In a forecasting exercise, Gordon Earle Moore, co-founder of Intel, plotted data on the number of components--transistors, resistors, and capacitors--in chips made from 1959 to 1965. He saw an approximate straight line on log paper (see Figure 1). Extrapolating the line, he speculated that the number of components would grow from 26 in 1965 to 216 in 1975, doubling every year. His 1965–1975 forecast came true. In 1975, with more data, he revised the estimate of the doubling period to two years. In those days, doubling components also doubled chip speed because the greater number of components could perform more powerful operations and smaller circuits allowed faster clock speeds. Later, Moore's Intel colleague David House claimed the doubling time for speed should be taken as 18 months because of increasing clock speed, whereas Moore maintained that the doubling time for components was 24 months. But clock speed stabilized around 2000 because faster speeds caused more heat dissipation than chips could withstand. Since then, the faster speeds are achieved with multi-core chips at the same clock frequency. Moore's Law is one of the most durable technology forecasts ever made.10,20,31,33 It is the emblem of the information age, the relentless march of the computer chip enabling a technical, economic, and social revolution never before experienced by humanity. The standard explanation for Moore's Law is that the law is not really a law at all, but only an empirical, self-fulfilling relationship driven by economic forces. This explanation is too weak, however, to explain why the law has worked for more than 50 years and why exponential growth works not only at the chip level but also at the system and market levels. Consider two prominent cases of systems evolution.