Instead of flying cars, get ready for fleets of small "air taxis" zipping from hub to hub within a region, delivering passengers to their destinations. The company wants a world where you take an Uber to one of its flight hubs, hop into a eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) craft and be whisked to another hub on the other side of town. That model would be unsustainable if a city were to add multiple hubs and potentially hundreds of air taxis. "We think it's kind of funny when people call us a flying car -- if Vahana is a flying car then so is a helicopter!"

This weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer. That means the time has come for taking hikes, playing frisbee, and spending long hours in a pool near you. But for a certain class of folks--the species known as "bookworm"--summer is the ideal time to practice their page-turning. But with so many new tomes hitting shelves, it's hard to know where to start. Below are some of our favorite books of 2017.

It is my pleasure to be invited here to give this keynote speech about a topic I happen to be particularly passionate about. Today's conference is also the two-month anniversary of the formation of the Data Analytics Group, or DAG for short. Hence a timely opportunity for us to share, from the onset, our approach – the direction in which we are heading – and what it means to us, in putting data science and machine learning in practice. We will take a broader perspective on this topic. We are now starting to put in place the necessary tools, infrastructure and skillsets to harness the power of data science to unlock insights, sharpen surveillance of risks, enhance regulatory compliance and transform the way we do work.

It's going to take a lot of humans to create the kind of artificial intelligence that could replace truckers, financial analysts, and customer service representatives with robots. U.S. employers will spend more than $650 million on annual salaries for 10,000 jobs in AI this year, according to a study from career and hiring data firm Paysa. The 2-year-old firm touts itself as the only platform to use AI to deliver personalized job and salary recommendations. It was founded by Chris Bolte, Zachary Poley, Nikhil Raj and Patrick Harrington -- all formerly of Walmart Labs and Walmart's engineering and product teams. The firm uses millions of data points like job openings, resumes, and compensation to determine the market value of individual skills.

The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) and AI start-up BenevolentAI have announced a potentially major breakthrough in the treatment of motor neuron disease, thanks to artificial intelligence. The groundbreaking development for the disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), came about as scientists from SITraN assessed the efficacy of a drug candidate proposed by BenevolentAI's AI technology. The scientists, led by Dr. Richard Mead and Dr. Laura Ferraiuolo, found there are significant and reproducible indications that the drug prevents the death of motor neurones in patient cell models, and delayed the onset of the disease in the gold standard model of ALS. SITraN is now moving to the next phase of its research, advancing the existing study and assessing the suitability and potential for clinical development. It expects to publish an abstract at the Motor Neurone Disease Association 28th International Symposium in Boston in December.

Clever computers that learn on the job could recast Britain's job market - for better or worse. What are the parties vying for power in the general election saying on the subject? Twenty-nine-year-old Lee Hayhow is the third generation of his family to work as a lorry driver, following his father and grandfather. He is proud of his job. "I've always enjoyed lorries and driving. I trained as a professional driver. I always do it to the best of my ability. He estimates it costs £3,000 to train as a heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) driver. Mr Hayhow's employer, O'Donovan Waste Disposal, paid for this, but not all firms do, he says. And he would be delighted to see the next generation of Hayhows - his two young daughters - follow his career path. But by then, the decision may not be theirs to take. Lorry driving, like many other jobs that help power the British economy, could be facing a huge shake-up. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) - a field of computer science in which machines are taught to carry out tasks that require human traits of thought or intelligence - have led some to predict a knock-on catastrophe for jobs. Nowhere is the exponential growth of AI more apparent than in the race towards self-driving vehicles. There have been stark warnings about its impact on the jobs market as computer programs are honed to perform a number of roles, including call centre work, banking and paralegal responsibilities, retail and catering tasks, and journalism. Up to 46% of jobs in Scotland could be at risk within the next decade, the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland recently claimed. Accountancy firm PwC predicted 30% of existing jobs in the UK could be "at high risk of automation" by the 2030s. Calum Chace, author of Surviving AI and the Economic Singularity, foresees "quite a lot" of unemployment caused by the takeover of technology "in a decade and a lot in two decades". "The industrial revolution was mechanisation and humans had something else to offer - cognitive skills.

In mythology unicorns are skittish things, and in business they appear little easier to pin down. EP Vantage has compiled a list of private start-up companies in the healthcare arena that are widely considered to be worth more than $1bn; notably it features very few makers of human therapeutics. Instead these unicorns are involved in cutting-edge computational research such as artificial intelligence, sequencing or virtual reality, or are in risky, unproven areas. It is plausible that one of the reasons they have not been bought is because no acquirer knows where to put them (see table below). Those that are in the business of developing human therapeutics are working in the as-yet unproven field of mRNA - Moderna Therapeutics and Curevac.

PBS NewsHour full episode, May 25, 2017 Live now PBS NewsHour full episode, May 25, 2017 Show more This item has been hidden Uploads Play all 55:04 PBS NewsHour full episode May 25, 2017 - Duration: 55 minutes. PBS NewsHour full episode, May 25, 2017 4:57 Why the lessons of Mister Rogers never go away - Duration: 4 minutes, 57 seconds. Streamed 6 hours ago This item has been hidden Political analysis with Mark Shields and David Brooks Play all 12:22 Shields and Brooks on the barrage of Trump revelations - Duration: 12 minutes. This item has been hidden Brief but Spectacular Play all 3:30 Will artificial intelligence help us solve every problem? - Duration: 3 minutes, 30 seconds. This item has been hidden ScienceScope Play all 5:46 These cement-making bacteria could build the cities of the future - Duration: 5 minutes, 46 seconds.

BEIJING, May 25, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gridsum Holding Inc. ("Gridsum" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:GSUM), a leading provider of cloud-based big-data analytics, machine learning and AI solutions in China, today announced that, as a part of its strategic evolution, it has consolidated all of its artificial intelligence ("AI") activities strategically, technically and organizationally into a new division called the Gridsum Prophet. Gridsum is a first mover in China in big data intelligence. Since 2005, the Company has utilized a distributed big-data computing architecture, developed and implemented sophisticated natural language processing ("NLP"), and leveraged machine learning directed toward large enterprise clients. During that time, from serving large enterprise customers, the Company has accumulated deep domain knowledge and expertise as well as a massive amount of data that fuels its machine learning algorithms. Since this early inception, the Company has continued to stay at the forefront through focus and investment, hiring and training extraordinary engineers and architects and, importantly, playing an active and leading role in the AI academic and developer communities.

Drones have been the focus of many security initiatives, like the "sky fence" in the Channel Islands that jams pilot signals to stop drones from bringing contraband into the prison. Remotely piloted aircraft can also be a force for good, like in Africa where drones are being used to stop poaching. In the US, you may not have to register your personal drones with the FAA anymore, but you might not want to fly them where they're not allowed. New draft legislation from the Trump administration would authorize the government to track, take control of, and destroy drones that the government thinks pose a threat to specially designated areas. In addition, courts would be unable to hear lawsuits arising from such activity.