The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating Tesla Motor Co. for possibly breaking securities law by failing to disclose that one of its drivers had died while using the company's Autopilot semi-autonomous software. After the May 7 death of driver Joshua Brown, who was behind the wheel of a Model S when it collided with a big rig in Florida, Tesla said it immediately reported the fatal crash to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Brown had been using Tesla's Autopilot mode, which when engaged will assist drivers in steering, braking and collision avoidance; the feature is still in a public beta phase. The Palo Alto electric car maker characterized the death as "the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated," but faced criticism for not disclosing the crash to the SEC, a possible breach of its corporate duty to inform the agency – and thus, its investors – of so-called material events. If you are battling traffic, teaching a teen how to make a left-hand turn or worrying over the driving skills of an elderly relative, a driverless car may seem like a marvelous thing.

Telsa is facing another federal probe related to the fatal Florida crash involving its Autopilot feature, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the advanced autonomous driving feature may have been involved in two other recent crashes. Telsa publicly disclosed in a June 30 blog post that the Autopilot feature was engaged during a fatal crash that occurred in Williston, Florida in May. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a preliminary investigation into the incident. Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a preliminary probe into whether Tesla should have disclosed the incident as a "material" event to investors earlier, the Journal reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating Tesla Motor Co. for possibly breaking securities law by failing to disclose that one of its drivers had died while using the company's Autopilot semi-autonomous software. After the May 7 death of driver Joshua Brown, who was behind the wheel of a Model S when it collided with a big rig in Florida, Tesla said it immediately reported the fatal crash to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Brown had been using Tesla's Autopilot mode, which when engaged will assist drivers in steering, braking and collision avoidance; the feature is still in a public beta phase. The Palo Alto electric car maker characterized the death as "the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated," but faced criticism for not disclosing the crash to the SEC, a possible breach of its corporate duty to inform the agency – and thus, its investors – of so-called material events. By rolling out self-driving technology to consumers more aggressively than its competitors, Tesla Motors secured a spot in the forefront of a coming industry.

Manoj Saxena is the executive chairman of CognitiveScale and a founding managing director of The Entrepreneurs' Fund IV (TEF), a 100m seed fund focused exclusively on the cognitive computing space. Saxena is also the chairman of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, San Antonio branch and Chairman, SparkCognition an Austin based cognitive security and safety analytics company. Prior to joining TEF, Saxena was general manager, IBM Watson, where his team built the world's first cognitive systems in healthcare, financial services, and retail. Earlier he founded, built and sold two Austin based software startups. Saxena will be speaking on the subject of artificial intelligence at Gigaom Change Leaders Summit in Austin, September 21-23rd.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown answers questions during a news conference, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Dallas. Five police officers were killed and several injured during a shooting in downtown Dallas last week. Dallas Police Chief David Brown answers questions during a news conference, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Dallas. Five police officers were killed and several injured during a shooting in downtown Dallas last week. An FBI evidence response team works the crime scene, Sunday, July 10, 2016, where five Dallas police officers were killed Thursday, in Dallas.

In a blog post last week, Tesla said its Autopilot system has been safely used in more than 100 million miles of driving, and the crash wasn't materially significant to investors because it didn't change what Tesla has said about the system's capabilities and limitations. Tesla said it informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the crash on May 16 and sent its own investigator to the Florida crash site on May 18.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA 3.69 % breached securities laws by failing to disclose a fatal crash in May involving an electric car that was driving itself, a person familiar with the matter said, heightening scrutiny of how the Silicon Valley company handled the information. The May 7 accident killed the driver, Joshua Brown, a 40-year old Tesla owner who collided with an 18-wheel semi-truck that pulled in front of him on a Florida highway. Tesla alerted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. car-safety regulator, to the crash and investigated to determine whether the car was using the company's Autopilot system, which lets cars drive themselves under certain circumstances. But Tesla didn't disclose the crash to investors in a securities filing. The car-safety agency opened an investigation into the Autopilot technology.

When Joshua Brown switched on the Autopilot feature of his Tesla Model S on May 7, he would have been warned not to trust it. "Always keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time," says the standard warning presented when Autopilot is turned on. But later that day Brown was killed when his car drove itself into the side of a semi-trailer that Autopilot had not detected. Federal investigations into the crash by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) may now question whether Tesla's design asks too much of drivers.

Artificial intelligence research continues to accelerate as human and machines collaborate to solve more complex problems. A new survey by the National Academy of Science identifies the frontiers of AI research that include "augmented cognition" along with "integrative" AI. In a workshop report on IT innovation just released by the National Academy's science, engineering and medicine branches, a section on "Developing Smart Machines" describes ongoing AI research efforts along with machine learning, a discipline some experts consider a subfield of AI. "Machine learning is what lets computers discover patterns within data and then use those patterns to make useful, and ideally correct, predictions," the report states. The authors quotes Jaime Carbonell, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, as noting" "Machine learning essentially is the engine that is driving modern artificial intelligence." Machine learning "often deals with unbalanced data sets in which the ultimate focus of decision making is precisely the outlier cases," that is, the extreme cases that contrast sharply with typical data and provide opportunities for the "most important learning opportunities."

One of the most advanced prosthetic arms yet is coming to market this year, brought to you by robot-friendly U.S. military agency DARPA and the Segway inventor Dean Kamen. Mobius Bionics LLC, a medical device company, will produce the Luke arm commercially, named for the lifelike replacement Luke Skywalker received at the end of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded the arm and Dean Kamen's DEKA company designed it, with the goal to "develop an advanced electromechanical prosthetic upper limb with near natural control that would dramatically enhance independence and improve quality of life for amputees," according to the Mobius Bionics press release. The prosthesis combines a number of features to accomplish that goal. The system can accommodate people with varying levels of amputation.