Traditional automakers, many of whom ushered in an era of incredible disruption nearly a century ago, now face disruption themselves from four modern forces -- connected, autonomous, shared and electric cars. The infrastructure and scale required to build a connected car is incredibly complicated, expensive and resource intensive. At its core, it's a software challenge, and a chief obstacle for these brands is integrating the complex cloud technology required to deliver next-generation driving experiences. Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we announced the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, a set of services built on the Microsoft Azure cloud and designed to empower auto manufacturers to create custom connected driving experiences. This is not an in-car operating system or a "finished product;" it's a living, agile platform that starts with the cloud as the foundation and aims to address five core scenarios that our partners have told us are key priorities: predictive maintenance, improved in-car productivity, advanced navigation, customer insights and help building autonomous driving capabilities.

Parents arranging playdates for their kids is quite commonplace as most want their kids to play, learn from others, and make friends. When scheduling these playdates, parents typically share children's allergy information or entertainment restrictions that reflect their family's safety and value concerns. Enter artificial intelligence (AI) into these scenarios, particularly as they relate to kids' toys. These AI systems interacting with children can impose certain values that may not align with you or your friends. In Engadget's recent Public Access article The Cultural Ramifications of Ubiquitous AI, John C. Havens, Executive Director, The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems, explores the ethical considerations of AI as it enters into everyday life.

LAS VEGAS -- Nissan is joining other auto makers in stepping up its self-driving car technology. But there's a catch: These autonomous cars still need humans to navigate, its CEO said. Company chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn, delivering the company's first Consumer Electronics Show keynote address here Thursday, offered more insights to the Yokohama, Japan-headquartered company's strategy. "Many people don't want to give up driving completely," he said. "But what they want is to decide when to drive and when to let the car take over."

Audi and Nvidia are putting their partnership into high gear with the aim of putting cars with artificial intelligence on the road by 2020. The ambitious project, detailed at CES in Las Vegas is, according to both companies, the best way for cars to become truly autonomous and genuinely capable of coping with the everyday complexities of real-world driving and of learning as they go. At the 2016 NIPS Artificial Intelligence Conference in Barcelona in December, Audi demonstrated a miniature prototype AI car – a scale model of the Q2 SUV – that was laden with sensors. It autonomously drove around an alien space learning where obstacles were, developing a real-time map of the space in its digital mind and after some trial and error could drive straight to a confined parking space and navigate into it every time. However, for CES, the demonstrations are very much full-scale.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger users are being tricked into sending out a message by a scam. The hoax claims that people need to send out a message otherwise theyl'l be forced to pay for each one they send to their friends in future. If they don't copy and paste the post then the apps will presume that they are not an "avid user" and so will move towards charging them, the post claims. But it's entirely untrue and neither Facebook or WhatsApp is moving to charging for messages. Both are expected to remain entirely free – which they need to do, since Facebook's business model is capturing information on its users and then using that to charge advertisers for marketing.

Like a corporation, robots will soon be able to hold value. "We see with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies situations where the technology allows one person to control one-fifth of an asset," the Bloq founder explained, referring to a multi-signature transaction protocol where three out of five private key holders must sign off for a transaction to be executed. "What if the asset-holders were robot shareholders in a corporation or property? And Bitcoin helps with that. Cryptocurrency startups are building autonomous agents right now."

For its CES 2017 presentation, Toyota is inviting people to imagine a future where artificial intelligence makes cars less robotic and more human. A fast emerging trend from this year's tech extravaganza is the use by carmakers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a way of accelerating the development of autonomous vehicles. If a car can learn from its errors and from its owner, it will be able to navigate spaces and terrains without mapping and will be able to make the right decision if a familiar route suddenly changes. Toyota's Concept-i car can conceivably do all of those things, but it will do so in a way that still makes the driver feel like they're in complete control. "At Toyota, we recognise that the important question isn't whether future vehicles will be equipped with automated or connected technologies," said Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota.

After two days of media-only events, the Consumer Electronic Show officially began with thousands of innovative gadgets from both well known names and emerging brands. Smart assistants have so far been a major theme of the show, but the first day also brought video-recording glasses, adorable robots, and lots of virtual reality. Depending on Olly's mood, its face will light up in different colors. It also swivels around on its base to look at you when you're speaking to create a more personal experience, the Olly team told Dailymail.com Among the many devices on display today was the'emotional' Olly smart assistant.

A month ago, I tried A/B testing to see how different "treatments" or input parameters might result in longer sleep for our twins -- and of course by proxy, us. Through this, I found that sleep patterns were fairly erratic and didn't find much that correlated strongly to increased sleep. As time went on, they started more largely on their own naturally. However, now that they have reached four months, they've begun the apparently common but rarely discussed sleep regression phase. I once again found myself desperate for more sleep.

Among the monstrous number of announcements to come out of CES this week a major battle is emerging in the smart home arena. The potential of IoT has never been in question, though the role of smart homes is one which is yet to wow the mass market. The idea is great, but market penetration has been slow. IoT light bulbs, or smart fridges have been around for quite a while, but uptake has not been exceptional. With the introduction of personal assistants as part of the smart home hub, the tide is slowly beginning to turn however.