Everyone's been there: driving in the pitch dark, attempting to decipher signs, handle sharp turns, and weave through multiple lanes of whizzing traffic. It's a difficult situation even for an experienced human driver--so how can a car that's driving itself pull it off? An autonomous vehicle must know its precise location, the location of other cars around it, the route to its destination, and any possible obstacles in its path. To deliver that information, automakers are turning to technology developed by San Francisco-based startup Civil Maps. The 30-employee company says it can give cars data that's more accurate and more frequently updated than competing self-driving systems.

We spoke to The Daily Beast to help make sense of ISIL's growing use of armed consumer drones in the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, we assisted The Verge in confirming that the jail sentence given to a Seattle man for crashing his drone during a parade was in fact unprecedented in the history of U.S. domestic drone use. A suspected U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed two individuals near the border of Afghanistan. If confirmed, it would be the first U.S. drone strike in Pakistan under the Trump administration. The U.S. launched over 20 airstrikes in Yemen, targeting al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

Ransomware attacks escalated dramatically in 2016. In fact, there was a 300 percent increase in ransomware attacks last year, according to the FBI, to an average of 4,000 attacks a day, up from 1,000 ransomware attacks a day in 2015. What's more, organizations are targeted more frequently than individuals because they generate a much bigger potential payoff. Ransomware has become a profitable criminal enterprise that continues to change and grow. Managed Service Providers often assist clients with data restoration to avoid the downtime that can be caused by a ransomware attack. They also work with clients to improve their security posture overall so they can avoid ransomware damage.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news, our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox. February is only just gone, and already 2017 is shaping up to be a year full of big ideas and ambitions. The Future of Life Institute, for example, just published the Asilomar AI principles: 23 guidelines to ensure AI developments are beneficial to humanity. They are calling for shared responsibility and caution against an AI arms race.

A new era of AI began around 2010. Computer power capacity significantly increased and neural networks could be integrated into a GPU chip that enabled calculations to speed up experiments. Also, the rise of smartphones and cloud storage services allowed for the consolidation of enormous amount of big data. Those factors significantly impacted the growth of artificial intelligence. Those significant changes in the tech industry influenced the cybersecurity industry and led to a dramatic shift in the field.

The British government is working on a new bill that would regulate insurance and liability for accidents involving cars operating in autonomous mode. When such a law is passed it would pioneer how authorities around the world should deal with new technologies in the motoring industry. One of the objectives of the new bill is to ensure accident victims can easily claim compensation if a crash occurs when a car is in autonomous mode. Insurers could still try to recover the costs from the vehicle's manufacturer. There will also be exceptions to full cover if, for example, a vehicle owner has made unauthorized changes to the car's software; and if he fails to install an update that his policy asks him to then the driver becomes liable.

A US drone strike killed two suspected members of al-Qaeda in southern Yemen, said a security official and residents. Saturday's raid in Ahwar, in the southern province of Abyan, killed two suspected fighters on a motorbike, the security official said. It came after two days of intensive air strikes by US warplanes on fighters in the war-torn country. Tribal sources and residents said another drone fired at a crowd of suspected al-Qaeda militants in al-Saeed, in the adjacent province of Shabwa, but there were no reports on casualties in that incident. On Friday, the Pentagon said it carried out "somewhere over 30" strikes against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in two days, conducted in partnership with the Yemeni government.

The electrical grid has become a network of billions of linked devices with highly complex energy and information flows. Add to this the elevated role of the consumer as a producer and you are looking at a massive volume, velocity and variety of data from smart meters, transformers, and substations that remains largely untapped. One extremely interesting solution to the impending challenges is cognitive computing, which is gaining traction among industry experts as a way to better manage data and improve both operating efficiencies and customer service. According to GTM Research, applying cognitive computing is expected to deliver an estimated $121 billion global return on investment (ROI) on grid analytics by 2020. There are three key areas where energy companies are already engaging with cognitive systems to experience real benefits.

Artificial intelligence boosters predict a brave new world of flying cars and cancer cures. Detractors worry about a future where humans are enslaved to an evil race of robot overlords. Veteran AI scientist Eric Horvitz and Doomsday Clock guru Lawrence Krauss, seeking a middle ground, gathered a group of experts in the Arizona desert to discuss the worst that could possibly happen - and how to stop it. Their workshop took place last weekend at Arizona State University (ASU) with funding from Tesla co-founder Elon Musk and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. Officially dubbed "Envisioning and Addressing Adverse AI Outcomes", it was a kind of AI doomsday games that organised some 40 scientists, cyber-security experts and policy wonks into groups of attackers - the red team - and defenders - blue team - playing out AI-gone-very-wrong scenarios, ranging from stock-market manipulation to global warfare.

Geologists have long been able to work out the approximate risk of an earthquake. Their approach is to work out when the fault moved in the past and use any periodicity to predict the future. The most famous example involves the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas Fault in California, one of the most carefully studied faults on the planet. Earthquakes occurred here in 1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, and 1966, suggesting a pattern in which quakes occur every 22 years give or take a few years. Geologists therefore predicted that a quake would occur between 1988 and 1993, but they had to wait until 2004 for their temblor.