Autonomous Vehicles

Here are 5 significant artificial intelligence trends to look forward to that will affect myriad industries on an international scale led by giant tech companies that are now investing huge sums in artificial intelligence research. Last year, implementations of AI rose significantly in so many platforms, tools and applications around the world, impacting healthcare, education and other industries as more and more people are opting for e-solutions based on AI and machine learning. Then there's the automotive industry with self-driving cars, the agricultural sector opting for intelligent robots to tackle the sowing as well as insecticide spraying on crops; the list goes on. As tech industry giants, including Google, Facebook and Amazon, invest billions now in AI and machine learning research, let's explore how 2019 is unfolding on this front. Major chip manufacturers including Intel, Nvidia, AMD and ARM aim to produce AI-powered chips to speed up the operations of applications that run on AI.

The wave of Utah's transportation future has debuted in Farmington. The Utah Department of Transportation, in partnership with the Utah Transit Authority, has launched their new "Autonomous Shuttle Pilot Project" -- a program that features a robotic vehicle that will travel to different communities throughout the state over the next year. The vehicle began serving Station Park, Farmington's large retail hub, on June 13. Anne Williams, a consultant for UDOT, said the shuttle will operate from noon to 6 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays through July 6. After Station Park, the shuttle will move to different communities throughout Utah for the next year.

Autonomous vehicles are continuing to cause a stir within the parking industry, and barely a day goes by without another hypothesis of the impact they will have on traditional parking. But how realistic are these visions of an autonomous future? Stanley Robotics is already providing autonomous valet parking at several airports in Europe, and during Parking Talks, Stéphane Evanno shared his insight into what the future might hold. "So I don't think they play a big role today. They are visible and people can hear a lot about self-driving cars and find a lot of information about more robots coming. But they are not here today, they are not running real businesses today, at least not in the airport industry. But they are here enough to make people think differently and plan differently. "For instance, as you know, airports are very regularly conducting master planning exercises.

Autonomous vehicles are continuing to cause a stir within the parking industry, and barely a day goes by without another hypothesis of the impact they will have on traditional parking. But how realistic are these visions of an autonomous future? Stanley Robotics is already providing autonomous valet parking at several airports in Europe, and during Parking Talks, Stéphane Evanno shared his insight into what the future might hold. "So I don't think they play a big role today. They are visible and people can hear a lot about self-driving cars and find a lot of information about more robots coming. But they are not here today, they are not running real businesses today, at least not in the airport industry. But they are here enough to make people think differently and plan differently. "For instance, as you know, airports are very regularly conducting master planning exercises.

Uber has taken flack throughout the last several years for its aggressive tactics against competitors and regulators, but according to one of the company's executives, Uber's self-driving cars have now become the victims. At a recent conference, Eric Meyhofer, the head of Uber's self-driving car unit said the company has captured people's alleged aggressive driving on camera. 'We've seen people bully these cars -- they feel like they can be more aggressive because we won't take a position on it, or we'll allow it,' Meyhofer said, according to a report by The Daily Telegraph. Uber says its self-driving cars are being victimized on roads by pedestrians and motorists. 'You're on video but still people do bully them, and that's a fascinating thing to see where people are testing the boundaries of what they can do to self-driving.'

In his new novel, Machines Like Me, the novelist Ian McEwan tells the story, set in an alternate history in England in 1982, of a man who buys a humanoid robot. This triumph of artificial intelligence is "a creation myth made real," he writes, but also "a monstrous act of self-love." Part companion and part servant, the robot named Adam is "the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism -- or its angel of death." One of the first things Adam says when he is switched on is "I don't feel right," and, typically for cautionary tales about robots, it only gets worse from there. Like much of the frontier thinking on the morality of artificial intelligence, McEwan's unsettling vision comes from fiction, not science.

The autonomous vehicle industry is looking a lot like a middle-school dance. Monday, Aurora and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced they would work together to put the startup's self-driving tech, called Aurora Driver, into FCA's commercial vehicles, including cargo vans and Ram pickup trucks. On Tuesday, word leaked that Aurora and Volkswagen had discontinued their 18-month joint effort to build an urban robotaxi system. Wednesday, Aurora and Hyundai said they're doubling down on their own partnership, with the South Korean company (and its conglomerate partner, Kia) pouring more money into Aurora's now $600 million Series B financing round. The companies will continue to work together to build Aurora's tech into Hyundai's hydrogen-powered Nexo.

The Diet enacted a revised aviation law Thursday that increases punishments for pilots found to have flown under the influence of alcohol or drugs following a series of drinking-related incidents involving Japanese airlines. Under the legislation, which will take effect in stages within one year of its official announcement, the penalty for drinking and flying has been raised from a maximum one-year jail term or ¥300,000 fine to a sentence of up to three years or a ¥500,000 fine. Japanese airlines have already tightened drinking rules, introducing mandatory Breathalyzer tests and relieving pilots of their duties if even a very low level of alcohol is detected. Those flying private planes, however, are not subject to the same checks. The legislation also seeks to improve aviation safety ahead of the intended mid-2020 delivery of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, Japan's first homegrown commercial passenger jet.

But the fragile peace initiative has since stalled, and the Houthis resumed attacking Saudi Arabia over the past several weeks in what it said was retaliation for the Saudis' failure to curtail the violence. Houthi drones targeted Saudi drone facilities at another airport on Sunday, a Houthi TV channel said, and Saudi air defense systems have intercepted several Houthi missile and drone attacks in the last month, the official Saudi Press Agency said. A Houthi attack on a Saudi oil pipeline last month forced the Saudis to shut the pipeline temporarily, soon after a mysterious sabotage attack damaged four oil tankers outside the Emirati port of Fujairah, two of them Saudi. The Houthi attacks have caused few casualties. The attack on the airport on Wednesday was one of the worst Houthi attacks on Saudi soil yet.

WASHINGTON - Uber is testing restaurant food deliveries by drone. The company's Uber Eats unit began the tests in San Diego with McDonald's and plans to expand to other restaurants later this year. Uber says the service should decrease food delivery times. It works this way: Workers at a restaurant load the meal into a drone and it takes off, tracked and guided by a new aerospace management system. The drone then meets an Uber Eats driver at a drop-off location, and the driver will hand-deliver the meal to the customer.