When self-driving cars get here, they'll make our commutes more efficient and allow us to get the kids to soccer practice without disrupting mom and dad's work days. They'll conserve resources, boost mobility for seniors and others who can't, and make deadly traffic accidents all but disappear. But the impact of self-driving cars will go deeper than even that, according to researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology, who've begun to study the potential ultra-long-range impacts of self-driving cars on urban environments. Everything from sidewalks and curbs to streets, building designs, urban layouts, and living patterns will change as computers take the wheel. "We're looking at the broader urban effects--and urban opportunities--of this technology," says Illinois Tech architect Marshall Brown, one of the team members in the Chicago school's Driverless Cities Project. "It's in the news a lot, but nobody's been discussing what it will actually do to cities." Just six percent of long-range transportation plans in major US cities are factoring the impact of autonomous cars, according to a report released in the fall by the National League of Cities.

A security expert caused a mild panic among iPhone users this week when he discovered a way to bypass the lockscreen with a simple Siri search. In a video, the bug seemingly let him unlock his iPhone 6S by searching for a contact on Twitter and then adding that contact to his address book. After Apple was made aware of the flaw, the firm has now confirmed the problem has been fixed and handsets should no longer be affected. A security expert caused a mild panic among iPhone users this week when he discovered a way to bypass the lockscreen with a simple Siri search. Spanish tech expert Jose Rodriguez was the first person to highlight the flaw and demonstrated the exploit in a YouTube video published under the name Videosdebarraquito.

Now, a source claims the Small UAV Coalition is recommending the ban be relaxed to encourage commercial development in the area. The recommendations call for creating four categories of small drones that commercial operators can fly over people, including crowds in some cases. The first category of drones would weigh no more than about a half-pound (230 grams). They essentially could fly unrestricted over people, including crowds. Drone makers would have to certify that if the drone hit someone, there would be no more than a 1 percent chance that the maximum force of the impact would cause a serious injury.

Ruth Toner Data Scientist Twitch Insight Fellow 2016 Physics Postdoc Harvard University Ruth Toner was a Fellow in our most recent Data Science session in Silicon Valley. She's since joined the Community team at Twitch as a Data Scientist. In this post she describes Fanguard, the tool she built at Insight to protect Tumblr readers from spoilers for blockbuster movies and popular TV shows. Before attending Insight Data Science, I spent eight years of my life in the field of particle physics. Like many postdocs and grad students, when I wasn't trying to discover the basic laws of matter (i.e., debugging my code), I spent a lot of time surfing the Internet.

If you're an intermediate Java/Scala developer interested in applying your skills at a growing start-up in the fascinating world of neural networks, artificial intelligence and machine learning, this could be a great opportunity for you. Bernie.ai is an angel-funded start-up in the dating space. This is not a dating app but rather an app that aggregates dating content in order to make the dating experience more efficient, focused and less time-intensive for the end-user. Here is a link to a recent NY Times article on the app. The app, called Bernie, uses machine vision to find great dating matches, learns user preferences based on attributes that you like and don't like and begins conversations with promising partners to see if there is interest.

Inc. (CRM - Analyst Report) acquired MetaMind, a start-up specialized in offering "deep-learning" services. However, the financial terms of the deal remain under wraps. Founded in 2014, MetaMind received a combined investment of 8 million from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Khosla Ventures in December the same year. MetaMind's "deep-learning" AI technique, according to Bloomberg "helps business users employ deep learning technology, which trains networks of computers to mimic the human brain's ability to recognize and analyze pictures or text without explicit instructions". MetaMind's technology and tools span natural language and image recognitions which help users to analyze data and make better decisions.

As a way to meet the demands of artificial intelligence, NVIDIA developed the first deep learning supercomputer called NVIDIA DGX-1, giving researchers and data scientists a new class of intelligent machines that could learn and perceive the world as humans do. The DGX-1, which was launched today at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference, is the first system designed specifically for deep learning. It comes fully integrated with hardware, deep learning software, and development tools for easy deployment. It also has a turnkey system that contains a new generation of GPU accelerators, which delivers the equivalent throughput of 250 x86 servers, the company said. The deep learning system allows researchers to reduce the time for training larger, more sophisticated deep neural networks.

Xiaomi and Hasbro gave Soundwave, the Transformers robot that can turn into a microcasette recorder, a makeover fit for the new era. The two teamed up to create a tablet that unfolds into a shiny 190mm version of the Decepticon. Xiaomi's international division VP Hugo Barra said on Facebook that his team "worked really hard to ensure that [its] color, details and feel are exactly the same as" the Mi Pad 2. You'll need to be a bit of a puzzle lover to enjoy assembling and disassembling it, since it takes 30 steps to each time to do so, but that just makes it more fun to play with.

NuTonomy, a driverless car startup that spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology three years ago, has its sights set on operating a fully autonomous taxi service in Singapore. The firm, which raised 3.6 million in seed funding in Jan., is planning to debut a pilot program at One North, a business park in downtown Singapore, later this year, reports IEEE Spectrum. Last month the company passed its first driving test in that country, one of the founders told MIT News. The 25-person firm is facing off against a number of bigger-name rivals such as Google, Tesla, Uber and traditional automakers such as Ford, General Motors, and Toyota, in the race to deploy autonomous vehicles. Thanks to nuTonomy and MIT's partnership with Singapore, a country with dense urban areas has been highly receptive to driverless car technology, the comparatively small company could become the first to operate fully self-driving cars, known as "level four," in a city commercially.

The system uses an optical camera for detection, as well as "passive ranging features" to predict whether any nearby aircraft will cross its flight path. If there's a potential collision, it'll recommend the best evasive action that complies with air safety regulations. "This SAA system has the potential to enable a wide range of manned and unmanned systems to safely integrate into an increasingly populated and complex airspace," Dan Patt, a Program Manager at DARPA said. "What pilot wouldn't want to set a box on their dashboard that would provide an additional pair of eyes?" DARPA has been working on the project for two years now. Its next step is to shrink the hardware -- a shoebox is still a little large, especially for commercial drones -- continue testing and develop some "mature" features, such as the ability to detect aircraft below the horizon line.