After Uber's fatal self-driving crash last month in Tempe, Arizona, most observers had two basic question: Why did the car not see Elaine Herzberg crossing the street and stop before hitting her? And how can we stop this happening again, to someone else? The ride-hailing company has indefinitely suspended its testing program, and is cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the crash. The NTSB hasn't revealed any findings yet, but the lidar--the laser-shooting sensor that should have spotted Herzberg, even in the dark--is an obvious focus. Maybe it had a blind spot, or lacked the resolution to identify Herzberg as a pedestrian.

It's been six months since German automaker BMW, U.S. technology giant Intel and Israeli computer vision systems company Mobileye came together to collaborate on self-driving cars, and the partnership seems to finally be bearing fruit. During a joint press conference at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the companies announced they will start testing autonomous vehicles later this year. "A fleet of approximately 40 autonomous BMW vehicles will be on the roads by the second half of 2017, demonstrating the significant advancements made by the three companies towards fully autonomous driving," the companies said in a joint statement. The vehicles will be BMW 7 series cars, and the trials will take place in the U.S. as well as in Europe. "This year our fleet of vehicles will already test this joint technology globally under real traffic conditions. This is a significant step towards the introduction of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, which will be the BMW Group's first fully autonomous vehicle," Klaus Fröhlich of BMW said in the statement.

With its "gesture control" system, the 2016 BMW 7 Series has set its sights on introducing a few more hand gestures to a driver's lexicon. And the middle finger is not involved. This standard system allows you to forego pressing any buttons or turning any knobs to do things such as increase or decrease the audio volume. Making any of six available gestures in the vicinity of the center console allows 3-D sensors to register and complete the requested-by-movement actions. Whenever a gesture is available, a small icon appears on the 10.2-inch high-resolution touch-screen on the dash.

The BMW 7 Series is the world's first production car that can operate with no driver aboard, if only to dazzle the neighbors when it eases into your home garage. Press a button on the remote, with its palm-size LCD readout, and watch the BMW drive itself into a garage or back its way out. With its camera and ultrasonic sensors, the BMW can fit into small or stuffed garages that are too tight to allow opening the car's doors. This roboparking feature is offered only in Europe for now, but BMW is pressing U.S. regulators for approval. The car can thrill when you're behind the wheel, as I discovered on a track test at Monticello Motor Club in New York's Catskills region.