Designing concept cars seems kind of like being back in grade school, when kids are encouraged to dream up things like a bedroom with a bouncy-house floor or a spaceship with an ice cream machine on board. At least concept cars have a chance of making it to production at some point, even if that timeline is a long way off. At Kia's EV Day in Barcelona, Spain in March, the brand unveiled a new modular electric van it's calling the Platform Beyond Vehicle (PBV). The PV5 is the first in the automaker's plan, with four variants: Cargo, Passenger, Crew, and a Wheelchair Access Vehicle option. The designers pushed that a little further with the PV5 WKNDR concept, an EV made for camping and overlanding.

DIY expert Chip Wade shares tips and tools to spruce up your home for the holidays. Ready to explore some of the coolest and most amazing tech that is changing the world as we know it? Here are the top 10 fun and futuristic innovations of 2023. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK VIDEO TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER Let's start with something that will make you want to hit the water. Imagine a jet ski that looks like a sports car, with a sleek design, a powerful engine and ergonomic seating.

ChatGPT is one year old today, and it's accomplished a lot in its first trip around the sun. The chatbot has upended or outright killed high-school and college essay writing and thoroughly scrambled the brains of academics, creating an on-campus arms race that professors have already lost. It has been used to write books, article summaries, and political content, and it has flooded online marketplaces with computer-generated slop. As we've gotten to know ChatGPT, we've noticed how malleable it is. The li'l bot loves clichés.

German automobile maker Mercedes-Benz thinks it can put range anxiety to bed with its new concept car. Concept CLA Class, debuted at the International Motor Show in Munich this week, can drive 466 miles on a single charge – more than Tesla cars. Measuring more than 15 feet long, the low emissions four-door sedan also has panoramic windows, expansive glass roof and low energy lights. It's been made with'more sustainable' materials including biotechnology-based fabric, bamboo fibre and reduced emissions steel and aluminum. Unlike other prototypes from the company, Concept CLA Class is actually set to go into production, in late 2024 – but price is to be confirmed.

CES is where you need to be if you want to know where the future of technology lies. The show floor in Las Vegas was filled with buzzy, headline-grabbing products of the week, like a toilet sensor that can read your pee and a color-changing car with AI sass. But these are products you likely aren't buying soon. The real value of the world's largest consumer electronics trade show is how it lays out a vision for where tech may go not just in the coming months, but in the coming years too. This show marked the first "real" year that CES was back in full swing.

If you've been off-roading before, it's likely you remember bouncing around the back of a 4x4. But the days of clinging on for dear life could soon be a thing of the past, if a new concept car is anything to go by. The concept vehicle, called The Huntress, features wheels that can twist autonomously to cope with uneven terrains. If you've been off-roading before, it's likely you remember bouncing around the back of a 4x4. The Huntress is an electric off-road concept car designed by Connery Xu, that wouldn't be out of place in the Transformers franchise.

German automaker Audi unveiled its sleek new concept car, Skysphere, which can shift size depending on the driving mode and has a retractable steering column. In a release, the Volkswagen-owned car manufacturer boasted Skysphere was'two vehicles in one': A 623-horsepower sports car that can go from zero to 60 mph in 4 seconds and a'grand touring' (GT) auto that expands the cabin about 10 inches for a roomier ride. In GT mode, the Skysphere is designed to be a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, according to Audi, 'meaning in certain defined road and traffic situations, the driver can delegate complete responsibility to the car and no longer has to intervene.' The luxury auto's rear-mounted electric motor has a range of about 310 miles before it needs a charge. 'This is not rather a car, it's an experience device,' Audi CEO Henrik Wenders, said at the unveiling Tuesday at 2021 Monterey Car Week on Tuesday.

A driver of a car can be in many different emotional states while driving: calm, anxious, angry, excited, relaxed or drowsy are just a few. SRI International researchers are teaching vehicles how to read and respond to a driver's emotional state as part of a project with Toyota Motor Corporation. This project seeks to improve driving safety and personalize the interaction between a person and their car. These efforts center on integrating emotional artificial intelligence (AI) into cars. SRI scientists are making strides in this with the development of the Driver Monitoring System (DMS).

When you slide into the car of the future, you may feel like you've already reached your destination. You'll sit at tables, under ambient lighting, getting help from voice assistants as you stretch out your legs in reclining seats. And that's appealing to many Americans who already know they want to sleep, send emails or play video games as they zip down the road in a car that operates itself. With self-driving vehicles on the horizon, automakers are rethinking what the future of car interiors will look like. And because these completely autonomous cars, called Level 5 vehicles, will free drivers from focusing on the highway, companies are now free to experiment.

Auto companies are using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to identify potential buyers from among the walk-ins and enquiries in showrooms. They are also gauging consumer reaction to new models and concept cars through facial recognition systems. Maruti's Mobility and Automobile Innovation Lab (MAIL) is identifying start-ups that can help it solve some of its operational problems. One of the start-ups from Karnataka is helping Maruti to identify leads among the plethora of queries and walk-ins that each of their dealers receive in a day. "We receive one million enquiries a month. The start-up is helping us identify the probability of purchase among them," said Shashank Srivastava, executive director, sales and marketing of MSIL.