Autonomous vehicles and their reality have long been discussed. A few years ago, it was predicted that we would have fully driverless cars in our towns and cities by now. The industry was high-spirited about the concept of self-driving cars, but in reality, these are harder to build than initially considered. A crucial component in the development of autonomous vehicles relies on the importance of ensuring they are connected. For instance, if an Amazon Alexa purely had Amazon software, it may not have the same consumer appeal.

At the Geneva International Motor Show yesterday, next to the exhibition halls showing off car manufacturers' latest creations, industry experts and UN representatives gathered to discuss how they will fast-forward the automotive industry -- and the world -- into the future. The Symposium on the Future Networked Car (FNC-2018), convened by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), revealed how the automotive industry has been leveraging recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) to make transport systems safer, greener, and more intelligent. Participants highlighted the opportunities to be seized and challenges to be overcome for success. Curtis Hay, Technical Fellow at General Motors, described the recently launched Cadillac Super Cruise, which provides a hands-free driving experience. "We need more standards, and the worldwide use of harmonized standards. Connected cars need a lot of power so new standards for 5G can be the basis for connected vehicle standards"–Christoph Nolte, DEKRA A driver just needs to drive the car into a highway lane and, at the right time, push a button and let go, explained Hays, adding that the car performs breaking and collision avoidance.

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As connected devices become prevalent in our homes and workplaces, the technology to create and support a connected car ecosystem becomes ever more advanced. In fact, according to one forecast, there will be more than 380 million connected cars on the road by 2021, which, if correct, would fundamentally change the way we all live, work and drive. With the connected car having been identified as the fastest-growing technological device after the smartphone and tablet, we can only begin to imagine the range of capabilities we can come to expect in the space over the coming decade. However, what we can be sure of is that when connected cars become a regular feature in our garages and on our roads, the experience of driving and being driven for the next generation of car users is going to be a very different one to what we're used to now. Although there are numerous perceived benefits for car companies in terms of data acquisition, targeted marketing, and a range of new personalised in-car apps, products and services to offer customers, what exactly are the direct benefits to drivers and passengers in this connected automotive future?

All Amazon had to do was put out the call, and hundreds of cities across the country provided a stream of free publicity by offering enormous tax breaks or trying to lure the internet giant with creative stunts -- or both. And who can forget the 2013 60 Minutes episode when the reputable show basically turned into an infomercial for an Amazon delivery drone? It was a masterclass in marketing. All that is to say that when you don't know about something Amazon is doing, it's probably because the company doesn't want you to. Most often, this is because Amazon is testing something in beta, and doesn't want the public scrutinizing an unfinished product.

The'connected' car, not to be confused with the self-driving, autonomous car, is defined as any vehicle equipped with Internet access that allows data to be sent to and from the vehicle. Since the automobiles were invented, car makers have been trying to add features which may reduce driver error. Today's car has the computing power of 20 personal computers, features about 100 million lines of programming code, and processes up to 25 gigabytes of data an hour. Digital technology is also changing how we use and interact with our cars, and in more ways than you probably realize. The market for smart vehicles is certainly set for takeoff and many analysts predict they could revolutionize the world of automobiles in much the same way smartphones have changed the face of telecommunications.

Hello David and Sam, A good way to prevent attackers from gaining control on a car or its systems is to only allow access to the data, and only indirectly. Why should any person or program ever have access to the car itself, or any of its devices? Mr. Shawki's thinking is correct here―when it comes to security for the IoT, legacy ideas have to give way to different thinking. The traditional mind-set among financial and industrial applications is that connected systems must follow a server-client model. The server has the data, and the client needs to connect to the server to get it. However, applying this model to the IoT means that every automobile, refrigerator, light switch or kidney machine must expose an attack surface.

With cars becoming more connected and autonomous, cybersecurity is a constant worry for automakers. They dread the likelihood of intrusions into the connected car from hackers, terrorists, extortionists, and thieves (see "Your Future Self-Driving Car Will Be Way More Hackable")--not to mention the random 12-year-old with mischief in mind. Apprehensions about automotive cybersecurity came to a head when a pair of white-hat hackers broke into a Jeep Cherokee in 2015, leading to the recall of 1.4 million vehicles by Chrysler Fiat to fix a software bug in the Uconnect infotainment system (see "Carmakers Accelerate Security Efforts after Hacking Stunts"). Cars represent a fundamentally different sort of security challenge from laptops, servers, or mobile phones, in which corruption or theft of data is the hacker's objective. A cyber-attack on a moving vehicle may create a deadly safety hazard, and conventional antihacking software could be too slow or ineffective to avert an incident.

Back in 1995, the NavLab 5 team at Carnegie Mellon University launched an autonomous vehicle on a trip from Pittsburgh to San Diego. It averaged speeds above 60 mph. So if self-driving technology worked on a cross-country trip 22 years ago, why aren't roads filled with autonomous cars today? The reason is the technology remains closer to the research lab stage and is not ready for prime time, ay experts. Sensors must shrink, improve their range, particularly in bad weather, and become less expensive.