This is a guest post by Ernesto DiMarino, who is Head of Enterprise Applications and Data at Cortica. Cortica is on a mission to revolutionize healthcare for children with autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Cortica was founded to fix the fragmented journey families typically navigate while seeking diagnoses and therapies for their children. To bring their vision to life, Cortica seamlessly blends neurology, research-based therapies, and technology into comprehensive care programs for the children they serve. This coordinated approach leads to best-in-class member satisfaction and empowers families to achieve long-lasting, transformative results.

At AWS re:Invent 2020, we previewed Amazon HealthLake, a fully managed, HIPAA-eligible service that allows healthcare and life sciences customers to aggregate their health information from different silos and formats into a structured, centralized AWS data lake, and extract insights from that data with analytics and machine learning (ML). Today, I'm very happy to announce that Amazon HealthLake is generally available to all AWS customers. The ability to store, transform, and analyze health data quickly and at any scale is critical in driving high-quality health decisions. In their daily practice, doctors need a complete chronological view of patient history to identify the best course of action. During an emergency, giving medical teams the right information at the right time can dramatically improve patient outcomes.

Driverless cars are being tested in the south of London by a company which won't reveal where they will be. FiveAI is today beginning road tests of its self-driving technology in the boroughs of Bromley and Croydon. The company says its cars will be ferrying commuters around the boroughs for the next two months, but hasn't released any details of the 12-mile loop they'll use. They will be making more than three journeys per day on'multiple' days per week, the company told MailOnline, but it wouldn't give any more specifics. At least two people will be in the car at all times – a back-up driver, a technician and sometimes a volunteer commuter – in case something goes wrong.

Uber is heading to Dallas, Texas to test its self-driving cars - but the vehicles will only travel in manual mode. This is the first testing series since the ride-sharing giant's operation was suspended last year a woman was killed by one of its vehicles in Tempe, Arizona. Uber hopes to develop high-definition maps, capture scenarios to create simulations on a test track and refine its expansion methodology during this new phase of testing. Uber is heading to Dallas, Texas to test its self-driving cars –but will be operated manually. 'The City of Dallas has been an exceptional partner to Uber as we continue to expand mobility options for our riders and economic opportunities for restaurants,' Austin Geidt, Head of Uber ATG Strategy, shared in the press release announcing the new development.

Most autonomous vehicle tech ventures such as Waymo, GM Cruise and Nvidia rack up miles of deep learning experience to build reliably safe systems for self-driving cars. Cortica and Renesas Electronics' entirely different approach focuses on helping cars learn on their own. Cortica, an Israeli company with roots in predictive artificial intelligence based on visual perception, is embedding its latest "Autonomous A.I." solution on the Renesas R-Car V3H system-on-chip (SoC) solution for self-driving cars. Referred to by the companies as "unsupervised learning," Cortica's autonomous A.I. enables a vehicle to make predictions based on visual data received from forward-facing cameras. According to Cortica, the system uses "'unsupervised learning' methodology to mimic the way humans experience and incorporate the world around them."

Looking at the benefits data can provide, the smart city concept is incomplete without its use. Today, smart cities are unlocking the potential of data in terms of preventing and predicting crime and terrorism. Not to mention, the two elements can bring devastating changes to life in cities. According to sources, today, the most successful smart cities are those that are utilising the gathered data to predict and prevent crime and terrorism. Along the way, they are strengthening the connected infrastructure that is key to establishing a secure urban environment.

Companies and cities all over world are experimenting with using artificial intelligence to reduce and prevent crime, and to more quickly respond to crimes in progress. The ideas behind many of these projects is that crimes are relatively predictable; it just requires being able to sort through a massive volume of data to find patterns that are useful to law enforcement. This kind of data analysis was technologically impossible a few decades ago, but the hope is that recent developments in machine learning are up to the task. There is good reason why companies and government are both interested in trying to use AI in this manner. As of 2010, the United States spent over $80 billion a year on incarations at the state, local, and federal levels. Estimates put the United States' total spending on law enforcement at over $100 billion a year. Law enforcement and prisons make up a substantial percentage of local government budgets.

Uber is getting its autonomous vehicles back on the road for the first time since one of its driverless cars fatally wounded a pedestrian. The latest tests will see the autonomous vehicles operated in'manual mode' – with human drivers behind the wheel operating the vehicle at all times. Although the vehicles will not be navigating independently, the latest round of tests will allow Uber to gather data on a number of scenarios that can be later recreated in computer simulations. The'manual mode' tests will also allow Uber to develop more accurate mapping for the vehicles. Elaine Herzberg, 49, was killed in Arizona on March 18 when an Uber Volvo SUV failed to apply the brakes after it registered her stepping into the road to cross.

Artificial intelligence programs promise to do everything, from predicting the weather to piloting autonomous cars. Now AI is being applied to video surveillance systems, promising to thwart criminal activity not by detecting crimes in progress but by identifying a crime–before it happens. The goal is to prevent violence such as sexual assaults, but could such admirable intentions turn into Minority Report-style pre-crime nightmares? Such a possibility may seem like a plot line from an episode of Black Mirror, but it's no longer the stuff of science fiction. Cortica, an Israeli company with deep roots in security and AI research, recently formed a partnership in India with Best Group to analyze the terabytes of data streaming from CCTV cameras in public areas.

Uber's self-driving car crash that led to the death of a mother-of-two could have been avoided, according to driverless vehicle experts. Police in Arizona are still investigating the incident and have released footage of the moment Elaine Herzberg, 49, was hit by the self-driving Volvo SUV. Cortica, a firm that develops artificial intelligence for autonomous vehicles, has analysed the dash cam video. The company concludes the car, which failed to brake or swerve before the collision, had enough time to react and potentially save Ms Herzberg's life. Uber's self-driving car crash that led to the death of a mother-of-two could have been avoided, according to experts.