The auto industry is undergoing a major shift, from human-driven cars to autonomous vehicles (AV). Subsequently, the transportation industry as we have always known it will completely change. Generally speaking, various technology companies are spearheading this evolution. These are the same firms that have already shown a rapid rate of innovation over time that's unmatched by the incumbent automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Tesla, for one, surprised the auto industry by introducing the Autopilot system back in 2015.

There must be a better way, some lament. It is taking too long, some say, and we need to try a different alternative. What are those comments referring to? They are referring to the efforts underway for the development of AI-based self-driving driverless autonomous cars. There are currently billions upon billions of dollars being expended towards trying to design, develop, build, and field a true self-driving car.

While the most sophisticated driverless cars on public roads can handle haboobs and rainstorms like champs, certain types of precipitation remain a challenge for them -- like snow. That's because snow covers cameras critical to those cars' self-awareness and tricks sensors into perceiving obstacles that aren't there, and because snow obscures road signs and other structures that normally serve as navigational landmarks. In an effort to spur on the development of cars capable of driving in wintry weather, startup Scale AI this week open-sourced Canadian Adverse Driving Conditions (CADC), a data set containing over 56,000 images in conditions including snow created with the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. While several corpora with snowy sensor samples have been released to date, including Linköping University's Automotive Multi-Sensor Dataset (AMUSE) and the Mapillary Vistas data set, Scale AI claims that CADC is the first to focus specifically on "real-world" driving in snowy weather. "Snow is hard to drive in -- as many drivers are well aware. But wintry conditions are especially hard for self-driving cars because of the way snow affects the critical hardware and AI algorithms that power them," wrote Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang in a blog post.

You have bought a small product online from your favorite retailer. Your cart value is at £4.99, now you are at the checkout and the delivery fee is an additional £7.99 on top. The scenario above represents a snapshot of one of the largest problems in online retail. With trillions of dollars spent online annually, when you buy something online, a large chunk of the cost of most shopping carts goes towards delivery. It is widely agreed by industry leaders that the global solution is to automate the last-mile delivery process, thus completely removing the human cost of delivery.

Connected hospitals with intelligent messaging In today's hospitals, pacemakers, defibrillators and oximeters are all connected to the internet and share vitals immediately with doctors, in turn speeding response times. Hospitals have technicians, nurses, staff, billing departments, insurance providers, patients and patients' families as stakeholders, each with different requirements of information about the care given to patient. Unified Inbox offers an AI-based unified cloud IoT messaging platform for internet of things devices to connect various stakeholders, giving them the freedom to receive different messages at different frequency, with different senses of urgency in different mediums of their choice. Unified Inbox launched this at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore as "CUBE," the IoT-secured messaging gateway for healthcare. The artificial intelligence makes the hospitals connected, giving peace of mind to patients and their loved ones while improving efficiency in the overall hospital management and interaction with all stakeholders.

Connected hospitals with intelligent messaging In today's hospitals, pacemakers, defibrillators and oximeters are all connected to the internet and share vitals immediately with doctors, in turn speeding response times. Hospitals have technicians, nurses, staff, billing departments, insurance providers, patients and patients' families as stakeholders, each with different requirements of information about the care given to patient. Unified Inbox offers an AI-based unified cloud IoT messaging platform for internet of things devices to connect various stakeholders, giving them the freedom to receive different messages at different frequency, with different senses of urgency in different mediums of their choice. Unified Inbox launched this at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore as "CUBE," the IoT-secured messaging gateway for healthcare. The artificial intelligence makes the hospitals connected, giving peace of mind to patients and their loved ones while improving efficiency in the overall hospital management and interaction with all stakeholders.

Tesla announced Wednesday that all cars being produced today and going forward will be equipped with the necessary hardware to support fully autonomous driving -- including the upcoming Model 3. The required hardware includes eight cameras that add up to 360-degree visibility, 12 updated ultrasonic sensors with added sensitivity, and a forward-facing radar the company says will see through heavy rain, fog, dust "and even the car ahead." With the upgrade, Tesla moves further down the road to making its fleet of electric vehicles capable of driving without human direction, when the software and regulations allow for it. Chief Executive Elon Musk used a news briefing after the announcement to lay into media for spotlighting accidents that occur with Tesla cars using its Autopilot driver assist systems, without putting the accidents in context of the large number of overall traffic deaths. "You effectively dissuade people from using autonomous vehicles, and you're killing people," he said. The latest hardware upgrade adds yet another project to Musk's ever-rising stack of ambitions.

Uber famously poached a third of Carnegie Mellon University's robotics lab staff in 2015 in a bid to fulfill their mission for self-driving taxis. Although the ride-sharing giant is among the many who believe driverless cars are just around the corner, the head of the university's robotics lab thinks otherwise. Herman Herman, named the group's new director after it was gutted, believes companies are'technically' not ready because they still need engineers the in car - and says a true self driving service is'not even close'. Although the ride-sharing giant is among the many big players in the industry who believe driverless cars are just around the corner, the head of the university's robotics lab thinks otherwise. Pictured is a concept drawing of Uber's self-driving cars Herman Herman was named the new director of Carnegie Mellon University's robotics lab after Uber took a third of the staff to its own researcher lab in 2015.

The integration of AI and vision has been a longterm goal of both disciplines for more than three decades. This special issue illustrates some recent work on bridging the gap.