As Level 3, 4 and 5 autonomous driving becomes the target hastening the next transformation of transportation, Jaguar Land Rover announced Wednesday it is partnering with Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia to jointly develop Jaguar Land Rover's next generation of AI-enabled automotive software. "Our long-term strategic partnership with Nvidia will unlock a world of potential for our future vehicles as the business continues its transformation into a truly global, digital powerhouse," said Thierry Bolloré, Jaguar Land Rover chief executive officer. "Jaguar Land Rover will become the creator of the world's most desirable luxury vehicles and services for the most discerning customers." All Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles will be built on the "Nvidia Drive" software-defined platform starting in 2025, the same time that Jaguar's line of vehicles go fully electric. It will allow JLR to customize its AI experience to provide a number of active safety, automated driving, and parking systems, as well as provide driver assistance systems.

The main story of this edition of the Tech Diaries is the Deepfakes issue that has gotten the U.S Congress freaking out. It represents the class of synthetic media generated by AI and represents another dark side of technology -- ringing alarm bells about what the implications of a sudden digital transformation can have on the society as a whole. The disruption caused by deepfakes can have serious consequences on how we differentiate right from wrong -- as if the "fake news" issue on the social media & other platforms isn't enough headache already. U.S lawmakers have started hearings on the issue, fearing the disruptive & deceptive technology may unfairly affect the upcoming U.S Presidential elections in 2020 -- as we saw, how just a simple low tech manipulation of videos of the U.S President & the House Speaker by rival groups earlier this year created headlines. The real problem starts when advanced Deep Learning algorithms are employed to create real-life images.

Deep learning has become the go-to "AI" technique for image recognition and classification. It has reached a stage where a programmer doesn't even have to create their own models, thanks to a large number available off the shelf, pre-trained and ready for download. Training these models is essentially an optimisation exercise, something that involves some complicated (well, relatively) maths in order to reduce the number of errors on each cycle by adjusting a large number of internal weighting factors. At the end of the training phase, you should have a neural net that can accomplish the task it has been assigned. The problem with neural nets (and deep learning) is that once they have been trained, we don't know what's going on inside them.

Range Rover has unveiled its latest'green' compact luxury 4X4 with'X-Ray vision' that enable drivers to'see' through the bonnet to view what lies on beneath on the road below and'eyes in the back of its head' to show what's coming up behind. The new second-generation British-built Evoque off-roader is built with electrification and hybrid power in mind, and has a non-leather cloth option designed for vegetarians and vegans and made from recycled plastic bottles. Significantly, it features unique'ground view' technology that makes its bonnet'invisible' to the driver so he or she has a view of any rough or extreme terrain - or high city centre kerbs - that are lurking underneath or just ahead, but normally out of sight. The firm said its ClearSight Ground View technology marks'a world first' for the compact luxury 4X4 which is powered by a range of mild-hybrid petrol and diesel engines, with a plug in hybrid to follow next year and the potential for a fully electric version. Range Rover has unveiled its latest'green' compact luxury 4X4 with'X-Ray vision' that enable drivers to'see' through the bonnet to view what lies on beneath on the road below Significantly, it features unique'ground view' technology that makes its bonnet'invisible' to the driver so he or she has a view of any rough or extreme terrain - or high city centre kerbs - that are lurking underneath or just ahead, but normally out of sight The new all-seeing Evoque was unveiled at a star-studded international launch at the Old Truman Brewery in East London's trendy Brick Lane where fashion and Vogue cover model Adwoa Aboah was to appear wearing a dress made out of the very same Kvadrat material made from recycled plastic bottles.

A fraudster who met her victim on a dating website for naturists scammed him out of £50,000. Moira Etchells, 45, met Ian Chatting-Tonks in 2013 and persuaded him to lend her the cash to start a business artificially inseminating cows. Swansea Crown Court heard she spent £35,000 on a new Land Rover and banked the rest. Etchells, of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, admitted fraud and got an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years. Widower Mr Chatting-Tonks, from Norfolk, went online to search for a new partner who was also interested in naturism, which is when he found Etchells' profile.

In the quarter century since Volvo rolled my ruby-red 240 wagon off an assembly line, its creator has gone from a modest Swedish independent automaker to part of a massive American conglomerate to an arm of a Chinese automaker that's pushing driverless cars and racing to go fully electric in the next two years. It's been a funky journey for a funky automaker, but it's no mere aberration or footnote. If you want to understand the car industry of the past 25 years--and maybe the next 25--study Volvo's journey. For a niche player best known for shuttling liberals and hippies, Volvo has long played an outsized role in the evolution of the auto industry. It invented and made standard the three-point seat belt.

Britain's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover has invested £19.6 million ($25 million) in taxi-hailing company Lyft, one of Uber's biggest rivals. Jaguar Land Rover, which will supply a fleet of vehicles as part of the deal, said the money would help develop and test technology for self-driving cars. Uber and Lyft, both based in San Francisco, are racing to develop self-driving taxi technology. Jaguar Land Rover has invested £19.6 million ($25 million) in taxi-hailing company Lyft, one of Uber's biggest rivals. Ninety-five per cent of miles travelled will happen in autonomous electric vehicles which are owned by fleets rather than individuals in little more than a decade, a report by California research group RethinkX found last month. The report found Autonomous Electric Vehicles (A-EVs) will be owned by companies providing Transport as a Service (TaaS) by 2030 which will make up 60 per cent of vehicles on US roads.

It look like a gadget-filled motor that would have featured on the Thunderbirds. But this British 4x4 will soon be used by search and rescue teams to help save lives during disaster relief operations. The specially developed Land Rover Discovery has an in-built drone that launches through the vehicle's roof. It will allow rescuers to drive close to the scene of major emergencies - ranging from avalanches and earthquakes to rail crashes and floods - sending back details of unseen dangers ahead. The specially developed Land Rover Discovery has an in-built drone that launches through the vehicle's roof Crucially the drone can be launched while the vehicle is in motion – at speeds of up to 25mph - thanks to ground-breaking world-first docking technology.

In an airplane hanger on MIT's campus in Cambridge last week, a team of engineering students and researchers put the finishing touches on Talos, a Land Rover that drives itself. Talos is MIT's entry in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's (DARPA) robotic car race, which will take place on November 3, in Victorville, CA. Known as the Urban Challenge, the race will test the ability of robotic cars from 35 different teams to obey traffic laws and drive safely in a city-like environment without human assistance. The vehicles will need to find their way to a preprogrammed destination while paying attention to lane markers, other cars, and unexpected obstacles, such as potholes in the road. The Urban Challenge is a follow-up to DARPA's Grand Challenge race, held in 2004 and 2005, in which cars navigated an empty desert road.

It's been a year that should dispel doubts the car industry is going through a technological revolution. The convergence of traditional motor manufacturing and new digital technologies has been shifting slowly through the gears for a couple of years. But in 2016, things hit top speed. A string of deals, strategic announcements and investments has even left some experts wondering if a bubble is growing. "Manufacturers finally really understood the need for change," says Martin Benecke, Frankfurt-based analyst at IHS Automotive. "They see the competitive threat from Google and Apple.