Lyft has just announced plans to partner with three companies in the autonomous vehicle (AV) sector and gradually introduce their technology into its network starting in 2025. The three companies are Mobileye, May Mobility and Nexar. Mobileye is a pioneer of self-driving technology and has also developed advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Lyft's partnership with Mobileye will allow vehicles already equipped with Mobileye's tech to start transporting passengers to their destinations, integrating them into the Lyft network seamlessly. The technology will be available to both small and large fleets on Lyft.

Nexar uses data gathered from its dash cameras to develop its Driver Behavioral Map. Nexar, an Israeli AI computer vision company, announced the release of its Driver Behavioral Maps, which aim to make autonomous vehicles (AVs) drive more naturally. The maps make use of crowd-sourced driving data from Nexar's dash cameras, which provide information about human driving behavior. This data is aggregated and overlaid on a high-definition base map to assist AVs in learning the local driving culture and important driving habits. "A self-driving car that drives only according to a raw map would be an immediate danger due to its robotic style of driving," Eran Shir, co-founder and CEO of Nexar, said.

Nexar will leverage Veniam's technology at the edge, making data flows efficient, cost effective and easier for different cars to collaborate in understanding the world and thus drive safely Nexar, a leading computer vision company, and the number one consumer smart dash cam seller in the United States, announced today a strategic partnership with Veniam, the leading provider of intelligent networking for the internet of moving things. Using Veniam's software APIs, Nexar will be able to better collect the images it needs to create an AI-digital twin of US roads. This will enable Nexar to make the most of all available wireless networks (4G/5G, Wi-Fi, mesh…) and transfer massive amounts of data to the cloud in a secure and cost-effective way. This cooperation will also help to further expand the wealth of vision data it collected by Nexar, to build a real time twin of the road, improve safety, train Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and inform city decisions, as well as "see" changes in the road. "Veniam's capabilities are a great fit for Nexar and will help it realize its vision of seeing what's ahead on the road," said Eran Shir, Co-founder and CEO of Nexar.

Fernandez-Ruiz: BDD100K is an anonymized dataset collected from phone cameras at very high volume. To date, drivers using Nexar have driven more than 150 million miles. The accessibility of the phone and the low cost of the unit makes it really easy to collect incredibly large volumes of real-world data and to observe and learn from as many corner cases and edge conditions as possible. By corner cases and edge conditions, I mean highly unusual events that happen on the road or conditions that aren't standard. This could range from unusual and extreme weather to collapsed power lines and more.

The images above are examples of the three possible classes I needed to predict: no traffic light (left), red traffic light (center) and green traffic light (right). The challenge required the solution to be based on Convolutional Neural Networks, a very popular method used in image recognition with deep neural networks. The submissions were scored based on the model's accuracy along with the model's size (in megabytes). Smaller models got higher scores. In addition, the minimum accuracy required to win was 95%.

But before autonomous cars can transform modern life, cities will have to transform themselves. Smart cities will be the linchpins of the autonomous age -- deploying the digital infrastructure necessary to connect cars to vital information, reduce traffic congestion and make roads safer. "The cities of the future are going to require intricate and complicated management systems," said Eran Shir, CEO and cofounder of Tel Aviv based Nexar, which announced today on closing $30 million in series B funding. The company is building a vehicle-to-vehicle network and collect real-time information about road conditions, traffic, infrastructure problems, crashes and road hazards. "Real-time information is crucial for cities that want to take control of their smart city initiatives, and Nexar has crowdsourced a database of over 100 million driven miles," Shir said.

Dash cams on cars might not be limited to just law enforcement officials' cars -- a new app can transform your smartphone into a dash cam and will also provide additional features such as crash warnings, auto-detection of events on the roads and even modes for hailing cabs. Nexar is a free app available in both Google Play Store and Apple App Store and can turn phones into a connected dashboard system. The company claims that its open communication network made collision rate in New York City drop by 30 percent. The app's artificial intelligence-based virtual dashboard will also connect drivers to others using the app and help create a safer driving environment. The app detects dangers on the roads and provides "watch out" warnings which could help users avoid potential pile-on situations on the road. Like any other dash cam, the app can also be used as evidence in case of an accident for claiming insurance, the app makers have claimed.

The images above are examples of the three possible classes I needed to predict: no traffic light (left), red traffic light (center) and green traffic light (right). The challenge required the solution to be based on Convolutional Neural Networks, a very popular method used in image recognition with deep neural networks. The submissions were scored based on the model's accuracy along with the model's size (in megabytes). Smaller models got higher scores. In addition, the minimum accuracy required to win was 95%.

Eran Shir has an ambitious goal: Eliminate car crashes without waiting for the advent of autonomous vehicles. His company Nexar makes an app that turns smartphones into an "intelligent" dashcam that uses the phone's camera, accelerometer and gyroscope to collect information about what's happening on the road and to send it to the cloud for machine-learning analysis. Nexar now is crowdsourcing its data in San Francisco and New York to give drivers a real-time heads-up about dangers such as cars ahead suddenly stopping or swerving. "We are weaving everyone together to build a network of vehicles to track what's happening on the road, that can predict and prevent accidents," said Shir, co-founder and CEO of Tel Aviv's Nexar, which has offices in San Francisco and New York. For instance, "If you brake hard, all the cars behind you will be aware of that within 50 milliseconds."

We likely aren't going to get flying cars anytime soon, but we will have self-driving ones. They'll be packed to the gills with sensors to keep us safe and sound as we Snapchat ourselves cruising down the highway, bellowing along to our favorite Urfaust tracks. But those are a ways off, and the phone in your pocket already has a pretty solid set of sensors in it. Plus, using a device you already own is far more economical than buying a new car. A $7 mount holds a phone, while the free app uses your gizmo's onboard accelerometer, cameras and microphone do the rest of the work.