A Baidu Apollo autonomous vehicle is on display during the 2nd Digital China Summit & Exhibition at ... [ ] Fuzhou Strait International Conference & Exhibition Center on last year in Fuzhou, Fujian Province of China. As the technology dawned, the predictions were stunning: one 2015 prediction forecast that autonomous vehicles would be piloting humans around U.S. cities in significant numbers as soon as 2018. But here we are in 2020 and AVs have barely shown themselves in the United States, while other countries--notably China--are threatening to take the lead. "Even the manufacturers have taken a much more careful view of it, a much more calculated view in the United States," said Jerry Quandt, executive director of the Illinois Autonomous Vehicle Association, "but we are seeing it happening in China, and there are cities where 20 percent of the vehicles they have on the road are autonomous." It's not entirely clear where the two countries stand in relation to technology development.

Remember the last time someone flipped you the bird? Whether or not that single finger was accompanied by spoken obscenities, you knew exactly what it meant. The conversion from movement into meaning is both seamless and direct, because we are endowed with the capacity to speak without talking and comprehend without hearing. We can direct attention by pointing, enhance narrative by miming, emphasize with rhythmic strokes and convey entire responses with a simple combination of fingers. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences. The tendency to supplement communication with motion is universal, though the nuances of delivery vary slightly.