For years, companies and techno-bros have been saying that self-driving cars are ready to roll. Now companies like the ride-hailing service Lyft are actually letting customers take rides in autonomous vehicles. And at CES this year, John Deere unveiled a self-driving tractor that lets farmers put the latest automation tech to work in the fields. But if the time for self-driving vehicles is finally nigh, what does that mean for the workers who make a living behind the wheel? This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

From a Las Vegas stage today, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda asked an audience to imagine how the future of mobility could transform Burning Man. Then he put forward his own vision: the e-Palette. Like the humble slab of wood for which it's named, this electric, self-driving vehicle is versatile by design. It could be a cargo van. Or a flexible complement to an established mass transit system.

One of the major benefits of our self-driving future is just how much more gosh-darn productive we're all going to be. Instead of wasting brain power driving our cars to work, we'll sit back and let the ride do it for us. Suddenly, that time can be harnessed for our leisure or, more likely, to cram even more work into our days. But what will happen to all the people like me, who get sick at the thought of sitting in a car? I'm not much of a car guy, because when I think about cars, my overriding memory is vomiting on the side of the highway.

If you're following the race to build self-driving cars, and trying to track the various partnerships and pilot programs and hang-outs between tech companies and mapmakers and automakers themselves, sorry about that headache. Today, Ford announced it's investing $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, a months-old startup run by Carnegie Mellon roboticists and engineers who really know their artificial intelligence stuff. With this move, Ford tacitly acknowledges it lacks the know-how to deliver on its promise to put a fleet of self-driving cars on the road by 2021--and that it's not above bringing in a ringer. "With Argo AI's agility and Ford's scale, we're combining the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline we have at Ford," says Ford CEO Mark Fields. In other words: You're great at algorithms, we're great at cars--let's hang out.

If you're following the race to build self-driving cars, and trying to track the various partnerships and pilot programs and hang-outs between tech companies and mapmakers and automakers themselves, sorry about that headache. Today, Ford announced it's investing $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, a months-old startup run by Carnegie Mellon roboticists and engineers who really know their artificial intelligence stuff. With this move, Ford tacitly acknowledges it lacks the know-how to deliver on its promise to put a fleet of self-driving cars on the road by 2021--and that it's not above bringing in a ringer. "With Argo AI's agility and Ford's scale, we're combining the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline we have at Ford," says Ford CEO Mark Fields. In other words: You're great at algorithms, we're great at cars--let's hang out.

Forget the motor and the drivetrain. The main engine of the self-driving car of the future will be an AI-powered supercomputer. That future could be approaching faster than you think: Next month Nvidia will release a self-driving car computer, one of the first to hit the market. Called Drive PX, it has 2.3 teraflops of processing horsepower, 12 camera inputs, and computer vision algorithms--essentially it's an automotive OS that automakers and developers can use to help "teach" cars how to drive. Making smart decisions quickly is one of the big promises of artificial intelligence.

By early next decade (sooner, if you believe Elon Musk), you'll climb in, enter your destination, and get back to thumbing your phone as the robot does the tedious work of driving. A world in which cars are merely rooms on wheels provides new opportunities to entertain captive, bored passengers, not to mention sell them stuff. To explore that future, students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California (whose alumni include big name car designers at BMW, Lexus, and others) ignored the technical challenges of autonomy, and focused on how riding in these cars will feel. During a 14-week course, they worked with everyone from artists to rocket scientists. They explored how to help humans trust the technology, how to make ride-sharing feel personal, even how to recreate experience of an old-school gasoline car like a Ferrari.

Tesla is making several big announcements this month, and Elon Musk just delivered the first: From now on, all new Tesla cars will be self-driving. The electric automaker also teamed up with Panasonic to build solar panels for its Powerwall home battery, which it's set to update next week. Hyperloop One is forging ahead on its futuristic transportation system by raising 50 million and hiring Uber's former CFO as an advisor. It looks like Apple has scrapped plans to build a self-driving car, and BMW showcased plans for a next-gen smart motorcycle that will never crash or tip over. In energy news, scientists accidentally discovered a cheap, simple way to transform CO2 into ethanol fuel.

Che Voigt believes his company has solved problems that have plagued the working world since the advent of typing. It's a solution to hunched backs, stiff necks and tight shoulders. It's a workstation that, with a push of a button, transitions from a standing desk to a seated table to a fully reclined platform like a dentist's chair. Its seat expands and retracts, supporting the whole body from head to heels. There's a screen and mouse and keyboard that follows the user's eyes and hands.

On August 21, more than 11,000 Olympic athletes will leave Rio, some carrying medals, others lugging the weight of falling short of expectations. Despite their varying degrees of success, many will have the same surprise waiting for them back home: a feeling that life suddenly seems ordinary. This emotional drop, in its most acute form, might be called post-Olympic depression--or, to borrow a phrase from the sports psychologist Scott Goldman, the director of the Performance Psychology Center at the University of Michigan, an under-recovery. "Think about the rollercoaster ride prior to the Olympics, and just how fast and hectic that mad dash is," Goldman says. "This ninety-mile-per-hour or hundred-mile-per-hour ride comes to a screeching halt the second the Olympics are over. And when it's all said and done, they're just physiologically depleted, as well as psychologically."