In my book'Rise of the Moral Machine: Exploring Virtue Through a Robot's Eyes', I include a short fictional story about a couple (Mr and Mrs Morales) who are in the process of purchasing their first autonomous vehicle. Having chosen the model, the colour and the trim of the car, the last set of choices they are required to make concern the vehicle's'ethical alignment': i.e. the alignment of the vehicle's autonomous decisions on how it should drive with the Morales' social and ethical preferences. Without giving too much of the story away, the Morales' are presented with a series of situations each of which requires the autonomous vehicle to make a moral decision. These decisions are presented in terms of choices of who should be the casualties of an unavoidable collision, such as "should the vehicle run over the pensioner on the pedestrian crossing, or the child on the pavement?" (Figure 1).

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Now a new interdisciplinary Tel Aviv University study published in Light: Science and Applications demonstrates a way of streamlining the process of designing and characterizing basic nanophotonic, metamaterial elements. The study was led by Dr. Haim Suchowski of TAU's School of Physics and Astronomy and Prof. Lior Wolf of TAU's Blavatnik School of Computer Science and conducted by research scientist Dr. Michael Mrejen and TAU graduate students Itzik Malkiel, Achiya Nagler and Uri Arieli. "The process of designing metamaterials consists of carving nanoscale elements with a precise electromagnetic response," Dr. Mrejen says. "But because of the complexity of the physics involved, the design, fabrication and characterization processes of these elements require a huge amount of trial and error, dramatically limiting their applications." "Our new approach depends almost entirely on Deep Learning, a computer network inspired by the layered and hierarchical architecture of the human brain," Prof. Wolf explains.

As a hybrid physician/engineer, I spend a lot of time pondering how new platforms can empower doctors. I am particularly excited about the potential of smart speakers coupled with advances in A.I. and natural language processing (also looking at you, blockchain). I am bullish on conversational agents in general, previously building an iOS chatbot powered by Watson that simulates a human radiologist. Chatbots are cool and useful, but voice -- that might be magic. Sensing potential, I decided to hunker down with my trusty corgi, drink a bunch of coffee, and start building the cool voice tools I want to use in my own clinical practice.

Kathy Winter is going to spend a lot of time in the garage. Winter is the vice president and general manager of automated driving solutions at Intel. She helped dedicated the new Intel Advanced Vehicle Lab in San Jose, Calif., this week. Intel is engaged with 33 "tier 1" carmakers, and it has alliances with car suppliers such as Delphi. While the company is testing self-driving cars now, it still has a long road ahead.

You can now book your dream holiday without lifting a finger, thanks to a new Alexa update. Amazon's virtual assistant has learnt a new'skill' that allows its users to search for and book holidays using just their voice. The feature lets users search through millions of travel options in a split second, developers have claimed. But the skill is still in its first edition and can so far only be used to book Virgin Holidays. Amazon Echo's virtual assistant Alexa can now be used to search for and book holidays without lifting a finger Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled smart speaker that works alongside a smartphone app.