If you wonder how self-driving cars will handle bicyclists, dogs, balls rolling into the street and all the other uncertainties of the roadway, consider what your phone is doing while you sleep. "The way Tesla’s treating a car, it’s like rolling code, a rolling computer, it’s becoming like our phones," said Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow with the Technology Policy Program at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. "We get daily updates for our phones, for our apps and our operating system. That’s going to happen for our cars." Thierer has studied Google's descriptions of odd situations its autonomous vehicles have encountered …

Up, up and away: Dubai hopes to have a passenger-carrying drone regularly buzzing through the skyline of this futuristic city-state in July. Mattar al-Tayer, the head of Dubai's Roads & Transportation Agency, made the announcement on Monday at the World Government Summit. The drone—a Chinese-made EHang 184—is an egg-shaped craft with four legs sticking out, each with two small propellers. The rider punches in a destination on a touch screen in front of the passenger seat, then the drone would fly there automatically. The drone, which has a half-hour flight time, will be monitored remotely by a control room on the ground. …

The California DMV has added Subaru as the latest member of its list of companies clear to test autonomous driving technology on state roads, bringing the exclusive club to 22 members in total. Subaru is the car-making wing of Japanese transportation company Fuji Heavy Industries, and makes vehicles including the popular Forester and Outback lines. Subaru already offers advanced driver assist features via its ‘EyeSight’ branded options, with plans to introduce new features including traffic jam autonomous navigation and steering, which is designed to work in traffic with speeds of up to 40 mph. The company also aims to offer highway driving semi-autonomy capabilities …

An unnamed University was attacked by some 5,000 campus devices from its vending machines to light sensors, “and all IOT devices” according to the Verizon 2017 Data Breach Digest (DBD) being released this month. Talking to SCMediaUK.com, Laurance Dine leader of Verizon's digital forensics team in Europe, explained that a primary facilitating factor was that the University's administrative network was indvertently connected to its IoT device network.  The attacker appears to have come in through the admin network and changed the default credentials on the devices, and given them new passwords.

The first Android Wear 2.0 watches from LG and Google aren’t even on shelves yet, but the first competitor has already been announced. But it’s not from Huawei, Moto, or Asus. It’s from Verizon. Yes, you’ve read that right: Big Red is getting into the watch business. Called Wear24, presumably a reference to its all-day connectivity, the wearable competes directly with the LG Watch Sport, currently the top-of-the-line Android Wear 2.0 watch. According to CNet, the Quanta-manufactured watch features a slightly bigger screen (1.39 inches vs. 1.38 inches) and battery (450mAh vs. 440mAh). It also includes IP67 water resistance, NFC, and LTE, ticking off …

A special 10th-anniversary edition of the iPhone is expected to be the ultimate iPhone, and it’ll come with a price tag to match—very likely north of $1,000, says a source with knowledge of Apple’s plans. The price tag isn’t very surprising considering that the 256GB version of the iPhone 7 Plus sells for $969, and the new iPhone 8 is expected to be packed with many more features—including a new OLED display, which is said to look great and stretch across the whole front of the phone, according to our source, but will probably cost Apple roughly twice as much …

Six Flags is bringing a new dimension to its roller coasters thanks to some new virtual reality tech. The first VR roller coaster will debut later this year, with VR support provided by Samsung's Gear platform. The partnership represents a significant gain for Samsung’s VR efforts as it continues to expand the boundaries of what virtual reality can do. “Six Flags is proud to be partnering with Samsung to develop the newest, most innovative thrill ride experience in the theme park industry,” said Brett Petit, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Six Flags. “This mixed reality technology is …

Since first being unbundled back in 2015 in the U.S., Alexa Voice Service — the voice-response software that powers the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot — has been one of Amazon’s chief tools to spread its services to a range of connected devices. Now Amazon is taking its strategy international. Today it announced that AVS will now also work in the UK and Germany, and will understand German and British English. It means that consumers in any of the three markets will be able to use any device enabled with AVS to work with the full range of Alexa services in that market, and they will be able to set commands …

One of the trickiest parts of proving the value of emerging smart city technology is showing how city residents could benefit from data being picked up by sensors located on light poles and along streets. On Tuesday, officials in Kansas City, Mo., took steps to connect how such real-time data gathered by sensors provides benefits to its citizens. City officials unveiled an online interactive map for the public that shows available parking, traffic and KC Streetcar locations in real time with data gathered from 122 video sensors along a two-mile segment of Main Street in the downtown.

Even if you buy into Tim Cook's pitch that he can't make enough Apple watches to keep up with demand, the tech industry hasn't had much luck popularizing smartwatches. But Google's not giving up. After a months-long delay, Google on Wednesday released its first major update to Android Wear, its software for powering wearable devices. New features include better compatibility with iPhones, an improved messaging interface that lets you respond quickly with autocomplete replies, and the ability to make calls directly from the watch, if it has a built-in cellular connection. As part of the launch, Google also worked with Korean consumer electronics maker LG to unveil …