Fully autonomous vehicles may still technically be on the horizon, but according to CEO Elon Musk, Tesla's dominance of the market is already 'game, set, and match.'

In an interview with MIT researcher, Lex Fridman, Musk claims that the company should achieve its quest for fully autonomous vehicles in as little as six months, and at the most, in one year.

As reported by Ars Technica, Musk said that the vehicles could come to fruition 'maybe even toward the end of this year,' adding, 'I'd be shocked if it's not next year at the latest.'

While Musk's claims that Tesla will be delivering the world's first fully autonomous vehicles on an expedited timeline, the forecast has raised the eyebrows of industry skeptics who say the company's overblown projections constitute false advertising at best.

In a report in March, one autonomous expert called Musk's prognostications 'unconscionable.'

'Claiming its vehicles will soon be "feature complete" for full self-driving is one more step in the unconscionable practices that Tesla is already engaged in with Autopilot — overselling its capabilities and reliability when marketing its vehicles and then blaming the driver for not reading the manual and paying constant attention when the technology inevitably fails,' said Dean Pomerleau, of Carnegie Mellon University in a CNN report.

This isn't the first time that Musk has handed down aggressive timelines for the company's autonomous vehicles.  In 2015, the Tesla executive estimated that the vehicles would be on the road, well, two years ago.

'It's a much easier problem than people think it is,' Musk told Fortune four years ago.  But it's not like George Hotz, a one-guy-and-three-months problem.  You know, it's more like, thousands of people for two years.'

Steady advancements in software and hardware have propelled self-driving cars into unprecedented territory — Tesla's own models are now pioneering one of the first readily available pieces of software that allow semi-automated driving -- but barriers for fully autonomous vehicles still abound.  Current systems still require a human operator to be present at the wheel to intervene in the event of an unforeseen safety hazard, like a pothole or in some cases intentionally designed stickers that cause the car to swerve into oncoming traffic.

Waymo, the Google-backed competitor to Tesla's race for autonomous cars, has worked aggressively to gain permits for its self-driving vehicles on the road, deploying a fleet of taxis in Arizona this month.  Waymo taxis still currently come equipped with a human overseer.

No one can say for sure when fully autonomous vehicles will begin to be regularly deployed on roadways, but according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they will likely come beyond 2025.

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Conjuring up unique ways to test the limits of the body through sport is about the most human exercise that people can engage in.  That is exactly why artificial intelligence is joining in on the fun.

Design firm AKQA says that it has introduced the world's first-ever sport designed by artificial intelligence which it calls, 'speedgate.'

The game, according to the firm, was created by feeding rules from 400 different sports into a neural network and letting a computer combine them based on three key factors.  Researchers say they wanted the final product to be easy to learn, accessible to all athletes, and be physically engaging, or a 'good work out' as they put it.  The results from AKQA's experiment look a little something like if Rugby combined with Quidditch and then added just a sprinkle of Lacrosse to the amalgam.

In practice, the game works by placing competitors in a pill shaped field — two teams of six players each — and then having them work together to pass or kick a ball through three different 'gates' created by parallel posts.

What really stands out in speedgate, however, is in its name.  The ball has to move every 3 seconds otherwise players incur a penalty, ensuring a pace befitting of the title of 'sport.'

While artificial intelligence may have done the grunt work of mapping out ideas, rules, parameters, and even logos and taglines for the sport, in the end it was up to humans to determine exactly what worked and what didn't.

Speedgate, says AKQA, was selected out of three finalists and was the result of human testing and honing of the AI's thousands of outputs.  In some suggested sports, the official ball was the size of a yoga ball, some were played in a gym, others used rackets, but in the end they landed on speedgate.

As reported by Fast Company, the outputs weren't all created equally.  The system also sent out fairly inane suggestions like 'pommel horse sawing,' which the team described as 'two people sit on pommel horses on opposite sides of a giant log, they rock back and forth with a saw.'  According Engadget, speedgate may be in its fledgling stage as a sport, but that doesn't mean there's not room for a more professional future.

AKQA is currently in talks with the Oregon Sports Authority about establishing intramural leagues and is actively promoting potential players to start their own leagues.

To help immerse players in the idea of speedgate, the game even has its own philosophy, also created by the game's artificially intelligent founder.  'Face the ball, to be the ball, to be above the ball.'

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Thanks to a feature associated with the Find My iPhone security app, a new report says tens of thousands of fully-functioning iPhones donated every year end up being scrapped for parts.

According to a report by Colorado Public Interest Research Group, CoPIRG, a feature called 'activation lock' which is meant to lock users' iPhone's in the event that they're stolen or lost, also prevented 66,000 phones from being reused over a three year period.

The Wireless Alliance, a nationwide electronics recycling facility who was cited in the group's study, said that one in four phones they received in 2018 had an activation lock still present.

'While the activation lock is intended to deter thieves by making stolen phones unusable and therefore not worth stealing in the first place, it has also resulted in making a surprisingly high number of donated or handed-down phones unusable, having negative impacts on our environment and the used phone marketplace,' reads the report.

Most mobile users can attest to the effectiveness of Find My iPhone for locating lost devices; the app allows users to track and secure their phone with an iCloud login using GPS location, by activating a siren so the phone can be located audibly, and, of course, by locking the phone to maintain security.

The downside is iPhone donors who fail to turn the feature off before handing their phones over for reuse effectively ensure no one — even well-meaning and legitimate owners — can use the device.

'If someone does not turn off the activation lock on their phone before they drop their phone in a donation box, their phone can’t be reused as a whole device and will be unusable,' reads the report.

The results, says the report, could end up significantly impacting the environment.  In the U.S. alone, 416,000 phones are discarded every day and many of them eventually end up in landfills.  This means not only more garbage buried in the Earth but also ensures that the environmental footprint of manufacturing phones continues to widen.  According to Apple, 77 per cent of the greenhouse gas the company produces come from the manufacturing process alone.

To help counteract the process CoPIRG says manufacturers and recyclers should work arm-in-arm to develop a system by which phones with activation locks present can be unlocked and recycled.  That process could involve using a database of phone identification numbers to verify whether or not the device has been reported stolen or alternatively a notification could be sent to the donor allowing them to unlock the phone remotely.

In the meantime, however, anyone looking to pass their phone on to another person may just have to rely on following a few simple steps.

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Painted cycle lanes do not make roads more safe for cyclists as an alarming number are found reduce the distance motorists gave cyclists, an Australian study claims.

Motorists passing bikes on roads where there were cycle lanes were found to pass an average of 15 inches (40cm) closer than on roads with no cycle lanes.  The study suggests the painted lanes mean that there is less of a conscious requirement for drivers to provide safe additional passing distance.

The largest of its kind, the study followed 60 cyclists in Melbourne who rode their bicycles on their commutes with a device called a 'MetreBox'.  These were installed to quantify the distance that motor vehicle drivers provide when passing cyclists.

More than 18,000 vehicle passing events from 422 trips were recorded were an alarming number of cars came too close in proximity to the cyclists.  One in three overtakes in high-speed zones were deemed a 'close pass' and 124 passing events came within less than 23 inches (60cm) of the cyclist.

Most Australian States and Territories have either legislated or begun trials of minimum passing distance laws to provide greater safety for cyclists.  These laws legislate a minimum distance of one metre when the speed limit is 60km/h or less, and 1.5 metres when the speed limit is greater than 60km/h.

Doctor Ben Beck, who lead the study, said: 'We know that vehicles driving closely to cyclists increases how unsafe people feel when riding bikes and acts as a strong barrier to increasing cycling participation.'

Doctor Beck, who's also Monash University's Deputy Head of Prehospital, Emergency and Trauma Research said that more protected cycle lanes need to be created.  He said that the lanes made cyclists more liable to be subjected to close overtakes.

He explained: 'Specifically, passing events on roads with a bicycle lane and a parked car were on average 40 cm closer than events on roads with no bicycle lane or parked cars.  The magnitude of that ­difference is quite substantial.'

Research findings suggest that marked on-road bicycle lanes, particularly alongside parked cars, are not the optimal solution for protecting people who ride bikes.  Specifically, passing events that occurred on a road with a bicycle lane and a parked car had an average passing distance that was 40cm less than a road without a bicycle lane or a parked car.

'Our results demonstrate that a single stripe of white paint is not sufficient to protect people who ride bikes,' Dr Beck said.

The study said that in situations where the cyclist is in the same lane as the motorist, the driver is required to perform an overtaking manoeuvre.  Whereas in situations where the cyclist is in a marked bicycle lane, the motorist has a clear lane ahead and not required to overtake.

'As a result, we believe that there is less of a conscious requirement for drivers to provide additional passing distance,' said Dr Beck.

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A new study into the unique evolution of human intelligence has raised ethical concerns after Chinese scientists implanted human brain genes into monkeys to boost their development.

Researchers inserted human versions of MCPH1, a gene that scientists believe plays a role in the development of the human brain, into 11 rhesus monkeys.  They found the monkeys' brains -- like those of humans -- took longer to develop, and the animals performed better in tests of short-term memory as well as reaction time compared to wild monkeys.  However, the monkeys did not grow bigger brains than the control group.

The test, the latest in a series of biomedical experiments in China to have fuelled medical ethics debates, has already drawn ethical concerns, and comparisons with dystopian sci-fi 'Planet of the Apes'.

It was conducted by researchers at the Kunming Institute of Zoology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with US researchers at the University of North Carolina.  The study was published last month in Beijing-based journal National Science Review.

'Our findings demonstrated that transgenic nonhuman primates (excluding ape species) have the potential to provide important -- and potentially unique -- insights into basic questions of what actually makes human unique,' the authors wrote.

The monkeys underwent memory tests requiring them to remember colours and shapes on a screen, and were subjected to MRI scans.  Only five of the monkeys survived into the testing stage.

The authors said the rhesus monkey, though genetically closer to humans than rodents, is still distant enough to alleviate ethical concerns.  However, some questioned the ethics of the experiment.

Jacqueline Glover, a University of Colorado bioethicist said: 'You just go to the 'Planet of the Apes' immediately in the popular imagination.'

'To humanise them is to cause harm.  Where would they live and what would they do?  Do not create a being that can't have a meaningful life in any context,' she told MIT Technology Review.

Larry Baum, a researcher at Hong Kong University's Centre for Genomic Sciences, downplayed sci-fi comparisons and said: 'The genome of rhesus monkeys differs from ours by a few per cent.  That's millions of individual DNA bases differing between humans and monkeys.  This study changed a few of those in just one of about 20,000 genes.  You can decide for yourself whether there is anything to worry about.'

Baum added that the study supported the theory that 'slower maturity of brain cells might be a factor in improving intelligence during human evolution.'

In January, Chinese scientists unveiled five macaques cloned from a single animal that was genetically engineered to have a sleep disorder, which all developed signs of mental problems including depression, anxiety and behaviours linked to schizophrenia.  They said the study was intended to aid research into human psychological problems.

And last year, Chinese researcher He Jiankui shocked the scientific community after revealing that he had successfully gene-edited twin girls born in November to prevent them from contracting HIV.

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Hard work really does pay off say scientists who found that perseverance leads to better grades and higher achievement in school.

Being passionate is not enough to ensure academic success say researchers, who identified 'grit' as a key to success.  This is defined as effort in pursuing long-term goals, and the determination to continue one’s efforts in spite of adversity.  Experts think that the finding could help create new training to help children develop the skill and help ensure their future successes.

Experts from the Academy of Finland studied more than 2,000 students from Helsinki.  They were followed through their academic career from age 12-16, which is from sixth grade until the end of ninth grade in local school years.

Researchers found that the factor that best predicts grit was commitment to goals, with previous academic achievement playing no role in developing the skill.

Professor Katariina Salmela-Aro, who led on the study, said: 'Grit means that a young person really invests in his or her studies and does not give up easily.  A key element of grit is high persistence in the face of difficulties and setbacks.  The essential finding is that these factors together are the key to success and well-being.  Mere purpose without grit does not lead to anything, but grit needs a purpose.  Our study shows the power of grit.  The results persist even if we control for personality traits, such as conscientiousness and academic persistence. '

Professor Salmela-Aro also thinks it is important to develop new interventions, practices and trials to enhance grit in children and adolescents.  She added: 'Young people should see the meaning of everyday school work as part of life in a broader context and establish achievable goals for themselves.  School must also serve as a place where it is safe to fail and learn to cope with setbacks.  One must not be discouraged by setbacks, but draw strength and new energy from them!'

The full report was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

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Lovers that mirror each other's drinking habits are more likely to stay together, research on 47,000 couples has revealed.  Researchers suggest that this could be down to a gene that influences how much we drink, as well as how it affects us.

Heavier drinkers were more likely to pair up and stay with partners who also regularly consume alcohol, with light-drinkers attracted to others of their ilk.  Each person in these couples was also found to be more likely to share a specific variant of a gene linked with heavy or light alcohol consumption.

Experts from the University of Bristol analysed the genetic data of 47,000 couples in the UK Biobank, a national resource for health research, to make the finding.

They looked at each person's reported alcohol consumption and compared with those carrying a gene variant known as the ADH1B gene.

A different variant of this gene is also connected to whether we experience unpleasant side effects of alcohol, with heavy drinkers less likely to experience as severe hangovers.

Laurence Howe, a PhD student at the University of Bristol told the New Scientist that previous studies on the link between alcohol use and partner choice have relied mostly on self-reported data.  'We wanted to disentangle the possibilities using a genetic approach.  This suggests that alcohol consumption directly influences mate choice, adding to the growing evidence that humans are more likely to select a similar mate.'

The results also suggest that a partner's drinking can have a small effect on how much we drink.  Experts found that each extra unit that a partner drinks each week corresponded to a 0.26 increase in their other half's drinking.

While the link is interesting, researchers point out that variant of ADH1B is also linked to other factors that could influence our choice of partner.  That includes heavy drinking variant being linked to being from a poorer background.

The full findings of the study were published in the journal bioRxiv.

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An age old debate between owners of cats and dogs as to which pet is superior may have finally been settled, with canines coming out on top.  Man's best friend emerged victorious from a well-respected survey that discovered dog owners are twice as likely to call themselves 'very happy'.

The startling divide comes from a US survey designed to gauge the nation's political and religious situation and is likely to cause uproar among feline fans.  Those who look after both cats and dogs fall in the middle of the two groups.

The US General Social Survey has tracked a broad swath of American trends since 1972, offering comprehensive insight into the evolving face of the country.  Last year's edition was the first time it included questions asking about pets and the relationship between owner and animal.  It found non-owners of pets and pet owners have similar happiness levels but there is a noticeable divide within the latter.

People were asked if they consider themselves to be 'very happy' and, of this group, 36 per cent of them were dog owners.  In comparison, only 18 per cent of these 'very happy' individuals were cat owners.

Dog owners also clocked higher figures for seeking comfort from their animals, playing with them and even thinking of them as part of the family.

The difference between the two groups is more significant than the happiness divide between middle class and upper class people and almost as notable as the disparity between those who say they're in 'fair' versus 'good or excellent' health.

The findings reveal a strong correlation but cannot be taken to mean having a dog causes people to be happier.  It is possible a host of external factors play a role in the differences in happiness levels.

Data in the survey also revealed dog owners are more likely to be married and own their own homes than cat owners.  It is possible these then play a more pivotal role in the overall happiness levels of people than owning a dog.

The survey covers a wide range of topics including gender and identity, current affairs, civil liberties, religion and spirituality and politics.  It also discovered the number of Americans who identify as having no religion has risen 266 per cent since 1991.  This number is now statistically similar to the number of Catholics and Evangelicals in the country.

Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University who analyzed the data, said that experts have several theories about why the number of 'nones' has risen so dramatically in recent decades.  He told DailyMail.com: 'One of them is that many people used to lie about what they were.  Many people were (always) atheist or non-religious, but it was previously culturally unacceptable to not have a religion in America.'

Shifting political ideologies about social issues has also played a role, with fewer Americans comfortable with the rhetoric of their religious leaders.

Professor Burge said: 'Another (theory) is that the religious right kind of cleaved moderate Christianity and a lot of moderate Christians who were moderately attached said they didn't want to defend Jerry Falwell … and all the anti-gay and anti- abortion religious rights leaders.  So they said, 'You know what? I'm out.'

As the 'nones' have ascended, the number of mainline Protestant Christians has fallen 62.5 per cent since 1982, to now account for just 10.8 per cent of the US population, according to the survey.  The number of Catholics has gone up and down over the decades, cumulatively decreasing more than 4 percentage points from 27.3 per cent in 1972.

However, that indicates an overall stability for that religion, despite the decades of sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Church, Professor Burge said.

'Catholicism is more cultural than religious in a lot of ways,' he said. 'People are less and less likely to disaffiliate from Catholicism than Protestantism, which is less cultural in that people are willing to walk away from it.'

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It would take at least 10 millions of years for the Earth to recover from climate change if it is serious enough to wipe out mankind, according to latest data.

The impact of modern day climate change has been compare to major extinction events such as the Great Dying that nearly killed all marine life and the extinction of dinosaurs.  Scientists who examined the fossil record say it is the evolutionary processes of microorganisms that limits the speed of recovery.

The millions of years it took for the Earth to recover from the extinction of the dinosaurs could offer fresh insight into the planet's recovery from ongoing global warming, say scientists.  The asteroid impact that led to the extinction of dinosaurs is the only event in Earth's history that caused global change faster than present day climate change.  This recovery period of habitats is present in the fossil records from the Great Dying that wiped out nearly all ocean life 252 million years ago, as well as the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.

The researchers at the University of Bristol and University of Texas say that it also confirms the theory that after a major extinction event, ecosystems evolve in a way that takes millions of years for it to thrive again on Earth.

Dr Andrew Fraass from the University of Bristol and Dr Christopher Lowery at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) who conducted the research, say that their study is the first to find evidence in the fossil records.

This is in contrast to an alternative theory that says it is environmental changes that is the limiting factor in allowing recovery of life forms on Earth.

The team followed the recovery period of a tiny microorganism known as planktic foraminifera through fossils which dates back to the extinction of the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago.  The organisms, also known as foram, are aplenty in ocean sediments which meant the researchers could closely track them without any large gaps in time.

They discovered a high level of complexity, such as the development of new traits to create a new species.  This took place before they could fully evolve - a process that slowed down global recovery even when conditions allowed for it.  Their results suggest that while the earth was inhabitable much sooner after these large-scale disasters, evolution of organisms was the limiting factor that slowed the process down.  This explained why species took millions of years to recover even though much of the planet was technically habitable relatively soon after the 'Great Dying.'

The authors believe that the same recovery period of millions of years applies to all similar events including today's global warming.

Mr Fraass said: 'We're hoping that examining the rest of the planktic foraminiferal record will give us insight into how climate shaped their evolution.  With the past, slower, changes in climate we have in the geological record, we should be able to tease out more details about how climate change might impact these important plankton.'

The recovery from past extinctions could offer a road map for what might come after the modern ongoing extinction, which is driven by climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and other factors.

The full report was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

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An author was accidentally locked out of his iPad by his three year old son for 25,536,442 minutes after the toddler repeatedly keyed in the wrong password.

Evan Osnos, a New Yorker staff writer posted the picture of the baffling error from his iPad on Twitter, the equivalent of being locked out for 49 years.  The message read: 'iPad is disabled try again in 25,536,442 minutes.'  The number of minutes displayed in the message equates to nearly 49 years and the photo has received over 100 responses so far with some users asking him to 'wait it out'.

The problem does not seem to have been resolved although according to official Apple instructions, entering the wrong password multiple times erases its content.

In the post, Mr Osnos, who is based in Washington, wrote: 'Uh, this looks fake but, alas, it’s our iPad today after 3-year-old tried (repeatedly) to unlock.  Ideas?'

While some users mocked the situation, with one user Twitter/@Geopilot writing: 'Time travel seems to be your best bet', others tried to be more useful.

One user, @Byron_Mobley, sent a screenshot of text message to someone he claimed to be 'a friend certified by Apple', whose response was: 'Nothing they can do they will never use it again.'

According to the official Apple website, the response might not be far off.  Apple wrote: 'Locking yourself out of your iOS device and retrying with the wrong password too many times leads to permanent removal of data from the device.  If you enter the wrong passcode on an iOS device too many times, you'll be locked out and a message will say that your device is disabled.  At this point, the data on your device has been erased.  To recover the use of your device, you'll need to remove your passcode by performing a restore.'

Apple's official instructions were to restore the content of your phone - if you have backed it up - by connecting it to your laptop via iTunes.  If the data was not saved however, there is no way of retrieving the information.

Apple does not state exactly how many times a wrong password is entered before the information on the device is erased, although other websites suggest this is 10 times.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk