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Wayne Williams from Ford shows us one of the company's fully autonomous Fusion research vehicles. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—As we've noted elsewhere, CES has now evolved to be part car show. But not just any car show—the focus is on how technology is transforming the car, and nowhere is that more evident than in autonomous driving. The goal is to get to "level four"—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's highest level of self-driving vehicle, capable of getting from point A to point B without any human driver intervention. We're not there yet—no one in the industry Ars has spoken to recently thinks the tech challenges are quite solved yet—but research vehicles from companies like Google, Delphi, Audi, and Ford are testing out the hardware and software necessary to get us to that point. With that in mind, we spoke to Wayne Williams, who gave us a quick tour of one of Ford's fully autonomous hybrid Fusions.

Surveillance video shows two suspects during bank robberies across the US Southeast. (credit: FBI)

A woman charged in connection to a string of armed jewelry store heists was arrested after the authorities analyzed cell-site data of telephone calls made during the nine-month robbery spree across the US Southeast, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

The bureau said in court documents that the 24-year-old suspect, Abigail Kemp, wore an earpiece and was talking into it during several of the robberies. Store employees were tied up and shoppers were held at gunpoint during the robberies. At one incident in Florida in August, in which the Georgia woman allegedly netted $400,000 in jewelry, the FBI said (PDF) that the suspect "was observed with a cellular telephone and wearing a cellular telephone earpiece during the robbery and was heard speaking to someone. At one point during the robbery, the earpiece fell out of the white female's ear and she promptly put it back in."

"Based on an analysis of cellular tower information obtained by law enforcement, telephone number (404) 630-2685 appeared at or near all of the robbery locations in Panama City Beach, Florida, Woodstock, Georgia, and Blufton, South Carolina, during the time that the robberies discussed above were being committed," according to an FBI arrest warrant. "A check of law enforcement databases revealed telephone number (404) 630-2685 is associated with an individual named Abigail Kemp." Ars called that number and left a voice message.

Ryan drowns in the game, surrounded by the black, cancerous bulbs that frequently appear throughout That Dragon, Cancer.

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Death happens a lot in video games, but how often do games stop to reflect upon it, or upon grief? Most games cloak death in hit points, energy bars, and infinite respawns—death is reduced to a gameplay mechanic, a thing that can, with skill, be avoided or defeated. Even when games permanently remove warriors from a quest's adventuring party or force troubled virtual soldiers to question their motivations and press "X" to pay respects, death is not an end. So long as we hold a controller, the bodies are buried, the emotions are overcome, and the battle rages on.

That Dragon, Cancer is the form's rare exception: a game that follows a family's suffering through cancer therapy for their year-old son. The game dares to attach grief and tragedy to its core interactivity, and as such, it has grabbed a lot of pre-release attention. While it's not new for indie and experimental games take on ambitious, emotional concepts and existential crises, never has one come along that has been so frank, so nakedly autobiographical, and so imbued with its creators' spiritual identities.

The game is difficult, but not because of hard-to-solve puzzles or combat. Its most touching moments made me pause to reflect, to collect myself, and, quite frankly, to sob uncontrollably. But this is a video game, not a book or film or TV series, and that means That Dragon, Cancer is difficult for reasons beyond empathy and triggered memories. Video games have the unique power to put players in control of a narrative and then steal that control away, and That Dragon, Cancer employs that power to incredible emotional effect—after all, what can render a parent as powerless as facing an unkillable cancer in your infant child?

Harman's Yoram Berholtz explains how Harman is helping the car industry stay current with over-the-air software updates. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—A constant bugbear in automotive tech is how inconvenient it is to have to take one's car to the dealership to get a software update—something Tesla owners often gloat about since their cars don't suffer that problem. Well, have faith, non-Tesla owners, because it looks like the auto industry is moving in the right direction. To find out more, we spoke to Harman's Yoram Berholtz at CES.

(credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation)

From hurricanes to heat waves, it seems that no corner of the world has been shielded from the force of extreme weather. While we tend to focus on damage to communities, agriculture has also been hit hard by these events.

The agricultural sector of developing countries accounts for almost 25 percent of all damage and losses from weather-related events. This damage can threaten everything from local food infrastructure to global food security. However, not all extreme weather events result in an agricultural disaster. These depend on several factors: the severity of the event, the susceptibility of the environmental systems, and the exposure of the human and natural systems.

Droughts and floods

Though the influence of weather-related events on agriculture has been explored, previous studies have been limited. Recently, a team of scientists have taken an empirical approach to estimate the influence of extreme weather disasters using data in three areas: cropped area, yields, and production at the global scale.