Uber: Flying cars by 2020

Uber dreams Uber, the car-sharing company that recently got on Apple's bad side, is shooting for the moon with the flying car dream. The goal, says the company, is to have its technology ready for demo by the World Expo in Dubai in the next few years by 2020. Uber in its first day of its Uber Elevate Summit in Texas, talking about the possibilities of vertical lift-off vehicles.

While flying vehicles are hardly anything new (planes anyone?) Uber is pushing for a new way to think of transportation in the air: a personal vehicle that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but be more approachable (and presumably affordable like a car.

You only have to turn on cartoons to see our futuristic impressions of flying cars: the Jetsons were a prime example. Star Wars, of course, also featured vehicles that lifted straight up off the ground. And who can forget Blade Runner, with doors that opened like a DeLorean and Tesla, that drove on the ground and then lifted up in to the air.

Uber is calling its project the Uber Elevate Network (get it?). While the technology, eventually, seems likely, the question on whether our skies will fill with low-flying cars at the number and frequency that we have on the ground is worth certainly asking. The world of Blade Runner was hardly inviting for many reasons. But our vistas teeming with flying vehicles—rather than clouds, trees and birds? We shall see.

Waymo ridesWaymo, Alphabet's self-driving car project, is offering free rides to people who live in the Phoenix, AZ area: a smart move to warm up future riders not just to their brand—but to self-driving cars as well. The public at large isn't exactly unified in their feelings about autonomous technology. Getting self-driving cars on the road is one hurdle. Getting people into those self-driving cars is still another. The catch for Waymo's offer is you have to apply to be an early rider. So get to it.

Viral bikini Our contributor Kelsey Fox took a snapshot of herself in a bikini several years ago and watched the image—and her story—go viral all from just a single post on Ingur. She warns that users may not know what rights they give away when they upload their photos online.