They have one-word names, their advertising campaigns throw around lofty concepts like optimism and their signature is digital reliance. The new face of insurance in North America wears a big smile and talks to customers using artificially intelligent chat bots.

Tier 1 OEM supplier Osram announced CES attendees could get a taste of “laser-based car lighting,” a technology that sounds expensive to replace or repair but might reduce crashes by doubling high-beam range. Osram also has in the works a “glare-free full-beam (high beam),” which should keep oncoming cyclist and vehicle traffic from crashing as well.

Waymo, the self-driving car startup spun-off from Google late last year, will be deploying its fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans onto public roads for the first time later this month, the company announced at the North American International Auto Show today.

Insurers in the U.S. and abroad are planning up to double-digit percentage discounts tied to the existence of automatic braking on a vehicle, according to a news release and media reports.

The internet of things (IoT) is paving the way for newer and more efficient tools for communication and collaboration. Organizations in all industries are adding IoT enablement initiatives to improve their service offerings.

A Japanese insurance firm has announced that it is replacing human workers with IBM computers to save on costs and improve productivity.

Last March, Toshiba recalled the lithium-ion battery packs used in approximately 91,000 laptops that were found to overheat, posing burn and fire hazards to consumers. Now, the company is expanding the safety initiative, recalling an additional 83,000 units.

After a transformative year for technology in the insurance industry, SMA partners Karen Furtado and Mark Breading, and principal Karen Pauli, think the best is yet to come. “We expect the trends from the past year or two to move toward more operational phases or move to the next level of activity and impact,” the trio writes in its “Top 10 Insurance Predictions for 2017” report.

There’s a lot of talk right now about how big data is going to change insurance. Artificial intelligence and prescriptive analytics are definitely coming, and they will definitely change the insurance industry.

NASA has launched eight mini-satellites to measure surface wind deep in the heart of hurricanes. The plane carrying the satellites took off shortly after sunrise Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco - a move likely to excite the city’s tech-savvy population and certain to antagonize California regulators.

The U.S. Transportation Department on Tuesday proposed requiring all new cars and trucks to be able to "talk" to one another using short-range wireless technology to potentially avoid tens of thousands of crashes annually.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) says new technology is being used to not only unlock and open vehicles, but to also start and steal them.

An engineer has invented a device that he believes could eliminate distracted driving. He also says at least one mobile phone provider appears close to rolling out the gadget to its users and that another provider has shown an interest in the technology.

We’ve all heard it: texting and driving is dangerous. In the United States, more than eight people are killed every day in motor vehicle accidents that involve distracted driving, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).