Apple hires former Google inventor with background in electric vehicle charging
Another recent Apple hire has been linked to the company's rumored "Project Titan" automotive initiative, as a report on Thursday uncovered a Google patent application for electric vehicle charging systems co-invented by current Apple employee Kurt Adelberger.
Spotted by Quartz, Adelberger is named on a pending Google patent for a "Mediator device for smart electric vehicle charging" alongside three other inventors, including machine learning software engineer Matthew Wytock. According to his LinkedIn profile, Adelberger left Google in July 2015 to join Apple as a "product designer."
Whether Apple poached the former Google inventor for its rumored car endeavor, Project Titan, is unclear. While he is cited in IP related to electric vehicles, Adelberger also conducted research into solar panels and general energy systems during his tenure at the internet search giant, suggesting he might be doing the same at Apple.
Trained as an astrophysicist with degrees from Harvey Mudd College and the California Institute of Technology, Adelberger more recently conducted work on energy storage and methods of lowering electric vehicle charging costs. Today's Google patent application, for example, describes a power management device capable of initiating a charging sequence during off-peak hours to save users money, an invention similar to Tesla's onboard charging timer.
As for Apple, the company is widely rumored to be working on a shadowy automotive initiative, though hard evidence of a branded car product has yet to surface. AppleInsider was first to report on secret R&D facilities in Sunnyvale thought to be ground zero for Project Titan. The most recent rumblings suggest Apple is operating a secret car lab in Berlin with roughly 15 to 20 employees.
Since word of a so-called "Apple Car" broke, Cupertino has hired several industry experts versed in electric and autonomous vehicles such as Jamie Carlson, a former engineer at Tesla Motors, as well as Jonathan Cohen, the former director of deep learning at NVIDIA. Most recently, reports in April noted the hire of former Tesla vice president of engineering Chris Porritt and two automotive prototyping experts.
Spotted by Quartz, Adelberger is named on a pending Google patent for a "Mediator device for smart electric vehicle charging" alongside three other inventors, including machine learning software engineer Matthew Wytock. According to his LinkedIn profile, Adelberger left Google in July 2015 to join Apple as a "product designer."
Whether Apple poached the former Google inventor for its rumored car endeavor, Project Titan, is unclear. While he is cited in IP related to electric vehicles, Adelberger also conducted research into solar panels and general energy systems during his tenure at the internet search giant, suggesting he might be doing the same at Apple.
Trained as an astrophysicist with degrees from Harvey Mudd College and the California Institute of Technology, Adelberger more recently conducted work on energy storage and methods of lowering electric vehicle charging costs. Today's Google patent application, for example, describes a power management device capable of initiating a charging sequence during off-peak hours to save users money, an invention similar to Tesla's onboard charging timer.
As for Apple, the company is widely rumored to be working on a shadowy automotive initiative, though hard evidence of a branded car product has yet to surface. AppleInsider was first to report on secret R&D facilities in Sunnyvale thought to be ground zero for Project Titan. The most recent rumblings suggest Apple is operating a secret car lab in Berlin with roughly 15 to 20 employees.
Since word of a so-called "Apple Car" broke, Cupertino has hired several industry experts versed in electric and autonomous vehicles such as Jamie Carlson, a former engineer at Tesla Motors, as well as Jonathan Cohen, the former director of deep learning at NVIDIA. Most recently, reports in April noted the hire of former Tesla vice president of engineering Chris Porritt and two automotive prototyping experts.
Comments
B( I can never get over how ridiculously hideous that Google car is.
the Bell Laboratories "Plan 9" OS, also remembering that Rob Pike (ex- of Bell Labs) is
at Google now. Now something has clicked -- according to Wikipedia, his spouse Renée French
drew the Plan 9 Bunny (named Glen [or Glenda] after an Ed Wood film, in keeping
with "Plan 9 from Outer Space"). The Canadian artist/computer mavens, Bell Labs,
and Google are connected at least via an (un)directed graph, so maybe the design (language?)
is inspired via such.
Hopefully by the time these things get more real that attitude has gone away.
How much is the global market in contact lens, laser correction and designer frames, super light lens?
People pay big bucks not to wear glasses or more big bucks to make them look better if they can't avoid them.
Glass was always going to flop.
I don't know if they still exist, but there used to be US laws requiring automobile manufacturers to also manufacture an inventory of spare parts to satisfy 10 years of repairs.
I can't visualize google doing any type of manufacturing -- not to mention spare parts!
Ya' know ...
I never see it mentioned -- the killer, must-have feature of a driverless car is high-speed, reliable, wireless communication -- giving the users something to do while they're not driving.
Well ... They could standardize around a Lightning connector -- then the vehicle could be recharged using an adapter connected to the power outlet (aka cigarette lighter) within the car
Note: I think Google has done great in creating the world's best search engine (continuously improving it to increase their lead) and have done the best at monetizing it. I also greatly appreciate that Google has kept YouTube and expanded it despite it not making money for years, and likely being marginal now. I consider this a benefit to the world, and thank Google for their charity.
I think most techs have developed in that area. Here's one from Microsoft
http://www.google.com/patents/US8457546
...and dozens from Google.
https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=automobile+wi-fi+inassignee:Google&num=10
No doubt Apple and hundreds of others have pertinent IP too.