applesauce007

bloggerblog said:

It is a possibility that Apple allowed their auto engineers an easy transition to Zoox knowing that they will use the their software in the future?

Seriously, that makes a lot of sense and that would be good for both companies.

From what I hear, Intel-MobilEye essentially has the entire car industry under it's belt as partners that contribute and share some data. (Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Volvo, Toyota, Honda etc...)  Intel-MobilEye has level 1,2 and 3 essentially covered and are working on the more difficult levels 4 and 5 and  using crowd sourced HD Maps from all their partner's cars to help determine the drivable paths for un-marked roads.

I understand that the Google-Baidu 3D maps technology is not scalable as it is impossibly expensive to maintain globally and uses too much bandwidth to be practical.
( See 1st video between 8:00 and 20:00 from MobilEye 2016 CES, second video is 2017 CES.)

The core autonomous technology race will likely be between Intel-MobilEye and Apple Inc.  One main difference is that I think Apple will use low orbit satellites for dynamic HD maps to guide it's cars or planes etc.. ( Coherent Navigation anyone?  http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/18/how-coherent-navigation-can-help-apple-with-location-technology-and-talent  )  That would likely be much better than crowd source HD maps in terms of reliability, feasibility, consistency and security.  Not to mention that Apple's system will likely cover the vehicle end to end with options to override certain methods.  Time will tell. 

So if Zoox builds cars based on Apple parts and core technologies, it would be awesome.
I wonder who funded Zoox the $290 million?

smaffei said:

Agree, if Lattner really is interested in cars and autopilot, maybe Apple could use him on their project (whatever that turns out to be), haven't heard bad things about him from Apple or people at Apple so perhaps no hard feelings?

Yeah, Apple isn't going to do that. Then, that sends a message to other key employees that it's OK to jump ship because you can come back if you want to. That would make Apple a career stepping stone instead of a career destination. They won't foster that type of environment.

To Apple, it's a religion and you've excommunicated yourself.

Well, that's not really true.  If they need him, they will hire him back.  Even Steve Jobs was fired and hired back.

According to the article below, you can leave Apple and come back after 2 years and still retain your seniority.
Chris has only been out for 6 months.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-employees-can-return-after-2-years-away-2013-3

Time will tell.

rogifan_new said:

applesauce007 said:

Chris should just go back to Apple's Swift team or perhaps work on the Autonomous Systems effort.

I have a gut feeling that the Tesla software is a bowl of spaghetti in desperate need of a rewrite.
Not to worry, Tesla can license a Car OS from Apple soon.  Tesla needs to get rid of that dated console UI anyway.

Is Lattner's expertise in AI or machine learning? Tesla released a statement saying Lattner wasn't the right fit which says to me his skills didn't translate that well to autonomous/self-driving car systems.

Not necessarily.  
I think that it is more likely that the Tesla engineers did not like an outsider who is not familiar with the history of the code base coming to their rescue.  Moreover, Tesla does not have time to rewrite their code from the ground up with artificial intelligence and machine learning at the core.  They probably have their fast and furious ways of introducing new features requested by Elon Musk into their project and prefer piling on layers and layers of spaghetti onto it.  I think they should have started a parallel project to modernize code.

I think a couple of facts are as follows:
1.  Tesla's console UI is outdated and I suspect that the code behind the UI is outdated as well. For example, their UI has no usable voice recognition and the code behind the UI probably require a rewrite to be modernized with machine learning and artificial intelligence at the core and Tesla has no time for that now.
2.  Chris has lead great open source work on LLVM, Clang, Swift etc... so he knows how to structure large scale software projects and work with others.

Since even Tesla thought he was a match, the reason for the fall out is probably culture, political and just plain push back against an outsider's view of the code base and future direction.  You have to wonder why so many engineers tried this hot seat and failed.

Here is an interesting article:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/260883/tesla_cto_talks_model_s_batteries_and_incar_linux.html

Time will tell.

I think Apple does plan to launch its own Satellite constellation.
The cost should not be in the billions because Iridium Communications owns the Iridium constellation and its market cap is under a billion dollars.

Apple is probably using Iridium now to support its Coherent Navigation systems which they purchased, but it is probably more cost effective to have its own constellation in the long term.



Apple can also launch more advanced dedicated satellites.  Cook would probably need Elon Musk's Space X to launch the satellites into orbit.

Time will tell.

 

Looks like a Primesense + Metaio coming out party.
Should be very interesting.