Apple is continuing to work on areas of car design and self-driving vehicle systems as part of "Project Titan," including how to improve a car's ability to detect its immediate surroundings using sensors, and to automatically determine nearby points of interest that other car systems need to know about.
Passengers in an Apple-designed car of the future may find the vehicle to have a unique interior lighting system, consisting of fiber optic-based segments that could become practically invisible when not in use by blending into the car's various surfaces, and could even offer indicators to drivers within the windscreen.
Trying to rally people at Apple's annual shareholders meeting, CEO Tim Cook said that he company is "planting seeds" and "rolling the dice" on future products that will "blow you away."
Apple on Wednesday confirmed plans to lay off 190 people from its self-driving car project, known as Project Titan, namely from facilities in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, Calif.
Apple's long-rumored "Project Titan" vehicle may not necessarily be for a "car," with a German magazine suggesting that, while still in the prototype stage, the eventual product may in fact end up being an electric-powered van.
Apple on Wednesday released a voluntary safety report for its self-driving car project, significant mainly for how little the company is willing to share.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has released a letter it received from Apple concerning the "Project Titan" self-driving vehicle project's disengagement rates, with the letter advising how Apple is collecting data on incidents where a driver takes over for the automated driving system, and why the number is so high.
Fresh statistics from California's Department of Motor Vehicles reveals Apple's self-driving car testbed as the worst performing system on the road in terms of disengagements, or instances when the vehicle is forced to exit autonomous mode and return control to a human pilot.
Apple's "Project Titan" self-driving vehicle project could be made safer by allowing vehicles to communicate with each other, the company suggests, with knowledge of the position and range of other cars on the road able to help both the automated driving system and drivers themselves enhance their situational awareness while in transit.
Apple is looking at ways to have an iPhone to unlock and pay for a 'Project Titan' self driving car, a feature that could have wider use in the taxi industry, and in self-driving systems.
Following up on an internal Apple investigation, the FBI has arrested a second person accused of trying to steal secrets related to the company's self-driving car platform.
An offshoot of research from Apple's "Project Titan" car project is work on a smart seat belt that could be used to control a car's entertainment or even self-driving system in the future.
In what is being billed internally as a restructuring effort, Apple this week released more than 200 employees from its "Project Titan" group, a secretive branch of the company focused on developing self-driving car technologies.
Volkswagen has poached an Apple executive for its commercial vehicles division, with the hiring of Alexander Hitzinger also working on the manufacturer's self-driving vehicle efforts after a stint on Apple's "Project Titan" car program.
Tesla Senior Designer Andrew Kim has started working for Apple, and is only the most recent move back to the company after a stint with the car manufacturer.
The Department of Commerce is examining the possibility of controlling the export of emerging technologies to other nations, with the list of proposed tech including areas of interest to Apple, including processor technology, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and natural language processing.
The self-driving car industry isn't ready for consumer use, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has suggested in an interview, with roads produced by "imperfect humans" and mistakes caused by Tesla's Autopilot feature causing him to lose faith in the concept becoming more widespread.
An Apple-produced car could advise vehicles following behind it of the risk of collision if they are too close, as part of a lighting system for the outside of the vehicle that can offer warnings and information to other road users.
Driving in the dark could be easier on the eyes in the future, as Apple has come up with a way to reduce the amount of glare a driver may endure from headlights or the Sun, by automatically blocking the light source from view.
Self-driving cars could potentially work together to minimize energy usage on long journeys, with Apple proposing the use of an autonomous peloton of vehicles that could reduce drag for low-performance vehicles, and even the possibility of cars sharing battery power with each other while on the road.
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Malcolm Owen
Roger Fingas
Mikey Campbell
Mike Wuerthele
