ProjectTitan
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Apple thought about making a car back in 2008
The possibility of an Apple-made car isn't anything new -- as it turns out, it's practically old news. iPod co-creator (and Nest CEO) Tony Fadell tells Bloomberg that he and Steve Jobs had "multiple" discussions about a car in 2008. They asked each other high-level questions, such as what the dashboard would look like and what the power plant would be. The idea didn't progress beyond that point due to a combination of tight resources and a lousy economic climate. Apple was swamped with iPhone work, and the American car industry was "almost dead." Why get into cars at a time when the field's heavyweights were asking for bailouts?
Apple poaches NVIDIA's artificial intelligence leader
Apple's widely rumored electric car may not be fully autonomous, but it may well have some smarts. The company has hired Jonathan Cohen, who until this month was the director of NVIDIA's deep learning division -- in other words, a form of artificial intelligence. Cohen's LinkedIn profile only mentions that he's working on a nebulous "software" effort at Apple. However, his most recent job at NVIDIA centered around technology like Drive PX, a camera-based autopilot system for cars that can identify and react to specific vehicle types. While there's a chance that Cohen could be working on AI for iOS or the Mac, it won't be surprising if he brings some self-driving features to Cupertino's first car, such as hands-off lane changing or parking. [Image credit; NVIDIA, Flickr]
Apple car targeted to launch in 2019, says WSJ
Details have been rather scarce on Apple's rumored electric car project, but there's some new info today. Wall Street Journal reports that Cupertino is "accelerating" the codenamed Project Titan effort, internally calling it a "committed project." What's more, WSJ's sources indicate Apple is aiming to ship the first vehicle in 2019. Yes, that means you'll have to wait a while to get behind the wheel, but we should be hearing more detailed info soon enough, especially when the company begins testing on public roads. Perhaps what's more interesting, though, is the report says the first car won't be fully autonomous, despite that type of system being part of the long-term plan.
Apple talks to California DMV about self-driving cars
According to a new report from The Guardian, Apple recently discussed self-driving cars with the California Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The report says that Cupertino's senior legal counsel Mike Maletic met with the DMV's self-driving car experts and other officials for an hour last month. Back in August, The Guardian also discovered that Apple was looking into a test site for so-called Project Titan, the company's rumored automotive project, at a former military base near San Francisco. As you might expect, Apple isn't commenting further and the DMV only spilled that the focus of the meeting was to go over the state's self-driving vehicle regulations. Details are still scarce on the project as a whole, but we do know that Apple recruited automotive talent to come work for the company a while back. And as The Guardian points out, it'll have to disclose a lot more if it wants to secure a permit for testing. [Image credit: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images]
Google balloons and drones bring global wireless closer to reality
Google's aerial ambitions continue unabated. Need proof? Just talk to Sundar Pichai -- just before he sat down for a Q&A with Bloomberg's Brad Stone at MWC, the Google SVP confirmed the company's internet-beaming Titan drones would take their flight in the coming months, and that its Project Loon balloons now stay afloat for "six months at a time." The last time Google decided to speak publicly about its fleet of internet-beaming Project Loon balloons, they could languidly hang in the atmosphere for about 100 days. That's not a bad stretch considering these things can now deliver LTE data speeds to devices on the ground, but Google's got these things running even better than before.
Facebook about to launch a Gmail-slaying Titan?
Oh no, Facebook's hosting another event? But it's so soon after the last one, we've barely had time to recover from all that excitement. The invite to this new shindig is adorned with some pretty obvious visual hints at mail and messaging, which (along with a few well placed sources) has led TechCrunch to speculate that Zuckerberg and crew are about to unveil their Project Titan email client. Rumored to have been in the works since at least February, this "full-fledged" webmail service -- replete with @facebook.com personal addresses -- is reportedly referred to as a "Gmail killer" internally. We struggle to imagine anything dragging us away from Google's versatile mail offering, but competition's never a bad thing -- even if it comes from another company that has more information about us than it should.
