Apple Shifts Leadership of Self-Driving Car Unit To AI Chief (bloomberg.com) 11
Apple has moved its self-driving car unit under the leadership of top artificial intelligence executive John Giannandrea, who will oversee the company's continued work on an autonomous system that could eventually be used in its own car, Bloomberg reports. From the report: The project, known as Titan, is run day-to-day by Doug Field. His team of hundreds of engineers have moved to Giannandrea's artificial intelligence and machine-learning group, according to people familiar with the change. Previously, Field reported to Bob Mansfield, Apple's former senior vice president of hardware engineering. Mansfield has now fully retired from Apple, leading to Giannandrea taking over.
Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 as its vice president of AI Strategy and Machine Learning before being promoted to Apple's executive team as a senior vice president later that year. He ran Google's machine-learning and search teams before that. At Apple, in addition to the car project, he is in charge of Siri and machine-learning technologies across Apple's products. Mansfield initially retired from Apple in 2012, only to return for less than a year as its senior vice president in charge of chip technology. Mansfield stepped down from that role in 2013 and then remained as a part-time consultant.
Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 as its vice president of AI Strategy and Machine Learning before being promoted to Apple's executive team as a senior vice president later that year. He ran Google's machine-learning and search teams before that. At Apple, in addition to the car project, he is in charge of Siri and machine-learning technologies across Apple's products. Mansfield initially retired from Apple in 2012, only to return for less than a year as its senior vice president in charge of chip technology. Mansfield stepped down from that role in 2013 and then remained as a part-time consultant.
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Your comment is hilarious considering the quote at the bottom of the page (as of now) which relates to Tesla losing money on each vehicle sold:
At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume. -- Peter G. Alaquon
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an Apple Car drives itself to Cupertino for service by a Certified Apple Mechanic.
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Your comment is hilarious considering the quote at the bottom of the page (as of now) which relates to Tesla losing money on each vehicle sold:
It doesn't matter whether the money comes from sales directly, or from credits; either way, Tesla has recently become profitable. It won't begin to matter until other automakers primarily produce EVs, by which time Musk's mission with Tesla will be concluded and he can sell out to one of them and focus on Mars, or some other venture.
iPhones to Cars (Score:2)
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I think it's great that Apple is spending [some of] their money. Sitting on cash benefits no one. Apple can only do that for so long before someone else comes up with the Next Big Thing(tm) and they find themselves holding a lot of nothing.
Autonomous vehicles are an important step in getting rid of cars. Once people are used to letting the vehicle drive, they'll be primed to use vehicles with steel wheels riding on steel rails. That reduces pollution, maintenance costs, energy consumption...
good luck with that (Score:3)
John Giannandrea, who will oversee the company's continued work on an autonomous system... is in charge of Siri
I have Alexa, Google and Siri smart assistants and Siri stands out among those three as conspicuously stupid. If past performance is any indication, then with that guy in charge the Apple car will locate the nearest tree and accelerate into it at maximum speed.
I would be out driving around town on errands and want to know the way back to work. Ask Google on my $250 Motorola Android phone, totally works 100% of the time. Ask Siri on my $1,000+ Apple iPhone and she would always give me driving instructions to some place in Pakistan. From Indiana. And almost always screw up every other destination. And when the destination is correct, the routes are often crazy. It's not just maps, Siri is just generally much worse with everything, including voice dialing.
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Utility vs aesthetics (Score:2)
If you see an AppleCar headed your way, remember that all its sensors were designed to look cool rather than be functional, if the rest of their products are anything to go by.