Slashdot Mirror
Apple Says It Is Working On Self-Driving Cars (theguardian.com)
For the first time, Apple has said that it is indeed working on technology to develop self-driving cars. The company confirmed late last week its previously secret initiative in a statement to the U.S. highway regulator. From a report on The Guardian: "The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," said the letter from Steve Kenner, Apple's director of product integrity, to the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The letter offered no details of the project, instead highlighting the "significant societal benefits of automated vehicles," which it described as a life-saving technology, potentially preventing millions of car crashes and thousands of fatalities each year.In a statement to Financial Times (might be paywalled), a spokesperson for Apple said, "We've provided comments to NHTSA because Apple is investing heavily in machine learning and autonomous systems. There are many potential applications for these technologies, including the future of transportation, so we want to work with NHTSA to help define the best practices for the industry."
Well, Renault Samsung Motors already exists, and Samsung just bought Harmin International. So even if you don't own one of their cars, there's the chance your car stereo will soon be made by them.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
one will need a heavy duty wench
I'm afraid to ask...
Engineers recommend a heavy duty wench for adjusting nuts.
He didn't exactly "prop them up". Microsoft bought $150MM shares of non-voting stock (which they sold at a huge profit). Apple didn't need money at the time, they needed legitimacy, which this investment provided.
In return for this, Apple dropped a multitude of patent-infringement lawsuits against Microsoft (which Apple appeared to be wining), and licensed those technologies to Microsoft. These were not related to Microsoft's anti-trust issues, nor was the existence of Apple. It's OK that Microsoft was a monopoly - monopolies are legal - it's the abuse of the power the monopoly gave them.
They can't pay it out as dividends without repatriating it, nor can they invest it in anything in the US.
So they bring it back and pay taxes on it, and pay the remainder as a dividend. Then they tell the shareholders they would have got more if not for those taxes and deflect the blame, easy peasy.
Bottom line: the reason they have big piles of cash is because the US has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world.
No, it's because the US has a pathetic tax structure that makes it easy to dodge taxes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"