Like every other company, Apple and Google have had their share of highs and lows in the past — but one thing that’s for sure is that neither of them can keep going from strength-to-strength indefinitely; they’ll both stumble at some point in the future.
But which will be the first to take a tumble?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over that very question!
BMW would be open to collaborating with Apple to build a next-generation car, according to the company’s production chief, Oliver Zipse.
Speaking earlier today in Frankfurt, Zipse noted that “We live in a world of partnerships,” and that an Apple (or even Google) car wouldn’t be out of the question for BMW.
Video games let us experience murderous rampages, violent carjackings and the horrors of war. But should virtual entertainment take us through a real-life tragedy with depictions of the actual people who lost their lives?
The developers of Titanic: Honor and Glory are prepared to answer that question as they build out a game based on the 1912 sinking of the luxury liner that claimed more than 1,500 lives.
The Apple Car rumor mill has been heating up today with reports that Apple has been hiring auto talent from companies like Mercedes and BMW. Now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in with its own report that claims Tim Cook approved Apple’s project over a year ago.
Apple reportedly has several hundred employees working on the secret project that’s aiming to create an Apple-branded electric vehicle that can take on Telsa.
It’s official: riding-a fixed-gear-bike-past-some-old-city-warehouses is the new perky-and-quirky-guitar-music in Kickstarter pitch videos, and the latest people to put an Urban Warrior in their video spot are Martin Fredewess and Philip Perera. What are they selling? A pretty cool-looking iPhone keychain carabiner called the TiStand. And spoiler alert, it’s made of titanium.
I remember the crushing fetish we all had for Titanium back when I entered the cycling fraternity. (It’s fallen out of vogue now, of course — most likely thanks in part to the rise of carbon fiber, or perhaps something to do with the economics of materials I don’t fully understand.)
It’s an exotic material, with accompanying exotic pricing, thanks to the difficulty and expense of processing it. Still, we’ll pay an exorbitant surcharge for things made out of the magic metal because it’s so near-unbreakable, corrosion-resistant — and just plain wicked.
Which brings me to Tuls. David Laituri — you may or may not remember him as the man behind Vers and their super-green, handcrafted audio toys — has laser-cut tools, iPhone stands and other thoughtful solutions out of slivers of Titanium.
Amazon is buying Zoox, a self-driving car startup that employs at least 17 people who previously worked on Apple’s Project Titan.
The Information first reported the purchase of Zoox, and Amazon confirmed it Friday in a blog post. The deal could set Amazon back upward of $1 billion.
Only 23 of Apple’s registered self-driving cars were active between December 2018 and November 2019, according to data provided to California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. In total, Apple’s fleet of modified Lexus RX450h SUVs travelled 7,544 miles during the period.
That’s down from the 79,745 miles its vehicles travelled in the previous year.
Apple made a big update to the design of the sensor array that powers the autonomous functions on its self-driving fleet of cars.
Some eagle-eyed observers in the Cupertino area spotted the new array a couple of times over the last month or so. Instead of having LiDAR and camera sensors mounted on a rack around the car, Apple’s gearheads created a system that’s entirely enclosed. And it looks like they’ve ditched LiDAR in the process.
Watch Apple’s whip drive down the streets of Cupertino.
Apple spent more money on research and development in the past quarter than it spent in any three-month period in the company’s history. Q3 2019 R&D spending also accounted for the largest proportion of Apple revenue since 2003, back when the iPod ruled as Apple’s biggest seller.
At a time when the iPhone no longer accounts for most of Apple’s revenue, this level of investment suggests that there are some big things in the works in Cupertino.
