Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:$AAPL) is reportedly looking to get into the autonomous vehicles market.
Yin Zhou and Oncel Tuzel, scientists working for Apple, have shared information about an up-and-coming vehicle technology that will allow self-driving cars to better detect cyclists and pedestrians. The technology, called “VoxelNet”, can detect three-dimensional objects on the road by using Light Imaging, Detection, and Ranging (LiDAR) data.
So far, VoxelNet has only been computer simulated, but in these simulations, it “outperforms the state-of-the-art LiDAR-based 3D detection methods by a large margin.”
Apple has long expressed interest in the autonomous car sector. “Autonomy is the mother of all AI projects,” said CEO Timothy Donald Cook, mentioning further that Apple was in the process of a project within this sector. “Autonomous systems can be used in a variety of ways and a vehicle is only one,” said Cook.
There have been some reports of Apple testing its self-driving technology, with rumors of Apple employees being transported to their offices in the Silicon Valley with the technology.
Beyond the mere mention and subsequent report from Zhou and Tuzel, however, Apple has given no further details on the project, but I’m sure we’re all interested to see what developments spring up next for the autonomous vehicles market.
Featured Image: twitter
