Apple, Spurned by Others, Signs Deal With Volkswagen for Driverless Cars

Apple to go in for Driverless cars with Volkswagen

From iPhones and iPads to autonomous vehicles, Apple has got it’s hands busy. Apple initially had its plans to make its own self driving cars and be a pioneer in the next generation form of transport. But since those initial plans, things have changed. At first Apple concentrated on making their own software for autonomous vehicles and then it moved on to making autonomous shuttles for their employees.

Next came, Apple’s decision to join with an auto partner in making self- driving cars. Apple’s initial choice had been BMW and Mercedes- Benz but talks with both companies broke down and nothing went further. So now Apple has joined hands with Volkswagen to transform Volkswagen’s T6 Transporter vans into Apple’s self- driving shuttles that they use for their employees.

Rough waters for Apple’s Self driving cars:

Apple’s four year plan to make self- driving cars has not been easy sailing. Apple’s breakdown of talks with other auto manufacturers and the fact that Apple- Volkswagen talks have previously not been made public suggests that the program may not be free from worries.

A lack of clear direction and morale has pushed many people working on the project to call it quits. Roughly around 1000 members of the team have quit.

These factors have pushed Apple even further in the race for self- driving cars. Already Waymo, a business started from Google and some start- ups have already started testing out autonomous vehicles on the road.

While some of the autonomous vehicles have been successful, others have discontinued the programs leading to major layoffs.

The origins of Apple’s self- driving program: 

Apple initially took the wheel of self- driving cars back in 2014 with Titan and T172. Apple had plans of coming out with its own self driving car which would be the car version of an iPhone. According to former employees working on the project, Apple had plans of making a plush interior filled car and seats facing each other instead of the front.

Apple took on software engineers, programmers, rocket scientists, automotive engineers, designers and the like to bring to reality their autonomous car. Some of the ideas include holographic displays on the windshields, a sun proof roof made of polymers to reduce the heat from the sun and windows with adjustable tints.

Apple had invested in hundred and millions of dollars in R&D labs around Cupertino including machine shops and labs that dealt with electric car batteries.

Not a Simple Affair:

Apple soon found out that building an autonomous car was not child’s play. After experiencing a number of hurdles regarding the autonomous driving program, Apple soon decided to partner up with an auto manufacturer to build the cars but not design them.

Apple soon went in for talks with various auto manufacturers to bring their autonomous car plan’s to fruition. But none of them worked out until Apple came across Volkswagen. Volkswagen too jumped at the opportunity to work with Apple.
 

Next-gen Apple iPhone Chips Reportedly Already in Production

Apple Production for New 7 Nano Meter Chips already begun!

With the smartphone market remaining stagnant, Apple has beaten all odds and has not only remained on top but also has grown it’s market share. Now to continue in the same light, the Cupertino based company has already begun production for the new iPhone chips. These 7 nanometer chips are all set to increase efficiency of the new iPhones and increase the time between charges. These new chips will find a place in Apple’s new iPhones coming out later this year.

But Apple may get some tough competition this year from Samsung as they too have plans for their own 7 nanometer chip. This new Apple iPhone chip apparently goes by the name A12.

Difference between the current iPhone chips and the new ones: 

Current chips in iPhones are of the 10 nanometer variety and the new ones will be 7 nanometers. The new iPhone chip is said to make the new iPhones a lot faster and is seemingly going to be much more efficient than those in current iPhone models.

Another report also states that these new iPhone chips could help run apps faster and make the iPhone go longer without a full charge.

Current trend in the smartphone market: 

These new iPhone chips will give Apple an edge in a market that is going stagnant. With the same trends, features seen in all smartphones these days and a lack of hardware upgrades all have made the smartphone market stagnant. In addition to all these factors people are also not changing their phones often too and why would they when they have a perfectly functioning expensive mobile already?

Apple has managed to remain above the rest even with the market cooling off. In the first quarter of this year Apple has managed to increase it’s market share while the rest of the industry experienced fewer shipments in this declining market. Apple seems to have hopes that they will be able to continue with this trend with their new iPhone chips.

Apple is not alone in the chip making faze: 

Recently Samsung too came up with plans for making their own 7 nanometer chips by employing extreme ultra violet lithography- a process which is used to etch smaller features onto the smartphone chips.

It is unsure as of now what features the intended Samsung 7 nanometer chip will have. But if commonsense prevails then we can expect the same faster processing and longer usage of smartphones before going in for charging. Apart from these basics, who knows what else Samsung has got up it’s sleeve?

Apple manufacturing partnering up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has already begun mass producing the said iPhone chips. These new iPhone chips will be seen in Apple’s new trio of iPhones coming out later this year. Now we have to wait and see whether Apple will be able to convince Samsung’s users over to their side or not? After all Samsung is not too far back in coming out with their own new 7 nanometer chip.

Apple Loop: New iPhone Details Leaked

New iPhone, The Latest with Apple

Recently the Cupertino Company has a lot going on for it with a new screen for a new iPhone coming out later this year, the bugs found in Face Time, a reminiscence of the iMac journey and why people find the iPhone X better than the 8 Plus. Apple has even a set of drones on their work agenda. While Apple has a lot on it’s plate right now and undoubtedly more in the future, we will take a further a look into Apple happenings in the last week or so.

A 2018 iPhone with a new screen?

Apple’s flagship iPhones all have an OLED screen, but Apple plans on bringing out an iPhone in the coming months with a LED screen. This phone will follow in the footsteps of the iPhone 8 Plus and is rumored to target the $700- $800 range, hence the cheaper LCD.

The design on this supposed new iPhone will be based on the iPhone X and will probably have a 6 inch or 6.1 inch screen as well as with the new LCD screen. This new form of LCD will have been developed by LG and there is proof to support this fact too- a supply chain report bearing such information gives credit to the idea that Apple has a new LCD screen iPhone in the pipeline.

This new iPhone with the look of the previous iPhone X model will have a near all bezel free- screen and a new screen with new tech. The tech behind the screen is this – while normal LCD screens have red, green and blue sub- pixels, the new form of LCD known as M+ has an extra sub- bezel which is white, this white sub- bezel gives off more brightness than the other sub- bezels.

Face Time issues with the iPhone:

While Apple plans on making a new iPhone, current iPhones running on iOS 11.3 and 11.3.1 are going through a rough patch, to be more specific a microphone related rough patch. In news recently Apple said that any user experiencing such an issue, may have to do with a grayed out speaker button while they take phone calls. This issue may also be while Face Timing too.

Apple has informed service providers to run audio diagnostics and iPhones having the problem will show up as “device could not detect dock” and then the service providers are asked to initiate a repair of the iPhone. While many of the previous iPhone issues were handled with a new iOS update the current issue requires manual repairs.

Apple Eyes Drones as 6.5-Inch iPhone Comes Into Focus

iPhonesIn the News Recently: All Things Apple!

We aren’t talking about the fruit either. The tech giant has something or things up their sleeve which makes us question what they are really up to. One thing that made rumor mills churning on overtime this time around was news that Apple may make it’s own drones in the future. Yes they have moved from iPhones to drones. But while we are talking about iPhones, we also have to state that Apple is also planning on making a massive 6.5 inch iPhone tagged the iPhone X Plus.

Besides this massive screen iPhone, Apple is also planning on coming out with two other iPhones this year. If the drone thing and the 6.5 Inch screen iPhone isn’t enough to peak your interest then we have also learnt that Apple may be making it’s own credit cards with Goldman Sachs. Now let’s delve more into what Apple has planned for us in the coming months.

The iPhone with the 6.5 inch screen:

The new iPhone may be called iPhone X Plus. This huge 6.5 inch screen will have all the features of the iPhone X with added screen space. The screen will cover most of the overall phone’s face.

Apple in a Drone Program by the US Government:

Apart from many big names and transportation companies, Apple will also be participating in the US drone program. This Drone program will open up the doors to companies to test drone flights over people which is currently not allowed. This program will allow companies to test fly drones over a higher altitude than what is currently allowed. Amazon, Boeing and Intel are some of the other big wigs that will be participating in the program. While all these companies have drone programs in place, Apple hasn’t made formal any of their drone programs.

New iPhone X if yours isn’t working properly?

iPhone Xs with a face detection problem, previously used to have Apple change the screens of these devices but now the tech giant has reportedly changed it’s policy so that any devices having the problem will be swapped out with a new iPhone X.

New credit card by Apple?

Apple is planning on bringing out a new credit card called Apple Pay. The company is doing this in partnership with Goldman Sachs. The apparent motive behind this is to increase presence in consumer banking for Goldman Sachs.

Apple to reduce it’s environmental impact:

Apple is partnering up with aluminum manufacturers Alcoa and Rio Tinto to smelt aluminum in a way that would reduce green- house gas emissions and therefore help the environment. This new method would not only reduce Apple’s impact on the environment but also usher in a new way of producing the metal to be used in products of all kinds.

Apple to start new video service subscriptions:

Apple will be starting a new video service subscription through its Apple TV. This service will apparently allow subscribers to select a network or on the demand- channels through Apple TV.

Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real-World Tasks Over the Phone

Google Duplex: Making AI Conversationalists

The biggest challenge when it comes to machines, is to make them natural conversationalists. Right now we can tell the machine to do this or that but we can’t really have normal conversations with them, that is where Google Duplex comes in. Google Duplex not only understands normal human conversations but also understands the context in which a person is speaking and then replies accordingly. Currently conversation systems in place, sound stilted and struggle to understand the basics of the conversation.

Here is where Google Duplex enters in. The AI network is capable of making certain conversations over the phone such as making an appointment. The conversation is supposed to be natural and the person on the other end shouldn’t even know that they are basically talking to a robot. Google Duplex is centered around only certain areas so that each of these areas can be explored extensively enough to help Google Duplex learn the speech requirements.

Challenges in making Google Duplex sound realistic: 

The whole idea for Google Duplex is for the system to sound natural,which means understanding the nuances of conversation like understanding when to pause mid- sentence and understanding the context of the conversation while making the right intonations.

When people have conversations with each other they often speak in more complex sentences, omit words and use words such as “umm” and “uh” often in the sentence. The problems of natural conversation is compounded by the fact that when the conversation is made over the phone, then word errors and such become all the more common taking into account background noises.

How does Google Duplex solve these problems? 

Google Duplex is a recurrent neural network. Google has trained Google Duplex to the highest level of precision based on a bunch of conversation data. Based on this conversation data, Google Duplex uses Google automatic speech recognition tech, features from the audio, the parameters of the conversation and the history of the conversation to learn speech requirements.

As for sounding natural, Google used text to speech or TTS engine for short and a synthesis TTS engine to help with intonation in a natural conversation. Google has also incorporated speech disfluencies or the “umms”and “uhhs” in conversation to make Google Duplex more natural sounding. They have also used timed pauses, as if a person is gathering their thoughts, in the Google Duplex system. But to make these timed responses more natural they have to be placed in the right places in a conversation, for that Google Duplex uses low-confidence models to decide when a pause is required and when it is not.

In Conversation with Google Duplex: 

The entire Google Duplex system is capable of carrying out sophisticated conversations all on its own without any human intervention.

The Google Duplex system also comes with self- monitoring capabilities that allow it to know when the conversation is going out of its depth and then it lets a human operator take over.

The Google Duplex system goes through a series of training wherein a real life instructor guides the system in conversation and can correct the Google Duplex system too in real time.