Google’s self-driving division Waymo has announced it will be retiring the Firefly car, the nearly iconic pod-like vehicle that was manufactured in-house to experiment. Waymo is now moving to mass produced vehicles, like the Chrysler Pacifica minivan. It received 600 minivans from Fiat Chrysler last year and is in the process of outfitting the vehicles […]
Tag Archives: Alphabet
Waymo patents collapsible self-driving car design
Google’s self-driving division, Waymo, has received a patent for an automotive design where the car loses rigidity before a crash, minimizing the damage to the rider and any other cars. Waymo would achieve this by reducing the tension of hood, panels and bumpers before an accident, according to Silicon Beat. The release of tension should, […]
Waymo’s self-driving cars spend day with emergency vehicles
Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans spent a day with Chandler, Ariz Fire & Police Department, testing the car’s detection system for emergency vehicles. The minivans are outfitted with Waymo’s latest suite of sensors, which can hear from twice the distance and can also see flashing lights from much farther away. See Also: Google narrows case […]
Waymo tests self-driving minivans in Death Valley
Self-driving cars are going to be fitted with a whole lot of sensors, chips, and other electronics, so it makes sense to check that all of this works in extreme environments. That’s why Waymo sent its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans to California’s Death Valley this summer, which has the highest recorded temperature in the world, […]
Waymo narrows case against Uber as court date nears
Waymo has dropped three of the four patent claims against Uber, as it tries to narrow the case against Uber before the October court date. The lawsuit centers on Anthony Levandowski, an ex-Google exec who allegedly stole 14,000 confidential documents when he left the company to start Otto, which was then sold to Uber. Levandowski […]
Waymo’s going to Phoenix to work on Avis’ self-driving fleet
Waymo, the self-driving division inside of Alphabet, has partnered with car rental company Avis to manage its fleet of autonomous cars in Phoenix, Arizona. Avis will be responsible for cleaning the car, managing oil and tire changes, and performing regular safety inspections. It will not manage the specialized hardware, like Waymo’s Lidar sensors. See Also: […]
Waymo picks ex-Tesla engineering chief to build them a driverless car
Google’s self-driving division Waymo has hired Satish Jeyachandran, the former director of hardware engineering at Tesla, a close competitor in the self-driving race. Jeyachandran will lead the hardware division, according to Bloomberg, focused on building Lidar, radar, cameras, sensors, and silicon for the company’s self-driving cars. See Also: Waymo working on competitor to Uber’s self-driving […]
Waymo could be a $70 billion business, says Morgan Stanley
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced last December that its self-driving project would have its own division inside the corporation. That division became Waymo, which analysts at Morgan Stanley believe could be worth $70 billion if it is ever spun-out to a standalone company. The analysis works off the assumption that Waymo cars and […]
In California, Waze Carpool definitely has you covered
Waze is expanding its carpool service to cover the entire state of California, after successful trials in San Francisco, Sacramento, Monterey, and across Israel. The app identifies suitable commuters that live in between the driver’s home and work locations. The rider pays their share of the gas money in exchange for the ride, which currently […]
Waymo working on competitor to Uber’s self-driving trucks
Waymo, the self-driving division of Google, has confirmed that alongside an expansion to its autonomous car efforts, it is looking to develop self-driving trucks. “We’re taking our eight years of experience in building self-driving hardware and software and conducting a technical exploration into how our technology can integrate into a truck,” a Waymo spokesperson said […]
Google claims Otto founder and Uber colluded far before acquisition
Google is hoping to strengthen its lawsuit against Uber with a detailed timeline of the friendship between Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick and ex-Googler, now head of Uber’s self-driving division, Anthony Levandowski. Levandowski is at the center of the lawsuit, as Google alleges he stole trade secrets from the company and sold them to Uber, through […]
Google asks judge to halt Uber’s self-driving program
Google’s self-driving unit Waymo has filed a preliminary injunction against Uber, a few weeks after filing a lawsuit accusing the ride-sharing company of stealing trade secrets related to self-driving technology. The preliminary injunction asks for all of Uber’s self-driving cars to be taken off the road, effectively halting the company’s self-driving program. Uber has over […]
Google paces pack in autonomous car race, says California regulator
Alphabet’s self-driving division, Waymo, is far ahead of the competition in the autonomous car race, according to data released by regulators in California. Compared to other autonomous car systems, Waymo’s is more accurate, requires less human intervention (0.2 times per thousand miles) and has logged 30 times more autonomous miles than all competitors combined. See […]
Google’s Waymo to put big car firms in the robot car driver’s seat
A new report says Google has spun out its self-driving unit — now called Waymo — and is undertaking a major pivot away from making its own autonomous vehicles, instead moving to become a provider of self-driving car tech for major automakers. These Google car revelations revealed in a lengthy report on tech site The […]
Google self-driving project set to graduate from X Labs
Google’s self-driving project may graduate from X Labs, the company’s moonshot incubator, in a few months, according to project leader and ex-Hyundai CEO John Krafcik. Speaking at the Nikkei Innovation Forum in Palo Alto two months ago, Krafcik said that the project will become its own division inside Alphabet, Google’s holding company, and would greatly […]
Well, of course, Larry Page invested in two flying car startups
Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page is much quieter than other leaders in the industry, rarely attending events (even Google I/O), speaking in public, or publicizing his investments. So it comes as a surprise when earlier this week a Bloomberg report revealed one of Page’s secret interests: flying cars. The chief executive has invested […]
Project Soli 2.0 is a tiny radar for wearables
Smartwatches have really hit their stride in the past couple years with popular products from brands like Samsung, Apple, FitBit, Motorola, and more each promising their own set of features to make them worth putting on your wrist. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with smartwatches is that their size limits the wearer’s ability to […]
Google’s self-driving car lab rolls into Motor City
In a move geared toward driving its autonomous vehicle program further down the road, tech giant Google will open a self-driving car technology center in the Detroit area. As reported on the Yahoo! Tech site Google is launching an advanced facility in Novi, Michigan for engineers and other specialists to test cars for its self-driving […]
Google invites all to its Nest in Amazon IoT battle
Alphabet’s Google announced it has opened up its Internet of Things (IoT) protocol for its Nest systems, as competition with Amazon for smart home market share heats up. As reported by the Motley Fool, Google launched its first open-source foray for Nest’s Thread protocol, which paves the way for better connectivity between IoT devices from […]
Google car to protect pedestrians with…flypaper tech?
Google has filed a patent application for the “sticky bonnet,” which, in the event of a collision between its autonomous car and a pedestrian, would stick the pedestrian to the car. In the patent, published by the the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Google said that if the car is able to hold […]