The executive running Uber Technologies Inc’s self-driving car division is stepping aside while the company defends itself against charges that he provided the project with technology stolen from a Google spinoff.
Anthony Levandowski, an autonomous vehicle expert who defected from Google last year, on Thursday notified Uber’s staff of his decision in an e-mail. The change was made in tandem with Uber chief executive officer Travis Kalanick, the e-mail said.
Although Levandowski will remain at Uber, he will not be overseeing the autonomous-car project while the ride-hailing service is locked in a legal showdown with Waymo, a rival started by Google eight years ago.
Instead of reporting directly to Kalanick, Levandowski will now be under the supervision of a former subordinate, Eric Meyhofer, appointed to replace him during the Waymo battle.
Waymo in February filed a lawsuit accusing Levandowski of illegally downloading its blueprints for a navigation technology known as lidar before founding a start-up that he later sold to Uber for US$680 million.
That deal brought to Uber most of the employees now working in its Advanced Technologies Group that is building self-driving cars.
Waymo is seeking a court order that would force Uber to stop its work on autonomous vehicles on the grounds that the project has been drawing on trade secrets taken by Levandowski before he left Google.
Uber has denied its self-driving cars are using Waymo’s technology.
A hearing on Waymo’s request for an injunction against Uber is scheduled for Wednesday.
If a federal judge sides with Waymo, it could hobble Uber’s efforts to catch up in the still-developing field of autonomous cars. Such vehicles could revolutionize transportation, including the rapidly growing ride-hailing industry.
In his e-mail, Levandowski told employees to keep him out of any discussions about Uber’s work on its lidar system while reminding them that all of the company’s self-driving car technology “has been built independently, from the ground up.”
“[By recusing myself,] I hope to keep the team focused on achieving the vision that brought us all here,” he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day