“Apple has shuttered parts of its self-driving car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly,” Daisuke Wakabayashi and Brian X. Chen report for The New York Times.
“In July, the company brought in Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded Apple veteran, to take over the effort,” Wakabayashi and Chen report. “Apple employees were told that the layoffs were part of a ‘reboot’ of the car project, the people briefed on it said… Under Mr. Mansfield, Apple changed the focus of the project, shifting from an emphasis on designing and producing an automobile to building out the underlying technology for an autonomous vehicle.”
“Apple has also made some headway in the space. The company has a number of fully autonomous vehicles in the middle of testing, using limited operating routes in a closed environment, according to people briefed on the company’s plans,” Wakabayashi and Chen report. “Like other companies in the space, that technology is likely a number of years away from seeing mainstream consumer use, they added.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Robert McMillan reports for The Wall Street Journal, “Project Titan’s overall head count remains essentially the same.”
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things. — Steve Jobs
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