Uber Partners With University of Arizona on Self-Driving Cars

Theverge.com says Uber is setting up a new self-driving car project at the University of Arizona. The new project will focus on self-driving car technology, particularly the mapping and optics challenges involved in developing a fully autonomous vehicle. Earlier this year, Uber went on a major hiring binge for their Pittsburgh center, which many complained had hired so many experts away from the local robotics lab that they had effectively gutted competing projects. The Arizona partnership will focus on the optics systems necessary for mapping and safety. It appears that Tucson will be a new hub for much of Uber’s ongoing research into autonomous vehicles.

It’s gotten some knocks, but in a testament to how hated Windows 8 was more than anything else, Windows 10 is now up and running on over 75 million devices in less than a month after it was rolled out. zdnet.com reports that Microsoft’s goal is to have the latest OS installed on a billion devices by this time in 2018. Some of the heat surrounding Windows 10 has come from their new privacy policy, and Redmond has now published a ‘Windows 10 and Privacy’ page which details their policies.


Increased Storage in Next-Gen iPhones

Apple is apparently talking about returning to Samsung for memory in the next iteration of iPhones. 9to5mac.com says they aren’t looking to go over 128 gigs, but will drop the 16 gig model, making 32 gigabytes the entry level memory in the iPhone 6S models. It was already reported that Samsung is supplying the A9 processors. The killer feature that we know of as the phones have entered early production is Force Touch, ported from the Apple Watch.

Microsoft has sold some Bing maps assets to Uber, and along with them, around 100 data collection engineers that worked on Bing. Geekwire.com reports that Uber was already bulking up in the mapping department, having bought mapping software company deCarta in March. Uber has been relying on Google Maps in their app up to now.