Waymo adds electric luxury to its self-driving fleet, Apple makes a half-hearted try for the education market and two automakers link their mobility services businesses. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for March 28, 2018. 1. Waymo's newest self-driving vehicle is Jaguar's Model X competitor Waymo held a special event yesterday in New York to unveil its latest self-driving development vehicle, the Jaguar I-Pace all-electric sedan (outfitted with its sensors and computing hardware). The plan is to put as many as 20,000 I-Pace SUVs on the roads equipped with Waymo's tech – alongside its Pacifica minivans, which these will not replace entirely. 2. Apple launches new iPad aimed at education Apple held an education-focused event yesterday in Chicago (there were a lot of tech events yesterday) and used the opportunity to reveal a new iPad with improved capabilities and an entry-level price of $299 for education customers, or $329 for everyone else. It works with Apple Pencil! The problem is, all the accessories (keyboard and pencil) still cost just as much, and it's nowhere near as robust, affordable or convenient as Chromebooks for educators. 3. BMW and Daimler aim to merge mobility businesses Mobility services is a tough industry right now, because it's still early in terms of consumer adoption, but also incredibly capital-intensive to build out. That's likely why Daimler and BMW are looking to join forces with a new combined company that covers all of the mobility businesses operated by each. 4. Facebook increases visibility of tis privacy settings Facebook revealed today easier, more accessible privacy and personal data settings and access. They say they were intending to do this anyway, but it's hard to not see it as a direct response to the whole Cambridge Analytica debacle, which is ongoing. 5. Tesla faces questions around new Model X crash A Tesla Model X crashed last week, resulting in the driver's death. Investigators are looking into whether Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash, but at this point we know very little. 6. Josh Kushner's Oscar Health raises $165 million The health insurance startup that was originally born on the back of the Affordable Care Act, run by Jared Kushner's brother, has raised $165 million at a whopping $3.2 billion valuation. Alphabet's Verily life sciences group participated in the raise. 7. FBI didn't exhaust all avenues before suing Apple, inquiry finds It's been a while so you may not recall, but the FBI went after Apple to unlock the phone of the San Bernardino shooter a couple of years ago, and at the time many speculated it wanted to use the case as leverage to get permanent backdoor access to Apple devices. Now, the Office of the Inspector General has added credence to that theory with the results of an inquiry, published this week. |
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