Apple poached Intel’s head for 5G ahead of its truce with Qualcomm

Embed from Getty Images

We speculate that a part of why Intel gave up on 5G was because Apple and Qualcomm’s truce. But it seems there might be one more thing to add to that. Weeks before the said settlement, Apple poached Intel’s 5G modem head Umashankar Thyagarajan. His departure wasn’t exactly a secret. But he was, according to the Telegraph, the project engineer for the XMM 8160 chipset, which was at the heart of Intel’s 5G plans. And he “played a key role” in the creation of the Intel modems in the iPhone XS and XR.

Intel and Apple are not commenting on the report. And it isn’t clear what his role in Apple is, apart from it being described as “Architecture” on his LinkedIn page. But we expect he is working on wireless chipset design for Apple. Apple has in the past said it wanted to make its own cellular chipsets, so we aren’t as surprised about the hire as we should be.

Founder of VR content startup Jaunt joins Apple

Arthur van Hoff (left) joins Apple as senior architect for unnamed team

Apple might be making strides towards improving its augmented reality plans with one of its latest hires. The company recently brought onboard Jaunt founder Arthur van Hoff to become the senior architect for an unnamed team. Jaunt specializes in virtual reality content. And van Hoff has history working with multi-camera systems and creating content for VR and AR as well as capturing 3D images with depth-sensing cameras. He has helped the company shift to AR until he left in December 2018. He’s brought to the company a couple of months after HoloLens co-creator Avi Bar-Zeev left following three years of work on a rumoured AR headset.

We can’t say if van Hoff will be picking up that work. But some have reported that Apple also has plans to add laser-assisted cameras into the iPhone for capturing depth data and van Hoff could lend his expertise there. Only time will tell what the Jaunt founder can bring to the company.

Source: Engadget

Apple adds another Google AI expert to its team

Embed from Getty Images

Late last year, Apple hired former Googler John Giannandrea as the first senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy as the company promised to get more serious about AI. Apple seems to be keeping that promise with its new hire. Another former Googler, Ian Goodfellow, joined the company as the director of Machine Learning in the Special Projects Group. This division is in charge of working on next-generation tech for the company. There might even be a chance that Goodfellow will report to Giannandrea. But Goodfellow didn’t elaborate on what he’ll be working on at Apple.

He worked for Google from 2013 to 2016, and then from 2017 to 2019. His last role at Google was senior staff research scientist. The year he wasn’t in the company, he worked for the Elon Musk-funded AI research non-profit OpenAI. He is known for inventing a form of machine learning training approach that’s called generative adversarial network (GAN). It’s a technique that pits two neural networks against each other to create photos and videos that look real. As Engadget mentioned, bad actors have been using GANs to create “deepfake” media, a lot of them AI-generated fake porn that borrows faces of famous celebrities.

Apple hires Tesla’s head of electric powertrains

Embed from Getty Images

Apple might have scaled back its team that’s responsible for its self-driving car project, but it doesn’t seem like the company is giving up on the segment. In fact, a recent hire might mean they’re bucking down on it. Apple just hired Michael Schwekutsch, Tesla’s vice president for overseeing electric powertrains. He is now Apple’s senior director of Engineering at the Special Project Group, which is the division in charge of driverless cars. As expected, no one has mentioned what he’ll be doing in the company, but his background does tell us a bit of why Apple has taken him onboard.

Schwekutsch has a lot of experience working with electric drivetrains, and it isn’t limited to his work with Tesla. He’s worked on cars like the second-generation Roadster, the Semi, BMW i8, Fiat 500e, and Porsche 918 Spyder, among other EVs and hybrids. It’s expected he might continue on that path with Apple. But we won’t know for sure. We’re keeping our eyes peeled for any updates.

Source: Engadget