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TECHNOLOGY A23
Saturday 5 September 2015
Toyota to invest $50M in car-tech research at Stanford, MIT
MICHAEL LIEDTKE This Feb. 16, 2012 file photo shows a Toyota ornament on a vehicle on display at the Pittsburgh Auto Show.
AP Technology Writer
EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) Associated Press
— Toyota is investing $50
million with Stanford Univer- of the world’s most popu- Silicon Valley. Stanford research center Stanford, both General
sity and the Massachusetts lar online services, has Under the Toyota part- will try to create artificial Motors Co. and Ford Motor
Institute of Technology in been working on a fleet nership, the MIT research intelligence programs that Co. have established offic-
hopes of gaining an edge of self-driving cars for the center will focus on invent- study human behavior to es in Palo Alto, California, in
in an accelerating race to past six years. Its goal is to ing ways for cars to recog- learn more about the de- their own quests to make
phase out human drivers. have the cars capable of nize their surroundings and cision making and reason- smarter cars.
The financial commitment driving completely on their make decisions that avert ing that goes into driving so Meanwhile, just to the
announced Friday by the own by 2020. Ride-hailing potential accidents. If the cars can quickly adjust to south, Google’s self-driving
Japanese automaker will pioneer Uber has teamed goals are realized, Toyota potentially dangerous situ- cars are regularly cruising
be made over the next up with Carnegie Mellon might be able to build a ations. Stanford’s research the roads of the compa-
five years at joint research University on a Pittsburgh car “that is never responsi- will be led by Fei-Fei Li, di- ny’s hometown of Moun-
centers located in Silicon research center in its quest ble for a collision,” Rus said. rector of the university’s tain View, California, dur-
Valley and another tech- to build driverless cars. Besides working on rec- artificial intelligence labo- ing ongoing testing of the
nology hub in Cambridge, Toyota Motor Co. has been ognition technology, the ratory.Not far away from vehicles. q
Massachusetts. working on autonomous
Toyota has hired robotics driving technology for BlackBerry will buy security
expert Gill Pratt to oversee about 20 years, but it was
research aimed at devel- known as “advanced driv- company Good Tech for $425M
oping artificial intelligence ing support” back in the
and other innovations that 1990s, Ise said. NEW YORK (AP) — Black- million in annual revenue, and other organizations.
will enable future car mod- Pratt, a former program Berry said Friday that it will The company also an-
els to navigate the roads manager at the U.S. gov- make another security- while BlackBerry has re- nounced a round of job
without people doing all ernment’s Defense Ad- related acquisition, buying cuts earlier this year as it
the steering and stopping. vanced Research Projects Good Technology for $425 ported about $3 billion in restructures its business and
“We believe this research Agency, or DARPA, sus- million in cash. deals with weak smart-
will transform the future of pects many people will still BlackBerry, once known revenue in its last four fis- phone sales. BlackBerry has
mobility, improving safety want to drive some of the for making smartphones, eliminated thousands of
and reducing traffic con- time even when cars are is now trying to focus on cal quarters. The Canadian jobs in the last few years un-
gestion,” said Kiyotaka Ise, fully equipped to handle software that lets IT depart- der CEO John Chen, who
a Toyota executive who the task. He hopes Toyo- ments manage mobile de- company expects to com- and has focused on reduc-
oversees the company’s ta’s research will give the vices. The company said ing costs and increasing in-
research and develop- option of relying on com- Good Technology will help plete the purchase by the novation.
ment group. puters to do the job when it offer a unified secure U.S. shares of BlackBerry
Unlike some of its rivals in they are stuck in traffic or platform for mobile devices end of November. rose 10 cents to $7.56 in
the technology and auto traveling down a boring that runs on any operating midday trading Friday. The
industries, Toyota believes stretch of highway. “Our system. It said Good Tech- Earlier this year Black- stock has fallen 28 percent
the day when cars are able focus today is more on the nology has about $160 over the past year.q
to drive entirely by them- autonomy of people,” said Berry Ltd. bought Watch-
selves is unlikely to arrive Pratt, who will be based in
within the next decade. Dox, a provider of secure
The company instead is
focusing its efforts on de- enterprise file-sync-and-
veloping technology that
can turn a car into the sharetechnology, and
equivalent of an intelligent
assistant that recognizes agreed to buy AtHoc, a
when it should take over
the steering when a driver software company that
is distracted or automati-
cally play a favorite song develops emergency alert
when it detects a driver is
in a bad mood. systems for government
“What if cars could be-
come our trusted part- agencies, military bodies,
ners?” mused Daniela Rus,
an MIT professor who will
lead the university’s re-
search partnership with
the automaker. Major
tech companies such as
Google and Uber are com-
peting against a range of
automakers to make robot
cars that will be better driv-
ers than people and save
lives by causing fewer ac-
cidents.
Google, which runs some
