By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
It’s good to remember that for most utterances in life, whether you are a politician, a tech company, or a big-time CEO, it’s the half-truths you spout — to the public, to regulators, the media and customers — that get you into trouble.

Of course, some people get away with the flim-flam. Most of us, however, figure out early what the safest — if not the most lucrative — policy is.

In that spirit, the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) this week announced the immediate suspension of General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi operation in San Francisco.

Read More »G.M. in S.F.: Cruise in for a Bruisin’

By Bolaji Ojo

Nvidia Corp. and Arm Holdings can’t seem to get away from each other.

The AI chip giant and the semiconductor intellectual property developer are in the news again this week. This time, the report is about a speculative multi-party tango about the purported planned development of a new Arm-based PC central processing unit (CPU) by Nvidia.

Read More »Nvidia-Arm: Where is this Relationship Headed?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Prophesee is the little engine that could. By launching its fifth-generation event-based imaging sensor and going after the consumer mass market, the French startup run by Luca Verre is demonstrating its resilience. Nothing could deter CEO Verre and his team from leaving any stone unturned in search of a market fit for its neuromorphic vision systems. The unknown is whether AR/VR is the segment that can open the volume market to Prophesee and, if so, how long might it take.

In 2014, a unique bio-inspired vision technology was an asset big enough to convince a team of scholars and a businessman to establish Prophesee.

Prophesee didn’t invent neuromorphic computing. But it has become a pioneer in commercially implementing its principle: Humans don’t record the visual information based on a series of frames. Instead, they capture the stuff of interest – spatial and temporal changes – and send that sparse information efficiently to the brain.

Prophesee has done a yeoman’s work pitching event-based sensors to neophytes, but its efforts have yet to build the mass market. 

Read More »Prophesee Emboldens Its Mass Consumer Outreach

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Never underestimate the power of a regulator, especially one armed with a Congressional mandate — and money — to make the roads safer for all users. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill boosted NHTSA’s budget by 50 percent. Observers say the agency is poised to issue regulations with teeth.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is oft criticized for being too slow and cautious in mandating ADAS technology among its regulations. Worse, it has left too much implementation to voluntary agreements with the auto industry.

“This changed on May 31 with NHTSA’s announcement of adding both Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) and pedestrian AEB (PAEB) to New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and as Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) regulation,” said Egil Juliussen, principal analyst at VSI Labs.

Read More »Tension Builds As Auto Industry Awaits Reborn ADAS Specs