Apple Car deal with Kia, first model might be fully autonomous vehicle

A report on Wednesday claims Apple’s first foray into the automotive industry will be a fully autonomous vehicle designed to operate without a human driver, suggesting it might not be marketed as a consumer product.

Citing sources familiar with Apple’s plans, CNBC reports the first iteration of “Apple Car” will be be a good candidate for driverless food delivery businesses and companies operating robotaxis.

“The first Apple Cars will not be designed to have a driver,” a source said. “These will be autonomous, electric vehicles designed to operate without a driver and focused on the last mile.”

The suggestion upends current thinking about the much rumored car project. Industry watchers and pundits expect “Apple Car” to be a consumer product along the lines of Tesla’s popular electric autos; a bold expansion into a completely new field. If CNBC’s source is correct, Apple might first find its footing in enterprise before transitioning to personal mobility.

There is evidence that backs up the publication’s claims. In 2019, Apple purchased self-driving shuttle and car kit startup Drive.ai, acquiring dozens of employees, cars and other assets to add to the ranks of its Project Titan autonomous vehicle development team. Prior to that, a report in 2018 said Apple signed a deal with Volkswagen to convert a number of T6 Transporter vans into autonomous shuttles for its Palo Alto to Infinite Loop (PAIL) pilot program.

Today’s report echoes recent rumblings about a tie-up with Hyundai and Kia, saying Apple is close to reaching a manufacturing deal that will see branded electric vehicles assembled at Kia’s U.S. facilities. Production is tentatively slated for 2024, though the timeline might be pushed back, according to sources. Apple might also tap other automakers to assist in the project separately or in cooperation with Hyundai.

Earlier in the day, South Korean news outlet Dong-A said Apple and Kia plan to sign a deal on Feb. 27 that will see the tech giant invest 4 trillion won to secure access to the automaker’s U.S. plant in Georgia. That report also cited a 2024 start date and claimed initial capacity would be set at 100,000 cars per year with the potential to accelerate output to a maximum of 400,000 units a year.

On Tuesday, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted the so-called “Apple Car” will be built on Hyundai’s E-GMP electric vehicle platform, with Hyundai Mobis offering assistance with component design and production. Kuo, like others, believes Kia’s U.S. arm will handle production, with Apple in charge of self-driving hardware and software, semiconductors, battery technologies, form factor and user experience.

 

SpaceX announces first mission to space with all-civilian crew

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning to send its first “all-civilian” crew to space at the end of 2021 in a charity-focused mission commanded by tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. The company said in a press release it’ll pick three people to ride alongside Isaacman to orbit aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.

Isaacman, a trained pilot and the chief executive of Shift4 Payments, said he donated $100 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and wants to help raise $200 million more by inviting people to donate at least $10 to St. Jude for a chance to get picked. Three people will be chosen “to represent the mission pillars of leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity,” according to a press release — though one person was already picked, Isaacman said during a press call on Monday. The full crew “will be announced in the weeks ahead,” SpaceX said.

“This is an important milestone towards enabling access to space for everyone,” Musk told reporters on the call, adding that it’s part of SpaceX’s broader goal to “bring the cost down over time and make space accessible to all.”

The mission, named Inspiration4, will launch from SpaceX’s 39A launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. Prior to flight, crew members will get special training from SpaceX with “a specific focus on orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing.” The four-person crew will spend up to five days in the acorn-shaped Crew Dragon capsule as it orbits Earth every 90 minutes “along a customized flight path,” SpaceX and the contest’s official rules said.

“The mission parameters are up to Jared,” Musk said. The mission could last anywhere from two to four days long, “but if you wanna stay up longer that’s fine too,” he added. Musk and Isaacman offered scant details on the kind of training the crew members will go through, but it’ll be long enough for the participants — three strangers — to get to know each other before spending a few days confined to Crew Dragon’s tight cabin.

“We are all going to know each other incredibly well, long before we ever strapped into Dragon, I can promise you that,” Isaacman said.

Crew members must be “physically and psychologically fit for training,” under 6 feet and 6 inches tall and weigh less than 250 pounds, per the fundraiser’s official rules (a person who’s able to ride the Incredible Hulk roller coaster in Florida would be a perfect fit, Musk said). If the mission gets delayed past 2022, crew members will each get an “alternate prize” of $150,000, the fine print added.

SpaceX has launched two crews to space already, but those were with trained NASA astronauts — including one astronaut from Japan’s space agency — on government-funded trips to the International Space Station. The Inspiration4 mission marks SpaceX’s latest private astronaut mission to be announced: The company’s Ax-1 mission, also planned for the end of 2021, hosts a crew of four private astronauts paying $55 million each for an eight-day trip to the ISS. And in 2018 Elon Musk announced Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will hitch a ride around the moon on SpaceX’s new rocket system Starship, which is in development.

SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon capsule with a more than $2 billion contract under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the agency’s initiative to spur private spacecraft development. Kathy Lueders, who led the crew program and is currently NASA’s human spaceflight chief, tweeted after the Inspiration4 reveal on Monday she was “excited to see one of the original goals of @Commercial_Crew come to be with the expansion of new commercial activities beyond our own in low-Earth orbit.”

Isaacman told reporters the mission kicks off the biggest fundraiser ever for St. Jude, a children’s hospital with an already massive fundraising reach. “If we’re going to continue making advances up there in space, then we have an obligation to do the same down here on Earth,” he said.

Facebook Ads Vs Instagram Ads

Facebook and Instagram are two of the leading social media networking sites that are used for digital marketing. In an age when almost everything can be done online, it is important to understand how to market your business online as well.

But hold on. Before we go that far, we need to figure out which of the two social media platforms are better for advertising your company. Both of them have a feature whose sole purpose is advertising brands, products, and companies.

These features are Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. Although they are similar in most aspects, certain differences set them apart. In this article, we will be discussing which of the two are better for promoting your brand.

Before we get into that, here is a quick tip. If you want to gain engagement on Instagram in a short time, you can use Viralyft, GetViral.io, and SocialPackages.net to buy real facebook likes and followers. These sites can also help you increase engagement on Facebook in a similar manner.

So now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into it.

1. Content

The first thing that differentiates Instagram from Facebook is that it is a platform that is primarily used for sharing aesthetic pictures. If your advertisement has really good quality pictures that you want to flaunt, then you should choose Instagram Ads.

With this, you will be able to make use of the full potential of your pictures and videos. Catchy and short captions are best to engage your audience on this platform.

On the other hand, if you would like to advertise a product that requires you to add in more text and focus on that rather than the pictures, you could opt for Facebook Ads.

You can also add in links here, which is a feature that is unavailable on Instagram. On Instagram, you will have to use call-to-action buttons if you want to redirect your audience to a website or your account.

Facebook too can be used if you have multiple pictures and videos, or even multiple ads. This feature is great for those who want to advertise multiple types of content.

2. Audience

Another important aspect to consider while choosing between Instagram and Facebook is your audience demographics. Does your company appeal more to youngsters and teenagers? Would you like to attract more adults toward your brand?

Instagram has more young adults and teenagers who use the platform, whereas Facebook includes people from different age groups and demographics. Depending on your target audience, it would be wise to prefer one of the platforms over the other.

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3. Can You Edit Running Ads?

Fortunately, both Facebook and Instagram provide you with options to edit ads that you have already posted. You can also end them before their schedule if you find that the budget is too high or that they are not doing too well.

It is best to try out ads on both platforms to see how well they actually do. You can quit either platform whenever you like. What is important is that you create marketing strategies for each, depending on the strengths and weaknesses of both platforms.

4. Picking Your Objective

You must be aware of the goal of your advertisement. Do you want to attract more audience engagement? Do you want to divert traffic from your ad to your website? Or would you rather generate more leads for your business?

Both platforms have a feature that allows you to choose your objective, depending on which that ad is run. However, Facebook offers more options, and another drawback of Instagram here is that these options are not available when you are using the mobile app.

Also, Facebook does better if you want to divert traffic to your website. On the other hand, Instagram is more helpful if you want to increase your brand’s awareness using multimedia.

5. Industry

The final factor that you must take into consideration while planning an ad campaign is the industry your brand belongs to. An industry that requires more emphasis on good-quality images, such as fashion, travel or food, would do well on Instagram.

Other industries that require a more thorough understanding from the audience about the products or services would engage more people on Facebook. Such industries include, but are not limited to freelancing, tutoring, and the automotive industry.

Combining all the aforementioned factors would help you in making a decision. Overall, Facebook is a better option for those of you who would like to engage a more wide audience, based on the differences in demographics. It is also a better platform for industries that appeal to people who are in their 20s or older.

On the flip side, Instagram is extremely helpful for those who want to specifically target a young audience. The more eye-catching your pictures and videos are, the stronger an impression you will create on this platform.

Both platforms allow you to analyse the performance of your ads, based on the audience engagement you got and the objective that you had chosen for your campaign. You could choose to go for a test drive of sorts, which can give you substantial data, using which you can make a preference between the platforms.

Highly creative and never-before-seen type ad campaigns will definitely get a higher engagement. People are always looking for something new!

Elon Musk to disrupt telecommunications next with Starlink

Elon Musk has successfully scaled new industries and disrupted the incumbents of others, becoming the world’s richest person early this year by upending the global auto industry and disrupting aerospace heavyweights with reusable rockets. Now Musk is looking to seriously disrupt the global telecommunications space with his Starlink internet satellites.

Over the course of 18 launches, Elon Musk and his Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) have deployed collectively 1,023 satellites into low-earth orbit that will enable Starlink internet services. The company says it is building 120 Starlink satellites a month, launching as many as 60 Starlink satellites at a time aboard its Falcon 9 reusable rockets, and there are already enough up there that Starlink internet is already signing up early beta customers in the US, UK, and Canada.

SpaceX has told investors that Starlink is angling for a piece of the US$1 trillion telecommunications market that consists of connectivity services such as of in-flight internet, maritime services, and demand in large swaths of rural land or underserved developing markets, including the vast potential in China and India.

Starlink is the latest ambitious project from the mind of Elon Musk: to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, that is purpose-designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November 2018 approved SpaceX to launch 11,943 satellites, with the company aiming to deploy 4,425 satellites in orbit by 2024.

The first 60 SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into a Falcon fairing, to launch the first wave of its Starlink constellation

The first 60 SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into a Falcon fairing in 2019, to launch the first wave of its Starlink constellation. Source: “AFP PHOTO / @elonmusk”

The expanding Starlink internet satellite constellation is hanging in low-earth orbit, closer to the planet than traditional satellites. This is close enough to enable Musk’s newest venture to roll out internet services along a wide stretch of North America and the UK. As SpaceX sends up more satellites, the coverage area will grow, expanding the potential customer base – and new revenue stream – beyond the grassroots stages it is at today.

Starlink marks SpaceX’s first foray into a truly consumer-facing product. Maintaining strong service while growing the customer base is something an Elon Musk enterprise has not attempted before. SpaceX began a public beta program of Starlink internet in October 2020, with service priced at US$99 a month, in addition to a US$499 upfront cost to order the Starlink Kit, which includes a user terminal and Wi-Fi router to connect to the satellites.

Thus far, feedback from early Starlink testers has been positive. Brian Rendel, a beta tester who struggled for years with sluggish internet speeds at his rural 160-acre farm overlooking Lake Superior in Michigan, US, says he is now getting speeds of 100 megabytes per second for downloads and 15 to 20 megabytes per second for uploads – far superior to his previous service provider.

“This is a game-changer,” said Rendel, a mental health counselor, who can now easily watch movies and hold meetings with clients over Zoom. “It makes me feel like I’m part of civilization again.”

“The big deal is that people are happy with the service and the economics of Starlink versus other alternatives,” concurred Luigi Peluso, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, that follows the aerospace and defense industries. “SpaceX has demonstrated the viability of their solution.”

Neuralink could start planting chips in humans brains

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that Neuralink — his brain-computer-interface company — could be launching human trials by the end of 2021.

Musk gave the timeline in response to another user’s request to join human trials for the product, which is designed to implant artificial intelligence into human brains as well as potentially cure neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“Neuralink is working super hard to ensure implant safety & is in close communication with the FDA,” Musk said on Twitter in response to another user’s request to join human trials. “If things go well, we might be able to do initial human trials later this year.”

Musk has made similar statements in the past about his project, which was launched in 2016. He said in 2019 that it would be testing on humans by the end of 2020.

There has been a recent flurry of information on the project since Musk made an appearance on the social media site, Clubhouse, and provided some additional updates on Neuralink.

Musk told Clubhouse users Sunday night that Neuralink recently used its nanotechnology to implant a chip into a monkey’s brain. The wireless chip allowed the monkey to play video games using only its mind, according to Musk.

Neuralink has tested the chips on other animals. Last year, the company implanted an AI brain chip into a pig.

The chip implants can read and write brain activity. Musk claims the brain-machine interface could do anything from cure paralysis to give people telepathic powers, referring to the device as “a Fitbit in your skull.”

Musk has also recently tried to recruit for the company on Twitter.

“If you’ve worked on advanced wearables, phones or robots, those skills are needed @neuralink,” Musk tweeted on Sunday.

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