Jun 21, 2017

Tesla's head of autopilot software is leaving after just six months

Ina Fried

Pixabay

Chris Lattner, who left Apple in January to become Tesla's head of autopilot software in January is now leaving the carmaker.

"Turns out that Tesla isn't a good fit for me after all," he said in a Twitter post on Tuesday night. "I'm interested to hear about interesting roles for a seasoned engineering leader!"

Lattner had headed up Apple's development of the Swift programming language.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports that Tesla has hired computer vision expert Andrej Karpathy for a key role on the autopilot team. Karpathy was most recently at artificial intelligence research group OpenAI, which has backing from, among others, Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Go deeper

Axios

Situational awareness

Photo: BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images

Catch up on today's biggest news:

  1. CDC warns it's anticipating spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.
  2. SCOTUS rules that family of Mexican teen killed by border agent cannot sue
  3. Tokyo Olympics "looking at a cancellation" if coronavirus not contained by late May
  4. Mike Bloomberg's partner brushes off NDA concerns
  5. Trump acknowledges lists of disloyal government officials to oust
Keep ReadingArrowUpdated 27 mins ago - Politics & Policy
Axios

Coronavirus spreads to new countries, while U.S. confirms 57 cases

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and China's Health Ministry. Note: China numbers are for the mainland only and U.S. numbers include repatriated citizens.

Public health officials confirmed Tuesday the U.S. has 57 people with the novel coronavirus, mostly those repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship — an increase they had expected after the passengers were allowed to return home from Japan against their initial advice.

The big picture: COVID-19 has killed more than 2,700 people and infected more than 80,000 others, mostly in mainland China. There's only been two cases of person-to-person infections in the U.S. so far, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned today that Americans should prepare for the outbreak to broaden here.

Go deeperArrowUpdated 42 mins ago - Health
Miriam Kramer

Space tourism gets ready for launch

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Multiple space tourism companies are aiming to send their first customers to the edge of space before the end of this year.

Why it matters: Right now, most revenue in the space industry is tied up in government contracts, but experts say the maturing industry will need tourism to grow into the $1 trillion economy some predict it could be.

Go deeperArrow2 hours ago - Science