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This week, Apple continues its executive shake-ups with a new CEO.
Bloomberg has a new report saying that the company’s robotics team is under new management.
This team, which hasn’t been made public, but isn’t exactly secret, was working under John Giannandrea’s machine learning and artificial intelligence group. Recently, we wrote about an interesting paper and video by the team that showed expressive “emotions” with an experimental AI powered lamp. It’s a great demonstration of what the group has been working towards, probably in preparation for a future tabletop assistant with an iPad-like display and a robotic arm. This robotics team has moved from the AI/ML division to the hardware group, which is led by Senior Vice-President John Ternus.
It could be interpreted as a move that reduces the responsibilities of Giannandrea’s group. This would remove the incentive to build products, and allow the group to focus on the underlying technologies for artificial intelligence and machine-learning used throughout the entire company. In other words, the group will become more of a specialized R&D unit. The Siri team was removed from Giannandrea’s group in the beginning of this year, after it became publicized that they were unable to meet deadlines or keep up with rival digital assistants.
It could also mean that the project has moved from the lab into serious product development. Once a core idea has been proven it takes a lot of time to turn it into a mass-produced product, especially at the level of quality one would expect from Apple. This shift in focus to the hardware division could be an indication that work has begun.
Jason CrossSenior Editor, Macworld.
Jason is a technology writer who has been writing for over 25 years. He began in the gaming press and then moved on to enthusiast PCs and technology. He loves to learn how technology works and explain it in a manner that anyone can understand.
