The automaker is looking to block the new company from using potentially proprietary information or hiring any employees away from Tesla.
Tesla is suing the former head of its Autopilot program, reports Bloomberg.
The automaker alleges that former employee Sterling Anderson took confidential information about the semi-autonomous Autopilot system from Tesla with him to a new startup he formed with Chris Urmson, the former head of Google’s self-driving project.
The automaker is looking to block the new company, Aurora Innovation, from using potentially proprietary information or hiring any employees away from Tesla.
The auto industry is currently grappling with a larger question how to deal with intellectual property. Companies developing autonomous cars are faced with conflicting incentives when it comes to sharing data and ideas.
Their goal is to introduce autonomous vehicles early and get to market fast, establishing themselves as leaders. The fastest way to get to market is through sharing data and using data shared from others, but then those other companies have that data, which they may be able to use to market themselves. Despite the risks there are a number of data sharing initiatives already in place:
Ford is looking into the value of crowd-sourced mapping data. On the company’s earnings call, CEO Mark Fields discussed the company’s openness to working with partners to crowd source data in order to build out better 3D maps for its autonomous vehicle development.
The US Department of Transportation opened a number of autonomous testing tracks. The nature of these shared tracks could, we suggest, lead to collaborative efforts due to the proximity companies will be placed in with one another, as well as potential access protocols the Transportation department could implement.
Toyota and BMW started sharing data with a startup that works to improve autonomous driving systems. The data is aggregated and anonymized so that all automakers are able to employ the service without releasing any proprietary information or customer data.
As autonomous development continues, we expect this tension to only heighten and for more companies to be forced to decide between advancement through sharing and potential slowdowns in research, but gains relative to competitors through hoarding data.
The intensity of this situation shows how the Internet of Things (IoT) is disrupting businesses, governments, and consumers and transforming how they interact with the world. Companies are going to spend almost $5 trillion on the IoT in the next five years — and the proliferation of connected devices and massive increase in data has started an analytical revolution.
To gain insight into this emerging trend, BI Intelligence conducted an exclusive Global IoT Executive Survey on the impact of the IoT on companies around the world. The study included over 500 respondents from a wide array of industries, including manufacturing, technology, and finance, with significant numbers of C-suite and director-level respondents.
Peter Newman, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has conducted an exclusive study with in-depth research into the field and created a detailed report on the IoT that describes the components that make up IoT ecosystem. We size the IoT market in terms of device installations and investment through 2021. And we examine the importance of IoT providers, the challenges they face, and what they do with the data they collect. Finally, we take a look at the opportunities, challenges, and barriers related to mass adoption of IoT devices among consumers, governments, and enterprises.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
We project that there will be a total of 22.5 billion IoT devices in 2021, up from 6.6 billion in 2016.
We forecast there will be $4.8 trillion in aggregate IoT investment between 2016 and 2021.
It highlights the opinions and experiences of IoT decision-makers on topics that include: drivers for adoption; major challenges and pain points; stages of adoption, deployment, and maturity of IoT implementations; investment in and utilization of devices, platforms, and services; the decision-making process; and forward- looking plans.
In full, the report:
Provides a primer on the basics of the IoT ecosystem
Offers forecasts for the IoT moving forward and highlights areas of interest in the coming years
Looks at who is and is not adopting the IoT, and why
Highlights drivers and challenges facing companies implementing IoT solutions
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