Apple appears to be testing a pool of cars near San Francisco that are equipped with powerful camera rigs. A Claycord blog has published photos of a car that CBS affiliate KPIX 5 has confirmed is leased to Apple. The mysterious cars have been spotted a number of times over the past several months in and around San Francisco. A video, published on YouTube in September, also shows a complex camera rig mounted on the roof of a similar Dodge minivan in New York. Both of the cars near San Francisco and New York appear to be equipped with the same LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) camera system. 
 
 LIDAR has been used extensively by Google, Nokia, and others to map out imagery for Street View services. The technology is also used in some adaptive cruise control implementations to monitor distances between vehicles and automatically apply the brakes on a car. It’s possible that Apple is using LIDAR to create its own Street View rival, or at least testing that scenario. Apple’s car also includes the same wheel sensor that Navteq used on its Bing cars previously to create street imagery for Microsoft’s mapping service. 
 
 Could Apple be creating a Google Street View rival? 
 
 Apple has been gradually improving its mapping service since it controversially dropped Google Maps as the default maps app for iOS more than two years ago. Inaccurate listings, poor 3D imagery, and bad driving directions plagued the service initially, but things have improved. Apple Maps still lacks a rival to Google’s Street View, but if Apple is planning its own then it faces a daunting task to match Google’s comprehensive coverage. A test in New York and San Francisco isn't enough to map all of the world’s streets. 
 
 Google also uses LIDAR cameras to help power its self-driving cars. Google’s system is mounted on top of its fleet of cars, and the camera spins constantly to evaluate its surroundings. In the video published on YouTube, you can see a spinning camera system at the rear of the vehicle. While it’s possible Apple may be testing its own self-driving car, the company doesn’t have a permit to test them yet. As KPIX 5 points out, that doesn’t mean Apple couldn’t partner with an authorized car company to test them initially. With Apple refusing to comment on the cars, it looks like these curious vehicles will remain a mystery for now. ||||| Apple Apple camera car on San Francisco streets leads to 'street view' speculation Apple vehicles covered in cameras show company could be working on a Google Street View competitor for Apple Maps A specially equipped van with scanning equipment registered to Apple was spotted on the streets of New York and San Francisco. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian 
 
 A car leased to Apple and covered in cameras and scanning equipment has been spotted driving around San Francisco. 
 
 The people carrier with system of 12 cameras and a lidar sensor, which scans the environment using a spinning laser, attached to its roof was spotted by a Bay Area local blog called Claycord news and talk. 
 
 The unmarked vehicle was confirmed as having been leased to Apple via its number plate, and it could indicate that the company is preparing a large update to its maps app for the iPhone and iPad, similar to the street-level photography within Google Maps. 
 
 Apple’s update to its operating system for the iPhone and iPad, iOS 9, is expected to debut in the summer and could introduce the new feature. That would require a significant investment from Apple and a fleet of cars to photograph and map roads. 
 
 A similar car to the one spotted in San Francisco was also captured on video in New York last year. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mapping car in New York. 
 
 Google’s Street View was introduced in 2006 across five major US cities before expanding to the rest of the UK and Europe in 2008. It marked the switch for Google from relying on other providers for maps to building its own. 
 
 Apple has invested heavily in its maps app and made it the default mapping application on the company’s smartphones and tablets. 
 
 Apple Maps was notoriously buggy with inaccurate data on its launch in 2012, prompting the chief executive Tim Cook to publicly apologise for user frustration stating that the company was “doing everything we can to make Maps better”. 
 
 Apple maps: how Google lost when everyone thought it had won Read more 
 
 Street View was a crucial step in improving the accuracy of Google Maps as part of the company’s “Ground Truth” project, adding context such as no access roads, traffic signs and the context not available from satellite or aerial photography. 
 
 Tracking the cars route with GPS and other sensors not associated with photography verified routes and brought local knowledge to the standard map. 
 
 A similar project from Apple could boost the accuracy of its map application and bring it up to par with competitors from Google and Nokia’s Here maps. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Spacecraft use it to measure distance. Farmers use it to work out which fields need fertilizer. Archaeologists use it to map topography. And, crucially for Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, self-driving cars use lidar to navigate. 
 
 As carmakers and technology entrants scramble to develop autonomous vehicles, lidar has become a highly coveted technology. And now it’s at the center of a lawsuit pitting Waymo against Uber, the ride hailing upstart seeking to create its own autonomous vehicle empire. 
 
 Waymo, the self-driving car business of Google parent Alphabet, accused Uber in a court filing on Thursday of stealing its lidar designs. Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski downloaded 9.7 gigabytes of files before he left to found a startup that was subsequently acquired by Uber, the company said in the suit. 
 
 “Misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company,” Waymo said in a blog post on Medium. “We believe these actions were part of a concerted plan to steal Waymo’s trade secrets and intellectual property.” 
 
 "We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully," Uber spokeswoman Chelsea Kohler wrote in an e-mail. 
 
 A look at the technology at work in lidar -- and the role it plays in helping cars drive by themselves -- helps explain why the companies consider it so vital. 
 
 Raw data from Velodyne’s HDL-64E LiDAR sensor. Source: Velodyne LiDAR 
 
 Lidar is a radar-like system that uses lasers instead of radio waves to build a 3-D image of the surrounding landscape. Since satellite navigation systems are only accurate to within 16 feet and can be easily flummoxed by high-rise and glass-fronted buildings, autonomous vehicles require an array of other sensors to position themselves precisely and maintain awareness of nearby pedestrians, vehicles and other objects. 
 
 Waymo has its own lidar. Lidar specialists such as Velodyne Lidar Inc. say that, to cut the driver completely and permanently out of the equation, the technology is essential. The Morgan Hill, California-based company counts Tesla, Uber, Google and carmakers such as Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG among its customers. Those companies use lidar for research and mapping purposes. In the models that are on the road, Tesla Inc. doesn’t use a lidar, instead deploying a combination of image cameras, sonar and classic radar for its Autopilot system, which allows limited autonomous driving. 
 
 Lidar comprises a series of rotating, stacked lasers that shoot out at different angles. Each layer is called a channel, and is made up of two laser beams. The signal from each individual channel creates one contour line, and together, those lines generate a 3-D image of the surrounding environment. That means that, the more lasers in each stack, the higher the resolution. Velodyne, for instance, manufactures products with 16, 32 and 64 laser channels. 
 
 The main hurdle to lidar becoming a widely adopted technology in mass-produced cars is cost. A 64-channel unit from Velodyne can cost more than $50,000, while the lower end 16-channel product sells for $7,999. Since a car might require several lidar units, it quickly makes the cost prohibitive for anything but the most expensive luxury cars. Velodyne and competitors such as Quanergy Systems Inc. are working to reduce the price. That would be accelerated by major orders for mass market cars. 
 
 The appeal of lidar has prompted a race for the technology. Automotive supplier Continental AG bought a lidar business from Advanced Scientific Concepts Inc. in 2016, while France’s Valeo SA has teamed up with Canada’s LeddarTech to supply the product. 
 
 — With assistance by Mark Bergen ||||| After five years of working at Tesla, Apple’s former VP of Mac hardware engineering, Doug Field, has returned to Cupertino — but apparently to work on Apple’s autonomous car initiative Project Titan. 
 
 Apple has officially acknowledged rehiring Field, but his specific involvement with Titan was confirmed to Daring Fireball by unnamed sources within the company. According to the report, Field is working alongside Bob Mansfield, a senior hardware engineering VP who briefly “retired” from Apple in 2012 yet remained involved in unnamed special projects for the company, including Titan. 
 
 Titan has been an unusually open secret for years. Reports have claimed that Apple has flip-flopped between advancing and scaling back the project, at one point working to develop an entire next-generation vehicle before deciding to focus more narrowly on specific autonomous systems. Company executives have winked in the project’s general direction, at one point describing cars as the ultimate mobile device, as if they represented a clear next step after Apple‘s successes with smartphones and tablets. 
 
 Field’s return to Apple comes amidst significant vehicle-related employee turbulence at both Apple and Tesla. Both companies have hired and lost numerous automotive experts in recent years, with Apple reportedly laying off hundreds of people during its 2016-2017 scaling back of car development plans. Tesla has experienced numerous departures related to the troubled launch of its entry-level Model 3. 
 
 During his prior five years at Apple, Field led hardware development for the redesigned iMac, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. He left Apple in October 2013 to lead the development of new vehicles for Tesla and headed up production for the Model 3 before departing to re-join Apple. In a statement announcing his hiring at Tesla, Field said he had started his career “with the goal of creating incredible cars” and had finally found an opportunity to build “the best cars in the world.” 
 
 It looks like he may continue on that path with his old employer. Without explanation, Apple has requested DMV permission to operate a collection of at least 66 self-driving vehicles, which is now amongst the three largest such fleets in California. At least some of the cars are Lexus RX 450h SUVs equipped with exterior sensor arrays. 
 
 But despite occasional vehicular patent filings, it’s unclear whether Apple’s ambitions continue to involve the creation of a full car. One year ago, the company unveiled a self-driving shuttle service called PAIL (Palo Alto to Infinite Loop), using the technology to transport employees between its campuses. PAIL and a rare 2017 comment from Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding the company’s interest in autonomous systems are the most public elements of the company’s continued automotive efforts. 
 
 Titan had an odd moment in the spotlight last month when a former Apple employee was arrested by the FBI as he attempted to leave the country. The employee allegedly copied Titan-related documents from secret Apple servers before starting work at a Chinese autonomous vehicle startup. According to court documents, around 5,000 people had access to the Titan database, a huge number for a secret project at a company that enforces “need to know” access restrictions on information.
– A minivan driving around San Francisco has fueled speculation that Apple may be creating its own "street view" for Apple Maps, the Guardian reports. Spotted by the Claycord News & Talk blog, the van had 12 cameras mounted along with a lidar sensor, which uses a spinning laser to survey the environment. "When asked about what they are doing, the person sitting in the vehicle would never give an answer," says the blog. What's more, CBS San Francisco reports that the vehicle is leased to Apple. Could they be mounting a rival to Google Maps' popular Street View? After all, Apple is planning to release iOS 9 for iPhones and iPads in the summer, and was rather embarrassed by Apple Maps' poor directions and subpar 3D imagery when it first came out. Yet Apple would need a fleet of vehicles to challenge Google's Street View, the Verge notes. Also, technology analyst Rob Enderle says the van has "too many cameras" for street-viewing and may in fact be a self-driving vehicle. The van also resembles one seen in a Brooklyn YouTube video that describes it as a "self-driving car." Apple isn't among companies with a permit to test self-driving cars, but the van may be used by an Apple partner who does: "You know, they have partnerships with a variety of the carmakers," says Enderle. "Just because they’re leasing the car doesn’t necessarily mean it’s their project." Apple has no comment on the high-tech van or vans—so "it looks like these curious vehicles will remain a mystery for now," says the Verge. (See why Uber may use "robo-cabs.")