Photo: YouTube screenshot
Last month, we showed you a very enthusiastic (some would even say overly-enthusiastic) George Hotz holding what can only be described as an Elon Musk presentation on drugs for his new product.
Alright, just in case you never heard of George Hotz and yet you somehow stumbled upon this article, here's a short resume. He came out of anonymity when he became the first man to hack the iPhone. He later did the same thing with Sony's Play Station, but having run out of big-name electronic devices, he had to turn his attention elsewhere.
He was in talks with Tesla and Elon Musk, but after falling out with the now famous South African billionaire, he started his own company. Actually, he began by working on his own in his garage, but earlier this year founded comma.ai and promised he would deliver an accessible aftermarket device that would be able to make most vehicles semi-autonomous. He was so confident, actually, that he even challenged Elon Musk to an AI driving contest, which the Tesla CEO declined.
Fast forward to September and the comma one was ready to go on sale. Well, at least that's what George Hotz said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on the other hand, had its doubts. And it chose to express these doubts in a letter of requests sent to comma.ai.
The paper does not ask comma.ai to put an end to its self-driving project, but does raise a few concerns related to its safety. Which, if you think about it, is pretty easy to understand why: here is one guy claiming a green piece of plastic you replace your mirror with can turn your car into a self-driving vehicle.
As a response, the company issued a brief tweet informing everybody that the comma one is cancelled and that comma.ai will be 'exploring other products and markets.' The message ended with 'Hello from Shenzhen, China,' so Hotz is presumably already working on expanding his business abroad.
He was in talks with Tesla and Elon Musk, but after falling out with the now famous South African billionaire, he started his own company. Actually, he began by working on his own in his garage, but earlier this year founded comma.ai and promised he would deliver an accessible aftermarket device that would be able to make most vehicles semi-autonomous. He was so confident, actually, that he even challenged Elon Musk to an AI driving contest, which the Tesla CEO declined.
Fast forward to September and the comma one was ready to go on sale. Well, at least that's what George Hotz said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on the other hand, had its doubts. And it chose to express these doubts in a letter of requests sent to comma.ai.
The paper does not ask comma.ai to put an end to its self-driving project, but does raise a few concerns related to its safety. Which, if you think about it, is pretty easy to understand why: here is one guy claiming a green piece of plastic you replace your mirror with can turn your car into a self-driving vehicle.
As a response, the company issued a brief tweet informing everybody that the comma one is cancelled and that comma.ai will be 'exploring other products and markets.' The message ended with 'Hello from Shenzhen, China,' so Hotz is presumably already working on expanding his business abroad.
The comma one is cancelled. comma.ai will be exploring other products and markets. Hello from Shenzhen, China. -GH 3/3
— comma ai (@comma_ai) October 28, 2016
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