Google has been working on developing technology for a driverless car and now rumors are swirling that Apple, too, may be working on Steve Jobs’ infamous driverless iCar.

Google introduced the first fully-functioning prototype of a self-driving car in December 2014 after several less-functioning attempts by engineers over the years, according to Time. In a post on the project’s webpage, Google wrote that engineers had now managed to successfully combine elements of self-driving technology and laser-guided steering with car parts from conventional suppliers to create the working prototype.

Tesla and Uber have also reportedly been working on driverless technology and the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was getting into the game, with “several hundred” employees now working on a minivan-like electric car. The project is still just a rumor, but in true mystery fashion, comes with its own codename: “Titan.”

Sridhar Lakshmanan, engineering professor at the University Michigan-Dearborn, recently told Time that there are three crucial elements required to turn a regular car into an automated one:  “A GPS system,” “a system to recognize dynamic conditions on the roads,” and “a way to turn the information from the other two systems into action on your ride.”

“What the autonomous system is supposed to achieve, in its full maturity, is the best of a computer, which is able to process large reams of data, and the ability of a human being to be adaptive in a new or known environment,” Lakshmanan told Time.

But why? Have we really become so lazy that we don’t even want to drive ourselves places anymore? Personally, I use long drives as valuable “me time,” and call me paranoid, but I’m just not sure I could ever really trust a computer to drive me anywhere safely. If this driverless technology becomes a market reality, will it really be safe and will people really use it?

A Forbes article suggested self-driving could allow for more work to be done, more tweets to be sent, and more web posts to be posted during commutes. So if you are displeased with your daily tweet ratio, perhaps a driverless car is the answer to cutting out the time-consuming aspect of manual driving.

Beyond social advantages, driverless technology could also greatly diminish the number of traffic accidents, and thereby the number of traffic accident deaths, each year and improve traffic flow.

“In a world without crashes, cars wouldn’t need tons of reinforced steel, excessive airbags, and other features that make them so heavy, and by definition, lighter cars are more efficient cars,” noted Forbes.

A driverless car may not be as passive and safe as some people might think, though. Greg Fitch, research scientist at the Center for Automated Vehicle Systems at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute told Tech Republic that to ensure safety, vehicle manufacturers are still expecting car owners to be alert while driving, with a hand on the wheel and foot ready to brake. “Believe it or not, that car could fail at any time,” Fitch said.

It seems at least some U.K. drivers share my sense of wariness on the issue of driverless cars. Some are even “horrified” by the idea. “Four in ten Britons would not trust an autonomous car to drive safely, believing it would jeopardize the welfare of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, a survey from price comparison site uSwitch.com found,” reported the Telegraph.

I suppose it remains to be seen whether we will all be traveling around in driverless vehicles in a few years. Now we just have to wait for the pilotless commercial planes and cook-less kitchens so we can all have even more time for those tweets and web posts.

Morgan Eichensehr

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Steve Jobs will be testifying in a class-action trial in which it is being alleged that Apple broke anti-trust laws.

Now, Steve Jobs is, of course, dead. But before he died, he recorded a deposition and now that deposition will be played during the trial. In addition to the deposition, emails that he sent during that time period will also be used.

The suit essentially says that during part of the early iPod era–2006 to 2009–Apple only allowed music downloaded from iTunes to play on the devices. The reverse was also true–if you downloaded music from iTunes, which was admittedly one of the easiest platforms at the time, you couldn’t get it to play on another kind of device. By not allowing music downloaded from competing companies, Apple essentially broke anti-trust practices. That’s obviously no longer the case–Apple changed its products to allow music from other platforms in 2009. Now, it’s pretty easy to get content from other music retailers onto iPods, iPhones, iPads, or any other Apple devices, but “the plaintiffs argue that it inflated the prices of millions of iPods sold between 2006 and 2009 to the tune of $350 million.”

Jobs’ “testimony” seems like it could be pretty damning for Apple. For example, an email released a few years back includes a statement from Jobs as follows:

We need to make sure that when Music Match launches their download music store they cannot use iPod. Is this going to be an issue?

In addition, the plaintiff’s attorneys claim that their most salient proof comes from the reaction that Jobs had to a rival company, RealNetworks, releasing software called “Harmony.” Harmony would have allowed songs purchased from Real to be played on Apple devices. Apple responded by quickly releasing updates that rendered Harmony incompatible. Bonnie Sweeney, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that there is evidence that Jobs was furious at Harmony’s release, and his testimony will show that.

Jobs isn’t the only familiar face from Apple who will be testifying at this trial. Marketing Chief Phil Schiller and the exec who runs Apple’s software sales, Eddy Cue, will also be there.

The fact that Jobs’ testimony is being incorporated a few years after his death says a lot more about our court system than the case itself. The case was first filed in 2005, and there’s been basically a decade of legal back-and-forth over the issue. Now, almost 10 years later, it’s hard to even remember the days when you could only use iTunes if you had an iPod. In addition, the money that’s up for grabs–the suit is for $350 million–really isn’t that much to a company like Apple. After all, Apple makes about $180 billion in a single year. But it’s gotten pretty used to defending itself in court, and this is just further example of that attitude.

What’s really making the news here isn’t the class-action lawsuit–which to be honest is pretty run of the mill and boring. It’s the fact that Jobs, who has an almost cult-like following, is going to be sort of the “star witness” from the grave. It’s not something that our legal system really imagined, but it could very well help prosecutors prove their case against Apple.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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