Study of Atmospheric 'Froth' May Help GPS Communications

As reported by Physics.org: When you don't know how to get to an unfamiliar place, you probably rely on a smart phone or other device with a Global Positioning System (GPS) module for guidance. You may not realize that, especially at high latitudes on our planet, signals traveling between GPS satellites and your device can get distorted in Earth's upper atmosphere.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in collaboration with the University of New Brunswick in Canada, are studying irregularities in the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere centered about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the ground that defines the boundary between Earth and space. The ionosphere is a shell of charged particles (electrons and ions), called plasma, that is produced by solar radiation and energetic particle impact.

The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, compares turbulence in the auroral region to that at higher latitudes, and gains insights that could have implications for the mitigation of disturbances in the ionosphere. Auroras are spectacular multicolored lights in the sky that mainly occur when energetic particles driven from the magnetosphere, the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth, crash into the ionosphere below it. The auroral zones are narrow oval-shaped bands over high latitudes outside the polar caps, which are regions around Earth's magnetic poles. This study focused on the atmosphere above the Northern Hemisphere.

"We want to explore the near-Earth plasma and find out how big plasma irregularities need to be to interfere with navigation signals broadcast by GPS," said Esayas Shume. Shume is a researcher at JPL and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of the study.

If you think of the ionosphere as a fluid, the irregularities comprise regions of lower density (bubbles) in the neighborhood of high-density ionization areas, creating the effect of clumps of more and less intense ionization. This "froth" can interfere with radio signals including those from GPS and aircraft, particularly at high latitudes.

The size of the irregularities in the plasma gives researchers clues about their cause, which help predict when and where they will occur. More turbulence means a bigger disturbance to radio signals.

"One of the key findings is that there are different kinds of irregularities in the auroral zone compared to the polar cap," said Anthony Mannucci, supervisor of the ionospheric and atmospheric remote sensing group at JPL. "We found that the effects on radio signals will be different in these two locations."

The researchers found that abnormalities above the Arctic polar cap are of a smaller scale - about 0.62 to 5 miles (1 to 8 kilometers) - than in the auroral region, where they are 0.62 to 25 miles (1 to 40 kilometers) in diameter.

Why the difference? As Shume explains, the polar cap is connected to solar wind particles and electric fields in interplanetary space. On the other hand, the region of auroras is connected to the energetic particles in Earth's magnetosphere, in which magnetic field lines close around Earth. These are crucial details that explain the different dynamics of the two regions.

To look at irregularities in the ionosphere, researchers used data from the Canadian Space Agency satellite Cascade Smallsat and Ionospheric Polar Explorer (CASSIOPE), which launched in September 2013. The satellite covers the entire region of high latitudes, making it a useful tool for exploring the ionosphere.

The data come from one of the instruments on CASSIOPE that looks at GPS signals as they skim the ionosphere. The instrument was conceived by researchers at the University of New Brunswick.

"It's the first time this kind of imaging has been done from space," said Attila Komjathy, JPL principal investigator and co-author of the study. "No one has observed these dimensional scales of the ionosphere before."

The research has numerous applications. For instance, aircraft flying over the North Pole rely on solid communications with the ground; if they lose these signals, they may be required to change their flight paths, Mannucci said. Radio telescopes may also experience distortion from the ionosphere; understanding the effects could lead to more accurate measurements for astronomy.

"It causes a lot of economic impact when these irregularities flare up and get bigger," he said.

NASA's Deep Space Network, which tracks and communicates with spacecraft, is affected by the ionosphere. Komjathy and colleagues also work on mitigating and correcting for these distortions for the DSN. They can use GPS to measure the delay in signals caused by the ionosphere and then relay that information to spacecraft navigators who are using the DSN's tracking data.

"By understanding the magnitude of the interference, spacecraft navigators can subtract the distortion from the ionosphere to get more accurate spacecraft locations," Mannucci said.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in collaboration with the University of New Brunswick in Canada, are studying irregularities in the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere centered about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the ground that defines the boundary between Earth and space. The ionosphere is a shell of charged particles (electrons and ions), called plasma, that is produced by solar radiation and energetic particle impact.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, compares turbulence in the auroral region to that at higher latitudes, and gains insights that could have implications for the mitigation of disturbances in the ionosphere. Auroras are spectacular multicolored lights in the sky that mainly occur when energetic particles driven from the magnetosphere, the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth, crash into the ionosphere below it. The auroral zones are narrow oval-shaped bands over high latitudes outside the polar caps, which are regions around Earth's magnetic poles. This study focused on the atmosphere above the Northern Hemisphere.
"We want to explore the near-Earth plasma and find out how big plasma irregularities need to be to interfere with navigation signals broadcast by GPS," said Esayas Shume. Shume is a researcher at JPL and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of the study.
If you think of the ionosphere as a fluid, the irregularities comprise regions of lower density (bubbles) in the neighborhood of high-density ionization areas, creating the effect of clumps of more and less intense ionization. This "froth" can interfere with radio signals including those from GPS and aircraft, particularly at high latitudes.
The size of the irregularities in the plasma gives researchers clues about their cause, which help predict when and where they will occur. More turbulence means a bigger disturbance to radio signals.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in collaboration with the University of New Brunswick in Canada, are studying irregularities in the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere centered about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the ground that defines the boundary between Earth and space. The ionosphere is a shell of charged particles (electrons and ions), called plasma, that is produced by solar radiation and energetic particle impact.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, compares turbulence in the auroral region to that at higher latitudes, and gains insights that could have implications for the mitigation of disturbances in the ionosphere. Auroras are spectacular multicolored lights in the sky that mainly occur when energetic particles driven from the magnetosphere, the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth, crash into the ionosphere below it. The auroral zones are narrow oval-shaped bands over high latitudes outside the polar caps, which are regions around Earth's magnetic poles. This study focused on the atmosphere above the Northern Hemisphere.
"We want to explore the near-Earth plasma and find out how big plasma irregularities need to be to interfere with navigation signals broadcast by GPS," said Esayas Shume. Shume is a researcher at JPL and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of the study.
If you think of the ionosphere as a fluid, the irregularities comprise regions of lower density (bubbles) in the neighborhood of high-density ionization areas, creating the effect of clumps of more and less intense ionization. This "froth" can interfere with radio signals including those from GPS and aircraft, particularly at high latitudes.
The size of the irregularities in the plasma gives researchers clues about their cause, which help predict when and where they will occur. More turbulence means a bigger disturbance to radio signals.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in collaboration with the University of New Brunswick in Canada, are studying irregularities in the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere centered about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the ground that defines the boundary between Earth and space. The ionosphere is a shell of charged particles (electrons and ions), called plasma, that is produced by solar radiation and energetic particle impact.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, compares turbulence in the auroral region to that at higher latitudes, and gains insights that could have implications for the mitigation of disturbances in the ionosphere. Auroras are spectacular multicolored lights in the sky that mainly occur when energetic particles driven from the magnetosphere, the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth, crash into the ionosphere below it. The auroral zones are narrow oval-shaped bands over high latitudes outside the polar caps, which are regions around Earth's magnetic poles. This study focused on the atmosphere above the Northern Hemisphere.
"We want to explore the near-Earth plasma and find out how big plasma irregularities need to be to interfere with navigation signals broadcast by GPS," said Esayas Shume. Shume is a researcher at JPL and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of the study.
If you think of the ionosphere as a fluid, the irregularities comprise regions of lower density (bubbles) in the neighborhood of high-density ionization areas, creating the effect of clumps of more and less intense ionization. This "froth" can interfere with radio signals including those from GPS and aircraft, particularly at high latitudes.
The size of the irregularities in the plasma gives researchers clues about their cause, which help predict when and where they will occur. More turbulence means a bigger disturbance to radio signals.

FCC Passes Net Neutrality Rules in Victory for Open-Internet Activists

As reported by Engadget: It's a good day for proponents of an open internet: The Federal Communications Commission just approved its long-awaited network neutrality plan, which reclassifies broadband internet as a Title II public utility and gives the agency more regulatory power in the process. And unlike the FCC's last stab at net neutrality in 2010, today's new rules also apply to mobile broadband. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler laid out the basic gist of the plan earlier this month -- it'll ban things like paid prioritization, a tactic some ISPs used to get additional fees from bandwidth-heavy companies like Netflix, as well as the slowdown of "lawful content." But now Wheeler's vision is more than just rhetoric; it's something the FCC can actively enforce.

"It [the Internet] is our printing press, it is our town square, it is our individual soap box and our shared platform for opportunity," said FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel during today's open commission meeting. "That is why open internet policies matter. That is why I support network neutrality."

Don't expect the net neutrality drama to end here, though. Verizon has already made vague threats about suing the agency if it went through the public utility route, and Wheeler expects other lawsuits as well. Verizon's last legal action against the FCC led an appeals court to strike down its earlier (but far weaker) open internet rules on jurisdictional grounds. That's what ultimately pushed the agency to reclassify broadband -- now that it's viewed as a utility like telephone service, the FCC is free to make stronger regulatory decisions. The agency is aiming to alleviate fears of overregulation through forbearance, a process that lets it legally ignore certain regulations that other public utilities have to deal. That includes things like limiting rates and unbundling, which lets companies take advantage of equipment and services from competitors.

If you've been following the net neutrality debate over the past few years, you wouldn't be blamed for getting discouraged. Verizon's legal victory over the FCC last year made it seem like the big companies -- who would benefit the most from lax internet regulations -- had pretty much won the war for the web. But, it turns out, that defeat actually helped spark an unprecedented amount of grassroots activism on the web from groups like Fight for the Future, which got more than four million consumers to write into the FCC in support of net neutrality. Companies like Twitter, Reddit and Netflix -- whose businesses rely on unobstructed access to web users -- also did their part to lobby for an open web. All of that led to President Obama announcing his support for Title II broadband reclassification last fall, which put the FCC in a pretty awkward spot.

In his Wired editorial, Wheeler pointed out that he was previously relying on "commercial reasonableness," a concept brought up in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to keep the internet open. He ended up changing his mind, however, when he realized that line of thought could end up protecting companies more than consumers. But, far more likely, Wheeler changed his stance as the tide turned in favor of regulating broadband as a utility.

When it comes to the new mobile broadband rules, commissioner Mignon Clyburn framed it as something that will help ensure equality: "We know many low income Americans rely heavily on their mobile device, and some rely heavily on that mobile phone as their only access to the internet," she said. "They need, they deserve, a robust experience on par with their wired peers."

Television writer and producer Veena Sud, whose series The Killing was saved from cancellation by Netflix twice, laid out the artistic justification for net neutrality:

What the open internet means for creativity, innovation and diversity points is by no means limited to my own experience. Series like Orange is the New Black and Transparent are giving voice to worlds and people and experiences never before seen on the small screen.

Sud also mentioned an intriguing data point about web content: Around 40 percent of online comedies and dramas are backed by women, compared to just 20 percent on traditional television.

So what's next? You can expect plenty of of chest thumping from Republicans, libertarians, and large telecoms against the new rules. FCC commissioner Ajit Pai also railed against the agency's decision as intrusive government regulation. He was skeptical that the FCC will stick with its forbearance plan, and he warned that the open internet rules will also lead to slower broadband speeds and more taxes. Expect to hear those talking points repeatedly throughout the rest of the year.

"This proposal has been described by one opponent as 'A secret plan to regulate the internet.' Nonsense!," FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said right before the agency voted on the new rules.

"This is no more a plan to regulate the internet than the first amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concept: Openness, expression, and an absence of gatekeepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think."

5G Wireless System Clocks 1 Terabit of Data per Second

As reported by Quartz: Researchers have achieved the fastest mobile wireless speed to date, managing to reach 1 terabit per second over a 5G connection—about 65,000 times faster than the average 4G download speed.

“This is the same capacity as fiber optics but we are doing it wirelessly,” Rahim Tafazolli, director of the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Center, told V3. Samsung set the previous 5G speed record, 7.5 gigabits per second, in October.

Theoretically, this major speed boost—announced at V3’s mobile conference—means the mobile web will be able to support richer multimedia experiences. Higher speeds will undoubtedly accelerate the mobile video market, and the increased bandwidth will be able to facilitate the streaming of larger files, such as video shot in 4K resolution. Without tangible limitations to speed, developers can also build more powerful cloud-based apps. (Earlier this month, Apple raised the cap on the size of apps from 2GB to 4GB.)

It’s important to note that the fastest 5G speeds to date have been achieved in a vacuum. Latency, a slowdown introduced by infrastructure, will remain a problem, possibly for decades, Tafazolli told V3. Furthermore, mobile operators have yet to agree on a single vision of 5G.

Some want it to be a blend of existing technologies (2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi) while others are pushing for a clear demarcation, with specific data rate and latency targets.

The recent benchmark signals potential for a more connected world, with faster flow of information, but the real-world availability of 5G is still years away. When it does arrive, it likely won’t be anything close to the 1Tbps achieved. Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, said in January that 5G could come to market by 2020 in Britain, with projections for speeds as high as 50Gbps. 

The US is poised to migrate to 5G in 2025, according to a 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service.

UK Spectrum Policy Forum - Barry Lewis, Samsung - 5G Mobile Communications for 2020 and Beyond Vision and Key Enabling Technologies from techUK

New Technology Could Reveal Locations of Missing Persons, Terrorists By Relying on Images and Sounds

As reported by The Blaze: Spanish scientists may have just developed a way to almost pinpoint the locations shown in videos or photographs, even ones with vague and unfamiliar backgrounds.

The technology works by comparing audiovisual algorithms with a global multimedia database. 

Based on the locations from which they already have photos and video, they can more easily trace other multimedia to within a 6-mile radius of the actual location. In some cases, the technology is capable of concluding the location within a 1/2-mile radius, according to the scientists’ study published in by the academic journal “Information Sciences.”

The system relies on recognition of certain audio and visual components unique to that location. However, having access to both audio and visual elements isn’t necessarily required for the technology to help track down an approximate spot, although access to each is most effective.

“The acoustic information can be as valid as the visual and, on occasions, even more so when it comes to geolocating a video,” Xavier Sevillano of La Salle campus at Ramón Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, said.

“In this field we use some physics and mathematical vectors taken from the field of recognition of acoustic sources, because they have already demonstrated positive results,” Sevillano said.

The advantages of such software could be huge. For example, law enforcement could use it while trying to track down missing persons. All they would need is a recent social media photo or video of that person to narrow the search territory.

On a much larger, and perhaps more consequential scale, the technology could be added to the existing resources of intelligence agencies to pinpoint the locations of terrorists. Recent examples in which the technology could have been useful include videos released by the Islamic State, or ISIS, showing the executions of hostages.

And, as Sevillano points out, the system could be even more accurate while trying to track down terrorists.

“Our system does not make any assumptions regarding the location of the videos, but in these cases we are given very valuable additional information to limit the searches, as we already know that we are dealing with the area of Iraq or Syria, and therefore, we would only use reference videos from there,” Sevillano said.

SIM Database Hack Gave U.S. and British Spies Access to Billions of Phones

As reported by Reuters: U.S. and British spies hacked into the world's biggest maker of phone SIM cards, allowing them to potentially monitor the calls, texts and emails of billions of mobile users around the world, an investigative news website reported.

The alleged hack on Gemalto, if confirmed, would expand the scope of known mass surveillance methods available to U.S. and British spy agencies to include not just email and web traffic, as previously revealed, but also mobile communications.

The Franco-Dutch company said on Friday it was investigating whether the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's GCHQ had hacked into its systems to steal encryption keys that could unlock the security settings on billions of mobile phones.

The report by The Intercept site, which cites documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, could prove an embarrassment for the U.S. and British governments. It opens a fresh front in the dispute between civil liberties campaigners and intelligence services which say their citizens face a grave threat of attack from militant groups like Islamic State.

It comes just weeks after a British tribunal ruled that GCHQ had acted unlawfully in accessing data on millions of people in Britain that had been collected by the NSA.

A spokesman for GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters) said on Friday that it did not comment on intelligence matters. The NSA could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Intercept report (bit.ly/19E0KUK) said the hack was detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document and allowed the NSA and GCHQ to monitor a large portion of voice and data mobile communications around the world without permission from governments, telecom companies or users.

"We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques," said Gemalto, whose shares sunk by as much as 10 percent in early trading on Friday, following the report.
The report follows revelations from Snowden in 2013 of the NSA's Prism programme which allowed the agency to access email and web data handled by the world's largest Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook.


SURVEILLANCE
The new allegations could boost efforts by major technology firms such as Apple Inc and Google to make strong encryption methods standard in communications devices they sell, moves attacked by some politicians and security officials.

Leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed concern that turning such encryption into a mass-market feature could prevent governments from tracking militants planning attacks.

Gemalto makes SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards for phones and tablets as well as "chip and pin" bank cards and biometric passports. It produces around 2 billion SIM cards a year and counts Verizon, AT&T Inc and Vodafone among hundreds of wireless network provider customers.

The GCHQ spybase in the UK.

The Intercept, published by First Look Media, was founded by the journalists who first interviewed Snowden and made headlines around the world with reports on U.S. electronic surveillance programmes.

It published what it said was a secret GCHQ document that said its staff implanted software to monitor Gemalto's entire network, giving them access to SIM card encryption keys. The report suggested this gave GCHQ, with the backing of the NSA, unlimited access to phone communications using Gemalto SIMs.

French bank Mirabaud said in a research report the attacks appeared to be limited to 2010 and 2011 and were aimed only at older 2G phones widely used in emerging markets, rather than modern smartphones. It did not name the source of these assertions.

Some analysts argued that if a highly security-conscious company like Gemalto is vulnerable, then all of its competitors are as well.

Gemalto competes with several European and Chinese SIM card suppliers. A spokesman for one major rival, Giesecke & Devrien of Germany, told Reuters: "We have no signs that something like that happened to us. We always do everything to protect our customers' data."
But while security experts have long believed spy agencies in many countries have the ability to crack the complex mathematical codes used to encrypt most modern communications, such methods remain costly, limiting their usefulness to targeted hijacking of individual communications.

Iowa Wants to Let You Carry Your Drivers License on Your Phone

As reported by Forbes: There’s now a technology to replace almost everything in your wallet. Your cash, credit cards, and loyalty programs are all on their way to becoming obsolete. Money can now be sent via app, text, e-mail – it can even be sent via Snapchat. But you can’t leave your wallet home just yet. That’s because there is one item that remains largely unchanged: your drivers license.

If the Iowa Department of Motor Vehicles has its way, that may no longer be the case. 

According to an article in Des Moines Register, the agency is in the early stages of developing mobile software for just this purpose. The app would store a resident’s personal information, whatever is already on the physical licenses, and also include a scannable bar code. The plans are for the app to include a two-step verification process including some type of biometric or pin code. At this time, it appears that specific implementation details are still being worked out.

The governments of United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates had both previously announced their own attempts to experiment with the concept. It’s becoming increasingly common to see mobile versions of other documents. Over 30 states now allow motorists to show electronic proof of insurance. It only follows that the drivers license would be next. But the considerations around that document are different – it is perhaps the most regulated and important document that a person carries.

At first thought, the idea seems rife with potential security and privacy issues. It is well known at this point that nothing is unhackable; and if a project is made on a government contracting schedule, the likelihood of a breach is only greater. There’s already a contentious legal debate regarding law enforcements’ abilities to search your devices. Everywhere there is growing concern about what else apps, once installed, can be used to collect or carry out in the future.

Questions of security, however, must take into account context – and there, it can be argued that our current regimes of physical documents have been an enormous failure. Having every state choose their own approach for issuing IDs has led to patchwork regulations and glaring weak points in the system that criminals have repeatedly taken advantage of. Drivers licenses today are regularly forged, stolen, and compromised – it’s far from a secure situation.

There have been major advancements in the technologies that are readily available to consumers. New phones now come standard with features like Near Field Communication (for systems like Apple Pay and Google Wallet), and increasingly, biometric scanners (to use your face or thumbprint to unlock your home screen). In combination with existing practices like using end-to-end encryption, smart cards, and PIN codes, a technological solution may be feasible, theoretically. How these systems perform in real world conditions, on this scale, remains to be seen.

Chris Wiesinger, President of Trace Intercept, a consultancy focused on issues related to digital identity, sees the upside to adopting new technologies as far greater than the potential risks. Wiesinger argues that we are “awash in a world of credentials.” It’s become far too much for individuals to properly manage. He explains that with the inclusion of systems like Apple’s Touch ID, there is a unique opportunity to leverage a new security infrastructure, “I believe all the technologies to make this a high-security operation are already in play, and just need to be orchestrated effectively.”

Having viable digital counterparts to the physical documents and cards we use will allow us to lessen the severity of issues like fraud. But Wiesinger believes that the larger issue that needs to be addressed is the way we approach identity as a whole. What he is advocating for is a larger change in empowering individuals to gain agency over what personal information and attributes are shared, and in what context. Digital drivers licenses, as well as all the other credentials, could play an important role in making this ecosystem possible.

In Iowa, the success of their pilot study will likely depend more on issues of policy and execution than technological performance. Current plans allow for digital drivers licenses to be used at airports – it would be wise to restrict security-related use cases till the implementation is much farther along. The state should work with the private sector to start by letting residents use their digital licenses for low-level transactions like verifying age with alcohol and checking into a hotel. It is still too soon to allow a digital license the same authority as the physical one. Although, that day may come down the line.

Some have argued that this discussion will soon become irrelevant because of the amount that is already known about us. When our objects, devices, and institutions know not just who we are, but extremely specific details of our behaviors, the function of a legal identification document becomes unnecessary. It’s true that we are quickly losing our ability to choose when and by whom we are identified.

Despite that, it is unlikely that we will ever see physical documents completely replaced. Throughout history identification documents have been used to signify recognition. A paper document is proof of your existence in the world, it’s an acknowledgement by the government that you have legal rights. There are few forms of control as powerful as the ability to issue or confiscate someone’s identification paperwork. For that reason, don’t expect physical documents to ever go away – their symbolic value will exist long past their day-to-day utility.

Apple Appears to be Building an Apple Car. Is that as Crazy as it Sounds?

As reported by the Vox: We've known since last week that Apple was working on some sort of car-related project. The big question was whether Apple was working on a line of car accessories — perhaps expanding on its existing CarPlay platform — or whether the company was going to start building its own cars.

New reporting from 9to5Mac provides strong evidence that Apple is working on an Apple Car.

Cars are complicated, and building one requires skills that a high-tech company like Apple doesn't normally have. According to 9to5Mac, Apple has been snapping up engineers with expertise in motors, transmissions, drive trains, car interiors, and so forth.

The list includes four people with experience at Ford, four who previously worked at Tesla, a former CEO of Mercedes-Benz, and a General Motors employee. Apple has also hired an engineer from auto-part maker EMCO Gears and multiple engineers from A123 Systems, which makes batteries for hybrid and electric cars (A123 has sued Apple over these hires).

It's unlikely that Apple would hire people like this if it were only working on car accessories. And it wouldn't hire hundreds of people just to work on a pilot project. Granted, Apple CEO Tim Cook could still decide to cancel it if the results aren't up to Apple's standards. But there's a good chance we'll see some kind of Apple Car in the next few years.

Apple is well-positioned to create a new kind of car

Apple may be better positioned to jump into the car business than almost any other Silicon Valley company. Most tech companies focus on one relatively narrow piece of the technology "stack." You've got Intel and AMD making computer chips, Dell and Samsung building devices, Google and Microsoft developing software, and so forth.

Apple is virtually alone in building its own products from top to bottom. An iPhone is based on an Apple-designed chip and runs Apple-designed software. This philosophy makes Apple particularly good at re-inventing product categories, as it did with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. It can build exactly the right hardware to support its software, and vice versa, creating a seamless user experience.

This kind of tight integration between hardware and software will be particularly important for cars, where reliability and energy-efficiency are major priorities. Apple's work on iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks also means the company has experience with batteries and power management, which are also crucial to building electric cars.

Indeed, this could be a weakness for Google, which has traditionally created software that runs on other peoples devices. Combining Google's self-driving software with a conventional car might produce a less appealing product than having one company design the whole product.

It won't be easy for Apple to catch up to Google on self-driving technology

By the time Apple brings a car to market, partially self-driving cars will be commonplace and fully autonomous vehicles may be right around the corner. To compete with Google, it will have to build its own self-driving technology. And that won't be easy.

Google has a five-year head start creating self-driving cars. It also has a fleet of Street View cars that will allow it to produce detailed 3D maps of the world's streets, which will be essential to helping self-driving cars stay on the road. Apple doesn't have a great track record with maps — Apple has struggled to produce a mapping app that rivals Google Maps.

Google also has a culture that prizes tackling difficult engineering problems — dubbed "moon shots" — like building a self-driving car. In contrast, Apple has traditionally been focused on building beautiful, user-friendly gadgets. When it has tried to expand outside of that core area — as with iCloud and its predecessors — the results have often been disappointing.

On the other hand, building a beautiful, reliable, and energy-efficient electric car would be a major feat in its own right. Even if Apple struggles to catch up on the self-driving front, it could still sell a lot of conventional vehicles before autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous.