#Engine-Xmotor

[appliancesreviews]

Power suction of canister vacuums vs robotic vacuums vs cordless vacuums

Of course, the cleaning quality is one of the most objective marketing criteria of any vacuum. In turn, it directly depends on suction power of vacuum. Unfortunately, fierce competition has prevented companies from creating a unified standard for its evaluation. Previously, Peak Horse Power (PHP) was the most common characteristic of canister models. For example, Shop-Vac and other companies still use it in specs wet / dry vacuums. Usually, modern models provide from 1 to 6,5 Peak HP. But upright models were usually rated by Amperage (amps) from the power source. The actual Sealed Suction in inches of water lift also is a very good indication of the motor performance. Then, many American companies began to use Air Watts or traditional Watts (1 AW = 0.9983 W). Glossary 1. Power consumption in vatts (W), characterizes the power consumption of the electric motor and usually varies between 1500–2500 W. 2. The suction power characterizes the absorption efficiency of dust and debris. Of сourse, it depends on the electric motor power, but non-linearly, depending on the many factors. Accordingly, the suction power is always significantly less than the engine power. 3. Sealed Suction measures the maximum suction power when there is no air flow. 4. CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) characterizes the air volume passing through the system per unit time. Therefore, its maximum value corresponds to the free passage of air flow. Of course, hoses and sticks, filters, nozzles, etc create resistance to air flow, substantially reducing real CFM. Therefore, Air Flow does not accurately characterize the suction power.

Suction power

The approximate calculation of suction power can use a formula with two variables, including Sealed Suction (inches of water lift or kPa and mbar) and CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute). The first value characterizes the difference between the air pressure in the room and the pressure at the vacuum outlet. It provides suction of air with dust and debris. The second value characterizes the air volume that the vacuum cleaner fan pumps through the filter per unit time. Thus, the suction power depends on a combination of these two variables. For example, a model even with a high Sealed Suction will not pick up heavy dust particles from the floor with a low CFM. Conversely, even at high CFM, a low Sealed Suction will cause a sharp decrease in suction power at any resistance, e.g. when the nozzle is in close contact with the floor. Their optimal combination provides maximum suction power. Of course, companies are constantly improving these characteristics with the design improvements and other innovations. But to calculate its exact value is almost impossible. Formally, there is an IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 60312 standard , but in reality it does not work. Therefore, unwilling to risk reputation, most companies prefer not to include the suction power in specs. Sometimes, they contain an average effective suction power that is 15 to 30% below the maximum. As a consequence, the confusion in the units of measurement and the lack of a unified methodology blocked the use of this very convenient and informative criterion. As a result, many experts simply test vacuums, experimentally determining their performance. Unfortunately, such testing is always subjective. This article offers a simplified classification that will help you choose a vacuum with optimal suction power.

Canister and upright vacuums

Typically, cleaning hard floors does not require high suction power. Daily cleaning with even low-power modern budget robots vacuums with a suction power of about 20 AW ensures acceptable cleanliness in the apartment. But, of course, cleaning carpets requires significantly higher power, which, moreover, differs significantly for low-, medium-, and long-pile carpets. Modern canister and upright vacuums have virtually no restrictions and easily provide suction power in the range of 250-480 AW and higher, which is redundant in most cases. At the same time, an increase in power is always accompanied by an increase in the noise level, which can reach 80 dB and higher. In addition, too much suction force adversely affects the carpet pile. With regular use of an overly powerful vacuum, its quality can significantly deteriorate after 1-2 years. But for marketing reasons, some companies continue to increase the power of their models. For example, Miele indicates suction power 1200 W in specs for upright Dynamic U1, and Classic C1 Pure Suction canister vacuum. Maybe it's a typo, and the company had in mind the power consumption of its truly magnificent innovative 1200-W Miele Vortex Motor. The components of its fan have virtually no parallel surfaces, providing perfect aerodynamics. In addition, the company installed nine long fan scoops instead of the usual six short ones. Moreover, scoops taper from center to edge, similar to a jet engine compressor. As a result, the new compressor design significantly reduced air resistance, increasing suction power. However, it's unlikely to have reached 1200 AW. However, most companies focus on improving efficiency through constructive innovation. For example, Dyson Ball Animal 2 Upright with a suction power of 306 AW easily cleans long-pile carpet even from pet hair.

Cordless 2-in-1

Сordless vacuums provide excellent mobility, allowing the user to easily and quickly clean all surfaces above the floor surface, including upholstery, window shades, PC keyboard, etc. But the battery capacity drastically limits developers in terms of electric motor power and battery life. Unfortunately, increasing the battery capacity increases the device weight, drastically reducing its usability. Even with a weight of 4.5 lb, it quickly tires the hand muscles. In addition, Boost mode significantly increases the suction power, but discharges the battery very quickly. Today, the newest Dyson V11 Outsize is considered the most powerful model. Its suction power reaches an unprecedented 220 AW. But even its 2x battеry packs provide only 9 minutes in Boost mode. At the same time, the model works without problems for 43 and 72 minutes in Auto and Eco modes, providing 49.5 AW and 24.9 AW suction power. The suction power of 49.5 AW is sufficient for high-quality cleaning the short-pile carpet. But a long-pile carpet will require Boost mode. However, 9 minutes is enough to clean a medium-sized carpet. Then follows Roidmi X20 (NEX Storm) Cordless Vacuum with brushless Engine-X motor, providing 145 AW suction power in turbo mode for 10 minutes. Its running time reaches 60 and 38 minutes in two medium modes. Moreover, the Roidmi X20 in the Vacuum Mop Combo mode provides mopping the floors. A few years ago, similar specs seemed completely unrealistic for cordless vacuums. But improvements in design and batteries have radically expanded their capabilities, ensuring the cleaning of even carpets. LG CordZero A9 takes third place, providing suction power up to 120W in turbo mode for 12 minutes.

Robotic vacuums

Despite the rather high price, the popularity of robot vacuums continues to grow. Of course, automatic mode is their main advantage, and companies continue to increase its level. A few years ago, iRobot Roomba s7+ radically expanded it with the help of innovative Clean Base with a self-emptying bin. This solution freed the user even the need to clean the bin after cleaning. But the company did not stop there, having developed an even more versatile iRobot Roomba s9 + with Imprint Link technology. It synchronizes s9 + with the Braava jet m6 robot. After finishing dry cleaning, s9 + activates Braava, which starts wet cleaning the hard floors. Thus, a set of Roomba s9 +, Clean Base and Braava jet m6 provide comprehensive cleaning in a fully automatic mode. But robots have a significant drawback. Automatic cleaning requires maneuverability for cleaning in hard-to-reach places. In turn, maneuverability requires compactness, radically limiting developers when choosing an electric motor. Therefore, most modern robots provide suction power of only 30-35 AW. But today the situation is changing. At CES 2018, LG introduced the flagship LG CordZero R9 MASTER robot vacuum with suction power up to 120 AW in turbo mode. Now, apparently, iRobot Roomba s9+ has also reached this milestone. The company does not indicate its suction power, but according to its data, s9 is about 4 times more powerful than s7. Numerous tests have demonstrated s7 suction power of 30 AW or higher. Accordingly, s9 should provide approximately 120 AW. Thus, today two models have already crossed the 100 AW frontier, providing sufficiently high-quality carpet cleaning.

Conclusions

Probably, the problem of suction power today can be considered practically solved. Any modern model, including low-powered robot, provides sufficient suction power to clean hard floors. Cleaning low-pile and medium-pile carpets will require a powerful cordless or robotic vacuum, or any canister vacuum, or any upright vacuum. A powerful robotic model cleans a long-pile carpet in turbo mode in a few passes. But a powerful cordless vacuum, or any canister vacuum, or any upright vacuum easily will ensure its high-quality cleaning. Thus, a huge assortment provides the choice of the optimal vacuum depending on the type of surface being cleaned. The video shows the synchronized operation of Roomba s9 and Braava Jet m6. Read the full article

[digitalfime]

Tesla settles with former employee over Autopilot source code accusations | Engadget

Tesla settles with former employee over Autopilot source code accusations | Engadget

Tesla has settled with a former employee that it sued for downloading data related to its Autopilot feature, Reuters has reported. Tesla filed the lawsuit against Cao Guangzhi back in 2019, accusing its former engineer of copying data to an iCloud account and taking it to his new employer, China’s XMotors (owned by Xpeng).  Cao reportedly made a monetary payment to Tesla as part of the terms of…

[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/us-says-accused-apple-secrets-thief-had-patriot-missile-file/

US Says Accused Apple Secrets Thief Had Patriot Missile File

When US prosecutors charged an Apple engineer in January with stealing trade secrets for a Chinese startup, a search of his home turned up something else, they said: a classified file from the Patriot missile program that belonged to his ex-employer, Raytheon. The discovery has added a striking national security wrinkle to an otherwise routine corporate espionage case, and the government says it merits keeping Jizhong Chen under close scrutiny.

The Patriot document was discovered among numerous electronic devices and paper files from Chen’s former employers including General Electric — some of which were stamped “confidential,” according to prosecutors.

Chen, a US citizen who was arrested on his way to catch a flight to China, is awaiting trial on charges that he collected photos, schematics and manuals from his work on Apple’s tightly guarded self-driving car project as he prepared to take a job with an unidentified rival.

He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on $500,000 (roughly Rs. 3.5 crores) bail. But prosecutors argue the stash of sensitive data found in Maryland justifies subjecting him to location monitoring with an electronic device so he doesn’t disappear before his trial.

Lawyers representing Chen and a second former Apple engineer facing similar charges — who is also fighting prosecutors over the need for location monitoring — contend the government is exaggerating the risk they’ll try to flee.

The 2011 document relating to one of Raytheon’s best-known weapons was so secret that it “was not (and is not) permitted to be maintained outside of Department of Defense secured locations,” prosecutors said in an October 29 filing that hasn’t previously been reported on by the media. Chen “has, for over eight years, illegally possessed classified national security materials taken from a former employer.”

How a classified document ended up at an engineer’s home raises provocative questions, but they’re unlikely be answered in open court at a hearing set for Monday. A prosecutor and an attorney for Chen both declined to comment ahead of the hearing. A Raytheon spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

After prosecutors first raised concerns about the evidence they found in Maryland, a magistrate judge agreed in March to extend an electronic monitoring requirement to give the government time to investigate. She finally ordered an end to the monitoring in October — and prosecutors are now asking a district judge to overrule her.

Lawyers for Chen say prosecutors have had enough time to present further evidence of criminal conduct. They also note that the federal office that supervises defendants on probation has concluded monitoring is no longer necessary because Chen has complied with all the conditions of his release and found full-time employment.

Daniel Olmos represents both Chen and Zhang Xiaolang, who also worked on Apple’s autonomous driving project before he was arrested in July 2018 and accused of trying to take the company’s trade secrets to China-based XMotors. The lawyer makes an argument that goes to the heart of the cases against both men: There’s no evidence that Apple’s intellectual property was shared with a third party. That’s significant because possession of the information alone isn’t necessarily a crime.

Olmos also contends that each of the engineers has strong ties in the US and the trips they were about to take to China when they were arrested were planned for the purpose of visiting relatives, not escaping prosecution.

“The government’s argument that Mr. Zhang poses a flight risk because he is a Chinese citizen is insufficient to warrant GPS monitoring,” Olmos said in a filing. “Mr. Zhang has full-time employment, a new family, and no travel documents.”

The cases are US v. Chen, 19-cr-00056, and US v. Zhang, 18-cr-00312, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).

© 2019 Bloomberg LP

[snapzubusiness]

The FBI has accused a second Apple employee of attempting to steal trade secrets from the company regarding its secretive self-driving car program, according to a recently unsealed affidavit. NBC's Bay Area affiliate first reported the news. This is the second employee in six months to be accused by the FBI of stealing trade secrets from Apple's self-driving car unit. In July, federal agents accusedformer Apple engineer Xiaolang Zhang of allegedly stealing proprietary information about the project and trying to bring it to XMotors, based in China. via Snapzu : Business & Economy

[newsclubi]

A former Tesla employee copied the Autopilot code to his iCloud account

Earlier this year, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Guanghzi Cao, a party engineer joining China's Xiapeng Motors. According to them, the former employee would have copied the Autopilot codes onto his iCloud.

Flights to Tesla but also to Apple

Tesla engineer working on the development of the Autopilot, Guanghzi Cao is one of 40 people in possession of the source code of the technology. He would have copied on his iCloud, late 2018, the records and directories of the American firm. According to the brand, the engineer zipped and copied more than 300,000 files and could have provided them to the Chinese electric vehicle company, Xiapeng Motors. The latter is also known as Xpeng or Xmotors and supported by the Chinese giant Alibaba. Tesla, on the same occasion, issued a subpoena pertaining to apple's complaint against one of its former employees. He had been accused by the FBI of industrial espionage. The man was arrested in July while leaving for Beijing, working for Xpeng too. Apple's engineer faces 10 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. By this gesture, Tesla probably wants to show that the Chinese company has already been involved in a case of this type.

The defense is organized

Mr. Cao, who wishes to show his good faith, explained himself. According to his lawyers, he has removed 120,000 records and refutes the existence of 300,000 cases, mentioned by Tesla. He even disconnected his iCloud and deleted his browsing history when he accepted the contract with the Chinese company. In addition, his lawyers explained that if Tesla's files remained on their client's iCloud, it was "  inadvertently  ", and assured that Cao "  did not have access and did not use any in any way the trade secrets of the Autopilot. Guangzhou Cao gave Tesla access to all his computers but also to his Gmail account, voluntarily provided Tesla with a digital image of [Cao's] working computer. " The Chinese company has announced that it has opened an internal investigation. This case falls again very badly, the United States is at the moment in commercial war with China, and the two countries being implied, indirectly, in several cases of espionage economic and industrial.  from Blogger https://ift.tt/2JA0nzz via IFTTT

[freecreatordragonuniversity]

Earlier this year, Tesla sued Guangzhi Cao for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to autopilot for Alibaba-backed Chinese electric vehicle (EV)-startup Xiaopeng Motors, also called Xmotors or XPeng. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/2xFYNoL

http://dynamotechnical.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-tesla-engineer-saved-autopilot-code.html

[scrappycoco8000]

Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, admitted in a court filing this week that he uploaded zip files containing Autopilot source code to his personal iCloud account in late 2018 while still working for the company. Tesla sued Cao earlier this year for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to Autopilot and bringing them to Chinese EV startup Xiaopeng Motors, also known as Xmotors or XPeng, which is backed by tech giant Alibaba. Cao denied stealing sensitive information from the automaker in the same filing. His legal team argued he “made extensive efforts to delete and/or remove any such Tesla files prior to his separation from Tesla.” Cao is now the “head of perception” at XPeng, where he is “[d]eveloping and delivering autonomous driving technologies for production cars,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, admitted in a court filing this week that he uploaded zip files containing Autopilot source code to his personal iCloud account in late 2018 while still working for the company. Tesla sued Cao earlier this year for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to Autopilot and bringing them to Chinese EV startup Xiaopeng Motors, also known as Xmotors or XPeng, which is backed by tech giant Alibaba. Cao denied stealing sensitive information from the automaker in the same filing. His legal team argued he “made extensive efforts to delete and/or remove any such Tesla files prior to his separation from Tesla.” Cao is now the “head of perception” at XPeng, where he is “[d]eveloping and delivering autonomous driving technologies for production cars,” according to his LinkedIn profile. At the end of 2018, Cao allegedly deleted 120,000 files off his work computer, disconnected his personal iCloud account, and deleted his browser history all around the same time he accepted a job with XPeng, an EV startup based in China that makes cars that look very similar to Tesla’s. Tesla also claimed Cao recruited another Autopilot employee to XPeng in February. Cao admits he “used his personal iCloud account to create backup copies of certain Tesla information in 2018” in the new court filing. He also admits he created zip files containing Autopilot source code in late 2018, and confirmed that XPeng extended him an offer letter on December 12th. He says he disconnected his personal iCloud account from his Tesla-issued computer “on or around December 26,” and that he kept logging into Tesla’s networks between December 27 and January 1st, 2019. While Cao does not specify when he formally accepted the job at XPeng, Tesla says his last day was January 3rd. He also denies poaching any employees from the Autopilot team. Cao “further admits that he deleted certain files stored on his Tesla computer and cleared his web browser history prior to his separation from employment with Tesla but denies that any of this activity constitutes any kind of ‘misconduct,’” according to the filing, though he disagrees with the number of files that Tesla alleged he stole. He also claims he “made extensive efforts to delete and/or remove any such Tesla files” from his personal iCloud account before he left Tesla, though he does not say if he deleted all the files. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/former-tesla-employee-admits-uploading-autopilot-source-code-to-his-icloud More blog here Via Adstoppi Blog : Blog Read more : Adstoppi

[alwaysfantasticdinosaur-blog]

Former Tesla employee admits uploading Autopilot source code to his iCloud

Former Tesla employee admits uploading Autopilot source code to his iCloud

Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, admitted in a court filing this week that he uploaded zip files containing Autopilot source code to his personal iCloud account in late 2018 while still working for the company. Tesla sued Cao earlier this year for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to Autopilot and bringing them to Chinese EV startup Xiaopeng Motors, also known as Xmotors or…

[mikemortgage]

From corn to Apple: What’s behind the US-China standoff

WASHINGTON — To hear the Americans tell it, the Chinese have gone on a commercial crime spree, pilfering trade secrets from seed corn to electronic brains behind wind turbines. China has stripped the arm off a T-Mobile robot, the U.S. says, and looted trade secrets about robotic cars from Apple.

The alleged victims of that crime spree are individual American companies, whose cases lie behind the Trump administration’s core complaint in the high-level U.S.-China trade talks going on in Washington: That Beijing systematically steals American and other foreign intellectual property in a bid to become the world’s technology superstar. Yet the odds of a resolution to the trade dispute this week — or anytime soon — appear dim, in part because China’s drive for technology supremacy is increasingly part of its self-identity.

The seven-month standoff has upset financial markets and likely weakened the global economy. The United States has imposed taxes on $250 billion in Chinese imports; Beijing has lashed back by taxing $110 billion in American products.

Determined to attain dominance in cutting-edge fields from robotics to electric cars, U.S. officials charge, Beijing is not only stealing trade secrets but also pressuring American companies to hand over technology to gain access to the vast Chinese market.

U.S. intelligence officials told Congress last month that China poses the biggest commercial and military threat to the United States. A separate report said Beijing will steal or copy technologies it can’t make itself.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, retorted that it’s “totally unreasonable to make random accusations.”

Beijing counters that the United States is just trying to suppress a rising competitor.

U.S. business groups broadly support the Trump administration’s decision to confront China over its strong-arm tech policies. But they mostly object to the administration’s weapon of choice: Steep tariffs, which are taxes on importers and are usually passed on to consumers to pay.

Rooting out theft could prove impossible. Beijing typically doesn’t dispatch spies on missions of commercial espionage. Rather, it encourages Chinese who study and work abroad to copy or steal technology and rewards them when they do. So U.S. companies might have no reason to suspect anything — until a Chinese employee leaves and the employer discovers that trade secrets have been compromised.

Most U.S. companies are reluctant to voice specific complaints about their encounters in China. Rather, most choose to speak through trade groups to avoid retribution from Chinese regulators. Last year, for example, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China found that one in five foreign companies says it feels compelled to transfer technology to the Chinese as the price of market access.

Individual examples tend to surface only when the complaints wind up in court — often in cases brought by U.S. prosecutors. Consider:

— Federal prosecutors charged in an indictment unsealed last month that the Chinese tech giant Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. cellphone company T-Mobile and offered bonuses to employees who managed to swipe technology from other companies.

U.S. authorities said Huawei was obsessed with a T-Mobile robot nicknamed Tappy that could detect problems in cellphones by mimicking how people use them. T-Mobile was letting Huawei engineers into the Tappy lab to test their phones. In 2013, according to the indictment, a Huawei engineer spirited a Tappy robot arm out of the lab in a laptop bag. Questioned by T-Mobile, he returned it the next day. Prosecutors allege that the Chinese company hungered for T-Mobile technology to use on its own phone-testing robot.

— Apple would collect less revenue without China, the country where its iPhone is assembled and the market that accounts for the most sales of that device outside the U.S. But a secretive project that could become a future gold mine has been infiltrated by thieves trying to steal driverless car technology for a Chinese company, according to criminal charges filed in Silicon Valley. The FBI seized the latest suspect, Apple engineer Jizhong Chen, this month after he bought a plane ticket to China.

Chen and the other suspect charged in July, Xiaolang Zhang, were part of an Apple project focused on self-driving cars, according to the sworn affidavits from FBI agents. The two are accused of using their access to labs where only 1,200 of Apple’s 140,000 employees were allowed to enter to steal trade secrets.

Chen took dozens of photos of confidential work on an iPhone 6 Plus, according to court records. One photo was taken last June just a week after Chen attended Apple’s secrecy training seminar for employees, the court records show.

Zhang stored Apple’s trade secrets on various devices before being caught by the company’s security team last spring, the FBI alleged.

The alleged theft occurred while Zhang was preparing to defect to Xiopeng Motors, or XMotors, a Chinese startup specializing in electric cars and self-driving technology. XMotors’ backers include Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company, and Foxconn, one of Apple’s major contractors in China. Zhang was arrested last year as he prepared to board a flight to China in San Jose, California, the FBI said.

The FBI also alleged that Chen was stealing Apple’s trade secrets while interviewing for a job at a Chinese company that wasn’t named in the court documents.

Daniel Olmos, an attorney for both Chen and Zhang, has declined to comment on the allegations. Apple has said it’s working with U.S. authorities on the cases.

— In November, the Justice Department charged a government-owned Chinese company, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co., and co-conspirators with stealing trade secrets from the U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology. According to the indictment, the Chinese hoped to break into the market for a technology called dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, that’s used in computer electronics.

“China, like any advanced nation, must decide whether it wants to be a trusted partner on the world stage or whether it wants to be known around the world as a dishonest regime running a corrupt economy founded on fraud, theft and strong-arm tactics,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time.

The U.S. has barred Fujian Junhua from importing U.S. components, an action that threatens to put the Chinese company out of business.

— A year ago, a Chinese company, Sinovel Wind Group, was convicted in a federal court in Wisconsin of stealing technology –the electronic brains that run wind turbines — from its American partner, AMSC, formerly known at American Superconductor Inc.

“We believe that over 8,000 wind turbines — an estimated 20 per cent of China’s fleet — are now running on AMSC’s stolen software,” CEO Daniel McGahn told U.S. government investigators. “AMSC has not been compensated for its losses.”

The damage from that betrayal was severe: American Superconductor stock lost $1 billion in value, and the company slashed 700 jobs, more than half its global workforce. It was, McGahn said, a case of “attempted corporate homicide.”

— A Chinese businessman, Mo Hailong, who had been caught rummaging through an Iowa cornfield was sentenced to three years in prison in 2016 for pilfering trade secrets from U.S. seed corn companies. Five years earlier, DuPont Pioneer security guards had caught Mo and other Chinese men digging in a cornfield that contained test plots of new seed corn varieties. The other suspects fled the United States before they could be arrested.

Prosecutors said Mo had travelled to the Midwest while working for Kings Nower Seed, a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., to acquire corn seed and ship it to China so scientists could try to reproduce its genetic traits.

——

Liedtke reported from San Francisco. AP Business Writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.

——

Follow Paul Wiseman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PaulWisemanAP

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2IDooqC via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[rplatt101]

Ex-Apple engineer arrested on his way to China, charged with stealing company’s autonomous car secrets

See on Scoop.it - Internet of Things - Company and Research Focus

Xiaolang Zhang is accused of downloading files that included engineering schematics and technical reports, authorities say.

Richard Platt's insight:

For about two years, Xiaolang Zhang was privy to information to which many in the tech world can only dream of having access: the inner workings of Apple’s secretive autonomous car research.  During the weekend, the former Apple engineer was arrested by U.S. authorities at San Jose International Airport while preparing to board a flight to China and charged with stealing proprietary information related to Apple’s self-driving car project. At the time of his arrest, he said he was working for a Chinese start-up that is also developing autonomous vehicles, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Jose on Monday by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office.

Zhang, who started working at Apple in December 2015, was accused of downloading files that included engineering schematics and technical reports before leaving to work for Xiaopeng Motors, a Guangzhou-based company also known as XMotors, documents said. A statement Wednesday from XMotors said there was no indication that Zhang communicated sensitive information from Apple, the Reuters news agency reported. XMotors added it was informed of the case late last month and was working with local authorities on the probe.  As a hardware engineer on Apple’s autonomous vehicle development team, Zhang’s position granted him “broad access to secure and confidential internal databases containing trade secrets and intellectual property,” according to the complaint.  Aside from making general comments about its interest in developing self-driving technology, Apple hasn’t openly discussed its research, leaving many to wonder what exactly the company is working on. Information is even kept from a majority of the company’s employees. About 5,000 employees out of more than 135,000 are “disclosed” on the project, meaning they are working on the project or know details about it, the complaint said. Fewer people, about 2,700 “core employees,” have access to the project’s databases. According to the complaint, information about the project “is a closely guarded secret that has never been publicly revealed.”

[mikemortgage]

From corn to Apple: The cases behind the US-China standoff

WASHINGTON — To hear the Americans tell it, the Chinese have gone on a commercial crime spree, pilfering trade secrets from seed corn to electronic brains behind wind turbines. China has stripped the arm off a T-Mobile robot, the U.S. says, and looted trade secrets about robotic cars from Apple.

The alleged victims of that crime spree are individual American companies, whose cases lie behind the Trump administration’s core complaint in the high-level U.S.-China trade talks going on in Washington: That Beijing systematically steals American and other foreign intellectual property in a bid to become the world’s technology superstar. Yet the odds of a resolution to the trade dispute this week — or anytime soon — appear dim, in part because China’s drive for technology supremacy is increasingly part of its self-identity.

The six-month standoff has shaken financial markets and likely weakened the global economy. The United States has imposed taxes on $250 billion in Chinese imports; Beijing has lashed back by taxing $110 billion in American products.

Determined to attain dominance in cutting-edge fields from robotics to electric cars, U.S. officials charge, Beijing is not only stealing trade secrets but also pressuring American companies to hand over technology to gain access to the vast Chinese market.

U.S. intelligence officials told Congress this week that China poses the biggest commercial and military threat to the United States. A separate report this week said Beijing will steal or copy technologies it can’t make itself.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, retorted that it’s “totally unreasonable to make random accusations.”

Beijing counters that the United States is just trying to suppress a rising competitor.

U.S. business groups broadly support the Trump administration’s decision to confront China over its strong-arm tech policies. But they mostly object to the administration’s weapon of choice: Steep tariffs, which are taxes on importers and are usually passed on to consumers to pay.

Rooting out theft could prove impossible. Beijing typically doesn’t dispatch spies on missions of commercial espionage. Rather, it encourages Chinese who study and work abroad to copy or steal technology and rewards them when they do. So U.S. companies might have no reason to suspect anything — until a Chinese employee leaves and the employer discovers that trade secrets have been compromised.

Most U.S. companies are reluctant to voice specific complaints about their encounters in China. Rather, most choose to speak through trade groups to avoid retribution from Chinese regulators. Last year, for example, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China found that one in five foreign companies says it feels compelled to transfer technology to the Chinese as the price of market access.

Individual examples tend to surface only when the complaints wind up in court — often in cases brought by U.S. prosecutors. Consider:

— Federal prosecutors charged in an indictment unsealed this week that the Chinese tech giant Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. cellphone company T-Mobile and offered bonuses to employees who managed to swipe technology from other companies.

U.S. authorities said Huawei was obsessed with a T-Mobile robot nicknamed Tappy that could detect problems in cellphones by mimicking how people use them. T-Mobile was letting Huawei engineers into the Tappy lab to test their phones. In 2013, according to the indictment, a Huawei engineer spirited a Tappy robot arm out of the lab in a laptop bag. Questioned by T-Mobile, he returned it the next day. Prosecutors allege that the Chinese company hungered for T-Mobile technology to use on its own phone-testing robot.

— Apple would collect less revenue without China, the country where its iPhone is assembled and the market that accounts for the most sales of that device outside the U.S. But a secretive project that could become a future gold mine has been infiltrated by thieves trying to steal driverless car technology for a Chinese company, according to criminal charges filed in Silicon Valley. The FBI seized the latest suspect, Apple engineer Jizhong Chen, this month after he bought a plane ticket to China.

Chen and the other suspect charged in July, Xiaolang Zhang, were part of an Apple project focused on self-driving cars, according to the sworn affidavits from FBI agents. The two are accused of using their access to labs where only 1,200 of Apple’s 140,000 employees were allowed to enter to steal trade secrets.

Chen took dozens of photos of confidential work on an iPhone 6 Plus, according to court records. One photo was taken last June just a week after Chen attended Apple’s secrecy training seminar for employees, the court records show.

Zhang stored Apple’s trade secrets on various devices before being caught by the company’s security team last spring, the FBI alleged.

The alleged theft occurred while Zhang was preparing to defect to Xiopeng Motors, or XMotors, a Chinese startup specializing in electric cars and self-driving technology. XMotors’ backers include Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company, and Foxconn, one of Apple’s major contractors in China. Zhang was arrested last year as he prepared to board a flight to China in San Jose, California, the FBI said.

The FBI also alleged that Chen was stealing Apple’s trade secrets while interviewing for a job at a Chinese company that wasn’t named in the court documents.

Daniel Olmos, an attorney for both Chen and Zhang, declined to comment on the allegations. Apple said it’s working with U.S. authorities on the cases, both of which remain open.

— In November, the Justice Department charged a government-owned Chinese company, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co., and co-conspirators with stealing trade secrets from the U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology. According to the indictment, the Chinese hoped to break into the market for a technology called dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, that’s used in computer electronics.

“China, like any advanced nation, must decide whether it wants to be a trusted partner on the world stage or whether it wants to be known around the world as a dishonest regime running a corrupt economy founded on fraud, theft and strong-arm tactics,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time.

The U.S. has barred Fujian Junhua from importing U.S. components, an action that threatens to put the Chinese company out of business.

— A year ago, a Chinese company, Sinovel Wind Group, was convicted in a federal court in Wisconsin of stealing technology — the electronic brains that run wind turbines — from its American partner, AMSC, formerly known at American Superconductor Inc.

“We believe that over 8,000 wind turbines — an estimated 20 per cent of China’s fleet — are now running on AMSC’s stolen software,” CEO Daniel McGahn told U.S. government investigators. “AMSC has not been compensated for its losses.”

The damage from that betrayal was severe: American Superconductor stock lost $1 billion in value, and the company slashed 700 jobs, more than half its global workforce. It was, McGahn said, a case of “attempted corporate homicide.”

— A Chinese businessman, Mo Hailong, who had been caught rummaging through an Iowa cornfield was sentenced to three years in prison in 2016 for pilfering trade secrets from U.S. seed corn companies. Five years earlier, DuPont Pioneer security guards had caught Mo and other Chinese men digging in a cornfield that contained test plots of new seed corn varieties. The other suspects fled the United States before they could be arrested.

Prosecutors said Mo had travelled to the Midwest while working for Kings Nower Seed, a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., to acquire corn seed and ship it to China so scientists could try to reproduce its genetic traits.

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Liedtke reported from San Francisco. AP Business Writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Follow Paul Wiseman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PaulWisemanAP

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