George Hotz aka Geohot, the legendary jailbreaker and iOS hacker has recently demoed a $1000 self-driving car kit which is expected to rival the likes of Google and Apple.
Hotz's startup company Comma.ai has already secured initial investment from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has valued the net-worth of Comma at around $20 million.
Geohot has built a fairly impressive team comprising Yunus Saatchi with a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, Jake Smith with a reputed pedigree in the Bitcoin community and fellow Bitcoin member Elizabeth Stark.
In his recent interview with Roadshow, the 26-year-old Hotz exhibits his self-driving car in Las Vegas as he oozes a lot of confidence in his work which is reminiscent of Steve Jobs penchant for creative ideas.
Comma.ai has launched a new app called 'Chffr' which is designed to collect crowd-sourced data from users and enable the company to train the Artificially Intelligent (AI) system to better handle the car on the road.
Users will be able to download the app and mount their phone on the car's dashboard to record data on average speed, manoeuvres made and breaking or accelerating patterns, among various other control parameters.
The app is expected to go live in June and it will offer Comma points for every minute of its use on the road. The purpose of these Comma points is not known yet, but you could sign-up for 'Chffr' app beta at Comma.ai.
The start-up is expected to offer its self-driving kit to the public by the end of this year for $1000 via Amazon Prime service.
Check out the Road Show's interview with Geohot in the YouTube video posted here.
