Tech giant Apple has started the rumour mill going after it registered three car-related domain names amid speculation that it is developing self-driving technology.
The registration of apple.auto, apple.car, and apple.cars was noticed by the website MacRumours, who spotted the information on Whois (this website searches databases which list registered owners of web addresses, amongst other tech-related things).
The sensible gossipmongers in the tech world believe the registrations are probably related to Apple’s CarPlay system which was launched in March last year and which uses the company’s Siri voice-recognition technology and is controlled via a dashboard screen.
Apple register three car-related web addresses
However, for the more excitable Apple followers, this move has only added fuel to the fire, and some are now convinced that this means the multi-billion dollar company must be in the process of developing a self-driving car.
The registration of the three car-related domain names comes after Apple have added a number of interesting names to its payroll, including former Volkswagen engineer, Megan McClain, and Vinay Palakkode, a graduate researcher from Carnegie Mellon University, which is known for its research into self-driving technology.
Tony Fadell, the co-creator of the Apple iPod and the co-founder of Nest, has spoken of how he and the late Steve Jobs used to speak of how Apple would make their mark in the automative world, before Jobs’ untimely death in 2011.
