Hasta La Gadget!

Back in 2018, former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang was arrested at San Jose International Airport where he was going to board a last-minute flight to China. Zhang was accused of transferring a 25-page document that includes the engineering schematics of a circuit board for the company’s self-driving vehicle, along with technical manuals describing Apple’s prototype, to his wife’s laptop. He was also accused of stealing circuit boards and a Linux server from the company’s development labs. Now, Zhang has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft of trade secrets in San Jose federal court, according to CNBC.

The news organization has obtained a court document (PDF) summarizing the proceedings in which Zhang changed his plea — he originally pleaded not guilty when he was indicted in 2018. In it, the court has noted that his plea agreement is under seal and that his sentencing is scheduled on November 14th. Zhang faces up to ten years in prison and could pay up to $250,000 in fine.

Before his arrest, Zhang worked as a hardware engineer in Apple’s autonomous vehicle division and was part of the team that designs and tests circuit boards for sensors. As CNBC notes, circuit designs are typically considered some of the most valuable trade secrets in electronics. Apple reportedly first suspected Zhang of stealing from the company when he turned in his resignation following a paternity leave and a trip to China. He told the company that he was resigning so he could move back to China and take care of his mother. 

Zhang also told Apple that he was planning to work with XPeng Motors, an electric vehicle manufacturer that’s also developing its own autonomous driving technology. His access to Apple’s resources was cut off after he resigned, and an investigation followed soon after. It was through that investigation that Apple discovered that he transferred gigabytes’ worth of top secret files via AirDrop and saw him physically taking hardware from the company’s labs via CCTV footage.

Meanwhile, the tech giant remains as secretive about its autonomous vehicle development progress as ever. Last year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple decided to focus on developing full self-driving capabilities and that the company is aiming to launch its autonomous electric vehicle in 2025. 

His 1988 team was chronicled in Buzz Bissinger’s bestselling book, which portrayed a program and school that favored football over academics.

Engineers used their own Cybertruck replica to repeat a controversial battle between the EV and a Ford truck, and, well, the results were more than surprising.

The James Webb Space Telescope team is still flexing its ability to capture detailed images close to home. Webb has snapped a pair of near-infrared photos showing Jupiter’s polar auroras. You can also see the planet’s extremely faint rings and two of its smaller moons, Amalthea (the bright spot to the far left) and Adrastea (the dot at the left edge of the central ring).

The pictures were taken using NIRCam’s widefield view on July 27th. As for the trippy visuals? Astronomers created composites using several images produced with filters mapped to multiple colors (particularly visible in the image below). The Great Red Spot and other cloud formations are white as they reflect large amounts of sunlight.

NASA, ESA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt

The James Webb crew didn’t just create these images for the sake of bragging rights. The observations should provide more insights into Jupiter’s “inner life,” according to the European Space Agency. That, in turn, could help scientists understand the behavior of gas giants beyond the Solar System. In other words, Webb’s data could soon prove useful on multiple levels.