(Newswire.net — September 10, 2015) — Uber Technologies Inc.’s efforts to the development of self-driving cars, the company has hiried two security engineers who remotely hacked a moving car from a 13 miles range.
Charlie Miller, who had been working at Twitter Inc, and Chris Valasek, who worked at the security firm IOActive, have resigned from their jobs and will join Uber next week, Reuters reported.
According to Uber’s spokesperson, Miller and Valasek will work with the company’s top security officers on building a “world-class safety and security program.”
In February, Uber opened a research laboratory in Pittsburgh hiring dozens of autonomous vehicle experts from Carnegie Mellon University. Hiring away more than 40 of its top scientists and researchers, Uber left one of the world’s top robotics research institutions without experts.
Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center leader Raffi Krikorian tweeted on Friday a welcome to Miller and Valasek.
Around the world, Uber hires hundreds of thousands of contract drivers who fear they could be replaced with self-driving cars. The aggressive approach to the matter reveals a new concept could emerge much sooner.
The San Francisco Company has gone to top-tier universities and research centers to build up capability of self-driven vehicles.
Reportedly, Uber on Tuesday announced a partnership with the University of Arizona. Uber offered the school grant money to fund research into the mapping and safety technology, crucial for autonomous vehicles. Unless the company changes the location, Uber will test their self-driven vehicles on the streets of Tucson, Arizona.
In March, Uber bought digital mapping firm deCarta, a San Jose, California-based company whose technology offers search and turn-by-turn directions.
After Miller and Valasek’s hacked Fiat Chrysler, FCA USA LLC recalled 1.4 million vehicles to install firewall to prevent hackers from emulating the experiment.