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Elon Musk is an entrepreneur wearing many hats, his detractors and fans agree. 

One of these hats is as head of marketing of the products and services developed
by his companies.

When he announced last month that Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report would start
advertising, many thought that the electric vehicle maker would stop depending
on the fame and celebrity of its co-founder and CEO to do what most of its
competitors rely on.

"We'll try a little advertising and see how it goes," Musk told shareholders
during the annual meeting.

But this was a misreading of Musk, who remains the best ambassador of the world
leader in battery powered vehicles. He has just demonstrated this by teasing on
Twitter what could be the advent of autonomous vehicles at Tesla.




FSD BETA

Currently, Tesla cars are equipped with a standard driver assistance system
called Autopilot. Customers can also purchase a more advanced system called Full
Self Driving (FSD) for $15,000. 



FSD is currently in beta mode. This term, the second letter of the Greek
alphabet, designates a system in an advanced phase of development, but still
requiring corrections before its first production build.

The beta phase is a particularly effective way to get feedback on potential bugs
or problems encountered during testing. Initially, FSD was in private beta, that
is, limited exclusively to certain Tesla owners, but then was expanded.

The merit of FSD Beta is that it maintains the enthusiasm around Tesla cars.

In addition to the features offered by the classic system, such as changing
lanes, navigating interchanges, automatically engaging the turn signal and
taking the correct exit, FSD also includes "traffic and stop sign control
(beta)"




This means that it can identify stop signs and traffic lights and automatically
slows the car to a stop on approach, with the active supervision of the driver,
Tesla says on its website.

FSD is in its 11th version, which has been updated from v11.3.4, v11.3.5 and
v11.3.6, to the latest v11.4, which was released last April to Tesla employees
first. In this version of the FSD Beta software, Tesla cars can navigate the
city streets and highways very well, but Tesla continues to claim that it does
not make the car autonomous. In other words, the driver must continue to
supervise the vehicle.

"As mentioned earlier, v11.4.1 has major architectural improvements," Musk
touted on May 10. "It’s actually much more than a point release. Should arguably
be v12.0, but that’s reserved for when FSD is fully AI from video in to control
out."




'VERSION 12 WON'T BE BETA'

However, the software is also under investigation by U.S. regulators for its
involvement in numerous incidents, some of which have been fatal. 

Despite these potential regulatory hurdles, Musk is moving forward. He has just
declared on Twitter that the next version of FSD will not be beta, but refrained
from saying whether this means that the automaker will begin the production
phase of the software.

"FSD Beta 12 'maybe later this year,'" a Tesla fan posted on Twitter on Jun. 26.

"Version 12 won’t be beta," Musk said.



He didn't give further details, but his announcement suggests that the next
iteration of FSD will be a complete software overhaul. The announcement sparked
excitement and anticipation among Tesla fans, who did not hesitate to ask him to
elaborate on his point. One of the questions that came up is to know the
schedule for the arrival of the next version of FSD.

"Do you think it will launch this year, or in 2024?" commented the user who
asked the initial question. Musk didn't respond.



What is interesting to note is that Musk's remark comes a few weeks after the
tech mogul hinted that Tesla cars could be fully autonomous as early as this
year.

"Tesla will have sort of a ChatGPT moment, maybe if not this year, I'd say no
later than next year," the billionaire told CNBC in May, referring to the
conversational chatbot, which has become the face of the progress made by
artificial intelligence. "Three million cars will drive themselves with no one.
And then 5 million cars and then 10 million cars."

Waymo, the self-driving vehicle development subsidiary of Google  (GOOGL) - Get
Free Report, and Cruise, the GM  (GM) - Get Free Report subsidiary, already
operate fleets of autonomous cars, notably in San Francisco. But their cars only
drive in the city and don't go on the highway.




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*Billionaire investor Robert Smith has boosted his private equity firm's
revenue.

Smith’s Vista Equity Partners plans to sell Apptio to IBM for $4.6 billion,
Markets Insider reports. The sale of the software maker has doubled the firm's
money after acquiring it for $1.9 billion back in 2019.

As AfroTech reports, IBM said it "will use cash on hand to fund the deal, which
it expects to complete in the second half of 2023."

"With over $96 billion in assets under management and over 20 years of investing
exclusively in enterprise software, we believe the transformative power of
technology is the key to an even better future - a healthier planet, a smarter
economy, a diverse and inclusive community, and a broader path to prosperity,"
the Vista Equity Partners' website states.










Here's more from Markets Insider:



The deal with IBM could also mark a personal win for Smith, who’s battling to
show his investors that the company has moved on from his admission of tax
evasion.

The tech investor, who founded Vista in 2000, paid a $139 million fine to settle
a four-year-long investigation into his personal taxes in 2020.

"The Apptio transaction is an example of Vista's investment discipline and focus
on value creation," the company said in a statement released Monday.

"Apptio chose to partner with Vista because of our growth mentality, commitment
to innovation and deep operational expertise. We believed that together, we
could build a comprehensive platform for companies to better manage their
technology spend while positioning Apptio for long-term growth and success," the
statement continues. 

Smith is not only focused on software but also plays an active role in education
through the Student Freedom Initiative (SFI).

"We're bringing solar panel systems to one of the HBCUs, which will actually
power 20,000 homes," Smith told AfroTech. "Our plan is that as we offset our
greenhouse gases across our portfolio companies, we actually enable the building
and construction of solar arrays in underrepresented minority neighborhoods we
use for our HBCU students to learn, train and develop their capacity to
participate in that part of the industry as well."

READ MORE: Black Billionaire (Robert Smith) Has to Pay Back $140M After
Admitting to Tax Evasion / VIDEO

The post Mo Money! Billionaire Robert Smith Sells Software Company for $4.6
Billion appeared first on EURweb.






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