Waymo has 'no smoking gun' in Uber self driving car case

A U.S. judge on Wednesday said he had not seen clear evidence that Uber Technologies Inc had conspired with an engineer on its self driving car program to steal trade secrets from Alphabet Inc's Waymo, and that he was wrestling with whether to issue an injunction against the ride service. At a hearing in San Francisco federal court, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said it was undisputed that the engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded about 14,000 documents shortly before he stopped working for Waymo. If it were proven that Levandowski and Uber conspired in taking Waymo's information, that could have dire consequences for Uber, say legal and ride-hailing industry experts. High-profile: Levandowski, a'swaggering' six-foot-seven tech leader, is one of Silicon Valley's most significant figures in the development of self-driving cars In lidar -- or light detection and ranging -- scanning, one or more lasers sends out short pulses, which bounce back when they hit an obstacle, whether clouds, leaves or rocks. In self-driving cars, the sensors constantly scan the surrounding areas looking for information and acting as the'eyes' of the car.