Cars are complex machines, blending electronics and mechanics that whizz down the highway at speeds of 60 miles per hour or more. As drivers, we don't necessarily want to think about it, but the fact remains that there's a lot that could go wrong. And this is with our hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, and feet on the pedals. Introduce the concept of autonomous vehicles controlled by self-driving car software running AI algorithms fed by a network of sensors plus other data, and everything gets more complicated still. Fortunately, folks are thinking about exactly these kinds of problems.

LG plans to harness Microsoft's artificial intelligence smarts to improve its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, Driver Status Monitoring Camera, and Multi Purpose Front Camera -- parts that it said last year it was providing to an undisclosed "premium German auto-maker". Meanwhile, Azure's Data Box service will help LG's self-driving platform to learn and evolve even faster at its testing grounds, said the company. "Road and traffic patterns in cities that would normally require more than a full day for [self- driving] systems to comprehend would take only minutes with Azure," declared LG. It could teach LG's software to distinguish between pedestrians and objects and learn the driving patterns of other vehicles on the road. Like its Korean rival Samsung, LG is also chasing the billions of dollars up for grabs in the automotive parts industry. It even created a new department devoted to car parts under the wing of its holding company LG Corp. late last year.

The Apollo 3.0 Launch Event in Mountain View last night highlighted the strides made by the open-source self-driving car project backed by Chinese Internet giant Baidu. The project's leaders announced a new collection of low-speed driving capabilities, such as delivery vehicle driving and self-parking, alongside a wide array of sensors that independent groups can now connect with Apollo software. Apollo is becoming increasingly prominent as a foundation for automotive and technology companies that want to develop autonomous vehicles, but do not want to develop the entire software stack themselves. Two other companies, NVIDIA and Tier IV, also support software stacks that third-parties can use to develop self-driving cars. NVIDIA's DRIVE software platform is tightly coupled to their DRIVE line of computational units.

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Apple is said to have taken the unusual step of working on its car software far away from its California HQ. The tech firm has hired dozens of software engineers from Blackberry-owned QNX and is developing its car OS at a base in Canada, reports Bloomberg. QNX, which was bought out by Blackberry in 2010, is known for producing car software. Earlier this year, a concept video revealed ideas for a futuristic-looking Apple car, with a wide dashboard display and smart capabilities. Apple's new car OS lab is based in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata according to unnamed sources who did not want to be identified talking about the secret project, reports Bloomberg.