Uber's main US rival Lyft joins forces with London based startup to push autonomous Taxi project

It has been announced this week that London based mapping startup Blue Vision Labs is joining forces with Lyft in their mission to revolutionise transportation, via a full technology, team, and product acquisition of Blue Vision Labs. Blue Vision Labs will be the first Lyft office in London, and will become part of Lyft’s Level 5 division to build technology for Lyft’s self-driving efforts. 

Blue Vision Labs started with the mission to advance the capabilities of today’s robotics and AR platforms by solving some of the hardest technological challenges in the field. 

In March of this year, Blue Vision Labs made progress on this goal by releasing the Blue Vision Labs AR Cloud, a technology that allows developers to create shared AR experiences that were not possible before at unprecedented scale. 

One potential application of their AR cloud allows them to connect ridesharing passengers with their drivers by overlaying the car’s position onto the rider’s smartphone screen in augmented reality. Joining forces with Lyft means they can develop experiences like this at a much greater scale.

The technology created for their AR cloud is powered using centimeter-accurate 3D maps that cover entire cities, and are built using fleets of vehicles equipped with mobile phones. They believe that gaining a detailed understanding of the world is the key requirement for achieving a safe and scalable self-driving platform. 

Specifically, this technology helps cars know where they are, what is around them, and what they should do next at a scale not possible with other technologies. 

Blue Vision Labs have said they are very excited to be working with Lyft to contribute to their efforts in enabling the future of autonomous mobility. 

Currently Lyft does not operate a service in the UK, but provides taxis and shared forms of transport in cities across North America. It opened its first European office in Munich in January 2018.