Apple, the tech giant has confirmed that it has hired robotics star and Google X lab co-founder Yoky Matsuoka to work on its health projects. Matsuoka is a winner of the MacArthur genius award last year. She has, because of this offer, now left her job as a vice president at Google-owned Nest. She had earlier planned to take up a job at San Francisco based Micro Blogging Site Twitter. The plan was derailed last year by a “life-threatening illness,” Matsuoka also wrote in an online post at medium.com. A new future has begun to fill my mind again,” she wrote while her medical treatment was still on and was working and she had yet to work out new plans for her future.
She added when you get another chance at life, there’s an opportunity to start from scratch and I feel so lucky to have this. Matsuoka will be now answering to Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams, who is overall responsible for health projects which include software kits that let application makers and researchers take advantage of the capabilities of iPhone and the Apple Watch. The MacArthur Foundation website has described Matsuoka as an acclaimed leader in the field of neuro-robotics. It is a field that combines robotics with how the human nervous system coordinates muscle and skeletal movements.
In the year 2009, Matsuoka helped start Google X Lab which was devoted to “moonshots” such as self-driving cars and even Internet-linked eyewear. Matsuoka became a part of the Nest team after World Search Giant Google bought the startup two years ago. Do you think Google is losing out on a valuable asset with Apple hiring Matsuoka? Let us know your opinions on the same through the comments sections below or through any of our social media channels.
