“Dora” is the world’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver and no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Computer’s Mac OS X. The entire development and race management efforts at Team Banzai is being done using Apple Mac OS X technology. As the Team Banzai website reads, “all Macs… all the time.”
Team Banzai is one of only 40 teams from around the country to advance by invitation to the national semi-finals of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.
Selected from a field of almost 200 teams that applied and competed through earlier regional elimination rounds, Team Banzai is proud to be participating in this exciting head-to-head competition in an attempt to win $2 million.
More info, “driven by Mac OS X” web badge, and pictures here.
[Update: 4:25pm EDT: After extensive review, the headline “World’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver, no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Mac OS X” will remain unchanged due to the fact that the article is about the “world’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver, no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Mac OS X.” Thank you.]
[Update: 4:33pm EDT: After even more extensive review, the headline “World’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver, no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Mac OS X” has been changed to “Meet Dora: world’s 1st fully-autonomous Apple Mac OS X vehicle (no human driver, no remote control)” for mysterious reasons which we will probably never fully explain. Thank you.]
[Update: 4:50pm EDT: After massively extensive review, the headline “World’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver, no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Mac OS X” that was changed to “Meet Dora: world’s 1st fully-autonomous Apple Mac OS X vehicle (no human driver, no remote control)” has now been changed to “Vehicle drives itself (no human driver and no remote control) thanks to Apple’s Mac OS X” for reasons even we don’t fully understand. Thank you.]
Your headline is misleading. This isn’t the first autonomous car. They’ve been holding this race event for years. This is the first such car to be powered by OSX.
Re: misleading.
No. That is correct English grammar.
Hopefully, it will be the first autonomous car that doesn’t crash within the first 50 feet of the start line!!
Now thats cool! I love the Mac Mini’s
1. This is only the second year for the DARPA grand challange – none of the cars last year even made it 10 miles of the 150 mile course.
2. the headline [B][I]IS[/I][/B] misleading – my co-workers and I objected to the headline as soon as we read it and then figured out that the article was just saying that this is the first one to be run by OSX.
3. We will have to get some english professor to comment on whether or not it is ‘correct english grammer,’ but even if it is correct, it is still misleading.
The headline is not good on several points: 1. an “autonomous” car should not be “driven”, 2. I wonder whether “drive” accurately describes what the computer does, and 3. the connection between “world’s first” and Mac is not good.
How about: “World’s first Mac OS X-controlled autonomous car”?
ATTN: MDN
Headline definately misleading. Print a correction like the WSJ, or prepare for the wrath of DARPA Grand Challenge zealots and bleed to death by thousands of little paper cuts. We have integrity to protect.
Hi all,
“…That is correct English grammar.”
I’m not an English teacher. But, I do consider myself to be good with most things relating to English grammar. I agree with those who have argued that the headline is misleading. The grammar of it could be better as well.
“World’s first fully-autonomous (no human driver, no remote control) vehicle driven by Apple Mac OS X”
The placement of the parentheses suggests that one is reading about the world’s first fully-autonomous car… and that Mac OS X powers that car. Even without the parentheses, the headline is misleading because the nature of headlines forces a reader’s brain to imagine words that are not there. Many people would read the headline as:
World’s first fully-autonomous vehicle ***is*** driven by Apple Mac OS X
A better wording for headline might be something like:
Apple’s Mac OS X Drives One of the World’s First Fully-Autonomous Vehicles
Regards,
Linuxlover
“Vehicle driven by Mac OS X” is the noun phrase in question here.
Is this “vehicle drive by Mac OS X” fully autonomous? Yes.
Is it the world’s first such vehicle in question? Yes.
Nothing misleading about the title. It’s only misleading in the minds of people who apparently think it’s referring to an ordinary vehicle instead of a “vehicle driven by Mac OS X.”
Also, in this case, “driven” can mean “operated or powered by”, e.g. “The advanced MRI machine is driven by a custom software program that combines ordinary 2-dimensional images into a 3-dimensional model.”
this is the funniest read in a while. i was waiting for MDN to say:
the writers of the misleading have been sacked.
correction: the sackers of the misleading headline who were sacked have been sacked.
correction: the sackers of the sackers of the writers of the misleading headline who have done all the sacking have been sacked.
correction: all headlines will now be written by ralph the wonder llama.
correction: there will be dancing music accompanying ralph the wonder llama as he writes the headlines.
Argh.
There’s nothing worse than grammar nit-pickers who nit-pick about a non-existent grammatical error.
The new title is DECIDELY worse than the old. “Apple Mac OS X vehicle?” What exactly is a “Mac OS X vehicle?” Is is a car covered with Mac OS X advertising a la NASCAR? Does it mean Mac OS X powers the radio interface? Or is the car’s engine and electrical systems controlled by Mac OS X, which is totally different from actually being the computer actually driving the thing? After all, a computer controls the fuel injection, but I doubt Mac OS X controls an fundamentally basic function like that (they are using an existing VW Toureg, not building a car from scratch.)
This is like people complaining about split infinitives as being “non grammatical.” From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
“In the 19th century, some grammatical authorities sought to introduce a prescriptive rule that split infinitives should not be used in English. Most authorities from the last 100 years, however, agree that this rule was misguided, and indeed that splitting an infinitive can sometimes reduce ambiguity.”
Enough about the head line. I like the fact that it just looks like its only being powered by 3 Mac Minis, where as everyone else has the trunk full of equipment. It would be nice if they could hide all the stuff so it fully looks like a normal car on the inside. I’m sure they can hide them under the seats. =)
Can’t we all just be happy to see Apple’s technology being used for something other than graphic design and video production?
Save the comments til the 2 million is awarded!!!
I need more subtle hints…something to root for that Apple ISN’T part
of.
Headline <–> Apple locates REAL “Titanic” finding that the 1st story was just a hoax.
OK…I’ll subscribe to some gossip magazine. NOT!
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CT =======]————– Poisonous keyboards
Just to clarify, an example of a spllit infinitive is “to boldly go” as in “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Split infinitives are perfectly grammatical, but a small misguided subset of grammarians from the 19th century tried to ban them from the English language, making life harder for everyone (kinda like Prohibition). A lot of people still cling to the split infinitive myth, even if they can’t explain why splitting an infinitive is bad or “misleading.”
MDN, the original title was clearer and perfectly grammatical. The new one is less clear, but still gramatically correct. Don’t be a victim to well-intentioned but erroneous grammar nit-pickers.
And finally, rest in peace, Scotty – you’ve been beamed up to that Big Starship in the Sky where nothing ever breaks down.
The f*ing diesnt drive “itself” yet…BTW, There have already been 2 cars driving themselves over two years. One powered by Gentoo Linux, the other, Windows. So generally speaking, “OS X” wasnt the “1st” OS to “Drive” a Car.
PS:
Who Cares?
Third time’s the charm.
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Now then, wouldn’t it be really cool if Dora comes in first in the Grand Challenge? Considering how pathetically the vehicles performed last year, a win by Dora would probably make a lot of heads in the DOD turn and maybe cause the teams behind the Windows-powered vehicles to do some serious soul-searching.
It seems to me Mac OS X has some pointed advantages with regards to Windows and Linux.
1) It’s far more stable than Windows and maybe even Linux
2) Very rapid development is possible unlike the programmic mess that is Windows.
3) Mac OS X multi-tasks better than Windows. The last thing you would want is Windows VM grinding the machine to a halt, which happens quite a lot when you push the limits.
Um, where is the RDF emitter?
Upda… I mean, Captain’s log – Stardate 12345.6:
The Enterprise encountered Bill Gates of Borg once again today. But, we managed to elude him after the computer systems on his vessel inexplicably went offline. For reasons that I may never fully understand, our grammar generators were heavily damaged in the battle with the Borg. We now have no means by which to notify Starfleet Command of the Borg invasion. I have had to check the grammar of this log by hand… KHAN!!!
Linuxlover
YAY! For Ralph the Wonder Llama!
The MDN updates to the title remind me of Monty Python search for the Holy Grail.
Opening credits…
“We apologise for the fault in the
subtitles. Those responsible have been
sacked.”
“We apologise again for the fault in the
subtitles. Those responsible for sacking
the people who have just been sacked,
have been sacked.”
“The directors of the firm hired to
continue the credits after the other
people had been sacked, wish it to
be known that they have just been
sacked.”
“The credits have been completed
in an entirely different style at great
expense and at the last minute”
Credit for the script goes to: Sean’s Site at http://www.rit.edu/~smo4215/monty.htm#Cast Credits
The Dude abides.
>’correct english grammer,’
Headline definately misleading.>
Worry about spelling as well as grammar.
Team creates autonomous vehicle driving sytem running on OS X.
Leave first out of the title all together, it is misleading to anyone who doesn’t know that DARPA has had this contest in the past and autonomous vehicle technology has been around for years (although it has never been very good)
Also I doubt its really thanks to OS X. Driving programs have been run on other OSes before and like this one, those programs ran on top of the OS, OS X doesn’t have driving techonolgy built into.
After the reading the article, the story is only mildly interesting. OS X is entering an area where others have been before; don’t try to make the title say anything more than that. If the team does really well, or if their set up is signiifcantly simpler, smaller, lighter, or cheaper than everyone else’s, that makes the story more interesting, and should change the title, but as it is the title should reflect that rather mild story underneath it.
I appeal to publishing houses and weblog owners everywhere to permanently ban all split infinitives!