An article at Macworld UK describes a customized Touareg car, named "Dora," that uses Macs running Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" to control the steering wheel, brake and gas pedals and gear shifting. Dora was developed by Team Banzai, which has entered the vehicle in the 2005 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge. DARPA is part of the US Department of Defense.
Dora also uses radar, video cameras, sonar and lasers to navigate the terrain as it follows a series of GPS waypoints. The car is one of 40 self-controlled vehicles that proved they could successfully complete a 200-meter obstacle course. Those cars will compete in the National Qualification Event at the California Speedway in Fontana from Sept. 27 to Oct. 5 -- the top 20 vehicles will move on to Oct. 8is Grand Challenge final, with the winning team taking home US$2 million.
While Macworld UKis article states that Team Banzai is using Power Mac G5 computers, photos on the Team Banzai Web site show three Mac minis in use, along with a variety of other hardware. The Mac Observer apologizes for the earlier error.
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