Dreams of an autonomous Apple car may be dead, but it seems the company is at least trying to resurrect some of its self-driving tech.
According to a report in the New York Times, Apple is working on a self-driving shuttle to cart its employees around its sprawling network of offices in the Cupertino area. While some Apple employees are reportedly moving into the brand-spanking-new Apple Park, a goodly number of them will remain at the current Infinite Loop offices, as well as at assorted office parks around the Silicon Valley region.
To move these folks around, Apple has conceived of a shuttle that would also allow it to test its autonomous technology, according to the Times. The name is allegedly PAIL: “Palo Alto to Infinite Loop.”
The story notes that the company had more ambitious autonomous car plans but scaled them back amid disagreements over the direction of the work.
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
From the Times: “A notable symbol of that retrenchment is a self-driving shuttle service that ferries employees from one Apple building to another. The shuttle, which has never been reported before, will likely be a commercial vehicle from an automaker and Apple will use it to test the autonomous driving technology that it develops.”
Let’s hope that the name PAIL doesn’t stick. Because we don’t need to hear snarky wordplay about the Apple PAIL or the PAIL Fail or all sorts of inevitable crap.
There’s nothing wrong with just Apple Shuttle. Nothing.
