EDITOR: This is Brian Mueller, not to be confused with my
father, Joe Mueller, who is on the Planning Comission.
EDITOR:
This is Brian Mueller, not to be confused with my father, Joe Mueller, who is on the Planning Comission. I am writing because a Morgan Hill team, Digital Auto Drive, recently placed third in a competition sponsored by DARPA to determine who could design a computer system that would drive a car the farthest without human intervention.
The entry from Digital Auto Drive only drove itself six miles, but the winner of the competition only went just over seven. This is a significant accomplishment in artifical intelligence, because the computer not only required no human intervention, but also determined where to direct the car based only on video data from two cameras mounted above the windshield; it did not use radar or a laser scanner. One day people may be able to sit in the driver seat of their car reading your paper because the computer is driving, as a result of the efforts of this Morgan Hill organization.
My enthusiasm for this accomplishment, however, is mitigated by dismay at the absence of coverage of this event as a front page on your newspaper. Did your paper even have a reporter accompanying the team based in our city? A rhetorical question with a self-evident answer. Your paper seems interested only in covering events in such a way as to portray Morgan Hill as a quaint small town. Yet Morgan Hill is not San Martin or Gilroy.
We are not an insignificant village in “the South Valley.” We are a suburb of Silicon Valley, like Sunnyvale or Mountain View, being home to many companies oriented with the computer industry. I believe I speak for many residents in my generation as I suggest that we resent that there appears to exist a powerful minority in this town who would drive away businesses in order to promote a “small town atmosphere.”
Teams like Digital Auto Drive, and companies like Alien Technology, prove that Morgan Hill is capable of great things. We can accomplish this greatness if only we overcome the influence of a few who endeavor to limit our ability to pursue it.
Alien Technology was recently mentioned in Scientific American, a popular magazine covering significant accomplishments in science for the benefit of laymen, for its development of Fluidic Self Assembly, a patented process for the manufacture of electronic circuits. Many of us would like to see more such companies base their operations, especially their manufacturing, here in Silicon Valley, and would like to see Morgan Hill be their home. Yet the aforementioned powerful minority would drive away such companies because they threaten the supposed ideal of Morgan Hill as a clone of San Martin.
I congratulate Digital Auto Drive for their accomplishment, and I hope that most in Morgan Hill will come to realize the greatness that can emerge if only we were to escape from our prison of mediocre vision, and pursue what many of us believe should be our aspirations of glory.
Brian Mueller, Morgan Hill
Editor’s note: Thanks to Brian Mueller for alerting us about the significant accomplishment of Digital Auto Drive. The story has been assigned to a reporter. We invite other readers to tell us about news of our community. E-mail editor Walt Glines at ed******@*************es.com or call him at 779-4106, ext 200, with a story tip or suggestion.
