Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Google Analyzes Your Vacation Snaps to Figure Out Where You Were
June 23rd, 2009Via: Popular Science: Where were we when this was taken? Do you remember, dear? Tired of trying to identify landmarks in your endless folders of travel photos? Google’s image recognition engine could help. Just upload the mystery image to an online album, point the engine at it, and zap — turns out it was the […]
Robot Warriors Will Get a Guide to Ethics
May 19th, 2009Oh sure. You better clip a clothes peg on your nose for this one. Via: MSNBC: Smart missiles, rolling robots, and flying drones currently controlled by humans, are being used on the battlefield more every day. But what happens when humans are taken out of the loop, and robots are left to make decisions, like […]
Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR)
May 17th, 2009Via: Robotic Technology Inc: The purpose of the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) (patent pending) project is to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling, which would otherwise preclude the ability of the robot to perform such missions. The system obtains […]
Army Tests Flying Robo-Sniper
April 27th, 2009Via: Popular Mechanics: In modern warfare, the advantage often goes to guerrillas who can attack, then quickly hide among the population or disappear into the hills. To counter those tactics, the Pentagon since 2001 has been arming unmanned aerial vehicles to identify and destroy targets with missiles. The Defense Department is seeking weapons for UAVs […]
Killer Robots and a Revolution in Warfare
April 22nd, 2009Via: Reuters: They have no fear, they never tire, they are not upset when the soldier next to them gets blown to pieces. Their morale doesn’t suffer by having to do, again and again, the jobs known in the military as the Three Ds – dull, dirty and dangerous. They are military robots and their […]
Phoenix: Radar Camera Employee Murdered
April 21st, 2009Via: Arizona Republic: It has come under attack from protesters, politicians and even a pickax-wielding resident, but sentiment against Arizona’s photo-enforcement program had not turned to bloodshed until Sunday night. Doug Georgianni, 51, of Cave Creek, was shot and killed while sitting in a van alongside the highway and monitoring cameras that snap photos of […]
Israeli Military’s 60-Tonne Robot Bulldozer Force to Double
April 13th, 2009Via: Jerusalem Post: The IDF Ground Forces Command plans to double the number of unmanned D9 armored bulldozers in the Engineering Corps arsenal after the vehicle provided exceptional results during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in January. The unmanned version of the D9 bulldozer – called “Black Thunder” – was developed several years […]
Thousands Flee Bomb Attacks by U.S. Drones
April 6th, 2009Via: Times: AMERICAN drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people. The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, […]
Robot Uses Biological Brain
March 29th, 2009Via: Seed Magazine: Kevin Warwick’s new robot behaves like a child. “Sometimes it does what you want it to, and sometimes it doesn’t,” he says. And while it may seem strange for a professor of cybernetics to be concerning himself with such an unreliable machine, Warwick’s creation has something that even today’s most sophisticated robots […]
Imbecile Nearly Drives His BMW Off Cliff Because GPS Told Him To
March 25th, 2009Turn left, Dave. Via: Mirror: Horrified Robert Jones ended up with a careless driving charge after his satnav left his BMW perched on the edge of a cliff. Robert, 43, followed the device’s instructions as he headed for a friend’s house – even when it began taking him up a steep, rocky footpath. He finally […]
