Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Berkeley and DARPA: Cyborg Beetle Piloted by Remote Control
September 28th, 2009Via: Wired: The creation of a cyborg insect army has just taken a step closer to reality. A research team at the University of California Berkeley recently announced that it has successfully implanted electrodes into a beetle allowing scientists to control the insect’s movements in flight. “We demonstrated the remote control of insects in free […]
U.S. Army Wants to Send 250 Foot Long Surveillance Airship to Afghanistan
September 24th, 2009Via: Aviation Week: The plan to deploy an autonomous, free-flying, surveillance airship to Afghanistan is gaining, er, buoyancy. A consortium led by the US Army’s Space & Missile Defense Command is scheduled to be established by October 1 and a contract awarded for the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) demonstration by the end of December.
“Artificially Intelligent CCTV Could Prevent Crimes Before They Happen”
September 24th, 2009I’d put the chances of this working as described within five years at about 0%. It sounds like a good grant swindle, however, for the people involved with the “research.” How much fun will kids have with gaming this thing? Via: Telegraph: A new generation of Minority Report-style security cameras that can detect criminals before […]
USAF Shoots Down Out-of-Control Drone Over Northern Afghanistan
September 22nd, 2009The manned fighter jets are still good for something! Via: Security Management: The United States Air Force (USAF) shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on Sunday morning after it lost control of the aircraft over a remote area in Northern Afghanistan. The USAF does not know how or why operators lost control of the […]
Problem with Pirates? Remote Control Speedboat with Machine Gun Turret to the Rescue
September 21st, 2009Via: New York Times: In recent years, maritime shipping companies, private security firms and navies around the globe have pondered the problem of high-seas piracy off Africa’s east coast, where more than 150 merchant ships have been attacked by small craft in 2009 alone. What to do? How to thwart a menace that can resemble […]
Air Force Training More Drone Pilots Than New Fighter and Bomber Pilots
September 20th, 2009Via: Newsweek: In 2007, the year before Schwartz became chief, UAVs were performing 21 combat air patrols at any one time, for a total of just over 100,000 hours. By 2011, they’ll reach 54 patrols and almost 350,000 hours. For now, the joystick pilots have to be certified fighter pilots as well. But Schwartz says […]
Unmanned Systems North America 2008
September 16th, 2009Research Credit: Pookie
Military Robot Hops Over Walls
September 16th, 2009Via: BBC: Video footage has been released of a robot that can leap over obstacles more than 7.5m (25ft) high. Most of the time, the shoebox-sized robot – which is being developed for the US military – uses its four wheels to get around. But the Precision Urban Hopper can use a piston-actuated “leg” to […]
This Week in Mold Robots
August 30th, 2009Via: Science Daily: Scientists at the University of the West of England are to design the first ever biological robot using mould. Researchers have received a Leverhulme Trust grant worth £228,000 to develop the amorphous non-silicon biological robot, plasmobot, using plasmodium, the vegetative stage of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, a commonly occurring mould which […]
Scientists Fear a Revolt by Killer Robots
August 4th, 2009Via: Times Online: At the conference, held behind closed doors in Monterey Bay, California, leading researchers warned that mankind might lose control over computer-based systems that carry out a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting on the phone, and have already reached a level of indestructibility comparable with a cockroach. “These […]
