Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
And Now: The Killer Drones that Can See Through Walls
September 21st, 2008Via: Slate: Both reports focus on “detecting and identifying humans enclosed in building structures.” “Through-the-wall sensing is currently a topic of great interest to defense agencies both in the U.S. and abroad,” says the April report. “The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has been active in all these fields of investigation, approaching these issues both […]
Finally, a Presidential Ticket Worth Backing: Tigh/Roslin 2008
September 3rd, 2008Providing Strength and Purpose for all, the choice in 2008 is clear: Tigh & Roslin.
The Numerati
August 30th, 2008After staring down the bottomless abyss of formal schooling, this is what the best and brightest can expect when working for IBM: Full time, automated surveillance by a Magic 8 Ball system that will match “commoditized” workers to tasks and monitor their progress on a minute by minute basis. Via: Business Week: By building mathematical […]
Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain
August 25th, 2008Via: Wired: Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers’ brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders. These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science — and if it’s not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is […]
U.S. Military Wants Solar Powered UAV that Can Orbit an Area for Five Years
August 24th, 2008Via: BBC: A UK-built solar-powered plane has set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft. The Zephyr-6, as it is known, stayed aloft for more than three days, running through the night on batteries it had recharged in sunlight. The flight was a demonstration for the US military, which is […]
Swarms of Robots Join the Army
August 21st, 2008Via: Guardian: Small robots working in swarms have finally moved out of the laboratory and into the real world. That was the most significant feature of the Ministry of Defence’s Grand Challenge competition, held over the weekend. It’s an idea that is also being pursued by the US military. The advantages of a decentralised swarm […]
A ‘Frankenrobot’ with a Biological Brain
August 14th, 2008Four years ago, the same technique was used to teach a network of rat neurons to fly a jet in a flight simulator game. See: ‘Brain’ in a Dish Flies Flight Simulator. This thing below is another Kevin Warwick production. * roll eyes * Via: AFP: Meet Gordon, probably the world’s first robot controlled exclusively […]
U.S. Air Force Converting a Fighter Wing from Manned Combat Aircraft, to Unmanned Ones
August 12th, 2008Via: Strategy Page: The U.S. Air Force is, for the first time, converting a fighter wing from manned (F-16) combat aircraft, to unmanned ones (the MQ-9 Reaper.) The conversion, for the 174th Fighter Wing, has been in the works for three years, and the last combat sorties in manned aircraft were flown last week, by […]
Secret EU Security Draft Proposes Sharing Vast Amounts of Intelligence and Information on Europeans with the U.S. to Form “Euro-Atlantic Area of Cooperation”
August 7th, 2008Soviet Union 2.0. Via: Guardian: Europe should consider sharing vast amounts of intelligence and information on its citizens with the US to establish a “Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation” to combat terrorism, according to a high-level confidential report on future security. The 27 members of the EU should also pool intelligence on terrorism, develop joint video-surveillance […]
Flying Saucers, Tiny Helicopters Compete in British War Game
May 9th, 2008A lot of this reads like a Jackass with a cast of smart kids, but I think that the point isn’t so much the technology, but the social engineering aspect. Get the young ones thinking about serving the homeland. Get them to realize that, “Hmm. Building terminator robots could lead to a good career. Gee. […]
