25 February 2013

Warbots ~ MAVs and Other Skynet Terminators...

Charlie Brooker writes in the Guardian that I know in my bones that a robot is going to kill you -- the new micro-drones...
"Most of the flying robots carrying out those kill missions are eerie, windowless airborne hulks bristling with Hellfire missiles. Enormous winged battledicks. They're frightening, but visually silly somehow, which adds to the obscenity of it all. The smaller drones [are] potentially more deadly. Compared with the current models flying over Pakistan, they have fearsome advantages of stealth, agility -- and sheer number. Because there were swarms of the things. Some were the size of pigeons. In fact, they actively disguised themselves as pigeons: they landed on overhead phonelines and folded their wings around themselves so the folk down below wouldn't get too suspicious. Then they hovered around gathering surveillance information. At one point the video shows a company of multiple "bugbots", each the size of a Milky Way bar, spreading out to wirelessly compile a good overall view of an apparently hostile city. Then one of them sneaks past a guard, swoops down a corridor, flies through a doorway and shoots a bad guy in the head. [...] See? Precisely the sort of thing that'll definitely kill us all."
Here's the USAF's MAV warbot vision...

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