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CMU's Snooping Robot Headed for Iraq
mike_the_kid writes "Here's an interesting article about a robot near the end of development at CMU. It's a four-wheeler called the Dragon Runner. This robot has no 'right side up,' so no matter which way it lands, its ready to go. The user (currently projected to be a US Marine) throws the robot over a fence or up a flight of stairs. The robot has cameras that send live video back to the operator, and directional microphones that can relay as well. A cool feature is that it can tell the operator where there is movement (via audio or tactile feedback)." We first mentioned the Dragon Runner a while back, but the previous article was more about the Dragon Eye, a small remote-controlled airplane.
Right? RIGHT???
Comes with a hooding device for remote hooding.
*torture electrodes are an optional extra
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
= 9J =
"We've thrown it out of second- and third-story windows," said Capt. Dave Moreau, project officer for Dragon Runner at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va. "We've thrown it off the back of a moving vehicle at 45 miles an hour."
If they can make the robot out of this stuff, why not make the whole Marine out of it?
against that cranky old next door neighbor
While the Marines are all there staring at their TV sets, the bad guys will sneak out the back door, walk around the house and blow the crap out of the distracted Marines.
Go the glass knife every time.
This is just a mopping up operation of some holdout insurgents. We should have them cleaned up by June 29th for the handover the next day. Nothing to worry about here folks.
PS: Please send 100,000 more marines with this shipment of robots.
Can it fetch me a beer from the fridge ? Ifso, where can i order them ?!
If Dragon Runner performs well, the Pentagon conceivably would be interested in buying hundreds of the robots. ...he thinks applications in civilian law enforcement and firefighting might eventually outnumber those in the military.
:-P
Minority report anybody? I have the mental image of hundreds of these things crawling around my apartment building looking for criminals and interrupting ppl in the midst of.... ah.... personal business.... Oh god, what have they done.....
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
"Insurgents stand back! This car is protected by Viper! If you do not stand back the alarm will sound!" Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!
How about one of these for $20 and an x10 cam strapped to the front? I'll sell em to the marines for 1/10th what CMU wants for theirs.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Personally, I don't know if sending more things that don't know "right side up" to Iraq is a good decision at this point.
I think these things should be programmed to wander around cities/suburban areas and check an encountered persons biometric ID cards (coming soon?). Of course everyone but the "terrorists" would have these cards so catching them in action should be trivial. Perhaps have it explode on request or upon finding a "target". Armies of these things could re-enforce each other.
...that can torture and humiliate prisoners. Then it can all be blamed on the robot instead of white trash from Appalachia (or heaven forbid, someone up the chain of command).