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A New Human-Seeking Drone, Much Cheaper Than a Predator
An anonymous reader writes with this envy-inspiring bit from Gizmodo on the Aeryon Scout Quadrotor: "The drone, packing a camera that can ID a human from almost two miles away (using a standard digital cam or thermal vision), can be hand-assembled. Once in the sky, it gyro-orients itself to track whatever it is you're tracking, can hit speeds of over 30 MPH, and is all controllable with a touch remote. Tap a target, and watch the drone zoom over. It's not going to rain down any Hellfire missiles, but hey, it only weighs a kilogram."
Can it detect hot chicks?
"can be hand-assembled..."
I can't be the only one whose first thought was, "Well, I can understand not wanting to use a high level language in its firmware, but we've had assemblers for a long time now and they're really pretty good by now."
Something that small would be hard to spot with radar, and it does not need to rain down hell fire missiles, a single well places .22 round will neutralize many targets.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
OK, so it's cheaper than a predator. It's also completely different than a predator.
It's like saying a golf cart is cheaper than a Freightliner. It's true, but they don't serve the same purpose.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Shades of Dune! can you say hunter/seeker? I knew ya could!
sigh, can I take a shot at this joke please
Apple announced its partnership with the military today called iWings for iPads
I wonder if the Middle-Eastern market for crowbars is a good place to invest.
You can get your own:
Here:
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/parrot-parrot-ar-drone-ipod-iphone-ipad-controlled-quadricopter-orange-blue-pf720002ag/10156982.aspx?path=81e4f1876418f65ce283409ba0d00969en02
for $330 Canadian this baby flies for 20 min. indoors and out self stabilizes and hovers, and can be controlled via your iphone or your computer via wifi
and has two onboard cameras (one forward facing one downward facing.
It's made by AR Drone
http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/
It's even hackable:
http://www.ardrone-flyers.com/news/73-urbi-following-a-ball-in-25-lines-of-code.html
I've seen it fly and it's sweet. With a VGA camera its pretty cool.
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
After watching the Youtube video of this device, I got very interested. I would love to give it a whirl, to look around the town etc.
Well done, Canadians. If you have the lack of wisdom to outsource production to China, I might get me one of the cheaper Chinese knock-offs ;) Just kidding.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Two Canadian technology posts on slashdot in two days.... WE ARE THE NEXT CHINA!
Can you say "Paparazzi"? I knew you could.
What's the point of any technology that can't rain down Hellfire missiles?
That's right! None!
Anyone who is developing any technology, from baby food to high-powered anti-personnel ordnance, should ask themselves: "How can we monetize this, and how can we weaponize this?"
It can refuel itself and with little more than a dirty sock it can track a target for miles. Best of all you can deploy hundreds of them for less money than a single drone.
The real damage would come from much further away.
Anyone with a few hundred bucks can get one NOW. Welcome to the future, enjoy your stay.
On the contrary.. It will make it easier to watch the police from a safe place and keep the bastards honest.. A highly directional mic will help even more.. I'm all for it.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
From the Aeyron website "Operational duration: up to 25 minutes."
In practice it's probably a lot less than that.
I'm not sure that their scenario of detecting a dork dressed up like a spy stealing my Hyundai has me sold on the concept.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Say someone lands it on a rubbish heap or something, Its flat, quiet, drab. Camera is running. They watch a house. The target appears in a doorway for a second. Bing. The signal goes out. The target is painted. A global-hawk-predator-whatever that has been sitting on station for the past month refueling in-flight is tasked. Weapons free. The weapon follows in the laser. Boom.
They could make it smaller with a top mounted camera so it could sit in on a haystack or on top of a barn. With just a fiber-optic camera sticking up. Heck, it could even have a solar panel to keep the camera transmitting for long periods.
No hellfire missiles, much cheaper than a predator. Lame.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My worry as an RC enthusiast (I have three RC helicopters) is when our increasingly paranoid governments see this sort of thing, they are going to start legislating the RC hobby into oblivion because of "fears of terrorists". It really wouldn't be that hard to automate my T-Rex 600, the parts can be bought from Sparkfun Electronics, and governments will fear that an ordinary citizen can build a drone from off-the-shelf RC parts and electronics.
All of a sudden we're treated as "terrorists" and another avenue of harmless pleasure is closed off or made so awkward (for instance, you need a background check to buy RC parts) that it will destroy the hobby.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows