Their award was "lowest cost vehicle", they came in 17th out of 18th place. I don't like sounding like an ass by pointing this out. It is truely remarkable what they were able to do with $600.
I live in New York City. One of a small handful of cities that are actually at risk from a terrorist strike. My complaint is twofold. First of all, I am annoyed at the fact that so many people from all over america are so fast to trot out terrorism when it does not affect them. Second, I don't like terrorism as an excuse to pass stupid laws.
"A few hundred of these, and oil transport in supertankers will no longer be feasible."
This is not economically feasible for terrorists by any stretch of the imagination. I attended the 2004 AUVSI underwater competition and while Brigham Young's appearance and attempt was commendable, the fact is that their $600 vehicle couldn't even travel in a straight line for the 15 feet needed to pass through the velidation gate. They took last place overall, with the exception of a team that was disqualified. Now, I don't want it to seem like I'm disparaging them, they had the smallest budget of any team in attendence and the smallest team as well. Brigham Young probably learned a great deal by attending the competition and will probably come back a lot stronger next year.
The fact is, to really have a functional AUV you must be prepared to spend $50k and probably a lot more than that if you want any sort of long duration capability. Why bother creating fleet of AUVs for terrorism when you can just make a suicide boat-bomb that would pack a much bigger punch.
The theat of terrorism is greatly exagerated and sensationalized in nearly every aspect of our daily lives these days. It's quite unfortunate.
AUVs are on the other side in the "war on terror". A major application for AUVs is harbor security. Think about a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles assigned to a harbor. The vehicles, with a diverse sensor suite composed of vision and sonar subsystems, patrol the harbor looking for unusual activity. When a ship enters the harbor a few vehicles will swarm it and scan the hull. They can be equipped with sensors like giger counters to detect suspicious cargo.
This system would also be self-maintaining. These AUVs could autonomously dock themselves to recharge their batteries when low, or to report log data to an oversight system which would combine all the log data from the vehicles and use more computationally involved algorithms to analyse the state of operations of the harbor. If anything was suspicious looking, the video/sonar logs can be looked at by humans who would have the final call in any real actions.
Doesn't anyone see the good side to this? Record companies are starting to open their eyes and recognize the internet as a real medium. We have here an example of a record label breaking lines with the RIAA and saying to the world, "we can see that things are changing." They may not like the change, but at least they are accepting it instead of blocking change at all costs. People who want everything to be free are deluding themselves. It costs money to make music. Whether you are talking about paying the musicians for their talent or paying the label for recording and publicity costs, these things cost money. Now you can argue all you want about how trading songs on Napster is really helping these artists sell records, however, that is only temporary. In all likelyhood, as bandwidth increases and hard drives get bigger and access becomes more widespread, people will be able to dispense with CDs entirely and then that's the end of that.
Record companies must do for Napster what networks are having to do for TiVo: adapt, or perish.
It looks classy, not retro. While I agree that it is a high-tech gaget and I wouldn't expect something like this to be sold by Palm, this is the kind of thing that an exec would love. It keeps the funcationality of the device and adds good looks. Interestingly enough this is the same tactic that Apple used for all of their new products but went the other way with it. High tech merges with high class. Props to the guy who did it.
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Their award was "lowest cost vehicle", they came in 17th out of 18th place. I don't like sounding like an ass by pointing this out. It is truely remarkable what they were able to do with $600.
Hmm...
I live in New York City. One of a small handful of cities that are actually at risk from a terrorist strike. My complaint is twofold. First of all, I am annoyed at the fact that so many people from all over america are so fast to trot out terrorism when it does not affect them. Second, I don't like terrorism as an excuse to pass stupid laws.
"A few hundred of these, and oil transport in supertankers will no longer be feasible."
This is not economically feasible for terrorists by any stretch of the imagination. I attended the 2004 AUVSI underwater competition and while Brigham Young's appearance and attempt was commendable, the fact is that their $600 vehicle couldn't even travel in a straight line for the 15 feet needed to pass through the velidation gate. They took last place overall, with the exception of a team that was disqualified. Now, I don't want it to seem like I'm disparaging them, they had the smallest budget of any team in attendence and the smallest team as well. Brigham Young probably learned a great deal by attending the competition and will probably come back a lot stronger next year.
The fact is, to really have a functional AUV you must be prepared to spend $50k and probably a lot more than that if you want any sort of long duration capability. Why bother creating fleet of AUVs for terrorism when you can just make a suicide boat-bomb that would pack a much bigger punch.
The theat of terrorism is greatly exagerated and sensationalized in nearly every aspect of our daily lives these days. It's quite unfortunate.
Actually,
AUVs are on the other side in the "war on terror". A major application for AUVs is harbor security. Think about a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles assigned to a harbor. The vehicles, with a diverse sensor suite composed of vision and sonar subsystems, patrol the harbor looking for unusual activity. When a ship enters the harbor a few vehicles will swarm it and scan the hull. They can be equipped with sensors like giger counters to detect suspicious cargo.
This system would also be self-maintaining. These AUVs could autonomously dock themselves to recharge their batteries when low, or to report log data to an oversight system which would combine all the log data from the vehicles and use more computationally involved algorithms to analyse the state of operations of the harbor. If anything was suspicious looking, the video/sonar logs can be looked at by humans who would have the final call in any real actions.
Doesn't anyone see the good side to this? Record companies are starting to open their eyes and recognize the internet as a real medium. We have here an example of a record label breaking lines with the RIAA and saying to the world, "we can see that things are changing." They may not like the change, but at least they are accepting it instead of blocking change at all costs. People who want everything to be free are deluding themselves. It costs money to make music. Whether you are talking about paying the musicians for their talent or paying the label for recording and publicity costs, these things cost money. Now you can argue all you want about how trading songs on Napster is really helping these artists sell records, however, that is only temporary. In all likelyhood, as bandwidth increases and hard drives get bigger and access becomes more widespread, people will be able to dispense with CDs entirely and then that's the end of that. Record companies must do for Napster what networks are having to do for TiVo: adapt, or perish.
It looks classy, not retro. While I agree that it is a high-tech gaget and I wouldn't expect something like this to be sold by Palm, this is the kind of thing that an exec would love. It keeps the funcationality of the device and adds good looks. Interestingly enough this is the same tactic that Apple used for all of their new products but went the other way with it. High tech merges with high class. Props to the guy who did it.
It's Arsward. It comes from Ars Technica. Ars Technica is latin and translates roughly into "the technical art."