Being the military, they can build (or contract out) their own.
The F-35 took 26 years to go from contract to production, and will cost a trillion dollars. But drones are props rather than jets, so maybe the V-22 Osprey is a better comparison. It took 32 years, and cost $36 billion.
Unless they have an unlimited budget and are building it for their great grandchildren, they need to go COTS.
I have DJI Mavic, not a Spark. Mine uses a smartphone as the controller GUI. When I connect my phone to the drone controller, the app will sometimes, but not always, check for updates. If an update is available, it is downloaded and installed, without any opportunity for opting out. Some of the downloads may be legally required, such as data for restricted airspace. Others, as in this case, are safety issues, so I don't see why anyone would want to opt out, or why anyone should be allowed to, since they may be endangering other people.
Nitpick: The headlines use of the work "brick" is misleading. The drone cannot be flown until it is updated, but it is not "bricked". As any true nerd knows, when something is "bricked" it is permanently and irrevocably disabled, which is not what this is.
What is the alternative? The DJI drones are a generation ahead of anything else on the market... and with an 85-90% market share, they have enough revenue to extend their lead.
Disclaimer: I have a DJI Mavic Pro. It is very nice.
(this is also why liberal arts educations are a good thing, and STEM majors tend to be incredibly dull people.;) )
As an engineering major, I took plenty of humanities and social science electives, so I don't think the liberal arts majors learned anything that I didn't. A common defense of liberal arts majors is that they are "better communicators", but I have seen no evidence of that. I is hard to communicate well when you don't know what you are talking about.
The most valuable people often have deep expertise in TWO fields, so you can apply the knowledge of one to the other. For instance, if you are very knowledgeable about both GPU programming and fluid dynamics, you are going to make a lot of money.
People just valued cheap more than they valued safety.
People are very bad at understanding risk. Product liability laws shifted the cost from injured customers (who are poor decision makers) onto the bean counting accountants and lawyers at the auto and insurance companies (who are good decision makers).
The auto companies could then either make their products safer or pay higher liability payouts. Either of these will mean higher prices for consumers, who can then make a rationale choice since the "cost of risk" is incorporated into the sticker price.
you're strapped into some machine that you have zero real control over.
This is also true when you are a passenger on an airplane, taxi, bus, or even a carpool. Yet people do that everyday. The difference with SDCs is that you will be safer.
The business model should include protecting people and pedestrians at all cost.
If you want to be taken seriously, try to avoid hyperbolic phrases like "at all costs". In the real world, resources are always finite.
A car that protects itself while getting everyone killed probably won't have a great used car value.
Killing a human will cost millions or tens of millions in legal fees and payouts. Suggesting that these cars will intentionally prioritize avoiding mechanical damage over human life is absurd.
All modern operating systems are multithreaded and anyone will see huge improvement
No, you will see tiny improvements. OS overhead is usually less than 10%, and often less than 2%. So adding a second core will give you a slight boost in performance for a single threaded app. Additional cores after that will get you nothing.
Indeed. I have never heard anyone say "Google it with Bing" except as a joke.
Nitpick: TFA claims that the trademark for "aspirin" was lost through generic use. This is wrong. Bayer was forced to abandon the trademark because Germany lost the First World War. Bayer also lost the trademark to "Heroin".
From Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to this.
Nope. The 3 Laws were first published in 1942. The British started using proximity fused anti-aircraft artillery, with projectiles that made their own decision of when to detonate, in 1940.
The US does not employ landmines anywhere other than the Korean DMZ. They are used there because North Korea also uses them, and removing them would require increases in other capabilities. Any other capabilities could be used offensively, and would be destabilizing, while landmines are purely defensive.
If other countries really feel that these landmines are unjustified, they are welcome to come and defend the DMZ without mines, and the 28,000 American troops in South Korea can come home.
This is completely, absolutely and irrevocably a good idea.
Indeed. It is a great idea. The only drawback is that is is totally unworkable. There is no possible way to detect clandestine projects. Nuclear weapons require vastly more infrastructure, hard to obtain materials, and emit radiation. Yet they have still proliferated, and many secret projects went undetected for years. So how are we going to keep Kim Jong-un from developing software for kill bots?
I question whether doing it for basically 5+ years was the right thing.
The downside to QE is high inflation, which didn't happen. So I question why you question it. While America was doing QE, the Euro Zone was doing austerity. The recession there was deeper and longer, and they still have an unemployment rate nearly double America's.
If you wonder what I mean by "money printing binge" then look up "quantitative easing".
I'd rather look at the current inflation rate of 1.7%, below the Fed target, and way way below what the monetary hawks predicted. QE was the reason 2009 wasn't 1931 all over again.
This reminds me of what I've gone through with bison. Two years ago I was buying it for $5/lb.
Bison is typically 2 to 3 times the price of beef. I have a friend who tried to raise them in Wyoming. He installed powerful electric fences, and still had problems with them breaking through. Cattle can be artificially inseminated, but bison cannot, so he kept a few bulls, which are big and mean. Loading a herd of yearling bison into a truck to go to the slaughterhouse can be... challenging, and not so good for the truck.
There are some advantages. They can graze on crappy pasture contaminated with locoweed and other stuff that cattle will not eat. They also have no problem enduring harsh winters and will paw through the snow to reach grass.
Imagine that you give a TV to a teenager. This TV has 100 channels. Two of those channels are educational. 98 channels are sex, drugs, rock n roll. What is your teenager going to watch?
No question about it. My dorky nerd son is going to watch the science channels... while explaining all the inaccuracies, like ignoring friction, or failing to account for relativity.
Some fathers worry that their kid isn't really theirs. Not me.
Slashdot Mirror
A building made of bricks lasts much longer than a structure made out of dead trees.
Unless you live in an earthquake zone. In an earthquake, wood frame buildings sway. Brick buildings fall down.
In the SF Bay Area, brick construction is banned. If you see a brick building, it is mostly likely a fake facade on a wood or steel frame.
I'll buy the Chinese knock off.
The Chinese drones are not "knock offs". They are way ahead of anything made in America.
I bet the time can be changed to allow longer use of the old firmware...
It uses a smartphone as the GUI for the controller, so it can pull the time from the cellular network.
The drone also has a GPS receiver, and can get a timestamp from the GPS satellites, accurate to within 40 nanoseconds.
Being the military, they can build (or contract out) their own.
The F-35 took 26 years to go from contract to production, and will cost a trillion dollars. But drones are props rather than jets, so maybe the V-22 Osprey is a better comparison. It took 32 years, and cost $36 billion.
Unless they have an unlimited budget and are building it for their great grandchildren, they need to go COTS.
Anyone know how the kill is implemented?
I have DJI Mavic, not a Spark. Mine uses a smartphone as the controller GUI. When I connect my phone to the drone controller, the app will sometimes, but not always, check for updates. If an update is available, it is downloaded and installed, without any opportunity for opting out. Some of the downloads may be legally required, such as data for restricted airspace. Others, as in this case, are safety issues, so I don't see why anyone would want to opt out, or why anyone should be allowed to, since they may be endangering other people.
Nitpick: The headlines use of the work "brick" is misleading. The drone cannot be flown until it is updated, but it is not "bricked". As any true nerd knows, when something is "bricked" it is permanently and irrevocably disabled, which is not what this is.
What is the alternative? The DJI drones are a generation ahead of anything else on the market ... and with an 85-90% market share, they have enough revenue to extend their lead.
Disclaimer: I have a DJI Mavic Pro. It is very nice.
(this is also why liberal arts educations are a good thing, and STEM majors tend to be incredibly dull people. ;) )
As an engineering major, I took plenty of humanities and social science electives, so I don't think the liberal arts majors learned anything that I didn't. A common defense of liberal arts majors is that they are "better communicators", but I have seen no evidence of that. I is hard to communicate well when you don't know what you are talking about.
The most valuable people often have deep expertise in TWO fields, so you can apply the knowledge of one to the other. For instance, if you are very knowledgeable about both GPU programming and fluid dynamics, you are going to make a lot of money.
People just valued cheap more than they valued safety.
People are very bad at understanding risk. Product liability laws shifted the cost from injured customers (who are poor decision makers) onto the bean counting accountants and lawyers at the auto and insurance companies (who are good decision makers).
The auto companies could then either make their products safer or pay higher liability payouts. Either of these will mean higher prices for consumers, who can then make a rationale choice since the "cost of risk" is incorporated into the sticker price.
you're strapped into some machine that you have zero real control over.
This is also true when you are a passenger on an airplane, taxi, bus, or even a carpool. Yet people do that everyday. The difference with SDCs is that you will be safer.
How many years did it take the auto industry to be shamed by Ralph Nader into providing safety features for their customers?
Immediately after Ralph Nader shamed the government into changing product liability laws.
The business model should include protecting people and pedestrians at all cost.
If you want to be taken seriously, try to avoid hyperbolic phrases like "at all costs". In the real world, resources are always finite.
A car that protects itself while getting everyone killed probably won't have a great used car value.
Killing a human will cost millions or tens of millions in legal fees and payouts. Suggesting that these cars will intentionally prioritize avoiding mechanical damage over human life is absurd.
All modern operating systems are multithreaded and anyone will see huge improvement
No, you will see tiny improvements. OS overhead is usually less than 10%, and often less than 2%. So adding a second core will give you a slight boost in performance for a single threaded app. Additional cores after that will get you nothing.
I've heard "Just google it on bing. Works a lot better."
I doubt it. I have never heard anyone say that Bing "works a lot better".
to google means to search on google.
Indeed. I have never heard anyone say "Google it with Bing" except as a joke.
Nitpick: TFA claims that the trademark for "aspirin" was lost through generic use. This is wrong. Bayer was forced to abandon the trademark because Germany lost the First World War. Bayer also lost the trademark to "Heroin".
From Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to this.
Nope. The 3 Laws were first published in 1942. The British started using proximity fused anti-aircraft artillery, with projectiles that made their own decision of when to detonate, in 1940.
the US won't stop using land mines.
The US does not employ landmines anywhere other than the Korean DMZ. They are used there because North Korea also uses them, and removing them would require increases in other capabilities. Any other capabilities could be used offensively, and would be destabilizing, while landmines are purely defensive.
If other countries really feel that these landmines are unjustified, they are welcome to come and defend the DMZ without mines, and the 28,000 American troops in South Korea can come home.
This is completely, absolutely and irrevocably a good idea.
Indeed. It is a great idea. The only drawback is that is is totally unworkable. There is no possible way to detect clandestine projects. Nuclear weapons require vastly more infrastructure, hard to obtain materials, and emit radiation. Yet they have still proliferated, and many secret projects went undetected for years. So how are we going to keep Kim Jong-un from developing software for kill bots?
The government does not just "print" money, it borrows it.
In the case of QE, the "borrower" is the Fed, and all interest is paid back to the treasury.
I question whether doing it for basically 5+ years was the right thing.
The downside to QE is high inflation, which didn't happen. So I question why you question it. While America was doing QE, the Euro Zone was doing austerity. The recession there was deeper and longer, and they still have an unemployment rate nearly double America's.
Why do you need two desks?
Even if it is clear that the system was at fault and that no exploit was used, that person would not get to keep the goods over here.
But would they be charged with a crime?
If you wonder what I mean by "money printing binge" then look up "quantitative easing".
I'd rather look at the current inflation rate of 1.7%, below the Fed target, and way way below what the monetary hawks predicted. QE was the reason 2009 wasn't 1931 all over again.
This reminds me of what I've gone through with bison. Two years ago I was buying it for $5/lb.
Bison is typically 2 to 3 times the price of beef. I have a friend who tried to raise them in Wyoming. He installed powerful electric fences, and still had problems with them breaking through. Cattle can be artificially inseminated, but bison cannot, so he kept a few bulls, which are big and mean. Loading a herd of yearling bison into a truck to go to the slaughterhouse can be ... challenging, and not so good for the truck.
There are some advantages. They can graze on crappy pasture contaminated with locoweed and other stuff that cattle will not eat. They also have no problem enduring harsh winters and will paw through the snow to reach grass.
Imagine that you give a TV to a teenager. This TV has 100 channels. Two of those channels are educational. 98 channels are sex, drugs, rock n roll. What is your teenager going to watch?
No question about it. My dorky nerd son is going to watch the science channels ... while explaining all the inaccuracies, like ignoring friction, or failing to account for relativity.
Some fathers worry that their kid isn't really theirs. Not me.