Ray Bradbury grows more plauseable

[Plane]

http://mae.pennnet.com/display_article/332812/32/ARTCL/none/none/1/Scientists-to-develop-miniature-military-robots/?dcmp=ENL

“Robotic platforms extend the warfighter’s senses and reach, providing operational capabilities that would otherwise be costly, impossible, or deadly to achieve,” says Dr. Joseph Mait, MAST cooperative agreement manager for the Army Research Lab. “The MAST alliance is a highly collaborative effort, with each partner from government, academia, and industry playing a significant role.”


MAST is designed to benefit future robotic systems by furthering science and technology in sensing, processing, and communications; navigation and control; small-scale aeromechanics and ambulation; propulsion; microdevices and integration; platform packaging; and systems architectures.

Preliminary miniature robot designs point to the use of biomimicry, or biomimetics. That is, the structure and function of the electronic devices are dersigned to mimic those of natural, biologic organisms—in this case, insects.

[Plane]

Engineers at TU Delft in the Netherlands have developed a tiny aircraft, called DelFly Micro, that weighs just 3 grams and has flapping wings. The ultra-small, remote-controlled aircraft could generate interest for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas.

DelFly Micro has a tiny on-board camera that transmits its signals to a ground station. Using software developed by TU Delft, the aircraft recognizes objects independently and transmits TV-quality images to the controlling computer. DelFly Micro can be operated from the computer and maneuvered using a joystick, as if the operator was actually in the aircraft's cockpit.

Scientists expect future versions of DelFly to be able to fly entirely independently, due to its image recognition software.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Scientists expect future versions of DelFly to be able to fly entirely independently, due to its image recognition software.


=======================================
Over at the CIA. they are drooling over the idea of tiny, poisonous flying robo-bugs charged with assassination.

I am pretty sure that the ricin-tipped umbrella assassination a while ago by the KGB was not the first.

The vision of six or seven obese spymasters crowded around a monitor cackling as the camera on the .3 gram winged insect drone  as it homes in on Hugo Chavez' ear is rather amusing to at least some people.

[Plane]

Scientists expect future versions of DelFly to be able to fly entirely independently, due to its image recognition software.


=======================================
Over at the CIA. they are drooling over the idea of tiny, poisonous flying robo-bugs charged with assassination.

I am pretty sure that the ricin-tipped umbrella assassination a while ago by the KGB was not the first.

The vision of six or seven obese spymasters crowded around a monitor cackling as the camera on the .3 gram winged insect drone  as it homes in on Hugo Chavez' ear is rather amusing to at least some people.

Oh that is Frank Herbert.http://www.dunenovels.com/

I was thinking of the Bees fired from the Martian wepons of Ray Bradbury,http://www.raybradbury.com/


Hmmmm... Can you imagine bodyguards being issued butterfly nets and tennis rackets?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Can you imagine bodyguards being issued butterfly nets and tennis rackets?

I can do better than that: I can imagine the Defense Department paying thousands of dollars for camo butterfly nets and militarized tennis rackets.

[kimba1]

get smart pointed out the serious problem about it
the huge money it cost if somebody swats it.
those thing at this early stage aint cheap

[Xavier_Onassis]

get smart pointed out the serious problem about it
the huge money it cost if somebody swats it.
those thing at this early stage aint cheap

===========================================
This depends on what you call "cheap". How much does it cost to train an assassin, get him into a position of accessability to his victim, equip him with weapons, and either get him out of dispose of him before they can squeeze info out of him?

A small robo-skeeter assassin bug could be a money-saving device for under a million bucks, I imagine. Get Smart jokes should not be taken too seriously.

[kimba1]

wrong thinking

the money is already spent on the assassin.
the device will be a added cost not a replacement and comedy or not those devices are not indestructable. so why is the subject of the lost of said device not a issue?

let`s try another line of thought
if a hitman uses a $50k rifle ,are they in the habit of tossing said rifle?
hollywood tend to portray them as heavy spender of hardware,but is that reality?
is it really no expense for a hit?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Thew biggest expense for the hit would be getting caught at it.

Suppose the US decided to take out the President of Sudan, or Robert Mugabe: if there is a hitman, he might talk, or if you kill the hitman, his friends or family might talk. There are passports and visas, and airport photos and weapons and a lot of other problems. And no, I do not believe that the hitmen have already been paid yet. They don;t keep them on retainer, like lawyers.

There is no problem with the robo-skeeter. It does its job and flies away and gets lost in the bushes.