51–60 of 68 posts
Have any of you ever heard a small flying machine in real life? They are very noisy. If you try to "surveil" me in my hallway like that, I WILL hear your tiny wings flap, flap, flapping.
Just in case someone is wondering, we are not even remotely close to technology like this. The control problem is very hard, but the perception problem perhaps even harder, Especially when most of the processing needs to be done onboard because you need the perception to be part of the control loop and work at reasonably high frequencies. Higher-level perception tasks such as identifying power lines or people are eve…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am really not sure why the inevitable conclusion is that the US will direct every bad technology against its own citizens. Does it not occur to anyone that they might be at least as likely to be attacked by non-governmental groups?
More US Citizens have been killed by the Federal Government than by any other organized group. The military has been involved with strike breaking [1]. The military was used to suppress the southern states from seceding from the union. [2] Say what you want about the horrors of slavery, but the southern states had the right to secede and were suppressed militarily. More recently, the President has suspended the 4th a…
Sure, but a lot of this is pure scifi at this point.
really? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/flying-robots-nano-...
1. Small wing-flapping robots that can adjust to wind gusts
2. Tiny, hybrid helicopter-birdplanes that magically don't spin when in rotor-mode, despite apparently having no anti-torque mechanism whatsoever. Also they look exactly like birds when perched and when flying.
3. Device that can harvest enough waste energy from vibrating machinery for powered flight (this one might be straight-up impossible)
This sounds quite wonderful --- for the open battlefield. I quite support the use of anything humane that can reasonably improve our soldiers' intel on the ground, as intelligence is everything in a war. That said. I am terrified of the thought that this could be used against a country's own denizens, be it by the police, or by the military actively seeking out targets of their own. Furthermore, while this is being d…
I am really not sure why the inevitable conclusion is that the US will direct every bad technology against its own citizens. Does it not occur to anyone that they might be at least as likely to be attacked by non-governmental groups?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am really not sure why the inevitable conclusion is that the US will direct every bad technology against its own citizens. Does it not occur to anyone that they might be at least as likely to be attacked by non-governmental groups?
More US Citizens have been killed by the Federal Government than by any other organized group. The military has been involved with strike breaking [1]. The military was used to suppress the southern states from seceding from the union. [2] Say what you want about the horrors of slavery, but the southern states had the right to secede and were suppressed militarily. More recently, the President has suspended the 4th a…
More germane might be the experiments at Oak Ridge.
Just in case someone is wondering, we are not even remotely close to technology like this. The control problem is very hard, but the perception problem perhaps even harder, Especially when most of the processing needs to be done onboard because you need the perception to be part of the control loop and work at reasonably high frequencies. Higher-level perception tasks such as identifying power lines or people are eve…
Actually, there is commercially available optical flow sensors available today.
An optical flow sensor has very limited utility; it's possibly the least useful of all the sensors you could add to a UAV. It's inclusion in this video was purely marketing fluff for the technically illiterate, thanks to its fancier-than-it-actually-is sounding nomenclature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am really not sure why the inevitable conclusion is that the US will direct every bad technology against its own citizens. Does it not occur to anyone that they might be at least as likely to be attacked by non-governmental groups?
There's also a "Who is watching the watchers" mentality. Am I terribly concerned about the US Military using this tech? Not really, no. Am I concerned about the local police force infringing on my privacy by using these tools without a warrant, or worse, claiming that they shouldn't need a warrant before they use micro-spy drones? Yes. With the proper checks and balances in place, by all means, use powerful spy tools…
Or I would find it strange, if it were not so obvious that the agenda in focusing on the government is to advantage people like those militia groups
So .. my kids took one look at this video, groaned about the CG, then sat down and started building their own versions out of some broken Amber2 parts we had laying on the repair bench.
The Pentagon might have the deployment desire figured out, but we hobbyists are already flying drones like this, hand-made, for peaceful and fun purposes. If this ever changes, we're going to be in for a rough ride .. my kids know how to recycle a DVD drive into working micro-planes that can carry camera parts: are they going to grow up in a world where knowing how to do such things without tacit approval will be illegal?
