Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The rise in unmanned aerial vehicles these days should alarm quite a few. I have watched this progress to this point from a child playing video games. When I was young, I knew that one day, remote controlled aircrafts would be used in the armed forces, and highly trained video game pilots would control them from a remote location.

Sure enough, eventually we got to that point. Look at a few lines from this article about the US and UK putting unmanned aerial vehicles into their arsenal.

The US Air Force has announced it has ordered a further quartet of MQ-9 'Reapers', worth $59m, to supplement its initial fleet of seven.

A decision on full-rate production is expected in 2009. Meanwhile, the head of the Royal Air Force said last week that the UK will also deploy its first fully-armed Reapers "later this year".

The MQ-9 is the most formidable killer robot currently in operation. It's a big beast, 36 feet long with an 86-foot wingspan. It can fly for 14 hours without refuelling, going at a maximum speed of 300mph and as high as 50,000 feet - nine and a half miles up.

The US Air Force describes it as an "unmanned hunter/killer weapon system". This term might perhaps have been coined by a fan of the classic Terminator movies, in which dystopian future battlegrounds are overflown by murderous Flying-HK death-droids intent on wiping out the last vestiges of human resistance to the machine overlords.

Look at this article that discusses how the machines can work completely "hands-off" after telling it what to do.

...Scan Eagle recce drones used by the US Marines and Navy can now be autonomously handled in groups by intelligent software. Completely hands-off, they can be told to sweep a given area. They can be informed of an important target - for instance a suspicious vehicle - using only a cellphone/PDA, and move in without further input to gather video and follow the target covertly.

...the US Navy has recently awarded a contract for a full-sized drone demonstrator jet able to operate from carriers autonomously, and has already proven that Fire Scout robo-copters can land themselves on ships underway at sea.

These machines aren't good for our future. Imagine what is to come 20 years from now from the companies developing these. You really should investigate these things for yourself.

The Age Of Spiritual Machines

Read the Prologue to Ray Kurzweil's book. It gives some good insight to the possible near-future in the age of information and supercomputers. He also has a few other chapters available online to read.

The gambler had not expected to be here. But on reflection, he thought he had shown some kindness in his time. And this place was even more beautiful and satisfying than he had imagined. Everywhere there were magnificent crystal chandeliers, the finest handmade carpets, the most sumptuous foods, and, yes, the most beautiful women, who seemed intrigued with their new heaven mate. He tried his hand at roulette, and amazingly his number came up time after time. He tried the gaming tables, and his luck was nothing short of remarkable: He won game after game. Indeed his winnings were causing quite a stir, attracting much excitement from the attentive staff, and from the beautiful women.

This continued day after day, week after week, with the gambler winning every game, accumulating bigger and bigger earnings. Everything was going his way. He just kept on winning. And week after week, month after month, the gambler's streak of success remained unbreakable.

After a while, this started to get tedious. The gambler was getting restless; the winning was starting to lose its meaning. Yet nothing changed. He just kept on winning every game, until one day, the now anguished gambler turned to the angel who seemed to be in charge and said that he couldn't take it anymore. Heaven was not for him after all. He had figured he was destined for the "other place" nonetheless, and indeed that is where he wanted to be.

"But this is the other place," came the reply.

License Plate Surveillance

For the past week, while driving to work I have seen this truck on different on-ramps to the freeway. I noticed that each day he was at an on-ramp closer to mine. I wanted to catch a pic of it, but never had my camera. However, today I had a feeling, and grabbed the cam. As luck would have it, this bad boy was parked right on the side of my on-ramp!

I pulled up to it slowly and zoomed my camera in on it. I stopped right near it, took a snap, and noticed a young man walk out from inside. He walked in front of my car, with his hand out, telling me to stop (I was already stopped). He started saying "Taking pictures of this is illegal, I need you to delete the photo in front of me" as he walked to my window. I replied with "Are you taking photos with this truck?" and he said "yes". I looked at him and laughed and told him to "kiss my ass, I know what you're doing here!" as I sped off with the photo in hand!

Take a close look at the picture. You really need to see the larger version.

Notice the setup? There is a radar machine that takes a photo when the car passes, which I'm sure is set up to a computer that organizes the photos and license plate numbers into a database. I should have asked him if he was working for homeland security.

The truck seems to be sporting an Arizona license plate "NE-69098".

This machine is just collecting a list of on-ramps different people use. They want to know everything they can about everything you do. Watch for similar systems to be set up on your on-ramp soon! Expect them to look a bit less invasive as well, this is most likely a test-run. They will probably end up as tiny boxes on the side of all the freeway entrances.

Get in touch if you know anything about these trucks.

Military Using Robot Flies As Spy's

Imagine a world where you are not sure if you can say or do a thing without knowing if there is a government spy watching you. That is the world coming into view here. The military has been after technology that would help them spy on us, and the less likely we are to know they are spying, the better.

Scientists at Harvard have invented a robotic fly to send on reconnaissance missions in areas too dangerous for humans, such as those contaminated by chemical or biological weapons.

It can also be used to find hidden bombs and in search missions.

The "flybot", which can fit on a fingertip, is made of lightweight carbon and weighs less than a pin.

Researchers, led by Professor Robert Wood, spent seven years on the project with the backing of the US military.

"The real benefit of the fly is that from a military aspect, you probably wouldn't be able to notice it," said Prof Wood.

Full Article @ Sky News