They probably ought to consider developing some good hand cream while they’re at it.
You’ve just got to paint it a different color and charge about 10,000 times as much, and you’ve got yourself a credible piece of military gear there.
If I remember right, the police in the 1984 Tom Selleck film Runaway had devices very similar to this.
Will it also froth my milk?
Holy shit. I was thinking the same thing, I just couldn’t remember the name of the movie.
Yeah I was thinking probably available off the toy store shelf these days.
I imagine the army version is a little more durable and has better range and battery life.
Not the most memorable flick. As far as I can recall it was just a standard “oh noes the robots we’ve come to depend on are starting to turn against us” flick. Basically I, Robot with worse special effects and less product placement.
You are correct. The Floater. Bit bigger though: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1038
I really hope these little bugs can’t deliver Hellfire missiles.
Oh wow, it’s easy to forget how much electronics have shrunk since then. Nowadays you’d probably just control the thing from a smartphone instead of a huge TV display built into a car dashboard.
one day there won’t be any hiding from anyone… when we can finally bioengineer a fly that can transmit video, suddenly “being a fly on the wall” won’t be just a figure of speech anymore.
Nah, it’ll be more on the scale of a ricin-injecting needle.
While you’re just looking at it, it will be looking at you…
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal8/7001-7100/gal7072-H-21-Harr/00.shtm
Strange. I thought this was a Norwegian drone, it even has the same name. http://www.proxdynamics.com/products/pd-100-black-hornet
For only a $6400 premium!
Harvard, for one, is working on it. One of the drivers will be robot bees because we’ve killed off the real ones and most of the other pollinators. Have to reread The Glass Bees sometime.
The Glass Bees by Ernst JĂĽnger
NY: Ny Review of Books, 1957, 1960
ISBN 0-940322-55-2
(x) JĂĽnger understands that technology is pursued not to accelerate progress but to intensify power.
(41) They [workmen] possessed time in the way rich men possess money. The rich man’s wealth is founded on his purse, and not on his manner of spending money. You sense his wealth by the way he carries himself.
(64) But that is no reason to accuse God. Even if there are reasons to doubt him, the fact that he did not arrange the world like a well-ordered parlor is not one of them. It rather speaks in his favor. This used to be much better understood.
(146) As soon as the opaque figures [the glass bees] emerged, I began to become uneasy and puzzled; this, too, is typical of an age when hierarchy is determined by mastery of technical apparatuses and when technics have become destiny.
(153) My unlucky star had destined me to be born when there was much talk about morality and, at the same time, more murders than in any other period. There is, undoubtedly, some connection between these two phenomena.
(164-165) He instilled in us a new concept of authority - the admiration for a leader whom one obeys blindly. Such a leader occupies not only our thoughts and ambitions by day, but our dreams by night. This domination, reaching into the world of our dreams, is an unmistakable symptom. As soon as one begins to dream of someone - whether pleasantly or in a nightmare - one becomes a captive. One is even expected to dream of a good author: then he begins to become a force.
(180) A physical touch creates a new relationship. One has to resign one’s self to it.
(187) To rouse admiration and terror has at all times been a concern of the great.
(195) Objects which enthrall us also present a mental afterimage, an intuitive counterimage which reveals that part of perception which we have suppressed. Suppression takes place in any perception; to perceive means to eliminate.
NB: Jungian shadow
I love this stuff. Because they are thinking it will be useful in combat, and others are thinking it will be useful for spying on dissidents etc.
Meanwhile, as with all technology after a bit of a lag, it will become yet another way for little people to undermine the power of the powerful.
When the kings saw cannons and firearms they thought - hooray, a way to smash my enemies. After a bit of a lag, a peasant thought along similar lines, and realized that he could point it at that king over there.
Technology is inherently disruptive. And the powerful always suffer from the delusion that a new tech will make them more powerful - which is true, but only for a little while.
Just Heckember ones.
