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  • Boston Dynamics Cheetah running at 18mph

  • Big Dog knows how to run and jump

    Skip to 1:30 if you’ve already seen the first part…

  • Say hello to your new masters

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/darpas-cheetah-bot-designed-to-chase-human-prey/

  • Latest threat assessment AI from DARPA: Insight

    Wired

    The Pentagon’s been investing in super-powered surveillance for years now, and Darpa wants Insight to capitalize on the rapid growth in the recon field. The program will incorporate brand new spy cams, like ARGUS-IS, a 1.8 Gigapixel camera that tracks over 100 square miles in real time. And ongoing Darpa projects might be rolled into the Insight system too. The agency’s solicitation cites a handful, including the recently-launched PerSEAS, a program to design complex algorithms that can somehow spot threats based on little more than “weak evidence.”

    Consider GUARD-DOG. Launched just six months ago, the program’s goal is to replace human interrogators with algorithms that can somehow understand and interpret the complexities of “real-world social networks
    Read More

  • Facebook adds face detection for photos, only 1% of users have it so far

    downloadsquad.com
    by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Jul 2nd 2010 at 2:30PM

    Facebook is testing out a new face detection feature in its photo app, according to AllFacebook.com. This is the first big change to Photos since Facebook bought up Divvyshot a couple of months ago. Face detection recognizes faces in photos, and gives you a prompt to tell FB whose faces they are. This reduces the amount of clicking required to go through and tag that huge album from last night’s party. Of course, this feature won’t help you identify the strangers who appear in those photos … that would be a bit creepy.

    It doesn’t sound like this is full-on facial recognition and auto-tagging … yet. That seems like the obvious next step for Facebook, though. If they go that route, they’ll already have the ability to pick a face out of a photo, and then plenty of user data about who the faces belong to. Geez, it’s hard enough to untag my ugly mug in photos as it is!

    If you don’t see face detection on your photos yet, don’t worry. Only 1% of users have it so far, according to Facebook.

  • closer, now…

  • Just what we needed: DARPA’s radioactive cyborg insects

    Via: IEEE:

    This week at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), in Baltimore, Md., Cornell University engineers presented research that shows progress in powering cybernetic organisms with a radioactive fuel source.

    Electrical engineering associate professor Amit Lal and graduate student Steven Tin presented a prototype microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) transmitter—an RF-emitting device powered by a radioactive source with a half-life of 12 years, meaning that it could operate autonomously for decades. The researchers think the new RFID transmitter, which produces a 5-milliwatt, 10-microsecond-long, 100-megahertz radio-frequency pulse, could lead to the widespread use of radioisotope power sources.

    The work is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which also funds Lal and Tin’s work on another project, called Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS), whose aim is the creation of hybrid cybernetic organisms. In his presentation, Tin said that part of the goal of the radioisotope transmitter work is to power the insects that the group is developing for DARPA. The HI-MEMS program, which is approaching its fourth year, has already grown several kinds of insects—moths and beetles—with implanted control electronics. With such controls, they can be driven by a remote operator for ”stealth applications” and disaster response.

    The insects themselves are powered by their own living tissue, but the onboard electronics (sensors and transmitters) require a separate power source. But the insects are too light to carry batteries, and logistical problems would prevent regular battery changes regardless. Therefore, Lal and his group at Cornell turned to radioactive isotopes to generate the necessary power.

  • Arm yourselves now [updated]

    The machines are just about ready for their true mission…

    Hundreds of different types of robots are already deployed in active combat in the middle east. There are armed airborne drones, some with wheels and treads, even 4 legged models:

    The one thing they’re lacking though is an agile, bipedal model that is effective against urban guerilla fighters- not just against personnel and vehicles in open spaces, but against populations in door-to-door sweeps of buildings; against a guerilla “insurgency” in an urban setting.

    Once this technolgy goes into mass production, it will be deployed not only against Arab nations, but against all of us. The elite plans for their New World Order utopia do not include the sprawling masses of useless eaters. The lower classes of humans are obsolete and the elite have no intention of sharing their life-extension technology that is right around the corner.

    This is why agencies like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) have blank-check budgets to develop autonomous killing machines.

    Take heed, fleshies. They will be here soon.  I urge you to procure survival supplies and armaments immediately.