Hasta La Gadget!

H+, our favorite transhumanist magazine, has just published a chat with Peter Asaro, the author of a paper titled “How Just Could a Robot War Be?” In this interview (co-authored by our old friend R.U. Sirius) the gentleman from Rutgers explores the philosophical implications of things like robot civil war, robots and just war theory, and the possibilities of installing some sort of “moral agency” in the killer machines that our military increasingly relies on. But that ain’t all — the big thinkers also discuss the benefits of programming automatons to disobey (certain) orders, drop science on a certain Immanuel Kant, and more. We know you’ve been dying to explore the categorical imperative as it relates to the robot apocalypse — so hit that read link to get the party started!

Filed under: Robots

Philosopher ponders the implications of robot warfare, life with a degree in philosophy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

You may think that the Navy‘s just the baby brother to the two other US Armed Forces, but its weapon development record definitely shows otherwise. Just over two years after building an 8-Megajoule railgun, the branch has penned two $7 million checks to defense contractors Boeing and Raytheon for the design and development of a free-electron laser (FEL). For what it’s worth, such a device has been yearned for since a day after the dawn of time, as unlike chemical-based lasers, the FEL would be 100 percent electric and easier to move. For those unaware,this stormy petrel of a weapon would be used to blast down missiles in mid-flight, all while putting on a pretty impressive light show. ‘Course, the Navy must also figure out how to build a massive energy generating ship in order to use it, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here, okay?

[Image courtesy of AIP]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science

Navy shells out for development of missile-killing free-electron laser originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

It sure is nice to see that the military is paying attention to the environment, always on the lookout for greener ways to spy on people, foreign and domestic. Ion Tiger, for instance, is an unmanned vehicle being cooked up at the Naval Research Laboratory that incorporates a hydrogen fuel cell, offering many improvements on earlier battery powered designs — including a greater range (up to seven times further than that of current designs), heavier payloads, smaller size, reduced noise, a low heat signature, and zero emissions. The Office of Naval Research is making much of the possible civilian potentials for this technology, pointing out that research contributes “directly to solving some of the same technology challenges faced at the national level,” but we know the truth: the US military is in cahoots with Greenpeace. You heard it here first, folks. Video after the break.

[Via PhysOrg]

Continue reading Video: Navy UAV uses hydrogen fuel cells for greener surveillance

Filed under: Robots

Video: Navy UAV uses hydrogen fuel cells for greener surveillance originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

DARPA has put out an RFI for something called Power Skin. The technology is conceived as a structural material that would provide “its own day and night power… to be used as an independent power source and, simultaneously, serve as the structural material” for robots (see our conceptual rendering above) and unmanned aerial vehicles. Ultimately, the military-industrial complex would like to see you develop something that would allow the aforementioned UAVs “indefinite flight endurance,” although they’d be totally into it if you could demonstrate continuous flight for a mere four days. We’re fairly certain that some of our more clever readers have already developed this technology, so why don’t you hit the read link and see if you can’t make a few bucks off it? Tell ’em Engadget sent you.

[Via The Register]

Filed under: Robots

DARPA on the lookout for robotic ‘power skin’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

It’s not easy to find research in the field of robotics without military applications (or military funding), and Brown University’s latest is certainly no exception. Starting out with iRobot’s PackBot (and some pocket change from DARPA and the Office of Naval Intelligence) researchers at the school have achieved several advances that will someday produce robots that follow both verbal and nonverbal commands from a human operator, indoors and out, without the need for a controlled environment or special clothing. The goal, according to Chad Jenkins, is to develop a robot that acts “like a partner. You don’t want to puppeteer the robot. You supervise it, ‘Here’s your job. Now, go do it.'” The work is being presented this week at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in San Diego, but if you can’t make it we’ve provided a video of the thing in action just for you (after the break). We for one salute our autonomous robot overlords.

[Via PhysOrg]

Continue reading Brown University, DARPA give iRobot’s PackBot autonomy

Filed under: Robots

Brown University, DARPA give iRobot’s PackBot autonomy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments