Drones Vs. Man

I took this photo of this man and drone in Florida. 

Look how close this machine is flying to his head!

Aside from the surveillance capabilities and offsetting privacy issues, these are bringing some dangerous fighting capabilities anywhere and everywhere.

Just today, I read about how the U.S. shot down an armed Syrian drone–presumably made and deployed by Iran!

I guess it’s not proprietary technology anymore!

As drones and robots become better, faster, and cheaper and ubiquitous on the battlefield and on main street, who will be (relatively) safe anymore? 

Unless of course, my drones are stronger than your drones!

It’s going to be a war of technology and machines more than ever before. 

Small ones like insects, swarms of them like engulfing locust, and large ones like Godzilla. 

What was once human flesh against a steel blade, arrow, and then bullet is now going to be an superfast artificially intelligent, armed to the hilt “man of steel” (and they don’t miss) against just regular everyday people.

Don’t hurt your hand punching that Robot in the face. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Killer Bots–Massive and Nano

There are big deadly weapons to worry about, such as weapons of mass destruction that come on an ICBM or even in a suitcase bomb to frightening armies of massive killer robots.

And then there are small nanobot weapons to worry about–which don’t sound like much, but they could be the ultimate killer machines.

About 10 nanometers make up the width of a human hair, so we are talking about microscopic or bug size weaponized drones. 

Nanobots can be manufactured or scarily can be self-replicating. 

They can fly alone or in massive swarms. 

They can surreptitiously enter/exit and carry out their missions virtually undetected. 

Whether surveillance or delivering a mini-nuke or a toxin.

Nanobots could function like a biological weapon killing millions–targeted or indiscriminately. 

Cambridge University forecasts a 5% chance that nanotech weapons could cause a human extinction level event by the year 2,100. 

Soon wars will not be fought by people any longer–by rather by robots and nanobots.

People are too fragile for fighting and war against ruggedized and militarized bots that are designed for one purpose only…to kill, kill, kill. 

Terminators are coming–from massive to nanoscale–and mere humans will be dogmeat to these killing machines.

Add in a cyber warfare component that will turn off 21st century civilization leaving us to fend as if we were back in the stone ages, and overpopulation is the last and funniest joke any of us will ever tell. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Ex Machina Will Even Turn The Terminator

So this was a really cool display at the Movie theater yesterday…

They had this head of the Terminator in a enclosed case and roped off. 

Shiny metal alloy skull, buldging bright evil red eyes, and really grotesque yellowed teeth. 

This certainly gets the attention of passerbys for the upcoming new movie, Terminator Genisys (coming out July 1). 

Anyway, Terminator is the ugly dude especially when compared with the robot/artificial intelligence of Ava in Ex Machina that we saw yesterday. 

The Turing test is nothing for Ava!

She can not only fool them as to her humanity, but also outmanuever them with her wit, sexuality, and a good dose of deceit and manipulation. 

Frankly, I think AI Ava could even turn the terible Terminator to her side of things–my bet is that movie to come in 2017. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Robots Reach The Clouds

So robots have reached the clouds before many of our government agencies have–who would’ve thought?

 

Bloomberg Businessweek reports how robotic activities are being stored in the cloud and are then accessible to other robots to learn from and repeat as necessary.

 

The “cloud servers essentially [are] a shared brain” where memories and experiences are uploaded and accessed by other robots with a need to know the same thing.

 

The cloud is the means of transfer learning from one robot to the other.

 

It serves like a master neural network where the Internet provides the how-to for everything from serving juice to patients in a hospital to functioning as autonomous warbots in battle.

 

Like the Borg on Star Trek with a collective brain, the cloud may become the mastermind for everything from day-to-day functioning to taking over the species of the universe.

 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Halo Arrives To Our Warfighters

So excited about the Army’s experimental Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS).

This is really our fast, strong, and agile fighting force of the future.

The integration of technologies for the individual warfighter, including sensors, exoskeleton body armor, weapon systems, communications, and monitoring of health and power makes this an unbelievable advance.

I think the MIT research on magnetorheological fluids–which convert from liquid to solid body armor in milliseconds (sort of like Terminator 2) with a magnetic field or electric current (controlled, so the enemy doesn’t bog down the forces) is a true game changer for balancing agility and force protection.

In the future, I believe these suits will even incorporate capabilities to drive, dive, and fly.

This will complement unmanned swarms of dumb drones with intelligent human fighters that will take the battlefield on Earth and beyond. 😉

Repair Robots In Space

This is a cool video by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on project Phoenix–which is a robot that can repair satellites in space and re-use components from retired satellites around it.

Phoenix can intercept, scavenge, and rebuild satellites in space–while orbiting above the Earth at 22,000 miles!

In the corner of the video, you can see progress being made in the lab, and in the main video frame you can see an animated version of how this would actually be put to use.

Machines working on, building, and repairing machines!

Like the fulfillment of a Terminator-like society, where machines can function with autonomy, eventually learning, self-healing, and even propagating.

I would imagine that these machines can help not only repurpose and recycle material in space to good use and fix things, but also they can clean up the space junk in orbit–similar to street sweeper trucks in Manhattan!

Eventually, these robots will travel to distance worlds–first Mars–to build human colonies and maintain them in inhospitable environments.

In mythology, Phoenix is a bird that regenerates and is reborn–in this case, this may be the beginning of the rebirth of human civilization throughout the galaxy. 😉

Robot Fighters Coming Soon

I love keeping up with the latest in robotics, especially when it comes to battlefield versions.

The Wall Street Journal (19 August 2011) featured QinetiQ’s Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) today as “America’s Newest Soldiers.”

MAARS features tank treads, days and night vision cameras, a 4-barrel 40mm high-explosive grenade launcher, and a M240B 7.62mm machine gun.

“It can stand sentry at a checkpoint and warn people away with a police style hailer, a nonblinding laser, tear gas or smoke grenades.  As a last resort, it can fire lethal rounds.”

Watching this thing, I imagine the D Day landings in Normandy would’ve looked a lot different with a swarm of these fellows landing on those bullet-riddled beaches.

The nature of the fight is changing and whoever stands in front of one of these armed robots (and even better next generation versions to come) better be prepared to say “bye bye, it was nice knowing you.”  😉

(Source Photo: here)

>Seeing things Differently with Augmented Reality

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One of the most exciting emerging technologies out there is Augmented Reality (AR). While the term has been around since approximately 1990, the technology is only really beginning to take off now for consumer uses.

In augmented reality, you layer computer-generated information over real world physical environment. This computer generated imagery is seen through special eye wear such as contacts, glasses, monocles, or perhaps even projected as a 3-D image display in front off you.

With the overlay of computer information, important context can be added to everyday content that you are sensing. This takes place when names and other information are layered over people, places, and things to give them meaning and greater value to us.

Augmented reality is really a form of mashups, where information is combined (i.e. content aggregration) from multiple sources to create a higher order of information with enhanced end-user value.

In AR, multiple layers of information can be available and users can switch between them easily at the press of a button, swipe of a screen, or even a verbal command.

Fast Company, November 2009, provides some modern day examples of how this AR technology is being used:

Yelp’s iPhone App—“Let’s viewers point there phone down a street and get Yelp star ratings for merchants.”

Trulia for Android—“The real-estate search site user Layar’s Reality Browser to overlay listings on top of a Google phone’s camera view. Scan a neighborhood’s available properties and even connect to realtors.”

TAT’s Augmented ID— “Point your Android phone at a long-lost acquaintance for his Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube activity.”

Michael Zollner, an AR researcher, puts it this way: “We have a vast amount of data on the Web, but today we see it on a flat screen. It’s only a small step to see all of it superimposed on our lives.”

Maarteen Lens-FitzGerald, a cofounder of Layar, said: “As the technology improves, AR apps will be able to recognize faces and physical objects [i.e. facial and object recognition] and render detailed 3-D animation sequences.”

According to Fast Company, it will be like having “Terminator eyes,” that see everything, but with all the information about it in real time running over or alongside the image.

AR has been in use for fighter pilots and museum exhibits and trade shows for a number of years, but with the explosive growth of the data available on the Internet, mobile communication devices, and wireless technology, we now have a much greater capability to superimpose data on everything, everywhere.

The need to “get online” and “look things up” will soon be supplanted by the real time linkage of information and imagery. We will soon be walking around in a combined real and virtual reality, rather than coming home from the real world and sitting down at a computer to enter a virtual world. The demarcation will disappear to a great extent.

Augmented reality will bring us to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness in using information to act faster, smarter, and more decisively in all our daily activities personally and professionally and in matters of commerce and war.

With AR, we will never see things the same way again!

>Cutting the Budget the Easy Way

>http://twitvid.io/embed/abv1

Arnold Schwarzenegger , “the Terminator”, definitely knows how to cut the budget–with a 2 foot long knife. Yikes!

But all kidding aside, while many critical services were cut to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit in the state of California, Governor Schwartzenegger manages to keep his cool. He posted this video of himself–combining some unique star humor with crowdsourcing–engaging people on new ideas to solve the crisis.

For The Total CIO, this is a great lesson in humility, working on difficult problems (no, not with a knife!), and reaching out to people with humor and passion to get the job done.

Good job Terminator!

>Cybots to the Rescue

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In the Star Trek series Voyager, the (cyb)Borg wants to assimilate everyone (literally every species and they are given numbers to keep track of them) throughout the galaxies into their collective. They are an existential threat to humankind. And it makes for some great science fiction entertainment.

In real life though, the cybots are coming not to harm, but to help people.

Government Computer News, 23 February 2009, reports that Oak Ridge National Lab is working on developing cybots (software robots) to defend us in cyberspace.

Cybots are “intelligent enough to cooperate with one another to monitor and defend the largest networks.”

What makes cybots more effective than the software and hardware security we have today?

“Instead of independent devices doing a single task and reporting to a central console, the cybots would collaborate to accomplish their missions.”

The end state is a virtual cybot army deployed so those seeking to do us harm in cyber-warfare will themselves be the ones for whom “resistance is futile”.

Could cybots end up like the the Cylones in Battlestar Galactica or the machines in Terminator that turn on humans?

The Cybots have a programmed mission such as “network monitoring and discovery, intrusion detection, and data management.” So the hope is that they stay true to those things.

However, to me it seems completely plausible that just as cybots can be developed for defensive capabilities, they can also be programmed for offensive cyber warfare. And if they can be used offensively, then we can end up on the wrong side of the cybots someday.

Where does this leave us?

It seems like cyberspace is about to get a whole lot more complicated and dangerous—with not only human cyber-criminals and –warriors, but also cyber robots that can potentially wreak Internet havoc.

In terms of planning for future IT security, we need to stay technologically on the cutting edge so that we stay ahead of our adversaries as well as in constant control of the new defensive and offensive cyber-weapons that we are developing.