Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life - Gizmodo Comments

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Uncle Remus — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:54:36 EDT

The enemy would just create robot sparrows to eat our robot dragonflies. Then we would create robot cats to eat their robot sparrows. Then they would create robot dogs to eat our robot cats. Then we would create robot lions to eat their robot dogs... and finally we would create robots to create robots to fight their robots and they would create robots to counter our robot creating robots... and we could all just sit back and watch them all battle it out on tv. Of course I would have my own robot bringing me beer and making me fresh nachos while I watched.

Uncle Remus

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

GadgetPlay — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:12:40 EDT

@Guy-Fawkes: Terrorists aren't covered by the Geneva Conventions. Read'em.

GadgetPlay

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

kstop — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:41:47 EDT

Patrick Farley [www.e-sheep.com]">did it.

Unfortunately he also forgot to renew his domain, so good luck reading it.

kstop

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

gmaxwell447 — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:39:29 EDT

@OtisCabeal: Or, if you can't find mosquito netting, I'm sure you can find a wideband jammer which will incapacitate the little buggers by preventing them from communicating with the Mother Ship.

gmaxwell447

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Lester56 — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:27:47 EDT

Brought to you by Stark Industries.

Lester56

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

misterwight — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:46:14 EDT

Anyone else notice that the soldier deploying the robot that deploys more robots was actually a robot himself? Look at those arms - that's just not natural.

misterwight

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:24:04 EDT

Actually, a very awesome creation.

shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

ripfire — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:09:05 EDT

@ps61318: Stick a push-pin on its back pointing up. Problem solved!

ripfire

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

ps61318 — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:45:06 EDT

@Curves: Yeah, but what if the military encases a REAL spider or scorpion inside these things, and as soon as you smoosh one, the REAL arachnid comes out and bites you on the ankle?

What THEN? Huh?

Oh, you'd squish that too? One smooth motion you say. Not even gonna pause to draw breath, you say.... Hmmmmmm....

Alright, back to the drawing board....

ps61318

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

ps61318 — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:42:20 EDT

I was thinking more of the 'bots in Minority Report - those had retinal scanners and tasers to get people's cooperation.

Did you know (duh, of course you did) that they actually built an apartment building and took the top off for that scene? Awesome.

ps61318

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Cordfucious — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:29:45 EDT

just get me a can of RAID

Really
Annoying
Insecticon
Destroyer

That should do the trick

Cordfucious

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

pferde_schwanz — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:23:18 EDT

@ripfire4: they're powered by miniature nuclear reactors.

pferde_schwanz

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

OG512 — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:10:46 EDT

just put into battle one of those bigdog quadrupeds! that'll scare teh shit outta any terroist with an IED.

OG512

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

ripfire — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:43:01 EDT

Wow! All of the sudden, we seem to have invented a small source of unlimited battery power.

ripfire

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Guy-Fawkes — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:34:24 EDT

@ N@tedog "it's against the Geneva Convention"

So is torturing prisoners, but that didn't bother the Bush Administration, did it?

Guy-Fawkes

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Brock — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:04:18 EDT

@bms: Holy crap, I was actually thinking of that movie when I saw the picture of the spider. I would have no idea how to find any references to it however, other than reading through Tom Selleck's IMDB page an hope something jumps out at me. I bow to your pop culture mastery.

Brock

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

mricyfire — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:56:43 EDT

funny vid..anytime i see CGI i know it isnt coming out anytime soon. Also when they found the bad guys they could havve used two bullets to the back of the head, or a grenade...but no they send a plane to blow the whole building up anyways hahaha

mricyfire

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

OtisCabeal — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:43:05 EDT

Comment on Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life Tens of millions of dollars in tiny robots countered buy 10s of dollars in mosqito netting.

OtisCabeal

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

designguybrown — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:28:35 EDT

ahhh - nothing would warm my heart better than to see a flock (or is that swarm or perhaps throng or horde) of locust-bots with individual arachno-cams descending upon a herd of un-suspecting al qaeda operatives trying to flee their pending 'shredding' - CNN film at 11.

designguybrown

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:28:31 EDT

farkin sweet!!! now we need to pack a few thousand of these to pack into this guy... [gizmodo.com] and we could rule all... Peace through the uber-heebie geebies. these guys would just creep everyone into submission.

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:25:58 EDT

I'm with Curves on this one. If the remote pilot of this sucker thinks that this reconnaissance mission under my stove will be a success, I'd like to see it contend with the bottom of my size 13 vermin destroyers.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

liveinvt — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:51:37 EDT

@N@tedog: Is there a difference between a remote grenade and a missile? lol :)

liveinvt

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

qbrad — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:44:47 EDT

@zenpoet: The army is going to break out the alien tech on this one. A few more years and they'll have "discovered" H5 engiones and then we;re all screwed. Er, more than before.

qbrad

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Munch the BanNail — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:41:19 EDT

@N@tedog: Party pooper.

Munch the BanNail

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

geekinky — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:40:57 EDT

next:....."ROBO-CRABS"!
that shampoo won't kill 'em.

geekinky

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Subterfuge — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:26:53 EDT

If I wanted to watch counter-strike I would *play* counter-strike.

Would Jesus send a remote control bomb to location A or B?

Subterfuge

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

zenpoet — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:21:20 EDT

Though I do think that small scale propulsion and ambulation are probably difficult, I would assume that making reliable and servicable power sources are likely the most difficult.

I like to see that "they" continue to look to nature for examples, as obviously the subject creatures have had a few years to get their modes of movement worked out.

And by a few, I mean thousands.

zenpoet

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

N@tedog — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:20:45 EDT

@liveinvt: Ha! Touche. I bet they could turn them into remote grenades though.

N@tedog

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

liveinvt — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:18:30 EDT

@N@tedog: Those don't apply to the Pentagon. Where've you been living? Sweden?

liveinvt

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

TheCyberBob — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:17:06 EDT

Is it just me or does that spider have a certain Matrix drone look about it? You know like a beta model or something.

TheCyberBob

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

N@tedog — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:15:50 EDT

@Munch: Because its against the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Charter.

N@tedog

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

liveinvt — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:11:00 EDT

@Curves: You just killed a cop! That's a felony...

liveinvt

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

chicago111 — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:10:39 EDT

All I wanted was frickin' lasers on their frickin' heads

chicago111

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Curves — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:02:34 EDT

Mechanical or not, I see that critter and he is going to be stomped ASAP with zero regard for his rights or mission.
Squash.

Curves

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Monty — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:54:40 EDT

Right. That sounds like it is worth 38 million to me.

(Does anyone audit our defense department, aside from, you know, the defense department?)

Monty

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Argyle — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:52:55 EDT

Picture a swarm of locusts but all armed with poison stingers... It's the Future!

Argyle

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Gann — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:47:03 EDT

Replace "intelligence-gathering" with "bathroom cleaning" and I'll take a dozen or so.

Gann

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

apeguero — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:38:19 EDT

So is this the same company that had the major security breach with the JSF project?

apeguero

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

liveinvt — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:38:00 EDT

The Romulans are approaching! Shields up! Red Alert! Scotty, ready the torpedoes!

We can't sahr! She's a bloody insect!

Frak!

liveinvt

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

vote Obama — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:37:54 EDT

NCG

nice computer graphics

vote Obama

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Illusive — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:30:57 EDT

Actually it looks like it has 7 legs. Maybe they took a gimped long leg spider that had one of its legs pulled off by some elementary kid as their inspiration...

Illusive

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

DustyButt — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:26:46 EDT

When will these be armed with poisoned darts, like I asked?

Hmmm?

DustyButt

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

bms — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:26:16 EDT

Great....this is all we need.
[www.djcentral.com]

bms

Army Plans Swarms of Military Bug-Robots, Bringing Sci-Fi to Life

Munch the BanNail — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:25:28 EDT

What, no robo-mosquitos? Why not just give them terrorists robo-malaria, robo-westnile, or robo-birdflu? And that robo-spider's a pussy! 6 legs, and no cyanide-injecting fangs. I want my robo-spiders to look like they came from Arachnophobia, not Charlotte's Web.

Munch the BanNail