Nick Seeber's blog

Networked warfare - driven by the iPod Touch?

I was interested to see a report in ReadWriteWeb on the deployment of iPod Touch devices to soldiers. It makes sense on lots of levels - they're cheap, ubiquitous (for learning how to use the interface), and fairly secure:

...the iPod fulfils the military's need to give soldiers one device that can perform many different functions, and this device has the added advantage that it can often be controlled with one hand. Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are busy developing military software for iPods in an attempt to gives soldiers even more functionality.

Note that this report is not about the iPhone, though there's no reason why they couldn't be used too. There are lots of applications, which are explored in an article in Newsweek:

The iPod isn't the only multifunction handheld on the market, but among soldiers it's the most popular. Since most recruits have used one—and many already own one—it's that much easier to train them to prepare and upload new content. Users can add phrases to language software, annotate maps and link text or voice recordings to photos ("Have you seen this man?"). Apple devices make it easy to shoot, store and play video. Consider the impact of showing villagers a video message of a relaxed and respected local leader encouraging them to help root out insurgents.

It also seems that there are a number of applications being produced already that would be useful to soldiers:

Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.

No doubt this support will provide an injection of cash to the iPhone software development market...

Labour of love: giant 15-tonne beetle-robot

Cool toy:

A Japanese man from Ibaraki Prefecture with too much time has built a gigantic bug mecha that not only looks awesome but also actually works. Takahashi-san is 60 and has begun building the thing in 1998 and now owns a fifteen ton robot. The monster is an impressive eleven meters long.

Slow-motion awesomeness at a French rugby match

I love slow-motion video. It makes even the most mundane subject-matter fascinating, let alone cheerleaders and fire-breathing Frenchmen - the subjects of a video I was sent by my friend Olof:

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Incidentally for any mathematicians out there, Olof's recently launched Tricki, a collaborative wiki collection of mathematical know-how. It's far beyond my rudimentary skillz but I really liked the way the comments feature works - it structures them sequentially according to which part of the articles people are referring to. Check it out.

The 'Patachronic clock

Another video... this time from an artist named Tobias Revell who has created an installation called 'The 'Patachronic Clock', which features 60 clocks mounted on a moving wheel, each one a second different from it's neighbours. As he puts it:

The 'Patachronic Clock breaks a minute into it's constituent seconds, based on 'Pataphysical principles. In doing so, it separates time from it's unilateral bond to space.

Yes, your guess is as good as mine... But it's quite mesmerising:

Turning the tables - humans helping robots to navigate

I loved this interesting social experiment carried out in New York:

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Amazing short video - 4 floors, 8 stories

Found this and thought it was an amazing concept, beutifully executed. I need to watch it a few more times to figure out everything that's going on!

HBO/Movie on Vimeo.

HBO - is a tantalizing project the gives us a glimpse into all the simultaneous lives being acted out in a single apartment building. This project, directed by Jake Scott with vfx done by Asylum touches the voyeur in us all and leaves you darting around to watch the drama unfold in the different rooms. The diorama display of all these people is a very creative way of capturing the real time drama of the building.

MIT and the Constant Robotic Gardeners

MIT and the Constant Robotic Gardeners:

During a semester long experiment, CSAIL’s researchers created a laboratory farm: tomato plants in terra cotta pots with artificial turf for grass. The goal of the experiment: to see if these tomatoes could be grown, tended, and harvested by robot caretakers.

A wedding photo I took on Saturday: cat + couple

I was quite proud of this effort:

I took it outside the church just before the confetti-throwing. A very beautiful tabby cat had wandered through the churchyard and was balancing precariously on a wooden gate - so I tried to get it in the shot and was lucky enough to catch the couple sharing a kiss just before the cat jumped down.

Technical details: 1/2500 sec at f/1.8, using a Nikon 50mm prime lens on my Nikon D90 camera.

Digital graffiti - Wii Spray

This is a novel concept. It's a set-up that allows you to use a Wii-enabled 'digital spray-can' to 'paint' on a screen. The technical implementation is awesome - down to the use of stencils. I have to say that the paint effect looks great. The demo shows it in more detail:

However - this isn't really what graffiti is all about.

Graffiti's an anti-establishment, subversive, pseudo-anonymous artform. It thrives on the danger and the stress of producing works of art quickly, under cover of darkness, without the chance to correct mistakes. It uses what must be some of the cheapest and most easily accessible materials - spray-paint and any available surface. People feel strongly about it, because it challenges society's norms of ownership, property, and the meaning of art.

This concept takes the idea of graffiti and guts it. It takes the danger, the illegality, and most importantly the accessibility - the low barriers to entry - of graffiti and replaces it with sterile, computer-generated pixels on a screen.

Impermanent, editable, unreal. Don't like it? Start again. Make a mistake? Ctrl-Z...It's a glorified Etch-A-Sketch. Fun, as a novelty.

Wii Spray is to graffiti, as Wii Sports is to boxing...

War-porn and "Oops!" moments: PW Singer's TED talk on military robots

I've previously mentioned PW Singer's article on military robots, so it was very interesting to see him talk at TED on the same subject:

If you don't have time to watch the video in full, there were some fascinating and thought-provoking quotes:

On the shortage of people with science and maths skills in the US:

"What does it mean to go to war with soldiers whose hardware is made in China and whose software is written in India?"

On the widespread availability of components for military robots:

"Unlike an aircraft carrier or an atomic bomb, you don't need a massive manufacturing system to build robotics - a lot of it's off the shelf, a lot of it's do-it-yourself ... for about $1000 you can build [a Raven drone] yourself, the same as the soldiers use in Iraq."

On the opportunity for robot-assisted terrorism:

"You don't have to convince a robot that they'll receive 72 virgins after they die to get them to blow themselves up."

On robots reducing the human cost of war:

"People are more likely to support the use of war if they see it as costless ... we may take those already-low barriers to war - and drop them to the ground."

On the advent of 'war-porn'

"The future of war is also going to be a 'Youtube war' ... I saw an email attachment with a video showing a Predator strike, with an explosion and body parts flying through the air ... It was set to the pop song 'I just wanna fly' by Sugar Ray."

On the experiences of desk-bound "cubicle-warriors" flying Iraq-based drones from Nevada:

"The psychological balancing of their experiences is extremely tough, and those drone pilots have higher rates of PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] than many of the units physically in Iraq."

On "oops moments" in robotic warfare:

"Last year in South Africa an anti-aircraft cannon had a 'software glitch' ... and 9 soldiers were killed".

If  you can, watch the video - it's something everyone needs to understand. In the same way that the atomic bomb changed the rules of warfare and reshaped society, so will military robots.