Softpedia
 

NEWS CATEGORIES:



NEWS ARCHIVE >>
SOFTPEDIA REVIEWS >>
MEET THE EDITORS >>
Home > News > Technology and Gadgets > Robots

August 3rd, 2007, 07:41 GMT · By Roxana Deduleasa

Man Vs Machine, Round 1! First Armed "Terminator" Robots Deployed in Iraq!

SHARE:

Adjust text size:


SWORDS Robots
Enlarge picture
Oh My God! It's not like it wasn't expected or anything, but this time, it's for real. Cold steeled killing machines robots were seen on the streets of Iraq ever since the war began, but they weren't carrying guns. Until now. It takes years of development, millions of dollars and a lot of sick evil minds to do this.

It's true, this killing way is economic, it's blood free and mostly quite efficient against the poor enemies armed with nothing but traditional weapons than can be purchased by any loaded teenager in the States. The robots have been deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns, which are part of the NATO adoption of the guns since the early 80s.

According to the DANGER ROOM, Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager said that three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have been deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns. The 'bots' haven't fired their weapons yet. But that'll be happening soon."

Even though there were serious reasons of concerns regarding safety issues that kept the "Terminators" off the battlefield, the manufactures produced the SWORDS, which are modified versions of bomb-disposal robots that can be seen throughout Iraq.

Is this the future?
Enlarge picture
After noticing that the robots had a tendency to spin out of control from time to time, The manufactures retooled the machines and improved the answer to commands to less than 1 sec. Therefore, the robots won't act on a command, unless they receive a specific order. A three-part arming process is followed before firing and what's the most important, they come with self-destruction switches, in case they show any awkward behavior. "So now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," Zecca says quite easily for the "Danger Room".

The "National Defense" magazine informed that there are only three robots of this kind deployed in Iraq, but Zecca says he's ready to send even more machines on the battlefield the minute he'll find the funds for that, as he says: "but we don't have the money".

Is this the beginning of the end?

Here's a video to be more specific:



Shocked yet?

We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

2,569 hits · Link to this article · Print article · Send to friend · Subscribe to news

MUST-READ RELATED ARTICLES:


New Household Robots Like ASIMO Take Tai Chi Lessons to Improve Agility

Robotic Dogs Could Be Sent to Mars, Though No One Could Hear Them Bark

If Armed Autonomous Robot Kills Humans, Who's Guilty of Murder?

Meet Kuka "All Mighty", The World's Strongest Robot!

Jumping Robot Demonstrates the Highest Jumps So Far and Could Be Used on Mars

READER COMMENTS:



No user comments yet.
Be the first to express your opinion!
Copyright © 2001-2012 Softpedia. Contact/Tip us at

WindowsGamesDriversMacLinuxScriptsMobileHandheldNews

SUBMIT PROGRAM   |   ADVERTISE   |   GET HELP   |   SEND US FEEDBACK   |   RSS FEEDS   |   UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE   |   ROMANIAN FORUM