DARPA sets sights on cameras that understand

DARPA wants to let you all know that its plans for the robot apocalypse are still going strong. The agency's got IBM working on the brains, has an RFI out on the skin, and is handling propulsion and motor control in-house. Next up? Eyeballs. In order to give its robots the same sort of "visual intelligence" currently limited to animals, DARPA is kicking off a new program called The Mind's Eye with a one-day scientific conference this April. The goal is a "smart camera" that can not only recognize objects, but also be able to describe what they're doing and why, allowing unmanned bots and surveillance systems to report back, or -- we're extrapolating here -- make tactical decisions of their own. To be clear, there's no funding or formal proposal requests for this project quite yet. But if the code does come to fruition, DARPA, please: make sure autoexec.bat includes a few Prime Directives.

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:10AM]

Directive 4 - CLASSIFIED

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:30AM]

-- engage Comic Book Guy voice --
Actually, RoboCop was a cyborg, meaning that his "cameras" were feeding images directly to his intact human brain, thus alleviating the need for a computer program to "interpret" the visual data. So, obviously your cheeky graphic is not applicable to this post.
-- disengage Comic Book Guy voice --

-- engage Apu voice --
Thank you. Come again.
-- disengage Apu voice --

[Puggs Posted Mar 18th 2010 9:15AM]

@Smart People Play Tuba
Woh... robot cop runs on MS DOS!

command.com
config.sys

I'm thinking he needs Windows 7 upgrade or at least a Linux kernel!

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 10:41AM]

@Puggs
Hey, it was 1987. What did you expect? Windows 8?

[formetopoopon Posted Mar 18th 2010 10:52AM]

@Smart People Play Tuba
Do you think Red Foreman called Murphy a dumbass before he shot him?

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 11:28AM]

@formetopoopon
How'd you like to wear your @$$ for a hat, Emil?

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 11:30AM]

Speaking of which, remember that one season of 24 that had THREE people from RoboCop? Peter Weller, Paul McCrane, AND Ray Wise. Weird.

[jubjub Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:12AM]

Have they not seen the Resident Evil movie?

[Smart People Play Tuba Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:16AM]

@jubjub
No, but apparently they've seen RoboCop.

[buoy Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:13AM]

Robocop

[Michael Scrip Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:17AM]

I love the photo:

"You are gonna be a bad motherfucker!"

http://www.moviesounds.com/robocop/badmothe.wav

[xbit Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:22AM]

I think we should lose the axe.

[Einlander Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:25AM]

These people are noobs, Bios comes before command.com and it apparently is showing the contents of the autoexec.bat file, and from the looks of it they have @echo off, and are narrating it themselves.

Excuse my while i wipe windows off and install dos 7.0 (the xp version)

[nachotech Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:39AM]

I foresee a day when we have unmanned drones with smart cameras that can think for themselves. All hail our robot overlords!

[trevoreon Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:40AM]

Does confronting the robots with a paradox still cause system errors or are we doomed? What am I saying.. Microsoft is probably making paradox protection software based off the Bing search engine.

[Snake Robot Podium Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:41AM]

Cameras just don't understand

[rederikus Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:42AM]

It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it just runs programs (Short Circuit 1).

This technology has more application in civilian life than military, I think. Human pattern recognition - which person is behaving strangely in the parking lot (trying all the car door handles one after another), watching to see if someone has become separated from theiy back pack and then keeping track of the bag and the person and then alerting an operator.

[mattisdada Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:46AM]

I loved the inclusion of autoexec.bat! Go Engadget!

[tonyunreal Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:48AM]

I'll buy THAT for a dollar!

[Gorilla800lbs Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:51AM]

Another brilliant pic selection.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2010 8:56AM]

No wonder Murphy went rogue - he was being forced to run Vista.

[Plazmic Flame Posted Mar 18th 2010 9:42AM]

Robocop FTW :)

Smart Cameras from Big Brother FTL :(

[n1hmrd Posted Mar 18th 2010 11:45AM]

of course he running on dos ,he is a machine ,you think robocop needs social networking,zune,facebook,xbox live,psn ,lastfm,firefox,chrome? nah he says all i need is dos with maybe a simple paint program so he can make him a new target cursor

[supercarl Posted Mar 18th 2010 1:37PM]

They will probably use a pair of Google Goggles on them robots!

[warhawk Posted Mar 18th 2010 2:49PM]

@supercarl : n then, destroy anythin which looks like a 'certain' fruit!!

[glennS Posted Mar 18th 2010 1:54PM]

Robocop was such a surprisingly good movie, considering that it started with such a hokey concept.

[froggy Posted Mar 18th 2010 2:44PM]

edit autoexec.bat

REM directive 1
REM directive 2

save. enjoy the ensuing chaos.

[warhawk Posted Mar 18th 2010 2:47PM]

Its a good thing I dont look even a bit like John Connor....so technically speakin....I'm safe...YAY!!!

[jinjin Posted Mar 18th 2010 7:01PM]

@warhawk cuz the terminators don't kill other humans?

[logicbombde Posted Mar 18th 2010 5:32PM]

"Dick Jones!!!!

I work for Dick Jones!!!"

[SiXiam Posted Apr 28th 2010 8:26PM]

@logicbombde
He works for OCP.
OCP owns the cops.
Your a cop...

[Velius Posted Apr 14th 2010 1:56PM]

Armageddon sneaked up

[xconan Posted Apr 23rd 2010 9:36PM]

Is this the making of HAL?

[huangqiao55 Posted May 23rd 2010 10:44PM]

i hope one day i can travel all over the world with my smart camera one day.
http://www.wholesaleinc.net/dt1158p-24-inch-tft-lcd-digital-zoom-camera-with-50-mage-pixel_p250.html

http://www.wholesaleinc.net/5mp-cmos-8x-digital-zoom-digital-camera-with-24-inch-lcd-dc500_p251.html

[JasonShershefsky Posted Jun 14th 2010 4:44PM]

Why is Robocop running a pre-windows 98 version of DOS?