Surveillance Robot That is Programmed To Hide 148
An anonymous reader writes "The folks over at Lockheed Martin have just released information about their new covert robot that can sneak up on buildings, detect and evade sentries, and send reconnaissance information back to the good guys. From the article: 'What makes the robot special is its ability to build a computer model of its surroundings, incorporating information on lines of sight. The robot is fitted with a laser scanner to allow it to covertly map its environment in 3D. It also has a set of acoustic sensors which it uses to distinguish nearby footsteps and their direction.'"
Re:Degrees of definition (Score:5, Informative)
"As written by the allied forces. America was not involved in the war. We were innocently sitting by, letting them fight it out. Suddenly out of nowhere, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one expected any such thing. We were not involved. Just ignore the fleet of about 100 ships in port, 3 aircraft carriers nearby, about 400 aircraft on the ground, and all the troops."
As I remember it in the US history book that I read, Japan was busy expanding to the south, China, and the Philippines in search of more land and resources. We were telling them that they needed to stop, or we'd be forced to intervene and blockade. They decided that a pre-emptive strike was in order. We didn't expect a conventional attack on Pearl, but were guarding against Japanese sabotage. They thought an attack would give them time they needed. It didn't.
"Dropping two nukes on Japan ended it. ... For the allied forces, it was a strong blow to prove our military superiority, which ended the war."
For the allied forces, it was a bluff made to prove our military superiority in an attempt to quickly end the war. If it didn't work, a long, drawn-out conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland would have killed hundreds of thousands of Allied and Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians in an operation that would have made all of the earlier Pacific operations look like cakewalks.
And it just so happens that these versions of history tie pretty closely to those espoused by the Japanese, in particular, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki. There are also several revisionist attempts, including Day of Deceit.
Just goes to show that the presentation of history isn't always as one sided as one might believe.