Point-and-Shoot: TrackingPoint's New Linux-Controlled AR-15s 219
Ars Technica takes a look at the next generation of TrackingPoint's automatically aimed rifles (not "automatic" in the usual sense), and visited the shooting range where they're tested out. Like the company's previous generation of gun (still in production, and increasingly being sold to government buyers), TrackingPoint's offerings integrate a Linux computer that makes acquiring and tracking a target far easier and more accurate than it would otherwise be. Unlike the older models, though, this year TrackingPoint is concentrating on AR-15s, rather than longer, heavier bolt-action rifles. A slice:
The signature "Tag-Track-Xact" system has gained additional functionality on the AR models, too. With the bolt-action guns, there was only one way to put a round onto a target: first, you sighted in on the thing you wanted to hit and depressed the red tagging button just above the trigger. A red pip would appear in the scope’s crosshairs, and you’d place the pip onto the target and release the button. The scope’s rangefinding laser would then illuminate the target to measure its distance, and the image processor would fix on the object; if you moved, or if the target moved, the red pip would remain atop the target. Then, to fire, you squeezed the trigger and lined the crosshairs up with the target’s pip. When the two coincided, the weapon fired. This method works fine for a bolt-action rifle where every round has to be manually chambered, but it’s less than ideal for a carbine, which one might want to fire off-hand (i.e., standing up and aiming) or from the hip. With this in mind, the AR PGFs have a new "free fire mode," in which you can tag a target once and then shoot at it as many times as you want by pulling the trigger directly, with all the shots using the ballistic data from the first shot’s tag.
That means, says writer Lee Hutchinson, a rifle "with essentially 100 percent accuracy at 250 yards."
Zorg? (Score:5, Funny)
With this in mind, the AR PGFs have a new "free fire mode," in which you can tag a target once and then shoot at it as many times as you want by pulling the trigger directly, with all the shots using the ballistic data from the first shot’s tag.
With the replay button, another Zorg invention, it's even easier. One shot...and replay sends every following shot to the same location.
Although I guess in this case you actually want to push the little red button.
Re:a rifle with 100 percent accuracy (Score:4, Funny)
Get your FLOSS personalities right: Eric S Raymond is the gun nut.
Great for High Schools (Score:3, Funny)
Now to ensure that every high-school age child in America gets one!
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Could this be Linux's killer app that would blow the competition out of the water?
Re:Now do that with an AA-12 (Score:3, Funny)
Aaah, a true killer application, the year of GNU/Linux on your favourite weapon of choice :)
Re:Why didn't they use Windows? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... let's see...
1. You get asked at least 3 times whether you're really, really sure you want to kill that file, I mean target.
2. Just when you're about to take a shot, your rifle insists that it needs to install upgrades, then shuts down without even asking you.
3. You pull the trigger, your sights get grey, you hear a ping and get asked whether you want to allow or deny that shot.
4. In the next version of your gun your sights and trigger get replaced by huge, unwieldy and flashy tiles that you have to lug around, where nobody on this planet can explain why you need them (allegedly they're great for those Navy guys, why you need them in the infantry is explained with an attempt to unify the troops), and it will take at least a year of complaining from your whole platoon 'til you get your old sights and trigger back. And even then only if you ask for them.
5. Your gun would come without cleaning equipment, without safety and a few other things (unless you bought the "ultimate" version), but you'd get a free deck of playing cards.
6. Cleaning the gun is a hassle and a half. Technically, what people do instead is throwing it away once it gets so dirty that you can't shoot reliably anymore and get a new one.
Re:a rifle with 100 percent accuracy (Score:4, Funny)
I've never seen any of you at People With Girlfriends or Humans That Wash either.
Re:So let me get this Straight. (Score:3, Funny)
...And if you screwed up the first step, and tagged a plant instead, you are screwed.
For that you need a Salad Shooter.