Real-Life RoboCop Guards Shopping Centers In California (metro.co.uk) 100
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Metro: While machines from the likes of RoboCop and Chappie might just be the reserve of films for now, this new type of robot is already fighting crime. This particular example can be found guarding a shopping center in California but there are other machines in operation all over the state. Equipped with self-navigation, infra-red cameras and microphones that can detect breaking glass, the robots, designed by Knightscope, are intended to support security services. Stacy Dean Stephens, who came up with the idea, told The Guardian the problem that needed solving was one of intelligence. "And the only way to gain accurate intelligence is through eyes and ears," he said. "So, we started looking at different ways to deploy eyes and ears into situations like that." The robot costs about $7 an hour to rent and was inspired by the Sandy Hook school shooting after which it was claimed 12 lives could have been saved if officers arrived a minute earlier.
Does it have the special cop capabilities (Score:4, Funny)
can it detect whether somebody is black or white, in order to find out whether to shoot them at sight?
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I'm pretty sure these things want to shoot everyone on sight. Extermination is equal opportunity.
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These things are just begging to be hacked to say something like "I am authorized to use lethal force if you do not put down that weapon in 10 seconds. Nine....." to anybody coming in range, say every couple of days. Just often enough to totally freak someone out, but rare enough that regular, human security thinks they are crazy.
twenty seconds to comply (Score:2)
Doesn't matter; you have ten seconds to comply.
Actually "twenty seconds to comply" [youtube.com]. Your geek card is hereby revoked...
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can it detect whether somebody is black or white, in order to find out whether to shoot them at sight?
I have only seen these robo-cops at the Stanford Shopping Center, where there are no black people. Anyway, they are only armed with a camera. A group of unsupervised kids were randomly pushing the buttons on the front of the robot, which caused it to make beeping and whirring noises, but otherwise had no effect on its behavior.
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Given the shape etc of this robot, it pretty much only need to detect if you're the same brand of him, and if not, well "EXTERMINATE!".
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I see it now! (Score:1)
The robots will get tired of poverty wages in about 6 months! Expect picketing, riots, and #RobotLivesMatter soon!
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The robots will get tired of poverty wages in about 6 months! Expect picketing, riots, and #RobotLivesMatter soon!
Nah, they'll just replace it with a cheaper imported model on a H-1B visa.
at last! (Score:3)
my snake disguise will 100% effective! [relatably.com]
A minute too late (Score:1)
The robot costs about $7 an hour to rent and was inspired by the Sandy Hook school shooting after which it was claimed 12 lives could have been saved if officers arrived a minute earlier.
So does this mean that the police weren't notified as soon as the shooter was identified as a threat? That's the only way this claim has any bearing on additional monitoring whatsoever.
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When there is an active shooter, the police move very slowly entering the site. I guess they are claiming that the robot could have showed them that the shooter was dead, and they would have entered sooner and possibly would have been able to rendered aid
Read something written in the last decade.
Those policies ended after Columbine where "wait and form up" did cost lives. Now it's "pair up and go in find/eliminate the shooter" or just go in alone.
Example: the gun fight in the parking lot and lobby at the Sikh Temple in Milwaukee. The first cop on scene stopped it and the second finished it.
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When seconds count the cops are minutes away. Good thing it was a gun free zone.......
Doesn't matter.
Guns make badfeel, double-plus ungood. Guns badthink.
Strat
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Yes, we need more tired stressed-out teachers locked and loaded, carrying concealed or - better yet - using hip holsters. There is ~surely~ no way more deaths and injuries would have resulted, neither from misfires nor theft of guns by kids. The only calculus is guns = "fantasy solution".
Wonderful strawman you built there, and you knock it down so well!
Interesting how you immediately jump to the worst-case, most extreme scenario straight off. Is everything in your world an extreme dichotomy?
How about a couple trained and armed security staff and a modest security room with some decent basic video coverage and intrafacility communications ability and separate lines to the outside, basic building access controls, some alarm buttons in classrooms, and some planning for emergencies? We spend mo
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And maybe you think that works better, but some of the rest of us don't. I do think that you can't just put up a sign that says "No guns here!" and pretend like that's going to solve all of our problems with shootings, but blithely suggesting that everyone walk around armed all the time isn't exactly a good solution, either.
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Just going to say, it's not like we've never tried having places where everyone was carrying guns. It's called the Wild West.
The "Wild West" really wasn't as wild as the old movie Westerns make it seem. There weren't "showdowns" and gunfights on the streets every night. I might mention here that currently the largest US cities with the most restrictive gun laws and policies more closely resemble a movie Western "Wild West" of chaos & shootings than most actual 1860s-era cities/towns did then.
There is much truth to the saying "an armed society is a polite society".
It's not really a matter of guns or no guns. It's a matter of c
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Came here to see if anyone made this correction already.
Was not disappointed.
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This is more like ED-209 Robocop was a Cyborg meaning a human brain supported by mechanics and electronics...
Or a Terminator.
Or a Cyberman.
Or a Dalek.
Oh joy.
Easy solution... (Score:2)
If you ever see one of these, run. There will likely be a blue police box nearby. You can take refuge inside. Don't worry, it's larger on the inside than on the outside.
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Jeez, just run up a few stairs... You'll be fine.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most of what mall cops do is make people feel watched. It's the kind of work that's ripe for automation.
In the US.
In Australia and the UK we dont really have "mall cops" as we tend not to let crazy people run around with weapons too often. We do have people employed by the shopping centre to assist people like the disabled, the elderly, parents with children when appropriate. Generally policing is done by the police and shopping centres are full of cameras (so that they can be charged and then released by the police and courts).
The only time I've seen actual mall cops is in the Philippines where you hav
Real-life? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a cool technology and it's serving a practical need.
But as soon as someone says "Real-Life RoboCop" and then backpedals to a kind of surveillance drone, none of the rest of it has any credibility.
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They don't want it to be compared to a certain another "robot" in fiction that this thing looks like.
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This is a cool technology and it's serving a practical need.
But as soon as someone says "Real-Life RoboCop" and then backpedals to a kind of surveillance drone, none of the rest of it has any credibility.
Further more, it looks nothing like rocbocop, it looks like someone with a hard-on for Apple products made a body kit for a Dalek.
Its completely non threatening, I can see it having serious problems with stairs, getting into elevators uneven carpets and any undulation really, I can see Chavs (youths that wear their hats backwards) making a game of knocking this thing over so a person has to come and put it upright again. I certainly hope they built it to be able to take a tumble as it will be taking quit
Chopping Mall (Score:2)
Sounds more like the Killbots from Chopping Mall than Robocop.
How long will it be? (Score:2)
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...and then get tracked by the owner and arrested since an expensive guard robot will almost certainly have a tracking and long-range communication system...
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ED 209 (Score:2)
"You have 20 seconds to comply."
Bug or feature? (Score:2)
You have to reboot them every couple hours or they get stuck in the cinnabon or start macing children indiscriminately.
Sure. (Score:1)
That looks like a promising way to deter car prowls in parking garages, and alert security if there is one in real time. Maybe similar in buildings with lots of windows, have a few of these robots patrol the corridors listening for the sound of glass breaking or doors opening where they shouldn't be.
I'm not sure I understand the connection to Sandy Hook, but I suppose inspiration isn't necessarily a deterministic process, so who's to say that's wrong.
Next generation Dalek? (Score:1)
Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it? (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Shooting a robot should be grounds for a murder charge?
Until someone actually develops a robot capable of autonomous thought and self-awareness that will continue to be the dumbest thing I've heard this year so far.
EXTERMINATE! (Score:2)
RoboCop? Really? (Score:2)
That's the best you could yo for a comparison?
Doesn't anyone else thing that this thing looks like what you'd get if you were to mate a Dalek with an iPod?
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NYC is a gun free city, and has the lowest crime of any medium to large metro area out there. Australia's gun killings are a fraction of what they were after the assault weapons were cleaned up. Venezuela's violence went down, even with hits horrific economic conditions because of the all-out gun ban. Even with their economy in shambles, without guns, violence is a lot harder to do.
Gun free zones do work. The proof is in the pudding. Would be nice for the US to not be the #1 murder capital of the world
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"Maybe if the entire US was a gun free zone, it would be as safe as Europe."
I've heard it before, "Europe doesn't have mass shootings like gun loving America". Recent events prove otherwise. No one can claim any more that mass shootings do not happen in "gun free" Europe.
"Gun free zones do work. The proof is in the pudding."
What is the color of the sky in your world?
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In Australia it's a lovely blue most of the time.
Guns are also heavily restricted here. Funnily enough, we don't have mass-shootings either.
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Liar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Inspired by Sandy Hook? (Score:2)
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Chicago's a gun free zone as well. How's that working out?
As for Venezuela, if they had guns, maybe their government could've been stopped before it drove the country into the shambles it's in.
Gun free zones do not work. Oh, and Europe safe? Go read the news on Germans and Austrians making a mad rush for the gun stores to purchase protection from all the new violence the 'fugees are bringing in with them.
Americans know why they need weapons. Europeans are just starting to figure it out.
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I just realized something after I submitted the parent post. The idea of putting electronic eyes and ears on robots for security can be applied to robots used for other purposes. Slashdot has covered robots used as shopping guides before, just have a video and audio feed from these robots available to the security people at the site. It's a 2 for 1 deal.
Alternatively, put cameras and microphones on the store employees. This will no doubt meet resistance by employees if on all the time so give them the o
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These extra 'eyes n ears' talk about big data and kinda A
Exterminate! (Score:2)
Looks like Eve from Wall-E got jiggy(watt) with a Dalek.
Giving Surveillance a hug (Score:2)
Where are the warnings on it you are being recorded? When was the last time you hugged a mall cop? This thing should have warnings on it you are being recorded up close and personal.
This wonderful bit of technology is one more step towards getting the next generation comfortable to being watched all the time.
And to tie it to Sandy Hook? Seriously? Just like the TSA, this is an improper response to a security problem in that context.
Couple this with the other news about the government not needing warrant
Minimum wage fail? Security fail? Just fail. (Score:2)
Perhaps this is another example on how the artificial minimum wage is putting people out of work. If this robot costs $7/hr and the minimum wage is $15/hr then it would make sense for any property owner to have a handful of these robots and a single security guard in a room watching video screens.
What it also does is further separate people from people. People value human interaction, even if it's just having someone in a uniform smile and nod as they walk past. Companies that put a bunch of robots inste
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This robot was supposedly inspired by a mass shooting but yet this robot is not armed, it can only alert the armed people to come to the aid of others
And guess what Adam Lanza's first bullet would have been directed at?