The British Army is Carrying Out a Massive Test of Military Robots and Drones (technologyreview.com) 56
The British Army is testing out over 70 new technologies, including unmanned vehicles and surveillance drones, in a four-week experiment on one of its biggest training grounds. From a report: What sort of stuff? The department isn't giving out specifics but said the focus will be on "surveillance, long-range, and precision targeting, enhanced mobility and the re-supply of forces, urban warfare and enhanced situational awareness." The development is part of a $1030 million "innovation fund" launched in 2016. The aim? Primarily it's about reducing the danger to troops during combat, according to the UK's Ministry of Defense (MoD). One of the main areas it'll test is "last mile" supply of fuel, food, and ammunition. The exercise will culminate in a simulated battle involving over 200 soldiers to test out the ideas and products.
$1030 million? (Score:2)
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You mean a billion dollar fund?
No, they mean a thousand million... is it USD or GBP? Well, what ever. You can't call it a billion, that sounds like a lot of money for some RC toys. The tax payers are much happier when you are only spending a thousand million dollars. They understand that millions isn't all that much when it comes to military spending.
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a casual observation shows the dollar symbol being used.
That's what I saw in the summary and thought it was kinda weird.
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You mean a *milliard* dollar fund? (Score:1)
Or rather a ~800 million pound fund.
(Although I prefer a 800 mega-pound fund.)
Re:$1030 million? (Score:5, Informative)
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in England 1,000 million historically was called a milliard
Nobody has used that term for well over 40 years. It is as obsolete as groats and roods.
A billion is globally understood to mean 10**9. Trying to confuse the issue doesn't make anyone look clever.
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To be fair, that is only true in English. In every other language I know of, the equivalent word means 10^12 and 10^9 is called something resembling the word milliard. It remains confusing except perhaps to those whose mother tongue is English.
Actually it's much more confusing [wikipedia.org] than that, like Eastern Europe and Russia, Brazil, Middle East etc. all use the short form but don't speak English while most of Western Europe use the long form. Like here in Norway there's absolutely no confusion about these terms:
10^6: Million
10^9: Milliard
10^12: Billion
10^15: Billiard
Fortunately we rarely need the word billion in Norwegian as that would be a trillion in English and because it could be ambiguous on the rare occasions we could use it we tend to simply avo
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The U.S. has pretty much always used billion, but in England 1,000 million historically was called a milliard. A billion was a million millions (or 1,000 milliards) so I think there's still some hesitance to use the term as it is leaves everyone a bit nonplussed.
million = (1000000)^1
billion = (1000000)^2
trillion = (1000000)^3
The initial letters indicate the power.
Pity the Americans messed things up! :-(
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When languages or dialects disagree it is best to ask Esperanto- the ruler of all languages. The universal mother tongue of humanity.
Miliardo is 1,000,000,000
Sorry people who think that's a billion. Esperanto has spoken, the word is Milliard.
Biliono is 1,000,000,000,000
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* Subject to trolls, abusers, and ravages of forbidden love affairs.
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the official language of the forum is American English*
Hmmmm... That is the language most used, but I don't know about official. I don't see officially stated anywhere that the forum is to use American English. I would quickly leave and not look back if they forced us to use American English.
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It is always correct to use the local dialect even if people are courteous and understanding if you are from elsewhere and doing otherwise.
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Instead we could perhaps avoid all confusion and say $10.3 Crore
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Yes. Someone here has translated 800 (million) GBP into 1,030 (million) USD. Same was when round metric numbers get translated into weird-looking precise imperial equivalents. To put it correctly, "£800 million (just over a billion dollars)".
FWIW, here in the UK, billion is now completely understood the American way, 10^9. I've never heard milliard used outside of a general knowledge quiz, and the old 10^12 meaning of billion stopped being used here at least 35-40 years ago.
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Yes. Someone here has translated 800 (million) GBP into 1,030 (million) USD. Same was when round metric numbers get translated into weird-looking precise imperial equivalents. To put it correctly, "£800 million (just over a billion dollars)".
FWIW, here in the UK, billion is now completely understood the American way, 10^9. I've never heard milliard used outside of a general knowledge quiz, and the old 10^12 meaning of billion stopped being used here at least 35-40 years ago.
My father (English) is still quite insistent that Billion is ^12. He's a lone holdout for that number and will never use the word Billion instead of a Milliard if his life depended on it.
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It's just a cover story by the UK government to shield the public from the impending Centipede attack. Or maybe they need a large track of land to shoot a beer commercial.
$1030 million (Score:1)
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Looks like the innovation here is in some weird new formatting for money.
Actually I thought the revelation was that the British armed forces were now using the USD to pay for things rather than the GBP.
The aim? (Score:2)
The aim? Primarily it's about reducing the danger to troops during combat
Maybe point that thousand-million-dollar idea into preventing wars to begin with?
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You of course missed the bit about eliminating soldiers from the battlefield. Loyal, honourable soldiers, soldiers who in the most part would not murder fellow citizens but the robots will. Programme them to dangle babies by the feet and then twist and rip their heads off as a warning to others and they will do it, once, a thousands time, ten thousand times, without a single bit of remorse.
Robots under authoritarian control, what could possibly go wrong with that ?!? I think the house of Lords (the spawn o
Re: The aim? (Score:2)
Yeah sure. You shouldn't bother putting seatbelts and air bags in cars. No, just put that money into making sure cars don't crash.
I keep saying this (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think "less government" is the answer either. That just leaves a power vacuum. We need more democracy. We also need to take care of our workers. Make a decent living into a right, not a privilege. Stop getting played against one another. The notion that some people are born to suffer is antiquated and needs to die.
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Ender's Game. He plays it and thinks it's not real...
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killer robots are coming whether you and I like it or not. If you want to do something about it now's the time.
And by "do something about it", you mean become the best at it, right?
Because whoever is best at it is going to be making the decisions.
No, I mean establish a high standard of living (Score:2)
As it stands the dog eat dog capitalism we've been taught from birth is the norm leaves people too blasted out at the end of a work day to do anything about the coming dystopia.
Obviously ... (Score:2)
All robots must have a stiff upper lip.
To bad this kind of money and effort (Score:2)
isn't spent fighting the coming war on global warming. But it won't be, and we will lose.
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isn't spent fighting the coming war on global warming.
I know, right?
Then whoever does develop the best battlebots could enjoy a better climate.
Make no assumptions (Score:2)
It would be rather embarrassing to deploy them for real, only to discover that none of them knew where they were or where they were supposed to go!
Britain = Frankenstein (Score:1)
The USA = Frankenstein's Monster.
Since the rise of the literal Demon Tony Blair, the West has been placed under the total control of 'Blair's Children'. Blair was even key to the rise of Putin, protecting him during his 'difficult days' (when Putin used the Russian Apartment Bombings false flag to justify a final holocaust in chechnya).
Today, as a consequence, Britain is at the middle of the spider's web of all significal war mongering on our planet. The wahhabi terror invasion of Syria, for instance, was a