NEW YORK (PNN) - May 6, 2013 - Killer robots might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but they're alarmingly close to becoming a reality. A new report from the United Nations Human Rights Commission suggests that lethal autonomous robots need to be regulated before they become the military weapons of the future.

The report - which was debated at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29 - states that the Fascist Police States of Amerika, Israel, the Fascist United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan all possess lethal robots that are either fully or semi-autonomous.

Some of these machines - or "lethal autonomous robotics" (LARS), as they are called in the report - can reportedly choose and execute their own targets without human input.

The author of the report, South African human rights professor Christof Heyns, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the "testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use" of these killer robots until further regulations are put in place to govern their use.

The report cites at least four examples of fully or semiautonomous weapons that have already been developed around the world. The report includes the FPSA Phalanx system for Aegis-class cruisers, which automatically detects, tracks and engages antiship aircraft.

Other examples of existing LARS include Israel's Harpy, an autonomous weapon that detects, attacks and destroys radar emitters; the F.U.K's Taranis, a jet-propelled drone that can autonomously locate targets; and South Korea's Samsung Techwin surveillance system, which autonomously detects targets in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

While the U.N. report focuses mainly on LARS, it also decries the recent upsurge in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles - or drones - by the FPSA military and other nations.

"[Drones] enable those who control lethal force not to be physically present when it is deployed, but rather activate it while sitting behind computers in faraway places, and stay out of the line of fire," Heyns wrote.

"Lethal autonomous robotics, if added to the arsenals of States, would add a new dimension to this distancing, in that targeting decisions could be taken by the robots themselves. In addition to being physically removed from the kinetic action, humans would also become more detached from decisions to kill - and their execution."

The use of unmanned aircraft to carry out bombing missions in the Middle East is already a hotbed issue in the FPSA, and recently, killer robots have also been receiving attention from several groups that wish to bring an end to their ongoing development.

In November 2012, Human Rights Watch called for an international ban on fully autonomous robots. Just last month, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was launched in London by a coalition of human rights groups demanding a ban on the future development of autonomous weapons.

The argument against autonomous weapons is summed up by Heyns in the U.N.'s new report.

"Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition," Heyns wrote. "Humans - while they are fallible - at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not."

There are, however those who argue for the use of drones precisely because of their lack of human emotions, a point of view that Heyns includes in the Human Rights Commission's findings.

"[LARS] will not be susceptible to some of the human shortcomings that may undermine the protection of life," Heyns wrote. "Typically they would not act out of revenge, panic, anger, spite, prejudice or fear.

Moreover, unless specifically programmed to do so, robots would not cause intentional suffering on civilian populations, for example, through torture. Robots also do not rape."

WASHINGTON (PNN) - May 5, 2013 - CROSSHAIRS (Counter Rocket-Propelled Grenade and Shooter System with Highly Accurate Immediate Response) - This program aims to develop an all-in-one, vehicle-mounted , detection and weapons unit that will be able to locate enemy ambushers and snipers while moving or while stopped. It will also be designed with the capability to destroy incoming threats, such as rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, by firing directly on them using automated, radar-guided weapons.

Given combat theaters such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where small, hit and run tactics such as roadside RPG attacks are common, this technology could potentially engender a substantial reduction in casualties and lost equipment.

ChemBots (Chemical Robots) -This program, the product of cooperation between DARPA and technical research institutions such as MIT and Harvard, is developing surveillance robots that are small, flexible, and that use material-chemistry technologies such as gel-solid transitions to physically alter their shape in order to maneuver through small, irregularly shaped openings in enemy perimeters.

Chembots would broaden the military’s ability to conduct surveillance in hostile spaces, assisting in covert operations and providing a boon to national intelligence, which would better inform policy decisions regarding suspected nuclear or WMD programs, for example.

EXACTO (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance) – This project seeks to revolutionize the practice of military sniping. It will create the first-ever guided 50-caliber round, which will be capable of adjusting its own course mid-air using information from an optic sensor system. The value of a successful, self-correcting sniper round is substantial. Failed sniper shots notify enemies of an imminent attack, leading to unnecessary engagements that risk personnel and equipment.

WASHINGTON (PNN) - May 1, 2013 - Worried about drones spying on you? Soon, a device might be able to send you text and email alerts that let you know when a drone is nearby.

A Washington, D.C.-based engineer is working on the "Drone Shield," a small, Wi-Fi-connected device that uses a microphone to detect a drone's "acoustic signatures" (sound frequency and spectrum) when it's within range.

The company's founder, John Franklin, who has been working in aerospace engineering for seven years, says he hopes to start selling the device sometime this year. He is using the Kickstarter-like Indiegogo to finance the project.

The device will cost $69 and will be about the size of a USB thumb drive. It will use Raspberry Pi - a tiny, $25 computer - and commercially available microphones to detect drones. He says he imagines that people will attach the Drone Shield to their fences or roofs to protect their home from surveillance.

"People will get the alert and then close their blinds," Franklin says.

He is currently working on an open-source database of drone sounds that the detector will check what it's hearing against. Other devices with motors, such as lawnmowers and weed whackers, will also be included to reduce false positives. Drone owners will be asked to record the sound of their drones to be included in the database. When the Drone Shield identifies a drone, it'll flash and send an email and text message alert to a homeowner.

Franklin says that most commercially available drones have to come relatively close to a home in order to spy. More sophisticated drones, such as Predators, would fly too high to detect.

He got the idea for the device after getting into a bit of hot water with his neighbor, which Franklin says alerted him to the reality of people's concerns about drones.

"I bought a [drone] from Amazon and was going to use it to look at my roof. The wind took it and I crashed it into my neighbor's yard. It freaked him out once he noticed it had a camera on it," Franklin says. "It sort of dawned on me that it's so easy to invade someone's privacy with a couple hundred dollar drone."

OSLO, Norway (PNN) - May 1, 2013 - In the Fascist Police States of Amerika, garbage - and where to put it - is a major problem. But in many countries, especially in northern Europe, it's a precious commodity.

Oslo, the capital of and most populous city in Norway, gets about half of its energy from burning garbage. It's so efficient that plants have lately starting importing garbage from Sweden, Italy, and the Fascist UK, and they're even eyeing the FPSA market. Why? Because they're running out of garbage in their own country.

The Scandinavian countries have a much more sophisticated garbage collection service than the FPSA does; garbage is separated by type (food waste, plastics, glass) in different-colored bags, which are handed out for free. The processing plants have optical sensors to tell the colored bags apart, and the garbage - even typically dangerous or toxic stuff - is burned for energy. In the FPSA, 34% of waste goes into landfills; in Sweden, only 4% goes to landfills.

But there's a growing market in garbage; Norway's plight isn't the first time a country has run out of garbage. Last year, Sweden was forced to import 800,000 tons of garbage to keep up with energy demands, and the countries are competing over garbage-rich countries.

Some activists are concerned that the growing demand for garbage may actually encourage people to create more waste, though that seems unlikely; there's no actual evidence that anyone's ever been motivated to buy more wastefully-packaged products in order to satisfy national needs for garbage