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A Maine robotics company is in the running to build the Army's next generation of battlefield support vehicles.
Waterboro-based Howe and Howe Technologies is competing with three other firms for a massive government contract to build autonomous vehicles that will carry ammunition and supplies into combat with Army ground forces.
"It is going to be a huge thing in the future, as big as drones or Humvees," said Michael Howe, who owns the company with his twin, Geoffrey. The Army is expected to order thousands of the units by 2020.
[...] To get to this point, Howe and Howe had to pass a grueling field test of their vehicle in the thick swamps and forests of Fort Benning, Georgia.
[...] The outcome, however, was worth it. Howe and Howe passed the trials, beating major defense companies like Lockheed Martin and AM General, which builds the Humvee, and moving onto the next phase of product development.
[...] The other companies moving onto the next development phase are General Dynamics Land Systems, HDT Global and a combined effort from Applied Research Associates and Polaris Defense.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:06PM (4 children)
From http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ...
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ...
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:15PM (2 children)
The answer to all your what-if's: Some people are more concerned about making sure those other bastards are unable to live long and prosper than ensuring their own long life and prosperity. And this isn't cultural, either: You can see it among 2-year-olds who would rather break a toy than share it with someone else. These are the people who step on others, and enjoy it. And they tend to end up in charge of things because they're willing to go to great lengths for the opportunity to step on others, and that's what being in charge allows them to do.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Sunday December 31 2017, @06:43PM
I think that's a little harshly worded but accurate. Some people greatly enjoy forcing others to do their will. It's the most basic expression of power. This goes across the political spectrum, male, female, races, age.
What infuriates these people most is seeing a free man. Someone going about their business, enjoying life, a song in their heart, not asking permission for each step they take and in which direction. So many people in this country (USA) have been conditioned so absolutely they no longer recognize what a free man looks like.
Tax code used to insert petty bureaucrats into every single minor, day-to-day transaction.
Authoritarian leftists demanding the ability to censor your speech.
Being strongly urged to sacrifice your well being to further others goals or lazily disguised power grabs.
Better step-to when that the cop looks your way.
Watch your tongue, don't offend the people illegally invading your country.
(Score: 1) by pdfernhout on Monday January 01 2018, @05:43PM
Contrast with: http://www.alfiekohn.org/contest/ [alfiekohn.org] "No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other — at work, at school, at play, and at home — turns all of us into losers."
And also culture for egalitarianism: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways [psychologytoday.com] "One anthropologist after another has been amazed by the degree of equality, individual autonomy, indulgent treatment of children, cooperation, and sharing in the hunter-gatherer culture that he or she studied. ... In sum, my argument here is that the lessons we have to learn from hunter-gatherers are not about our genes but about our culture. Our species clearly has the genetic potential to be peaceful and egalitarian, on the one hand, or to be warlike and despotic, on the other, or anything in between. If the three theories I've described here are correct, and if we truly believe in the values of equality and peace and want them to reign once again as the norm for human beings, then we need to (a) find ways to deflate the egos, rather than support the egos, of the despots, bullies, and braggarts among us; (b) make our ways of life more playful; and (c) raise our children in kindly, trusting ways."
(Original AC poster not logged in when travelling...)
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:58PM
We'll allocate the money right away! [nextbigfuture.com]
The True Story About Who Destroyed a Genetically Modified Rice Crop [slate.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]