This story practically writes itself, in that “a YouTube video is worth a thousand words but not one thin dime to the poster” sort of way. Here’s something we didn’t see coming. “The Segways are programmed [by Marathon Robotics] to wander around a small village aimlessly [insert British joke here], with the robots leaning forward to accelerate and backward to stop, making them harder to hit. When a sniper does pick one of them off, the system provides instant visual feedback by stopping and dropping the mannequin. The robots then all scatter automatically.” No wonder Skynet took over. At least one [presumably human] commentator is impressed. “While I doubt targets will be this stupid in a real-life situation,” Gandalf20000 points out on CNET.com, “I think the point of this practice to train snipers to be able to effectively snipe off a moving target. A sniper’s not really any good if all he can snipe is a stationary target. That’s something an old granny with bad eyesight could do.” But wouldn’t, we hope. [thank to Frank Williams for the link]
