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So it can resolve 6 inches at 20k feet. About 1 pixel of resolution for the "terrorist's" face. At least they have a roughly 4x12 pixel image to make a sound de
by hemancuso 14y ago
So it can resolve 6 inches at 20k feet. About 1 pixel of resolution for the "terrorist's" face. At least they have a roughly 4x12 pixel image to make a sound determination as to which person to target.
- sliverstorm 14y agoWhat does the face have to do with it? Do terrorists have different faces? I imagine context is important. Camping in a tree with something that looks like a RPG, overlooking a supply route? Certainly suspect, no matter what your face looks like. All that said, the article has very little to say about terrorists. At least as far as the article itself goes, it looks like the terrorist bit in the headline was just an attention grabber.
- hemancuso 14y agoI'm sure you're aware how regularly drones are used for targeted assassination. Identification and tracking seems important.
- Retric 14y agoDon't assume what's actually happening is all that close to what's being described in an article like this. The goal is mostly just passive surveillance, a crappy video of something interesting is far better than a really high resolution video of an empty street. PS: Don't forget your not limited to having one drone at a time.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- scotty79 14y agoUSA redefined "terrorist" to mean any person physically close to person that is known to be terrorist. It simplifies targeting and civilian casualties counting.
- hemancuso 14y agoFWIW I think the editorial modification of the HN title here from terrorist->person confuses the existing debate a bit. Additionally, it no longer matches the article headline. While I'm generally in favor of title rewrites so people don't karma whore, editing the HN title away from the original headline seems a step too far.
- vy8vWJlco 14y agoAre you saying the (albeit original) word "terrorist" wasn't editorializing? All terrorists are persons, but not all persons are terrorists and, realistically, a drone can't tell the difference. Heck, people can't tell... (Remember those old "how to spot a communist" videos? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYl_AH-qyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYl_AH-qyk ) I'm saying I think the word people is an improvement in objectivity.
- hemancuso 14y agoOf course it was. Not my point.
- vy8vWJlco 14y agoSo, how does an increase in objectivity "confuse the existing debate"?
- hemancuso 14y agoIt confuses the existing debate because there were already 60 minutes of comments, like my own, which reference this editorialization. Now that it has been obfuscated away this is slightly confused.
- vy8vWJlco 14y agoThen that's an interesting statistic in its own right: propaganda is the central debate in such cases. (It's not confusion, by definition.) If it were originally submitted to HN verbatim, with the word "terrorist," I would actually expect more of the focus of the debate to be on that reporting detail.
- duaneb 14y agoHey, drone does not imply targetting. Could just be surveillance.
- darkarmani 14y agoI don't think they are identifying the people by their faces. Secondly, I don't think the drone strikes only hit one person. I think it hits a small area.
- konstruktor 14y agoThis is for surveillance. The regular camera is a zoom lens but has a very narrow field of view.
- michaelbuckbee 14y agoIn the other comment achille links to a Frontline description of how a similar system was used in Iraq. The 20,000 foot system with poor resolution was used to continually track an area, when something suspect occurred they would send in a higher resolution Predator and then if it checked out further they would follow and target the people on the ground.