

World's first Linux powered rifle announced - fosk
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/17000-linux-powered-rifle-brings-auto-aim-to-the-real-world/

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frugalfirbolg
I wonder how much really needs done to setup the tracking software. Since they
are using Linux, they have access to a huge library of code, and since it has
both a stereoscopic rangefinder and a camera it shouldn't take much to do edge
detection and figure out, hey, that blob that has stayed relatively close to
the center of the view for the past second is the target, start tracking that.
Using comparisons to the previous frame it could then handle the target moving
and thus changing its profile.

A really cool demonstration of this technology would be to see a truly
difficult shot. The company video [<http://tracking-point.com>] just shows
people taking shots from several hundred feet away. Great, now I can shoot
motionless unaware lower apparent intelligence lifeforms without even doing
the math for bullet drop or wind myself, not to mention that I didn't have to
track it (the video shows them flying around in a helicopter which is
reasonable for someone spending $17,000 on a bolt action rifle) and I most
likely didn't need this for sustenance, and the game they are shooting wasn't
anywhere close to a community where population control is needed (like deer in
the U.S. midwest since the natural predation cycle is broken).

Show me something awesome like a guy skydiving with this rifle and scoring a
shot at something on a nearby mountain before popping out the wing suit flaps
and gliding over to the kill and hoisting it by rope into a helicopter. Then
release a second copy of the same video through an unaffiliated account on
YouTube that is a viral meme like, "BANG, headshot!"

