Gunmaker finds KILLER APP for Google Glass A US firearms manufacturer is touting a system that would allow a shooter to aim and fire a device via a wearable headset such as Google Glass. TrackingPoint said that its ShotView software could be used with wearable headsets, mobile phones, or tablets to provide a direct feed with video and data from its Precision Guided …
We've had armed robots like MAARS for a while now so how is this a big deal? Can it really be long before someone straps a 12 ga. shotgun, flare gun, spear gun, crossbow, etc. to a quad-copter with remote view? Heck, they can do that now. I know, you're thinking that at least some of these are single shot deals but unless it's one mighty quad-copter they're all single shots.
...and your Google Glass connects to a strange WiFi hotspot you've not noticed before. Suddenly, your HUD shows a picture of YOU. From behind. And there's a crosshair centred on the back of your head.
Did you you just accidentally connect to a gameserver and Glass is doing an augmented reality display?
Did it? Do ya feel lucky punk? Well? Do ya?
"The dear are shooting back now? More sporting I guess."
Don't know about whose dear you know that may be shooting back...those kind of women I try to avoid at all costs...but it would be very cumbersome for any deer to pull a trigger...what with having a cloven hoof and all.
Mine's the one with the Venison steaks in the pockets.
Corner shot has been around for years. It takes a standard pistol and mounts in a holder that both extends the butt (making it easier to aim) and gives a mechanism to move the gun through 180 degrees (left to right). It has a camera on the barrel (and a light plus a laser sight) and a screen on the butt.
This just replaces the screen with google glass and a more complicate connection method. Nothing beats a physical cable surrounded by metal for reliability when it counts, after all, the bad guy isn't going to stop shooting just because your wifi drops!
All the pieces are falling into place. Mount this ShotView system and gun on a Google WonkaWagon, mix in some Google facial recognition tech and you practically have SkyNet.
and applications, I bet
drug dealers
evil dictators
terrorists
democratic government
law enforcement agencies
freedom fighters
...
in fact, scrap the first three, they'll get the app in their usual fashion, i.e. illegitimately by acts of terrorism / slavery / child molestation / homofobia / racism / delete as appropriate. Well, most probably by flogging blockbuster on that banned site with a funny ship for a logo. That's what the law enforcement agency told me...
The US tried this about a decade back under the Future Soldier concept. After the usual insane amount of money was poured in and using excessively expensive components that makes this tech look last century, they junked this idea. Probably for a good reason.
If this company has not figured out the reason why the US military junked it (despite the hype, it made shooting accuracy worse?) and fixed it then this product isn't going to last very long or make any meaningful impact. Except possibly more people get shot instead of the deer by the incompetents trying to use it!
The fact that future soldier failed has NOTHING to do with the viability of a remote view gunsight - the goals for that were way higher.
This is not a hard problem to solve. All the tech needed has already been developed by to the extreme sports / home security camera industry.
We now have ruggedized, high framerate, high resolution cameras with IRNV capability readily available - surely all you need to do is place one of these behind a conventional sight and you have a remote sight?
If you used something like a reflex sight that was relatively unaffected by eye position, then you have a ton of tolerance, so could probably just attach a wireless barrel cam with pipe clips and it would be fine.
If you did it in this form-factor, it would be simple to retro-fit to existing weapons and also mean the camera would serve other uses apart from a remote sight:
General purpose periscope
Combine it with a collapsible pole (like a quickpod) to be able to easily look over walls, under cars etc.
Sentry mode
Repurpose the "capture on motion" functionality of the action cam to also send an audio alert to the operator. Camera could be left watching the squads back, and they get an alert if anything moves and they can watch the recording of what moved.
Audio uses
If you could get a cam within earshot of enemy troops, you may be able to gather valuable intel.
A lot of security cams provide two-way audio, there would probably be many ways of re-purposing this. For example, you could trick the enemy into thinking you were one place by sending audio to a remote cam.
Yeah the military generally ruggedizes stuff more than commercial gear, but action cams are widely in use by troops already (as personal items) so they are clearly close enough - by the very nature of their use you would want them to be plentiful (Each soldier would probably want 2 or 3), so I fail to really see what the problem is. I guess it is more a case that the military would rather not have loads of cameras floating around on the battlefield, for PR / Security reasons.
So has built in target velocity/angle shot-lead calculating capability and all the ballistic tables for all ammunition does it? Would like to have a look at its heat haze and windage adjustment capabilities as well.
It's hard to hit a moving target at 50yards unless you are very experienced let alone at 1,200 where so many other factors come into play.
there is a sigth out there that fires a laser down the shot line ans watches the return to see the conditions and adjusts, the Ammo comment is justified though, although i presume you can load a config for you ammo/rifle, or just get it to learn, fire the shot config, repeat rinse,
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