Next time you're playing Halo 2 or Counterstrike and someone tells you off for wasting time, just tell them you're training for war. In an excellent example of turning plowshares into swords, a military arms company has converted a remote bomb defuser into a remote control killbot.
SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Operations Reconnaisance Detection Systems, are 3-foot high and light enough to be carried into combat by a soldier. They can climb stairs and be armed with a grenade launcher, anti-tank launcher, 12-gauge shotgun or many other useful plug and play gizmos.
"Operators work the robot using a 30-pound control unit which has two joysticks, a handful of buttons and a video screen. ...That may eventually be replaced by a "Gameboy" type of controller hooked up to virtual reality goggles."
They are off to help bring freedom and democracy to Iraq (hat tip NZPundit).
