• worhui@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This an an absolutely exceptional claim that would put the company decades beyond any tech I have seen. They are claiming remote control of a complicated animal in flight. They also claim it is without training and over distances impossible for a bird as small as a pigeon to carry radio gear.

    This is not believable without any evidence.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      19 hours ago

      I’ve heard of the particular people behind that particular company achieving similar things 12 years ago with, eh, humans. That’s of the “bloody regime horror stories” genre. There will be no proof.

      Also honestly

      would put the company decades beyond any tech I have seen

      why not? They have plenty of money and expertise. Something you don’t want to believe? Too bad, neither do I.

    • sqgl@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      20 hours ago

      Indeed “thousands of km” is far fetched:

      some of which are expected to be sent thousands of kilometers away while others remain in Moscow for further trials.

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Well… The electronics are solar powered, so it’s not like batteries would run out. I’m not sure there are really limits on the flight range of a pigeon. I have to assume they’d be allowed to eat.

        I don’t think they could cross an ocean.

          • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            I have no idea, controlling an animal’s brain is obviously the hard part too believe. But I don’t see how that affects their range. It’s a bird, birds naturally migrate thousands of miles.

            • Yggnar@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              It would effect their range because they would either need heavy equipment, like a fuckin star link dish strapped to their backs, or heavy radio equipment of some kind or something. Even if the “brain chip” is microscopic, you still need it to be able to send and receive a signal I would think, unless they intend to just operate it when it happens to be near a WiFi signal or something I guess?

    • real_squids@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      according to Forbes Russia and a company statement

      duh

      edit: as for radio, if it’s not required to be realtime it would make a lot of sense to carry sd cards instead, provides lower energy consumption too

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          19 hours ago

          You do, of course, understand that this has nothing in common with building a tank?

          You do also understand that (just guessing) if you’re from a German instance, then probably everyone of consequence involved in designing military hardware in Russia has better knowledge of their domain area than people analogous to them from German MIC and military? Simply due to experience gained. That does apply to tanks.

          Anyway. I don’t know if it’s real, but you just go and read whose company it is. It might be.

      • worhui@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        This is a remote control situation. The bird would do bird things once out of a control signal. They aren’t claiming full override and programming. I could easily see strapping a camera to a pigeon and training it. Maybe even remotely monitoring it and using a pre-trained electrical pulse to change direction.

        These claims are beyond that. This is possibly the equivalent of scientist cures cancer where a reported misunderstands what is actually being presented.

        • real_squids@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          yea true, they did mention preloading flight paths, so it might be radio-less (apart from gps ig)

    • moonshadow@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      If it’s like the bug experiments, they aren’t controlling its muscles granularly but guiding the whole critter through pain/aversion. Going left hurts, bird goes right type deal