The Web, spiders and other digiphobias

One of the trends we track is the M2M (machine to machine) area, and one of the interesting subsectors there is micro-mechatronics - ie small robots, like this spider below, from the Daily Mail:


BAE systems is building spiders for the US Military:

British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.

Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.

Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.

Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers' hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.

Which will of course lead to development of counter-bug bugs and so on and so forth. Anyway, the more "interesting" thing is when these things find their way into the civil space - if we thought privacy was compromised now, this could be another thing entirely.

(Love this later comment on the story from Slashdot:

I prefer my spiders to be 20ft tall and wielding giant laser canons of death.... Who needs a covert force.... )