The U.S. military has been hard at work adapting Nintendo’s Wiimote for use in a new explosives-disposal robot, says a report in the Metro.co.uk (via Game|Life).
The vehicle, called “Packbot,” can first and foremost defuse and dispose of bombs and mines, but the little gunslinging robot is also capable of laying down some lead, courtesy of a high-powered machine gun affixed to its cold, lifeless frame.
But why the Wiimote?
Aside from the obvious fun people are having with this little hunk of motion sensing plastic, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy said the controller’s instinctive controls were the deciding factor for a military application. Hoo-rah!
See? I told you the Wii-mote was the wave of the future for First-Person Shooters!
Hmm… seems crazy that they wouldn’t have some better way than a Wii-mote to handle this sort of thing. I thought maybe this was an April fools entry ’til I checked my calendar.
Sounds like a good way to stack a couple more trillion onto the national deficit but it is pretty funny to picture someone trying to dispose of a bomb using a robot controlled by a wiimote.
Iwata’s beens printins more money’s