Terminator kill-bots to be run by system called 'Skynet'

Following the announcement of the new Flying-HK-style "Reaper" death machines for the British forces, the prophetic nature of the Terminator movies has been further confirmed.

Not only will the UK MoD deploy airborne cyber-gunships remarkably similar to those in the films, the flying robot assassins will be controlled by an IT project named "Skynet".

This latest case of life imitating art (well, kind of art) was revealed this morning, with the news that the first of the Skynet 5 satellites has gone operational and is now successfully carrying data to and from British forces fighting in Southwest Asia.

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It seems pretty clear that the Reaper flying kill machines will be run using the Skynet satellites, not any other comms channels.

"Take for example the capability of unmanned air vehicles. These generate a lot of imagery and that has to be passed over a secure communications link," according to Bill Sweetman, technology and aerospace editor for defence analysts Jane's.

"The practice is to offload mundane traffic on to commercial satellites and then to use a complementary, secure proprietary system for the traffic that has to be protected."

And it may not just be the Reapers that are controlled by Skynet. There's no word yet of any plans to cloak Asimo robots in living flesh cloned from large Austrian bodybuilders, but it can only be a matter of time. ...