The UK has just sent up a new communications satellite that's completed their Skynet, the highly-advanced network that's going to give them the ability to allow robotic military units at long range. You know, like in the apocalyptic vision of the future from the Terminator movies. The network's name in those movies? Skynet. Have you learned nothing, England?!


The system allows for communication both in the voice and data variety between basically any unit of the British Armed Forces, including computers talking to computers, probably about how best to murder their makers. For example, a base computer in cheery old London can communicate with the "Reaper," a robotic spy drone in Afghanistan, retrieving data and telling it where to go, and transmitting live video over the connection from the UAV. The sat also has solar sails which extend its life to 15 years, a special anti-jamming antenna is set on the receive side, while 4 steerable antennas can be aimed in a single spot to concentrate broadcasting ability.


Even worse is the fact that the whole thing is privately owned, with the British Armed Forces only promised a portion of the bandwidth rather than having control over the whole thing.

All I know is that we've got to protect John Conner at all costs, wherever he may be. [BBC via io9]