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Article here: http://futurism.com/wanteds-curved-bullet-now-a-reality/

Personally I think this is a little scary...sooner or later this technology is going to expand beyond military use, and I'm sure it'll be a wonderful addition to the arsenal of spies, assassins, and eventually everyday criminals. I'm not sure in this day and age anything that makes killing easier or more convenient is a good thing...

I'd hopefully assume that these weapons are cost-prohibitive for most criminal organisations.  But perhaps they aren't. 

Small, Unrelated Rant

WHY ARE YOU FUNDING THIS DARPA YOU COULD BE FUNDING FREAKING PHASER BEAMS HAVEN'T YOU SEEN STAR TREK DARPA!!??

Now that's out of the way, I don't really see much utility in a self-guided bullet, because it wouldn't have very much utility for the United States military, but if it fell into the hands of a foreign military with less training, the results would be disastrous.  The United States spends half a trillion dollars a year on defence and defence research—I don't know why they'd create a weapon that effectively eliminates the need for dedicated snipers in all armies globally. 

rant related to BraveSirRobin's rant

I'm more pissed off about the fact that, after 60 years of ICBMs, we STILL don't have working ballistic missile defense yet (AEGIS can't take on long-range MIRVs which most modern missiles are) but instead we've been given iBullets. DARPA either has fucked up funding, fucked up priorities, or both.

I think you answered your own question there. If a military force can use their technology to give your Average Joe infantryman the accuracy of a sniper, who in their right minds would turn that down? Yeah, maybe a shipment of them could fall into the wrong hands, but I'm assuming these are meant for special forces use against terrorists, so it wouldn't be like Iran gaining stealth fighters.

I imagine that the American military will do what it can to keep these (and their advantage) secured, but inevitably they will be developed by others...either by reverse engineering stolen bullets or by reinventing them without help. The genie will be out of the bottle, and as the costs of making these fall they'll come into the hands of criminal organizations...terrorist groups, drug cartels, gangs, etc. At the very least, they'll covet this technology to take out high-value targets with fighters that require minimal training.

Article here: http://futurism.com/wanteds-curved-bullet-now-a-reality/

Personally I think this is a little scary...sooner or later this technology is going to expand beyond military use, and I'm sure it'll be a wonderful addition to the arsenal of spies, assassins, and eventually everyday criminals. I'm not sure in this day and age anything that makes killing easier or more convenient is a good thing...

I read about the research on this awhile ago, the way the bullet tracks is with visual information, going towards a marked target; it uses spin to adjust it's course, the main purpose is to increase the range of long range snipers, the demonstration is with a .50 caliber round and rifle, like this one:

A Barrett M82

.50 Caliber Bullets

They aim to make the ammunition smaller but it will still only be able to be used at long ranges due to it's method of course correction, this method has been used in artillery and similar very high caliber weapons for some time, since the 90s in some cases.

They are designed for ranges of exeeding 2500 meters (8202.1 feet), they require the traget to be marked by the spotter during operation, though some can continue onto the specific point fired instead adjusting for winds and other phenomena.

A single standard 50 Caliber bullet costs around $24 US, the rifle to fire them usually around $6000 US. All of both of which are in circulation but it would also obviously cost more to buy them for a crime where you can't have any serial or issue numbers.
Many of the uses of it are designed to penetrate vehicle armor up to and including 150mm steel plating...

From what I have read and seen most criminals don't have this kind of equipment as it is, let alone the more expensive rifle and bullet that DARPA is developing. While it is a perfectly reasonable fear that weapons like this fall into the wrong hands; it isn't the atom bomb or a completely revolutionary form of warfare.

I'm all for more precision. People are always going to kill each other. At least this way, it reduces the odds slightly that innocents will get hit by stray bullets.

Interesting. I am personally connected to the military and this is a neat piece of tech. that can have terrible consequences or uses down the road.