James Bond Gadgets 157
whencanistop writes "Given that the new James Bond film is just about to be released, this is quite a nice summary of James Bond gadgets from past films. Tomorrow Never Dies was on telly last night and I was commenting on how the mobile phone that controlled the BMW was awesome, why they haven't done it in real life is beyond me (although there would probably be a few accidents if they ever did). Ridiculous to think that in 1963 the gadget of choice for Bond was a pager though." Of course, the best gadget in the Bond universe wasn't even 007's ... Jaws' teeth were the envy of every kid with braces.
No problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Myth Busters build a remote controlled car every other episode (they always seem to build it from scratch... odd).
Here's a toy car retrofitted to be controlled by an iPhone: http://www.walyou.com/blog/2008/09/10/how-to-remote-control-rc-cars-using-the-iphone/ [walyou.com]
Put the two together (no problem), stick in a camera (also no problem) and you've got your own accident waiting to happen.
Why does nobody do it? Most people have enough trouble driving a car with pedals and a big wheel while sitting in the driver's seat looking out the window, never mind trying to drive it with little buttons and a tiny screen from outside.
It's cool that Bond films at least partially stick close enough to the near future that the gadgets are cool but we can look back 40 years and yawn.
Re:No problem (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Myth Busters build a remote controlled car every other episode (they always seem to build it from scratch... odd).
Here's something that's bugged me for years (morbid though alert). You can easily add a couple of servos to a car's control system and control it via remote (although long range trips would be tricky even with long-range communications and a camera).
Servos and remotes are cheaper than people. Why do we still have suicide bombers?
Re:No problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The minor reason would be that a car driven by a dummy (or no driver at all) is likely to be noticed.
The major reason is probably that your premise is false, at least where we have suicide bombers. Getting a car rigged to run by remote costs more than getting a <strike>sucker</strike>martyr to drive it there.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do we still have suicide bombers?
For the glory of Islam? Anyway, why would they want to wait around here before collecting the virgins?
Re:No problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's something that's bugged me for years (morbid though alert). You can easily add a couple of servos to a car's control system and control it via remote (although long range trips would be tricky even with long-range communications and a camera).
Servos and remotes are cheaper than people. Why do we still have suicide bombers?
Because a driverless car downtown might draw some attention? No, seriously. Aside from the difficulty of a remote driver having good situational awareness in crappy Iraqi traffic, there's also the matter of camouflaging intent. Some suicide missions involve multiple people. Understandable if there's three separate bombers hitting one location but why have two people with one bomb? Why not have the second guy drive another bomb vehicle or hold back for another mission? Camouflage.
Two guys are driving a delivery truck. You wouldn't think suicide bomber, that's only a loner. Now you've got a delivery driver arguing with the compound guard. C'mon, I got a delivery, I need inside. The guard would already be shooting at a driverless truck coming at him but this delivery looks like every other delivery coming through the gate.
Right before we went into Afghanistan, a popular leader of the Northern Alliance gave an interview to a foreign television crew. This was a multi-man crew, the journalist, cameraman, and soundman. The bomb was in the camera. Interview starts, the television crew, their target, and several bystanders are killed. No single person could have gotten that close but several people posing as a film crew? That seems reasonable.
I've also heard stories about kids included in suicide vehicles. They're probably not the driver's kids, who knows how they were abducted. But they're in the car making it look eminently civilian when the driver pulls up and hits the detonator.
This sort of thing has two benefits for the terrorist. One, he gets to destroy his target. Two, now the GI's are all jumpy and no longer willing to discount kids as a sign the car is safe, they'll end up shooting up more innocent civilians, raising the terror level, and making the people more enraged with America.
Re: (Score:2)
Terrorists in Iraq have also planted a bomb in the wheelchair of a mentally-retarded child. It's pretty fucking despicable shit they're doing over there. (And the turds who say, "oh, the Americans are making that shit up" look at Al Qaeda running around cutting people's heads off and then bragging about it. Do you think these people wouldn't use a child's wheelchair as a bomb platform?)
Reliability And Press (Score:2)
Humans are used because "true believers" are easily recruited and highly reliable, whereas electronics and the expertise to build a reliable remote control system isn't. Plus, any remote is subject to jamming and easily rendered ineffective. Plus, buying the servos and motion-control gear does leave a bit of a paper trail.
Plus, the press picks up far more readily on a suicide attack rather than a remote-controlled one. Suicide attacks give the impression of a "fighter" dying for a cause, wheras a remote
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the most interesting targets are hardened against cars. For the rest, it would be just as easy to drive a car up, park in front and walk away (a la Timothy McVeigh).
Re: (Score:2)
You only need one guy with the right expertise......
Layne
Re: (Score:2)
Or just use small RC cars rigged with explosives. Perhaps none of the terrorfolk have seen The Dead Pool.
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to the U.S. Chairforce, er Airforce.
They announced last week that they expect 50% of their aircraft purchases going forward will be remotely-piloted vehicles.
Re: (Score:2)
"It's cool that Bond films at least partially stick close enough to the near future that the gadgets are cool but we can look back 40 years and yawn."
From a story/plot point of view the trchnology has to be very close to what we have but just a little bit past it. Because the viewers do have to understand what the gadget does and also if the gadget was to "powerful" then 007's job would be to easy. For example we can't give hiom a gadget that can read minds that are on the other side of the earth and then
Re: (Score:2)
Some of the books (and perhaps some of the earlier movies) had Bond's car practically indestructible. I notice they've dropped that. I don't think the cars have even been particularly bullet proof lately.
Re: (Score:2)
It's cool that Bond films at least partially stick close enough to the near future that the gadgets are coolâ¦
Like cars that bend light around them?
Re: (Score:2)
Google this: invisibility suit wiki
It works, but not nearly as well as in the Bond movie. But, that's the point, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Guess you missed the sarcasm.
Although, taking it seriously, I remember an episode where they tested the chain-around-the-rear-axel-of-the-cop-car myth. True, the car probably wasn't usable again, but the remote steering mechanism should have been.
I can definitely see the remote being broken after the car jumping off the ramp episode though.
Re: (Score:2)
The modern bond films (Score:5, Insightful)
are just car/gadget ads.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In the first Bond book, Casino Royal, the only high tech is that J Bond has oversized headlights on his car. He is more a international detective, smoking two packs a day, and drinking hard liquor.
Re: (Score:2)
>>> Ridiculous to think that in 1963 the gadget of choice for Bond was a pager
Not really. I was watching an old 60s "The Avengers" episode where some businessman was bragging about his new "electronic secretary" that went beep. That's all it did; just beep. So seeing Bond carrying a pager that not only beeps, but gives a little message on top of that is utterly amazing.
Remember this was in the age of 0.1 kbit/s modems. Sloooow. Primitive. Barely-worked.
Re: (Score:2)
I used that exact model of pager in the article. Actually we shared a pager for whoever was on call.
Scott had the pager when he headed to the rest room. It had a small two line text display. We TM'd him Don't Forget To Wipe.
He was quite embarrassed when the pager went off in the bathroom. (pagers and cell phones ringing were total attention getters back then, no matter where, because almost nobody had them)
Villains have the best toys (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Villains have the best toys (Score:4, Informative)
What about it? It's #9. [computerweekly.com]
Re: (Score:2)
frickin laser... (Score:3, Funny)
... to strap to his noggin in case he ever comes up against any similarly equipped sharks.
Re: (Score:2)
There was the wrist watch with a laser...
My favorite was the wrist watch with the electro magnet.
There was also the garrote wire watch used in From Russia With Love... and also used by George H. W. Bush in the Simpsons!
Best of the bunch (Score:5, Interesting)
Two words...Little Nellie! [jamesbondmm.co.uk] Can I have one please?
Sure you can .... (Score:3, Informative)
Andy
There's my flying car! (Score:4, Interesting)
Small autogyros are very maneuverable, have short take off/landing and are potentially a lot safer too. A small auto gyro gives reasonable speed and mileage. Landed, the rotor can be folded away quite easily and the autogyro could be easily powered by its own engine (as a simple motor trike).
Re: (Score:2)
If it's good enough for the world of Mad Max, it's good enough for Bond.
If you're interested... (Score:5, Informative)
If you are smart, phone control of a car works (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this because I designed/created a system to do it a few years back.
Its actually not very hard, I did this with a app on my then-new smart phone, using its internet access to connect car based computer I also gave internet access and configured to use a static host name using a dy-dns like setup on the car based computer system.
The hardest problem I had was calibration of the electronics to interface with the actual driving of the car; I never realized how much we as humans compensate for a slight directional drift on the steering wheel, or how refined our ability to break slowly is. Also, the brakes are an issue as the correct leverage for the breaks can be broken easily if you don't set it up correctly; Get it wrong and you cant actually use the car outside of the remote control because the assembly to drive it is in the way.
In general, The older the car, the more issues you will have. Also, the power and electrical systems are the picture of inadequacy if you are looking to build your own 'Kit'. I actually may try to dig out my old notes, many of my ideas for additions may be possible now.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
how is a pager ridiculous? (Score:2, Insightful)
Back then a pager was a big thing. Consumer electronics of that type were still kind of new back then.
Honestly, some people seem to think the world began with episode 1 of star wars.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Honestly, some people seem to think the world began with episode 1 of star wars.
No, that was the beginning of the end of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, some people seem to think the world began with episode 1 of star wars.
No, that was the beginning of the end of the world.
Then the Matrix sequels came out and the world actually ended.
Welcome to Earth 2.0
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
earth 2 came out and bombed. Personally I want earth 3. SP 2
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Langly: "You look down, Mulder. Tell you what, you're welcome to come over Saturday night. We're all hopping on the Internet to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2."
Oh how times have changed.
Re:how is a pager ridiculous? (Score:5, Insightful)
This will blow your mind, but there are no Matrix sequels...
Re: (Score:2)
Do not try to enjoy the sequels, that's impossible. Instead, only try to know the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
I keep telling myself that. Generally it works, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I know the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
I keep telling myself that. Generally it works, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I know the truth.
For me, the truth generally comes the morning after.
Re: (Score:2)
This will blow your mind, but there are no Matrix sequels...
Don't we all wish that were true...
Ahem (Score:2)
I work for a WELL-known IT hardware/software giant that goes by a TLA. They just issued me a new 1-way pager.
So there, ha!
Re:how is a pager ridiculous? (Score:4, Informative)
It was a different world of communications back then. Most homes didn't even have answering machines until the late 70's/early 80's. Businesses paid for answering services with live operators. If you weren't home to answer the phone, you didn't get the message.
The Bensen Gyrocopter (Score:4, Informative)
They didn't mention the Bensen Gyrocopter [msgyro.com] from "You Only Live Twice". That was a real, flyable aircraft, although the version that came in four big suitcases (a scene stolen from "Thief of Baghdad") was a dummy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Wallis Autogyro you mean surely? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wallis [wikipedia.org] Bit of a local hero round these parts.
Eddie Izzard's view (Score:4, Funny)
Pictures (Score:2)
Can someone tell me from which server the pictures in the fine article come? I seem to have adblocked them or something, because I don't see them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Image Properties:
Location: http://www.computerweekly.com/PhotoGalleries/232923/19_20_Jet-pack-Thunderball-1965-Sean-Connery.jpg [computerweekly.com]
Location: http://www.computerweekly.com/PhotoGalleries/232923/34_20_Mini-speedboat-The-World-is-Not-Enough-1999-Pierce-Brosnan.jpg [computerweekly.com]
etc...
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks! Weird that I don't see them on the site.
Re: (Score:2)
I turned off ABP and still don't see the images. I also renamed my hosts file. Same results. I wonder what the heck. IE6.0 SP2 showed them fine.
Using minimum font size? (Score:2)
I think I got it now. It's not ABP's fault.
If SeaMonkey's Minimum Font size is set to 12 or higher, then no images show up in Computer Weekly's Image Gallery: http://www.computerweekly.com/Home/GalleryListingPage.aspx [computerweekly.com] ... Example: http://www.computerweekly.com/PhotoGalleries/232923/33_20_BMW-750-IL-Tomorrow-Never-Dies-1997-Pierce-Brosnan.jpg [computerweekly.com]
Are you using that too in Firefox/SeaMonkey?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I have it switched on. Let me try without... (opens a new tab...)... What the...??!! You're right, it works now! Amazing. Cool, thanks!!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I wonder if it is a bug in Mozilla's Web browser, site bug, or what. I posted this issue in Firefox and SeaMonkey newsgroups to see what others say.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it has to do with the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... taking up more than one line when the font is too big.
Re: (Score:2)
I got a reply from Mozilla's newsgroup: "It is a problem of the website styles not accounting for this case - they should at least allow that much of font size variation (while I don't have problem reading even smaller than 12px font, it is extremely not comfortable to me, so I'm using the same minimum)."
I suggest we tell ComputerWeekly about this issue: http://www.computerweekly.com/StaticPages/ContactUs.htm [computerweekly.com] ...
Re: (Score:2)
I just sent them a mail. Let's hope they change it before the article is 'old'.
Re: (Score:2)
I found another site with the same problem:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/scoreboard/20081029.html [mlb.com] (try higher 13)
Do you get the same results? It seems like more and more Web sites are doing this. :(
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't see any on my side too.
I reported the problem to AdBlock Plus people in http://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21432 [adblockplus.org] ... Other ComputerWeekly's image galleries have the same problem from http://www.computerweekly.com/Home/GalleryListingPage.aspx [computerweekly.com] ...
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox almost never does that to me. Strange.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have a mininum font size at 12 or higher? That is messing it up. :(
Aston Martin + Champagne refrigerator (Score:2)
Car-sub! (Score:2)
The underwater car, gadget 2 in TFA, was the one I always wanted. Unfortunately I do not know of such a car ever being made, there's been a few amphibious cars but I've never heard of a car which can actually turn into a mini-sub underwater.
I guess the lack of oxygen would be a slight problem for any combustion-based vehicle, maybe Bond's car was electric?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The tested one on a British car show on here a year or so ago. It's not an enclosed sub - you need to wear diving gear to use it underwater, but it does work as a submarine and can move from land, into water then submerge itself when you're in a suitable place.
Re:Car-sub! (Score:5, Interesting)
Rinspeed sQuba [rinspeed.com]
Re: (Score:2)
That car is crazy!
Re:Car-sub! (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascinating. Here's a link to the text explaining the car:
http://www.rinspeed.com/pages/cars/squba/pre-squba.htm [rinspeed.com]
This is an actual car, but the Bond version remains sheer fantasy. The Rinspeed's passenger compartment is not pressurized; it's designed to let the water in. According to the above cited text:
The James Bond movie car drove fast on land, and shot wet cement onto the windscreen of a pursuing car, before driving into the sea and then firing a missile to shoot down a helicopter. This is cooler, though, because it actually exists.
steveha
My favorite... the knife in the KGB woman's shoe (Score:2, Funny)
My favorite, I think perhaps from one of the Roger Moore Bond films, was the Soviet agents knife in the shoe. It was hilarious watching her try to kick Bond, swinging the leg around trying to 'git im'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the novel though its poisoned knitting needles.
Re: (Score:2)
I realize they're poisoned, which was why it was good to have them in a place where someone was unlikely to be able to retreat or stay out of legs' reach.
At least with poisoned knitting needles you could throw them or use them in some sort of traditional martial sense.
just don't stop to ask where the energy comes from (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If we had the technology to supply these things with the power they need,
Hey, wait a minute! Are you saying these things are... fictional?
Why didn't anybody tell me! My business model is shot! My Step 3 is dependent on these super-dense power supplies! Now I'll never get to Profit!
I had Jaws' teeth (Score:5, Funny)
Broke both my jaws 20 years ago, two metal gumshields were glued to my teeth, both of these had little hooks pointing up/down away from my mouth, on these hooks were elastic bands, these bands kept my nouth in the correct possition (and had to be cut if ever I puked).
When I'd healed, the elastic bands were removed and I looked just like Jaws. No white teeth, just metal.
If it wasn't for all the other metalwork screwed into my skull, I'd have been chewing through cables.
Liquid food for ten weeks... No pictures but I promise you it did happen.
Your "nouth"? (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it didn't heal so well then?
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like 20 years later the medic technology is improved...?
I have intentionally broken my jaw 3 years ago, or actually I was having my malocclusions conditions treated. 6 weeks of liquid food (if you still call that food...)
Besides the titanium screws that were blot on the jaw bone which were taken out in another operation later, there were a metal wrapping wires which wrap around the teeth. The hooks are glued to the teeth just like normal braces though, which is removable once done...
The metalwork used
Not from Q ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It also breaks down from all that use so they have to keep replacing the actor.
nope (Score:2)
James Bond is a virgin!
Re: (Score:2)
Are you implying that particular gadget has been enhanced by the tech guys?
L-pills always the scariest gadgets (Score:2)
Suicide pills I've always found to be scary, even scarier are the people who employ them. There's just something unsettling to Western sensibilities when someone is willing to give their lives for a cause, not just in the "might not come back from this mission" context but "I'm biting down on a cyanide ampule and there's no coming back from--ACK!" To the western mind, the slight chance of survival from an apparently suicidal mission is completely different from an intentionally suicidal mission where succes
Re: (Score:2)
The point of the cyanide pill isn't to give your life for the cause.
They want to live. The point is to sacrifice yourself before they can question you.
That's why in "Tomorrow Never Dies" M chastises Bond for not using it when he was captured, because they think he was the one spilling secrets.
Re: (Score:2)
The point of the cyanide pill isn't to give your life for the cause.
I'm aware of that as an adult but as a child I always conflated the two. And it makes for a good point, anyone will break under torture. I know the Tamil Tigers make L-pill training a daily event so that the thought of taking the capsule from around your neck and biting down on it becomes second-nature, it will be the unthinking, unquestioning response when faced with capture. Pretty scary stuff.
The "other" kind of parachute. (Score:2)
"Mini speedboat - The World is Not Enough (1999) Pierce Brosnan
I'm not sure that Pierce Brosnan's mini speedboat really qualifies as a gadget, but it was an electric opening sequence, and its bijou size means its almost small enough to fit in your pocket and qualify as a gadget.
"
Maybe with todays fashion you could fit them in your pants.
The new Bond (Score:2)
IS the gadget.
Because I hate multi-paged lists... (Score:2, Informative)
Jet pack - Thunderball (1965) Sean Connery
Not really a gadget but one of the more memorable personal devices that Bond has possessed. After killing Colonel Jacques Bouvar at a chateau, Bond uses the jet pack to return to his car, an Aston Martin DB5. The pack used was developed by Bell Aerosystems as the Bell Rocket Belt which only had a 20 second flying time using a hydrogen peroxide fuel. The scenes in Thunderball were shot using two stuntmen and the shrill sound of the jets was overdubbed with the sound
Re: (Score:2)
Top Gear did a feature a couple of years back with real r/c cars. Three of them in a quarry. James May and Richard Hammond vs. a 14 year old girl who was the national junior r/c car racing champion (or something similar).
She did a pretty good job.
Re: (Score:2)
Ursula Andress did it first (single shot, not machine gun) in The Tenth Victim.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of us can enjoy fiction without buying into it.
I pity your inability to use your brain.
Choices (Score:2)
Hey there, geekoid! How's the downward spiral treating you these days?
No need for pity. I certainly don't pity you. People like us have strong opinions and we are both intelligent and we're not likely to alter our views, (though I am open to altering mine should new information arise rather than fight to maintain faulty belief structures for reasons of ego etc., which is where I suspect we differ, but that's not the issue).
Sure, I happen to think you're 180 degrees south of correct on many points, but I
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have a point, but consider this. In 1960 WW2 had only been over 15 years, and that *was* all about defeating a megalomaniac bent on world domination. It's no coincidence that for the next twe
Re: (Score:2)
This is how our parents' generation dealt with very real nightmare they lived through - you could argue that these films and other productions were a channeling of their collective traumas.
That's fair enough. I suppose I'm more annoyed at myself. I was just a kid when I saw (and was deeply impressed with) my first Bond movie. I didn't have any post war trauma to deal with, so my only excuse was being young and ignorant, so I do rather feel like I was fed a line, even if it wasn't deliberate. I can certa