26.02.11

Video: Dutch Marine's Helmetcam Delivers Thrilling First-Person-Shooter View of Raid on Pirate-Seized Ship

Video gamers and warfighters alike will appreciate this stunning first-person-shooter view of a Dutch marine boarding team taking back a German merchant ship from Somali pirates. It's not hard to imagine many more soldiers of the future equipped with cameras so that commanders can have multiple
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Seeking Troop Longevity, Indian Military Taps a Holy Man on a Supposed 70-Year Fast

India's Defense Research Development Organization thinks it may have found a new secret weapon: an 82-year-old holy man named Prahlad Jani. His tactical advantage: longevity. Jani claims via the UK's Telegraph
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A Cheap, Thin Film Gives Portable Night Vision to Mobile Phones and Eyeglasses

What we regularly refer to as "night vision goggles" are actually less like goggles and more like heavy, bulky (and outrageously expensive) pieces of machinery. But DARPA-funded research at the University of Florida in the US has adapted technology regularly found in flat-screen
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Memristors to Be Used by US Military to Create Simulated Brains

DARPA's ardent desire to realise every sci-fi concept ever dreamed of continues with a biologically-inspired computer project which aims for feline brain functionality. But this time it's pinning its hopes on memristor devices which can simulate the behaviour of biological synapses in the brain. Memristors
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Sound Bullets Inspired By Newton's Cradle Could Sink Subs, Destroy Tumours

Inspiration comes from the strangest places. A falling apple supposedly inspired Newton’s laws, and now a desktop ornament bearing Newton’s name has inspired a new acoustic weapon that both militaries and hospitals can keep in their arsenals: sub-sinking, tumor killing “sound
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US Navy Submarine Runs Eternally on Thermal Power from Ocean Currents

A Navy-funded thermal engine bobbing off the coast of Hawaii is accomplishing a rare feat -- it produces more energy than it consumes. Though it's not quite a perpetual motion machine, it could provide scientists or the Navy with a perpetual presence on the seas. The engine is attached to an
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Video: US Navy Helicopter Drone Makes First Coke Bust on the High Seas

Drug runners and pirates beware: a US Navy helicopter drone made its first official drug bust on April 3. The US Navy Fire Scout stealthily tailed a "go-fast" boat suspected of carrying narcotics for three hours, and captured video of the boat's refuelling rendezvous with a fishing vessel.
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In Safety Study, Sheep on Meth Are Shocked With Tasers

Cocaine is a hell of a drug, but getting shocked with a Taser while riding high on methamphetamines probably beats any white-knuckled cocaine experience hands down. And that's exactly what happened to some lucky sheep in a new study that tested the effects of Tasers on meth-addled targets,
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Video: Apocalypse-Fearing Folk Can Seek Shelter in Futuristic US$10 Million Doomsday Bunker

A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the sceptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground
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Air Force Calls for Airborne Electric Lasers That Can Target Land and Air

The challenge is packing the power of a chemical laser into an electric laser's smaller, more portable package Skyborne chemical lasers have successfully shown off their potential killing power, and so the Air Force has now turned toward putting a more compact electric laser aboard its
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U.S. Government Launches Official Agency to Manage Biometric Database

Collecting fingerprints and other biometric data has long allowed law enforcement and the military alike to track down wanted individuals, solve cases, or just keep tabs on people. Now what was a U.S. government task force under the U.S. Army has officially become a full-scale national
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DARPA's Smart BLADE Will Cut Enemy Communications on the Battlefield

Further solidifying its reputations for cutting edge battlefield tech and badass acronyms, DARPA has awarded BAE systems $8.4 million to develop its BLADE
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Remote Terahertz Scanners Could See What's in Your Pockets from Miles Away

If those new airport X-ray scanners offend your modest sensibilities, you may not want to read this. A new terahertz remote sensor may soon be able to
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From NACHOS to MAHEM: Naming The World's Most Advanced Military Tech

What do you call an armor-penetrating munition? MAHEM. A smokescreen that instantly closes around a tank? DRAPES. A robot that scavenges and feeds itself? EATR, of course. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military's mad-science research wing,
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Carnegie Mellon Gets $1 Million To Build Autonomous Flying Capability For Darpa's Dream Car

DARPA's Transformer - sometimes referred to as the flying Humvee - seems to be moving right along, even if only on paper at this point. The DoD's out-there tech incubator has awarded Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute $988,000 to develop an autonomous
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U.S. Spooks Want a System That Automatically Gauges Who Can Be Trusted

Just as DARPA pushes the wackier Pentagon ideas and ARPA-E backs next-gen energy projects,
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Adding Face Shields to Battle Helmets Could Drastically Reduce Brain Injuries from Explosions

Just as the AK-47 rifle shifted the balance of power on battlefields the world over during the second half of the last century, the improvised explosive device (IED) has defined 21st-century insurgent warfare, allowing relatively low-tech warriors to inflict major damage
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DARPA's Robotic Ghost Ships Will Stalk Submarines

Ships that appear in perfect working order except for a missing human crew would normally raise
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Lockheed's HULC Super-Soldier Exoskeleton Gets More Juice

HULC want longer-lasting batteries! Even the finest super-soldier suit can end up as expensive
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U.S. Wargamers Wrap Up Massive Cyberattack Drill: "We Are Not Prepared"

Washington insiders recently sweated out a real-time war game where a cyberattack crippled
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US Air Force Tests Method for Using Light to Heal Battlefield Injuries

In the near future, wounds may be treated with a flash of light. A process called photochemical tissue bonding can replace conventional stitches, staples and glues in repairing skin wounds and even reconnecting nerves and blood vessels. Researchers
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US Special Forces Set to Carry XM-25 Laser-Guided Smart-Bullet Weapon into Battle

US Army Special Forces soldiers will deploy with the XM-25 weapon this summer, so that they can shower enemies hidden inside buildings with lethal smart rounds. Veterans of the Afghanistan conflict who tried the weapon predicted it would be a "game changing" gun capable
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Marine animals put to work fighting terrorism

Capture a terrorist, eat a fish: it's all in a day's work for the US navy's latest terror-fighting weapon. Specially trained marine mammals were the star attraction in a Governor Schwarzenegger-initiated anti-terrorist training session held at ports throughout California this week. One
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Navy sending MZ-3A airship to gulf for cleanup effort

Big problems call for big responses, and while armchair pundits and denizens of the blogosphere pick apart the government response to the BP oil spill, the US Navy is bringing out the big guns to
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British-designed ‘bulletproof custard' liquid armor is better than a Kevlar Vest

Liquid armor has been shown to stop bullets more effectively than plain Kevlar, according to British firm BAE Systems. The material could be used to make thinner, lighter armor for military personnel and police officers,
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New Stealth Nano-Paint Turns Any Aircraft Into a Radar-Evading Stealth Plane

Image:Stealth Paint New Israeli nanotech paint purportedly turns any airplane or missile into a stealth aircraft. Some innovations in flight are huge; for instance, this week we've
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For the First Time, a Full-Sized Helicopter Makes a Completely Autonomous Flight

An Army-funded research group at Carnegie Mellon University, working with engineers at Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, has made a huge leap forward -- or perhaps skyward -- for the future of autonomous flight. In mid-June, the team launched
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South Korea Deploys Deadly Sentry Bots to Keep Watchful Eyes, Serious Weapons Trained on the Demilitarized Zone

Image: Korea's Demilitarized Zone The South Korean side of the Korean peninsula may soon be littered with robot sentries armed not only with heat and motion sensors, but with automatic weapons and 40 millimeter grenade launchers.
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Remote Terahertz Scanners Could See What's in Your Pockets from Miles Away

If those new airport X-ray scanners offend your modest sensibilities, you may not want to read this. A new terahertz remote sensor may soon be able to
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Smart visual algorithm lets unmanned drones perform autonomous search and rescue operations

Unmanned drones could make searching for lost hikers much cheaper, faster and safer than using helicopters, according to researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah. They are turning drones, best known for their search-and-destroy capabilities, into
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