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Car Tech, Green Tech

Army and EnerDel Working on Hybrid Humvee

With the economy the way it is, and your unemployment check the way it is, we know it's hard to maintain your douche status and keep that Hummer gassed up. But fear not. According to CNET, battery manufacturer EnerDel just signed a $1.29 million contract with the U.S. Army to design a full-sized Humvee that runs, at least in part, on electricity.

Back in August, Raser Technologies showed off a Hummer powered by a hybrid engine that, thanks to dubious methods of measuring mileage, was able to lay claim to getting 100 miles per gallon. But that Hummer was the smaller H3 consumer model. For those with real inadequacies, though, that need real overcompensation, the H3 just won't do. They need the proper Humvee. You know, the one that takes up four parking spots and blocks three lanes of interstate traffic.

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Computers

Creepy Two-Legged Robot Walks Like a Human

It's not going to win any foot races, but a new robot being developed for the U.S. Army still has a leg (or two) up on its competition. The "Petman" prototype is a bipedal robot that simulates human walking (video after the break) more realistically than any other robot we've seen. According to Wired, the robot, which is being developed by Boston Dynamics, will be used to test how protective clothing responds during chemical warfare. It walks with a heel-to-toe motion at 3.2 mph and can maintain balance if pushed or bumped. Plus, the robot simulates human environmental and physiological factors -- like temperature, humidity, and "sweating" -- to provide even more realistic testing conditions.

There's a slew of walking robots out there, but "Petman" stands out in the crowd. It's hard to pinpoint what's most amazing -- the 'bot's balance or the walking motion. Just as long as the Army is really using "Petman" to test clothing, and creating a plethora of robot super soldiers. [From: Wired]

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Audio/Video, iPod

Soldiers' iPods Give Glimpse Into Psyche


With music becoming increasingly accessible, it's now possible to accompany every moment of life with a personalized soundtrack. Not only have iPods and MP3 players pervaded everyday existence, but they've also, not surprisingly, become just as crucial to those most extreme, intense moments -- moments most of us never experience, but which, for soldiers in combat, are the norm.

Such is the backdrop of a recent study by City College of New York music theorist Jonathan Pieslak. For the past few years, Pieslak has interviewed American soldiers about the genres of music that populate their battlefield playlists and the reasons behind their choices. Originally drawn to the subject after reading that, during Desert Storm, 40-percent of the metal band Slayer's fan mail came from soldiers stationed abroad, Pieslak found that soldiers' playlists featured largely aggressive music, like Eminem, Metallica, and Slayer.

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Web, Social Networking

Pentagon Might Soon Give Troops the Okay to Tweet



After years of issuing social media policies that have been about as clear as mud, the U.S. military is nearing the completion of a new policy that would give troops the go ahead to use sites like Twitter or Facebook, Wired reports. A draft of the policy is circulating around the Pentagon, and if it's approved, troops will be allowed to use Department of Defense networks to access social networking sites, as well as e-mail, instant messaging, and forums.

This is a surprising turnaround for the military, since just this summer leadership was considering an outright ban of such sites for security purposes. While it's not a done deal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he expects a decision on the matter in a few weeks. While we understand the need for security, let's hope these men and women get the approval to blog, chat, or tweet all they want. They deserve some time to tune out on the Web. [From: Wired]

Computers

Researchers Remote Control Flying Beetles Via Electrodes


The military and researchers across the country have been working on putting tiny bots in the air for quite some time. They've talked robotic spy-bats, dreamed up cyborg crickets, dragonflies, and all matter of other bug-sized bots. In fact, they've successfully implanted electrodes into the brains of crickets, moths, and beetles to exercise some control over their movements -- they even got a beetle to briefly take flight. But until now, the amount of control over motions has been very limited.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley have succeeded in implanting electrodes into a beetle to remotely control its flight (video after the break). These mini electronics allow untethered control in free flight, something unachieved before now. In a paper published in the Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal, the researchers write that the zombie-controlled bugs could be "couriers to locations not easily accessible to humans or terrestrial robots."

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Visionaries

Students Set Altitude Record With Unmanned Model Plane


Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) perform a wide variety of important tasks for NASA and the U.S. military. The drones are deployed during times of conflict to track and annihilate enemy combatants, but they can also be used to monitor weather, agriculture, pollution, traffic, and fires. The only drawback to the awesome little guys is that they can be exorbitantly expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of millions of dollars for a single vehicle.

Last week at the NASA Dryden center, Stanford University Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Juan Alonso, along with a team of graduate students, attempted to break the altitude record for a self-piloted plane (one that flies without human aid, using electronics and software). The incredibly frugal yet highly creative team built two $500 electrically-powered balsa wood UAVs. The winner of the two, the Blue Panther, managed to eclipse standing records by twice climbing over 7,000 feet and properly landing. On its third flight, it reached a staggering 8,169 feet, but crashed back to Earth after leaving NASA airspace.

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Car Tech

Military Developing Leaping Robots for Urban Exploration


The two developers of the most frightening and impressive robots in the United States are joining forces to create an incredible new high-flying bot, reports the BBC. The Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (creator of the terrifying EATR-bot that can sustain itself on human flesh) first developed the awesome Precision Urban Hopper. Boston Dynamics (the firm that developed the intimidating, clawed, climbing RiSE V3 robot), has been enlisted to perfect it.

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Computers

Robotic 'Dragon Egg' Gives Soldiers a Roving Eye


Although the tools of war have evolved at an astonishing rate over the course of the modern age, the classic man with a gun hasn't changed much since the 1700s. Now that we've finished building bigger and bigger guns, however, we've turned our research muscle back towards doing our best to improve that basic unit of battle: the infantry man.

The Land Warrior system is currently getting its first large-scale test in Afghanistan, with hundreds of the wearable computers deployed to team leaders and vehicle commanders. The system, which includes a viewfinder for identifying friendlies and hostile targets, a thumb keypad, and other gadgets, is one of the more expensive and cumbersome tools at the disposal of the modern soldier.

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Computers

US Navy Developing Underwater Drones

During World War II, amphibious vehicles played a key role in battles throughout every theater of war (most famously the D-Day landings), revolutionizing modern military tactics. In the ongoing shift toward a military that is more dependent on technology and surveillance than sheer human numbers, the Navy has revealed that it is currently developing the futuristic (and awesomely intimidating) offspring of those original landing crafts.

The US already employs a variety of unmanned drones, from surveillance crafts to flying harbingers of death that can actually engage the enemy, but all are dispatched from land or landing surfaces. According to Neatorama, the new drone, appropriately named Sea Stalker, would be a "torpedo-sized underwater robot that specializes in snooping on radio signals and other communications," that would be released from submerged submarines.

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Cameras

Luxury Yacht Owners Outfitting Ships to Fend Off Pirates

Expensive Yachts Get More Expensive to Fend Off Pirates

We've covered pirates of various types numerous times. Most of them have been the digital sort, particularly those belonging to the so-called Pirate Bay (some of whom are now doing a little time behind bars). However, it's pirates of a very different, rather more traditional type that are threatening wealthy cruisers, and many ship owners are spending millions to outfit their giant yachts with military tech in order to fend off these would-be boarders.

According to CNN, defense and surveillance company ProForm Marines offers many such defenses. Among them are non-lethal acoustic devices that produce piercing sound waves to disorient and deafen attackers, and infra-red cameras for detecting threats from miles away -- even in the pitch dark. Chartering company Fraser Yachts (one of whose yachts is pictured above) offers to equip its "super-yachts" with internal submarines that could double as escape pods (although Fraser's Clive McCartney told CNN that a submarine is merely "a leisure addition"). While there have been rumors in the British press of other, rather more lethal defense systems being used on yachts, no yacht-owners are exactly leaping to admit it.

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Web, Social Networking

Watchdog Group Discovers U.S. Soldiers on Neo-Nazi Social Network



Warning: Due to the nature of the subject, this post contains offensive language.


The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a watchdog and civil rights advocacy group, released a report identifying members of the U.S. military proudly displaying their racial extremist views online. The report outlines a disturbing trend of recruiting efforts by right wing extremists within the military, and the continued failure of people to recognize that anything they post online is open to public consumption.

The SPLC found approximately 40 users on New Saxon (a social network run by the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement) who listed their occupation as "military" in their profiles. Many of the military personnel on the site were even brave enough to list their branch, where they were stationed, and their home towns. Their pages were adorned not just with Nazi images and Confederate flags, but also with violent and disturbing quotes. For example, a staff Sergeant from Wisconsin said, "I love and will do anything to keep our master race marching." A Sergeant in the Marine Corps proudly declared, "I fight every day to stem the tide of multiculturalism and to ensure that my children have a better world. SIEG HEIL!"

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Pentagon Making Cyborg Crickets


Using animals as sentinels is nothing new, such as when miners used canaries to detect carbon monoxide and methane in coal mines. As the New Scientist reports, the Pentagon plans to use cyborg crickets for very much the same purpose, only for detecting chemical and biological agents on the battlefield. By equipping the crickets with small electronics to control their muscle movements, and hence the sounds created by their wing movements, a living communications network (OrthopterNets) can be created to relay specific warning signals when the cricket is in proximity of certain chemicals. Similarly, the equipment can be modified to detect human scents, possibly helping to locate survivors in earthquake rubble or other disasters.

Because they communicate using wing-beats, crickets, cicadas, and katydids are all possible subjects. The idea first came about when Ben Epstein of high-tech company OpCoast was visiting China and noticed how the cicada were changing their calls to each other. OpCoast was later awarded a six-month contract to develop a mobile communications network for insects by the Pentagon. If you find all of this hard to believe, check out the video above from New Scientist showcasing human-controlled moths and beetles. [From: New Scientist]

Cameras, Visionaries

Seeing-Eye Fabric Developed By MIT Researchers

Those dang MIT brainiacs. When they're not cracking people up with their erudite pranks and kooky creations, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing something to make the rest of the world feel insignificant and, well, let's just say undereducated. Institute researchers, according to CNet, have created a fabric with intertwining fibers that act as a basic camera.

The fibers, which can discern between two different light frequencies, produce a signal that is then amplified and processed by a computer. In its first successful trial, the process culminated in a smiley face displayed on the fabric, itself. Yoel Fink, one of the researchers, asserted that the groundbreaking design is the first to employ fabric that "can collect images just like a camera but without a lens."

The researchers believe the technology could be instrumental in battlefield scenarios, giving soldiers a 360-degree view of their surroundings. With this new camera suit, we hope to see a thrilling fiber-optic race to create a working invisibility jumpsuit or a functional chameleon cloak. Should MIT win that race, Cal Tech students need to be very worried. [From: CNet, via Slashdot]

Computers

GPS Glitches Cause Concern Over Future of Satellites

At any given moment, there are dozens of advanced GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites help with everything from missile launches and aircraft flight paths to automated teller machines. In a way, it is frightening to think the world depends so much on these complicated devices and their functioning correctly. Now, it looks like paranoia may pay off.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, a GPS satellite launched by the Pentagon is producing less than accurate results and weakening the signals of other satellites in orbit. This satellite, developed by Lockheed Martin Corp., uses a new civilian frequency called L5 intended for use by air-traffic control systems. However, during tests, the Air Force discovered this signal is making others less accurate -- only to around 20 feet instead of the usual two feet. That difference may not sound like much, but it's critical when figuring the coordinates to deploy a smart bomb or tracking a 747's flight path.

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UFOs? No, Just Aircraft That Looks Like Spacecraft.


When NASA footage from the 1990s was recently uploaded to YouTube, it sparked a renewal of the debate over whether or not the government conceals knowledge of alien activity. Fittingly, FOX News has created a list of military planes and contraptions that may confuse amateur sky watchers and inspire visions of extraterrestrial visitors.

According to the story, the CIA attributes half of all UFO sightings from the '50s and '60s to the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. The military and other government organizations may have also promoted UFO hysteria in order to maintain the secrecy of the covert planes. If you've served in the military, been to an air show, or just seen stealth planes in action, you know that they can appear to morph shapes and change directions instantly, which could easily lead even more recent spectators to believe they've witnessed something extraordinary.

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