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The military is experimenting with replacing inert metals in munitions with reactive materials to create enhanced "superbombs." By replacing the inert metals in Explosively Formed Penetrators, the resulting explosions is much larger and is more able to get through rock...
POSTED Friday, May 9, 2008
A few days ago we showed you how to build your own robot suit, à la Iron Man. Our northern neighbors must have liked the idea, because on Monday the Canadian Defence Department put out feelers looking for companies...
POSTED Tuesday, May 6, 2008
We already showed you how to stay fashionable in urban combat situations. Along the same lines, Peter Gronquist has jazzed up retired rifles, chainsaws, machine guns and artillery shells and slapped big names on them: Louis Vuitton, Coach, Gucci...
POSTED Tuesday, May 6, 2008
We’ve been hearing rumblings about the U.S. Navy’s triple-hulled ships, but here’s one that was launched last month, the U.S.S Independence. Built by General Dynamics, it’s called a “littoral combat ship” (LCS), and the trimaran can move huge weapons...
POSTED Monday, May 5, 2008
You can understand the U.S. military’s fascination with insect-like weapon and surveillance designs. If you’re looking to create a smart and sneaky organism from the ground up, why not tap the wisdom of millions of years of evolution, borrowing...
POSTED Friday, May 2, 2008
The RP-7 robot assistant is designed to enable surgeons and doctors to have a virtual presence with patients. It performed a more sentimental assignment, allowing Army Staff Sergeant Erik Lloyd, currently on tour in Iraq, to interact with his...
POSTED Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Aeryon Scout is an aerial surveillance vehicle that can take sneaky shots thanks to the camera fixed to its underside. It's a simple machine: it's remote controlled and has four rotors housed by foam casings that'll keep it...
POSTED Friday, April 18, 2008
Are you looking to seriously terrorize the kids at the elementary school across the street when school gets out? Have I got the tool for that job. This remote-controlled paintball turret will allow you to peg those pesky kids from...
POSTED Wednesday, April 9, 2008
China's office of weather modification is gearing up to keep the sky clear during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. How will they do it? With planes, rockets and artillery. The weather will be closely monitored with aerial surveillance and...
POSTED Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The manhunters are coming. Air Force pal and defense contractor Northrop Grumman has been tinkering with this X-47B drone since early in this century, but now things are getting serious. How serious? The sophisticated radio-controlled jet might be flying...
POSTED Saturday, March 22, 2008
You can beat this Transcend StoreJet 25 mobile hard drive to hell and it’ll still work. The 5.3-inch-tall drive is said to be able to survive the U.S. military's notorious MIL-STD-810F Transit Drop test, which means it can be...
POSTED Friday, March 21, 2008
It’s awfully difficult to build a flying robot with spy gear built in, so why not just implant that paraphernalia in a living bug? Scientists are making progress on the idea of a cyborg butterfly, with a Georgia Tech...
POSTED Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The US Army has a vision: combat bats. So it's commissioned several American universities to work on inventing one. The University of Michigan received $10 million from the Army to establish The Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced...
POSTED Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The awesomely-named NET-2000 Shooting Net Rod looks like a flashlight of some sort, but when you hit a button on it it'll launch a 52-square-foot net up to 49 feet, capturing any bad guys or animals in its path. It's...
POSTED Tuesday, March 18, 2008
This mini stun gun, called The Runt, is about the size of an iPod nano, but can smack you down with so much voltage you’ll think you got hit by a truck. The 950,000-volt version ($69.95, pictured above right)...
POSTED Monday, March 17, 2008
A patent has been filed by inventor Gregory Rondinone of Connecticut for a knife that will shoot a jet of compressed air into whatever it punctures at the press of a trigger. The concentrated burst would be powerful enough...
POSTED Wednesday, March 12, 2008
When you're walking the dog at night and carrying a flashlight, what do you do if you're suddenly attacked by a gang of roving terrorists? If it's a normal flashlight, you swing it wildly and hope that wishing will...
POSTED Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Walking around in the dark can be dangerous, but this $129 K2 Porcupine Flashlight from PentagonLight ought to add a bit of confidence to offset those knocking knees. Not only is it fairly bright for a flashlight at 70...
POSTED Monday, March 10, 2008
What goes up, must come down … eventually. That’s the principle U.S. military research agency DARPA wanted to stretch to its limit when it dreamed up the Vulture project, an unmanned spy plane that could stay aloft for five...
POSTED Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A while back we told you about the LANdroids — tiny remote-control machines designed to extend wireless networks on battlefields. Now those roving robots is a step closer to reality, as the Pentagon has contracted with iRobot Corp. (the...
POSTED Monday, March 3, 2008
Digital Force Technologies makes a lot of fun doodads: remote observation equipment, satellite imagery-enhanced GPS devices, voice recognition systems for vehicles. Oh, and grappling hook launchers. The T-PLS is described as a "pneumatically launched tactical line-throwing system" by DFT, and...
POSTED Thursday, February 14, 2008
Boy howdy, I sure hate cleaning my many guns, don't you? What with all the small parts, who wants to spend all that time cleaning when you could be out shooting at stuff? That's what guns are for, after all:...
POSTED Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A team at Chatten Associates is bridging the gap between remote vehicle and operator by helping the human feel far closer to the action. According to a study by DARPA, a remote operator will react nearly four times slower when...
POSTED Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A bit like the Cornershot, the Concealed Engagement Unit, or CEU, will allow nearly any rifle to be fired around or over an obstruction, keeping the shooter relatively safe and still allowing them to aim. Designed by Aimpoint, it...
POSTED Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Holy crap. The Navy just tested out its insane new 10 megajoule railgun, and it's clearly the future of death-delivery systems. Rather than using gunpowder like most guns, this thing powers projectiles via magnetic waves, allowing you to launch stuff...
POSTED Saturday, February 2, 2008
We've heard of a white-hot spotlight, but this flashlight is ridiculous. Manufacturer Wicked Lasers calls this monster The Torch, and the 4100-lumen light packs enough punch to literally set the world on fire, starting up a pile of loose...
POSTED Monday, January 28, 2008
The big brains at DARPA are at it again, this time teaming up with Oklahoma State University to develop unmanned aerial vehicles that will be small enough to fit into a soldier's pocket. The heart of the project is...
POSTED Monday, January 21, 2008
If you did see one of these anti-riot vehicles at the 2008 North American International Auto Show, it's probably time to run. Police all around the world utilize special vehicles in situations where (at least, ideally) large crowds are...
POSTED Wednesday, January 16, 2008
American Airlines' planes flying the transcontinental route between New York and California are slated to carry anti-missile defense systems attached to the underside of each craft. The defense system is a missile jammer that scans for and, once detected,...
POSTED Friday, January 11, 2008
Pants and shirts using the Warrior Wear Integrated Tourniquet System by Blackhawk Products Group, a supplier of military and law enforcement gear, enable the wearer to automatically cut of blood flow to any wound with one hand. Warrior Wear...
POSTED Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Man, don't you totally hate it when you're in a firefight and you lean around a corner to aim and totally catch a bullet in the melon? It's the worst! Well, if I had a Corner Shot instead of a...
POSTED Monday, December 24, 2007
The folks over at the US Air Force Research Lab came up with an idea to allow spy drones to procure energy in the field: have them hang from power lines and leech some juice. Of course, there are...
POSTED Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The race to build a working and dependable scramjet is happening all the world over — the United States, China, Australia and who knows who else all want one. DARPA's HTV-3X, also known as Blackswift, is an unmanned scramjet-powered...
POSTED Friday, December 14, 2007
The idea of soldiers waging war from inside of performance-enhancing exoskeletons is often dreamed about in science fiction — from the pages of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers to classic cartoons such as Exosquad. Now it looks like Sarcos, a...
POSTED Tuesday, November 27, 2007
This ain't your papa's flight helmet. Designed for pilots of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the helm you see above will allow pilots to virtually see through the aircraft around them, giving them a wide field of view ahead...
POSTED Thursday, November 15, 2007
The entirely self aware and fully autonomous Black Knight combat walker is a four-legged behemoth of — oh wait, that's tomorrow's headline. This "Unmanned Combat Vehicle," being developed for the US Army by weapons purveyor BAE Systems, is actually...
POSTED Friday, November 9, 2007
To the casual observer, this is just an ordinary ballpoint pen, but underneath its mild-mannered skin, it's bristling with the latest technology. Forget that camera in your tie; not only does this pencam surreptitiously record video and audio, but...
POSTED Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Those military eggheads at DARPA in the Pentagon have been hard at work at a new device to help people swim more efficiently, like dolphins or penguins. What they've come up with is this: PowerSwim. Utilizing a couple of...
POSTED Friday, November 2, 2007
The British Ministry of Defense is cooking up a nasty surprise for enemy infantry and armor with a system it hopes will render its tanks invisible by 2012. Sounds a little shaky, but the invisible defense would employ a...
POSTED Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Halloween pirates and piracy pirates have nothing on the real-life pirates that are currently roaming the seas trying to plunder and pillage. The United States Navy and Coast Guard know these dangers and are looking into an unmanned...
POSTED Thursday, November 1, 2007
Mortars pose a significant threat to infantry as even if they aren't always lethal, they drop out of the sky and can effectively pin a squad down. Well, some crazy military engineers decided to take the Phalanx M61 (pictured...
POSTED Monday, October 22, 2007
The "Microrobot" may sound like a cute, tiny mech, but you should probably think twice before picking on it. Hint: it'll probably respond by shooting you. The Microrobot is a driverless patrol vehicle designed to guard the Korean Demilitarized...
POSTED Friday, October 19, 2007
Researchers at UC Irvine have designed the first radio using nano-sized parts. Why? Even they didn't have a convincing answer in this interview. Not all the parts in this AM radio are tiny; so far only the demodulator is...
POSTED Thursday, October 18, 2007
On Friday, a firing test using live ammo by the South African National Defense Force went tragically sour, leaving nine dead and 14 seriously injured. Authorities are still looking into what caused the automated Oerlikon GDF-005 anti-aircraft gun to...
POSTED Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Air Force is looking to include speech recognition software in upcoming fighter jets such as the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which should see runways in 2008. Implementing speech recognition software would give pilots another option rather...
POSTED Wednesday, October 17, 2007
M65. Recoilless. Nuclear. Rifle. I guess that's really all I have to say. Hey, wait! Before you run off into the yard to test this puppy out, there are some things you might want to consider. Firing off your...
POSTED Friday, October 12, 2007
With more and more gear and gadgetry being added to soldiers' arsenals all the time, getting all their equipment juiced up and ready to go is becoming more and more of an issue. The Australian Army has decided to...
POSTED Monday, October 1, 2007
Think cyborgs are purely science fiction? If the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has anything to say about it, they'll be reality by the end of the decade. The APL has given itself until 2009 to create a prosthetic hand...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
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