• U.S. Navy interested in laser warfare

    A big attraction of the free-electron laser (FEL) is the ability to adjust its output wavelength to improve transmission through the thick, moist air at sea; other laser weapons emit at fixed wavelengths; also, the laser is electrically powered, so it can recharge quickly, potentially allowing for repeat bursts of fire

  • Indian military plans to use world's hottest pepper in weapons

    If you did not know, Scoville units are a universally accepted measure of chili hotness; the Indian bhut jolokia, from the Assam region, is by far the world’s hottest pepper; researchers at the University of Mexico found that the bhut jolokia reached over one million Scoville heat units (SHUs); the world’s next hottest pepper, the Red Savina Habenero, clocks in at a tame 577,000 Scoville units; the Indian Army is planning to use the bhut jolokia in stun grenades

  • DARPA wants to use ISO containers for operational flexibility, self-building floating bases

    The likely tasks for navies today include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief or “maritime domain awareness and interdiction operations” — that is, detecting and stopping such activities as piracy and smuggling of weapons, drugs, sanctions-busting cargoes; traditional naval methods call for large numbers of scarce, expensive, specialized warships which may not always be much use for such missions; DARPA looks into using ISO containers and intermodal transport system to deliver flexible operational capability from unmodified commercial containerships

  • Nuclear Medical Center established for early detection of injuries

    The Israeli military uses a new technology which allows early detection of injuries sustained by soldiers better than any other diagnostic tests; the system uses a new nuclear medicine system, which includes a new nuclear camera; the new camera has a sensitivity of 100 percent for diagnosing stress fractures, enabling the diagnosis of an injury already at the stage of a minor fracture and prevents it from worsening

  • New search technology will aid military surveillance

    New technology will allow the U.S. military to store far more photographs and video footage than before, as well as software that will give intelligence analysts and troops in the field far greater access to the footage; it will allow intelligence analysts and field commanders to log, edit, and search video archives to find exactly what they are looking for

  • Flying ambulance: UAV will extract wounded soldiers from the battlefield

    There is one more mission being added to the ever-expanding list of operational, intelligence, surveillance, law-enforcement, first response, and disaster recovery missions assigned to UAVs: evacuating critically injured casualties directly from the battlefield to the hospital

  • Underground intelligence satellite navigation will work off lightning strikes

    The U.S. ubiquitous eye-in-the-sky satellites have driven more and more people and things of interest to disappear underground (just think Iran’s nuclear weapons program); deep tunnel complex shields an organization from the prying eyes of satellites, and it is also good protection against a sudden bombing raid; the U.S. military wants to be able to peek and conduct operations underground

  • World's first practical jetpack commercially available for $75,000

    Kiwi company Martin Aircraft is offering the world’s first commercial jetpacks; the machine is expected to revolutionize the military and be taken up by emergency services; the jetpack travels for about 30 minutes on a five-gallon tank of premium gasoline, has top speeds of 60 mph, and reaches heights of 2,400 meters (about 1.5 miles)

  • Tiny sensor "listens" to gunshots to identify source of fire and type of weapon

    The sensor, developed by a Dutch company, is smaller than the head of a match, made of two 200-nanometer-thick, 10-micrometer-wide platinum strips that are heated to 200 degrees Celsius; the sensor does not truly “listen” to sounds; rather, it senses air particles that flow past the platinum strips and cool them unevenly

  • The last frontier: DARPA wants to make the Earth's crust transparent

    Seeing through the Earth’s would allow the development of tools to protect civilian populations from the ravages of natural disasters; these same tools could be used for military purposes against enemies — detecting, targeting, and destroying hard and buried underground facility (UGF) targets

  • Geospatial Corporation maps the world under the Earth's crust

    Pennsylvania-based Geospatial Corporation — company’s motto: “Mapping the underground / Managing the global infrastructure” — offers a solution which creates detailed 3D maps of underground regions; the Pentagon has already contracted Geospatial to create 3D maps of the deep earth beneath their “critical facilities”

  • DARPA looking for military iPhone and Android apps

    Pentagon’s research arm is looking for apps to be written for the iPhone or for handsets running Google’s Android OS — “with potential relevance to the military specifically and the national security community more generally”

  • U.S. Army looking for robots to extract wounded soldiers from battlefield

    Rescuing wounded soldiers under fire is itself a major cause of military death and injury; the U.S. Army asks inventors to come with idea for a Robotic Combat Casualty Extraction device; the robot should not only be strong and dexterous, but should also be capable of planning an approach and escape route without prior knowledge of the local terrain and geography

  • Israel's latest UAV -- world's largest -- is no game changer

    On Sunday Israel has unveiled the Eitan, the world’s largest UAV (it has the wingspan of Boeing 737); it will undoubtedly allow the country to look deep inside Iran to provide detailed intelligence, but it is not likely to be a wonder weapon to knock out the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities

  • Israel unveils world's largest UAV

    The Eitan is 79 feet long, has a wingspan of 86 feet — about the size of a Boeing 737 airliner — and can stay aloft for 20 hours at high altitude; powered by a 1,200-horsepower turbojet engine, it has a maximum altitude of 40,000 feet and can carry hundreds of pounds of equipment, such as high-resolution cameras and electronic systems and presumably weapons; Israel says the UAV has the capability of reaching the Gulf