Archive for the 'War' Category
Lockheed Martin Wants Orbital Laboratory for Mars
May 18th, 2016Via: Popular Science: Before our species set foot on the moon, we orbited it first. The same will probably be true for Mars, and on Wednesday, Lockheed Martin plans to unveil its vision for a spacecraft that could make it happen. The “Mars Base Camp,” as the company is calling it, would set up a […]
Stanford Quantifies the Privacy-Stripping Power of Metadata
May 17th, 2016Via: Tech Crunch: More proof, if proof were needed, of the privacy-stripping power of metadata. A multi-year crowdsourced study, conducted by Stanford scientists and published this week, underlines how much information can be inferred from basic phone logs cross-referenced with other public datasets. (Reminder: the former director of the NSA and the CIA, General Michael […]
Battelle Fielding 100 Drone Zappers to Pentagon, Homeland Security
May 17th, 2016Via: Defense Tech: The military has turned to a directed energy frequency jammer mounted on an assault rifle-type frame to deal with the growing threat of small drones to military bases and troops in the field. Officials of Battelle, the non-profit research and development organization based in Columbus, Ohio, said Monday the Defense Department and […]
Pentagon Wants AI to Read Social Media and Draw Up Lists of People for Lethal Autonomous Robots to Kill
May 16th, 2016Via: Medium: “LARs [lethal autonomous robots] have the unique potential to operate at a tempo faster than humans can possibly achieve and to lethally strike even when communications links have been severed. Autonomous targeting technology will likely proliferate to nations and groups around the world. To prevent being surpassed by rivals, the United States should […]
Hyperloop One: Open Air Prototype Tested in Nevada
May 11th, 2016I’ve found that Americans, in general, only have a vague concept of what a bullet train is. They know that it’s theoretically possible to travel around the Homeland on the ancient and lumbering Amtrak system, if they want to pay a lot and go slow, but that’s about it. Nothing worth seeing in other countries, […]
U.S.-Funded Somali Intelligence Agency Has Been Using Kids as Spies
May 7th, 2016Via: Washington Post: For years they were children at war, boys given rifles and training by al-Qaeda-backed militants and sent to the front lines of this country’s bloody conflict. Many had been kidnapped from schools and soccer fields and forced to fight. The United Nations pleaded for them to be removed from the battlefield. The […]
Charlie Keating IV, Grandson of Notorious Banker, Identified as Navy SEAL Killed by ISIS
May 4th, 2016Really? Via: NBC: The U.S. Navy SEAL killed by direct fire during an ISIS-led siege in Iraq was identified Tuesday as Charlie Keating IV, a Phoenix high school graduate — and grandson of the banker who came to symbolize America’s savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. “Our state and nation are in mourning today […]
U.S. Military Tests World’s Largest Unmanned Ship
May 2nd, 2016Via: Stars & Stripes: The military is starting tests on the world’s largest unmanned surface vessel — a self-driving, 132-foot ship designed to travel thousands of miles out at sea without a single crew member on board. The so-called “Sea Hunter” has the potential to revolutionize not only the military’s maritime operations but commercial shipping, […]
House Defense Policy Bill Would Require Women to Register for Draft
April 30th, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal: The House Armed Services Committee approved an annual defense policy bill early Thursday morning that includes a provision that would require women to register with the Selective Service System. House passage of the policy measure came about a month after Defense Secretary Ash Carter approved final plans to integrate women into […]
State of Emergency Declared in Baghdad as Protesters Take Iraqi Parliament
April 30th, 2016Update: Protesters Leave Baghdad’s Green Via: CNN: Protesters who stormed Baghdad’s Green Zone retreated Sunday but organizers say the challenge to Iraq’s leadership isn’t over yet. — Via: Washington Post: Protesters stormed Iraq’s parliament Saturday in a dramatic culmination of months of demonstrations, casting uncertainty over the tenure of the country’s prime minister and the […]
