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Eisenhower warned that “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” had emerged as a hidden force in US politics and that Americans “must not fail to comprehend its grave implications”. The speech may have been Eisenhower’s most courageous and prophetic moment. Fifty years and some later, Americans find themselves in what seems like perpetual war. No sooner do we draw down on operations in Iraq than leaders demand an intervention in Libya or Syria or Iran. While perpetual war constitutes perpetual losses for families, and ever expanding budgets, it also represents perpetual profits for a new and larger complex of business and government interests.

The new military-industrial complex is fuelled by a conveniently ambiguous and unseen enemy: the terrorist. Former President George W Bush and his aides insisted on calling counter-terrorism efforts a “war”. This concerted effort by leaders like former Vice President Dick Cheney (himself the former CEO of defence-contractor Halliburton) was not some empty rhetorical exercise. Not only would a war maximise the inherent powers of the president, but it would maximise the budgets for military and homeland agencies.

This new coalition of companies, agencies, and lobbyists dwarfs the system known by Eisenhower when he warned Americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex”. Ironically, it has had some of its best days under President Barack Obama who has radically expanded drone attacks and claimed that he alone determines what a war is for the purposes of consulting Congress.

While few politicians are willing to admit it, we don’t just endure wars we seem to need war – at least for some people. A study showed that roughly 75 percent of the fallen in these wars come from working class families. They do not need war. They pay the cost of the war. Eisenhower would likely be appalled by the size of the industrial and governmental workforce committed to war or counter-terrorism activities. Military and homeland budgets now support millions of people in an otherwise declining economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars flow each year from the public coffers to agencies and contractors who have an incentive to keep the country on a war-footing – and footing the bill for war.

Across the country, the war-based economy can be seen in an industry which includes everything from Homeland Security educational degrees to counter-terrorism consultants to private-run preferred traveller programmes for airport security gates. Recently, the “black budget” of secret intelligence programmes alone was estimated at $52.6bn for 2013. That is only the secret programmes, not the much larger intelligence and counterintelligence budgets. We now have 16 spy agencies that employ 107,035 employees. This is separate from the over one million people employed by the military and national security law enforcement agencies.

Researchers have found vulnerabilities in industrial control systems that they say grant full control of systems running energy, chemical and transportation systems.

The vulnerabilities were discovered by Russian researchers who over the last year probed popular and high-end ICS and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used to control everything from home solar panel installations to critical national infrastructure.

Positive Research chief technology officer Sergey Gordeychik and consultant Gleb Gritsai detailed vulnerabilities in Siemens WinCC software which was used in industrial control systems including Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant that was targeted by the US Stuxnet program.

“We don’t have big experience in nuclear industry, but for energy, oil and gas, chemical and transportation sectors during our assessments project we demonstrated to owners how to get full control [of] industrial infrastructure with all the attendant risks,” Gordeychik told SC Magazine.

The vulnerabilities existed in the way passwords were encrypted and stored in the software’s Project database and allowed attackers to gain full access to Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) using attacks described as dangerous and easy to launch.

This past week, they printed their first headset prototype on a 3-D printer, and WIRED has the first photos.

China’s annual trade in goods passed the $4tn (£2.4tn) mark for the first time last year according to official data, after exports from the world’s second largest economy rose 7.9% to $2.21tn and imports rose 7.3% to $1.95tn.

As a result total trade rose 7.6% over the year to $4.16tn. The US is yet to publish its 2013 trade figures, but with trade totalling $3.5tn in the first 11 months of the year, it is unlikely to beat China.

Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of product development, exercised options and sold 1,200,000 Oracle (ticker: ORCL) shares for $45,201,920. Kurian now holds 32,327 shares directly, a stake of less than 1%. Kurian’s most recent previous transaction was on Oct. 28, 2013, when he exercised options and sold 350,000 shares for $11.7 million, an average of $33.33 each.

“The demand for marijuana is insatiable,” said Mr. Perlowin, a once-jailed smuggler who filed last month to sell 12 million shares of the Las Vegas-based company even as its market value holds 99.97% below the world’s biggest software maker. “You have a feeding frenzy for the birth of a new industry.”

Google recently purchased Boston Dynamics, a robotics pioneer that produces amazing humanoid robots for the U.S. Defense Department.

This development invites attention to Google’s broader military contracting ambitions — especially since Boston Dynamics is the eighth robotics company that Google has bought in the last six months.

Just like drones are the future of air warfare, humanoid robots and self-driving vehicles will be the future of ground warfare according to U.S. defense plans.

There are many other reasons why the U.S. military is on path to become Google’s single largest customer. Likewise these reasons indicate Google has a closer working relationship with the NSA than it acknowledges publicly.

First, consider the military value of Google’s research and development efforts and the military contracting pipeline revenue it could represent.

Page created Google X, which is Google’s secretive research and development lab tasked with pursuing “moon-shot” technology breakthroughs. So far, Google X is best known for its earth-bound self-driving cars and Google Glass.

Tellingly, the purpose of the original “moon-shots” by the Soviet Union and America was military. The two Cold War superpowers were in a “space race” to publicly showcase the technological and military supremacy of their rival ideologies.

Simply, America’s Cold War “moon-shot” was about winning the military space and arms race with the former Soviet Union.

Even more tellingly, the greatest application for most all of Google X’s “moon-shot” technological efforts — are military. Like drones, self-driving vehicles, and robot soldiers could enhance military surveillance and payload delivery while reducing risks to military personnel.

Google Glass’ advances in wearable augmented reality could offer American soldiers tactical advantages over enemy combatants. Google’s Project Loon could quickly provide a supplemental battlefield bandwidth advantage in remote areas.

Second, Google’s personnel hiring signals its aspirations for a closer Google-military relationship.

In 2012, Google hired Regina Dugan, the head of DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), DOD’s in-house “moon-shot” idea factory. At the time a Google spokesperson said: “Regina is a technical pioneer who brought the future of technology to the military during her time at DARPA. She will be a real asset to Google.”

Simply, few people could have a better insider knowledge of the U.S. military’s future technology needs that Google could exploit than Ms. Dugan.

Third, Google has a long history of working for, and with, the NSA and the other U.S. intelligence services.

In 2004, Google purchased satellite mapping company Keyhole, which was strategically important enough to be funded by the CIA’s investment fund In-Q-Tel.

Google turned the aptly-named “Keyhole” surveillance capability into the wildly popular Google Earth and Google Maps service used by over a billion people and over one million websites.

In 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that U.S. spy agencies use “Google equipment as the backbone of Intellipedia, a network aimed at helping agents share intelligence.” The article also reported that Google had a support contract with the NSA.

In 2010, the Washington Post reported that Google worked with the NSA to figure out how Chinese hackers broke into Google. The New York Times later reported that those Chinese hackers stole Google’s entire password system called Gaia.

Fourth, Google has too many unique capabilities and metadata sets that are of strategic value to the NSA to believe Google’s denials that it does not work closely with the NSA.

Snowden’s NSA revelations have underscored the high value the NSA puts on collecting the metadata of who is communicating with whom, when, where, and how much.

Remember Google is metadata central. It is veritable surveillance catnip for the NSA.

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In summation, the accumulating evidence indicates that the U.S. military is on path to become Google’s single largest customer.

A new vision of robots patrolling the meadows and cornfields of the UK may seem dark and satanic to some, but according to farmers and the government it is the future, and will bring efficiencies and benefits, and an end to some of the most back-breaking jobs around the farm.

An increasing number of “farmbots” are being developed that are capable of finicky and complex tasks that have not been possible with the large-scale agricultural machinery of the past.

For instance, a “lettuce bot” is capable of hoeing away ground weeds from around the base of plants. A “wine bot” trundles through vineyards pruning vines. Other bots are under development to remotely check crops for their growth, moisture and signs of disease.

Owen Paterson, the secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, enthusiastically embraced the prospect at the Oxford Farming Conference this week, saying: “I want our farmers and food producers to have access to the widest possible range of technologies, from new applications of robotics and sensor technology to new LED lighting in greenhouses and cancer-fighting broccoli.”

The government has set out for the first time an “agri-tech” strategy, with £160m in public funding. Of this cash, about £70m will go to commercialising new agricultural technologies – including robots, and £90m will be spent on setting up centres for agricultural innovation that will seek to develop farm technology for export, with the help of a new unit within UK Trade and Investment. There will even be a new “agri-tech business ambassador”, Paterson boasted, charged with driving forward exports of new technologies.