The Navy just awarded Boeing a contract to build a giant robot submarine, called the Orca Extra-Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, which it says will prowl the depths of the ocean autonomously for months at a time.
The U.S. Naval Institute says the sub will be used for “mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, electronic warfare and strike missions.”
At last, it’s done. The biggest spaceship size chart ever created is now complete and fully operational. 4,268 × 5,690 pixels of technological terror that includes everything from the smaller Star War ships to EVE. According to its author, Dirk Loechel, this is the last update. It’s epic.
The last update
For real this time: This is the final major content update, though if there are issues I’ll still fix them. I also haven’t forgotten I wanted to vectorize the writing. It’s still on the radar. But content-wise, I think that is about all I can put in.
New Mexico additive manufacturing software developer Sigma Labs, has obtained third-party validation of its PrintRite3D platform in a study by U.S. defense agency DARPA.
The study discusses the validation process involved in producing complex metal parts of consistent quality. It was sponsored by DARPA’s Open Manufacturing Program and conducted in conjunction with aircraft engine manufacturer Honeywell Aerospace, which has been collaborating with Sigma labs since 2014.
As an agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), DARPA is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. In line with this goal, it created the Open Manufacturing program to ‘lower the cost and speed the delivery of high-quality manufactured goods with predictable performance.’
#MayTheFourthBeWithYou from the real-world Space Warfighters at Air Force Space Command! You will now watch this video we made—unless Jedi mind tricks don’t work on you. Either way, please share! #StarWarsDay
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is eyeing flight tests later this year for two hypersonic weapons, and it is teaming up with the US Army on developing such a ground-launched capability. However, at the same time, army leaders are drafting plans to consolidate duelling lines of effort within their hypersonic weapons’ portfolio.
During a 1 May Defense Writers’ Group breakfast with reporters, DARPA Director Dr Steven Walker fielded questions about ongoing projects inside the Pentagon’s research arm including the development of two hypersonic weapons with the US Air Force (USAF) — the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) and the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC).
“[They are] two very different concepts but when you’re talking hypersonic [weapons], it is good to have what I consider intended redundancy because it’s a hard technology, making materials and propulsion systems that last in 3,000° Fahrenheit temperatures is not easy,” Walker said.
The companies that are leading research into AI in the US and China, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu, SenseTime and Tencent, have taken very different approaches to AI and whether to develop technology that can ultimately be used for military and surveillance purposes.
Companies criticised for overruling and even dissolving ethics boards.
“Smart” contact lenses sound like something from a sci fi movie — but they’re real, and they could help troops in the field.
French engineering school IMT Atlantique revealed what it calls “the first stand-alone contact lens with a flexible micro battery” earlier this month.
And, notably, it caught the attention of the U.S. military’s attention: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is reportedly interested in the contact lens to augment troops’ visual capabilities in the field, according to Task and Purpose — meaning the gadget could represent the augmented contact lens that DARPA has spent a decade searching for.
Weird Flex
The biggest challenge that IMT Atlantique engineers encountered was to scale down the battery. But thanks to a newly developed flexible micro battery, they found a way to continuously light an LED light source for “several hours,” according to a press release.