Engineers Are Building Robotic Fin For Submarines

Inspired by the efficient swimming motion of the bluegill sunfish, MIT researchers are building a mechanical fin that could one day propel robotic submarines.

The propeller-driven submarines, or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), currently perform a variety of functions, from mapping the ocean floor to surveying shipwrecks. But the MIT team hopes to create a more maneuverable, propeller-less underwater robot better suited for military tasks such as sweeping mines and inspecting harbors--and for that they are hoping to mimic the action of the bluegill sunfish.

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The age of the superhero suit is upon us

Its rock-hard surface can take a full- on assault from a baseball bat, yet remains flexible enough to allow you to kick, leap and roll with perfect ease. Crafted from cutting-edge science, its unique molecular structure means that while providing armoured protection against crude concrete and even barbed wire, it remains light enough to allow you to run at high speed. It sounds like the stuff of Batman comics - but the superhero suit is here.

Identified as a major breakthrough that could impact on every sector from the military to motor sports, the revolutionary shock-absorbent material d3o is taking the world by storm. Blessed with the kind of properties your average costumed crime fighter would kill for, it is being hailed as an invention with the potential to change entire industries and save real lives.

In a nutshell, d3o is an advanced polymer with an intelligent molecular structure that flows with you as you move but, when shocked, locks together to become rigid enough to absorb impact energy. In its simplest form, it is like an automatic knee-pad that can be sown seamlessly into a pair of jeans."

At the moment a complete superhero suit made of our material would be a bit too heavy and far too expensive, but those challenges should be overcome within the next few years."

Today the material is fast becoming a common component of cutting-edge protective equipment, with the d3o brand beginning to feature in a range of winter and motor sports products worldwide. It has been adopted enthusiastically by the likes of US Olympic ski team, the four-times Everest climber Kenton Cool and Olympic cyclist Craig McClean.

Source: Spluch

Unmanned "Surge": 3000 More Robots for War

U.S. military robots ran 30,000 missions in 2006 -- hunting for, and getting rid of, improvised explosives.

Now, the military has launched a crash project to radically increase its unmanned ground forces. Call it the robotic equivalent of the "surge."

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Robo-Cars Picked for Pentagon Driving Test

36 teams are moving on to the semi-finals of the Urban Challenge, the Pentagon's contest to see if robotic cars can move their way through cities.

That includes all five teams that completed 2005's Grand Challenge driverless rally across the desert.

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Robot vehicles take on tough jobs

Got a destination too dirty or dangerous for a person to want to go there? The day could soon come when a robot vehicle takes humans' place as a matter of course.

Scientists are focused on developing unmanned machines that can operate in the air, on the ground and under water, doing jobs where deploying people is just too dangerous.

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China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

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Homeland Security tests automated "Hostile Intent" detector

An uncomfortable fact of modern security is that too many people go through transit hubs and to public events for all of them to be screened both efficiently and thoroughly. As a result, there has been a lot of attention focused on producing automated systems that screen crowds without the need for human intervention.

Automated biometric scans have serious limits, however, in that they can only identify people who have already been classified as threats. The Department of Homeland Security is hoping to overcome that limitation by automating the identification of individuals whose behavior suggests they pose a threat via a program dubbed "Hostile Intent."

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The Latest Bizarre Gizmos at the DARPATech Conference

ANAHEIM, Calif.—The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is approaching its golden anniversary, and there's reason to celebrate. If we can trust the commemorative deck of cards they're handing out at the DARPATech conference, the Pentagon's most radical, forward-thinking scientists have accounted for no fewer than 52 major technical innovations since 1958.

Check out the high-energy lasers on the four of diamonds, the night-vision goggles on the six of clubs, and the whizzing stealth fighter aircraft on the queen of hearts. And let's not forget the agency's trump card, here assigned to the jack of spades: Thirty-five years ago, DARPA helped create the earliest version of the Internet.

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Land Warrior Proves Itself in Combat Ops

The Soldiers slip around the edge of the wall, stacking up against a rusty metal door blocking access to the compound. With a heavy punch of a boot, the entry is ripped from its hinges and the Soldiers pour into the hard-packed dirt yard in a flow of lethal green.

After a look around, the insurgent they were sent to nab isn't there.

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Scientists Develop Metal That Explodes on Impact

This Navy test of a prototype warhead showed that reactive materials — inert compounds that ignite on impact — can increase the radius and lethality of a missile.

When most bombs go off, they release a spray of deadly shards of steel. Now, imagine that those shards were themselves explosive, detonating in a massive chain reaction. It's for real: Defense contractors are harnessing the strange alchemy of reactive materials (RMs) — in which two or more inert materials are mixed to create an explosion — to develop smaller, more lethal warheads, as well as new ways to protect troops against mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

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Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was recently at the Seoul Digital Forum where he was asked to define Web 3.0 by an audience member.

"Kill Proof," Animal-Esque Soldiers: DARPA Goal

DARPA, the Pentagon's way-out science arm wants to make soldiers stronger, faster, and generally "kill proof." The key, the agency believes: Getting humans to act more like animals.

For years, DARPA has been pushing to boost soldier performance. Today, at the opening of DARPATech, the agency's bi-annual conference, program manager Michael Callahan just announced a new effort to take that research even further. He calls it "Inner Armor."

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DARPA Plays Spot the Suicide Bomber

How do you spot a suicide bomber? And even more important, how do you spot a suicide bomber before they get close enough to blow up their target?

To address this problem, DARPA this year started the Human-carried Explosive Detection Stand-off System (HEDSS) program to develop a system that can rapidly identify human carried explosives (HCEs) at ranges from 50 to 150 meters.

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Pentagon Studies Human Microchip Implants

The Defense Department's plans to study implanting microchips in soldiers is already sparking concerns about privacy issues (and is likely to send the stock price of tinfoil to new highs).

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Jim Rapoza's Ten Most Wanted Future Technologies

Infrastructure - Jim Rapoza's Ten Most Wanted Future Technologies

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Cellphones may take banking to the rural poor in the third world

In many third world countries, where bank branches are few and far between, the development that finally may make financial services practical for the rural poor fits in the palm of a hand.

Mobile devices like cellphones have the potential to effectively bring financial markets to the countryside, allowing banks and other lenders in urban areas to provide services like loans and savings accounts to a new population, according to a report by Vodafone and Nokia published last week.

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IBM wants to improve communication between cars, roads, and drivers.

Vehicles are getting smarter all the time, thanks to a combination of sensor and wireless communications technologies. Car manufacturers say that tomorrow's drivers will be assisted by a wealth of safety information generated by vehicles that can talk to not only each other but to the roadway itself. But with so much data often comes information overload. And that's why computing giant IBM has launched a project to help the driver get the right information at the right time.

IBM calls the research initiative collaborative driving, and the company says it's designed to prevent accidents and reduce traffic congestion. The work will be spearheaded by the IBM lab in Haifa, Israel. "More than a million people die on the roads every year around the world, and people waste a lot of time and money sitting in traffic jams," says IBM researcher Oleg Goldshmidt. "You would like to help with both problems in any way possible."

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Spies watch rise of virtual terrorists

THE bomb hit the ABC's headquarters, destroying everything except one digital transmission tower. The force of the blast left Aunty's site a cratered mess.

Just weeks before, a group of terrorists flew a helicopter into the Nissan building, creating an inferno that left two dead. Then a group of armed militants forced their way into an American Apparel clothing store and shot several customers before planting a bomb outside a Reebok store.

This terror campaign, which has been waged during the past six months, has left a trail of dead and injured, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' damage. The terrorists belong to a militant group bent on overthrowing the government. But they will never be arrested or charged for their crimes because they have committed them away from the reach of the world's law enforcement agencies, in the virtual world known as Second Life.

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