Military tech

This week in Crave: The winning edition

In case you didn't hear, this week Apple announced the iPad 2, as we expected, and it shaped up to be just about what we thought it would be. More importantly, Steve Jobs (it was great see him) flouted the success of the original iPad--not just gloating that his company had single-handedly invented a market, but also bragging that the iPad's competitors were "flummoxed" (and saying it with a smile).

But that's not all! It's a big, bad technology world, you know?

• Jobs also introduced new apps for the iPad, like iMovie and Garage Band

• Apple still has original iPads for as little as $350.

• More movement from Motorola's Xoom tablet, with new pricing that makes it a little more competitive.

• The Navy is looking at creating swarms of robots that repair themselves, search for Sarah Connor.

• Turn your watch into a tablet or cell phone--by stretching it.

• Another week, another creepy baby robot from Japan.

• Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss! … Read more

Navy eyes swarms of robot-building microbots

The robo-pocalypse concept is still good for a laugh, as the toughest autonomous robots out there are shaped like Frisbees and suck the dust off your floor for a living. But deep in the bowels of the military research complex, scientists are working hard to wipe that grin off your face.

The latest sign is a Navy plan to develop swarms of micro-robots that can build things all on their own, including other robots. Yes, we're talking about the tipping point when robots don't need us anymore.

The Navy is looking to leverage desktop manufacturing technology--think 3D printing--to make swarms of tiny, efficient factories that create new materials and can be choreographed to build and assemble "high-value components."

From the proposal:

Each micro-robot would perform a specific task, often a single rudimentary task, repeatedly. Collectively, these tasks would be choreographed in purposeful activities for manufacturing. A micro-robot swarm should be able to perform material synthesis and component assembly, concurrently. The micro-robots could be designed to perform basic operations such as pick and place, dispense liquids, print inks, remove material, join components, etc. These micro-robots should be able to move cooperatively within a workspace to achieve highly efficient synthesis and assembly.

… Read more

Backpack radar lets you sense through walls

See that kid slouching against the wall? He might be "sensing" through it with his backpack.

Cambridge Consultants has a new through-wall radar that's compact and inconspicuous. The Prism 200c can fit in a backpack and still tell you if there are people on the other side of a wall.

Users simply lean against a wall with the backpack and monitor the room on the other side with any portable electronic device linked to the backpack.

The device has batteries that can last up to eight hours. It can sense through brick as well as concrete walls.

Radar sensing through walls is a technology that's been around for some time (including in handheld formats), and even mobile robots are touting the sensor arrays that can see through concrete walls for military applications.

Targets generally have to move or breathe to be detected. The technology can't discriminate between humans and animals or other moving objects.

Cambridge's latest radar follows the arm-operated Prism 200, which is being used by police and military personnel around the world. There's a video of it here.

The company plans to show off the Prism 200c at Global Security Asia 2011 in Singapore this month. … Read more

Military commissions cheetah, humanoid robots

Don't believe in Skynet? Well, the U.S. military has reportedly commissioned the production of bipedal soldiers and quadruped robots that can outrun human beings.

Boston Dynamics, known for its BigDog canine bot, is working to develop a humanoid robot called Atlas and an animal-like running robot called Cheetah. The robo-cat is due to arrive in 20 months.

The company's efforts are part of multimillion-dollar contracts with DARPA over a four-year period, according to a Boston Herald report.

Initially, Cheetah is supposed to achieve speeds of up to 30 mph. Presumably it will be a lot stealthier than the noisy BigDog, seen in the vid below. No word yet on whether it will fold into a cassette tape like the old-school Decepticon Ravage of Transformers fame.

"There's no fundamental reason why it can't go as fast as the animals (60 to 70 mph), but it will take a while to get there," Boston Dynamics President Marc Raibert was quoted as saying in Boston Herald report. … Read more

Soldiers want more 'Punisher' smart weapons

Soldiers who have used the Army's XM-25 grenade launcher in Afghanistan want more of the futuristic weapon, which can fire rounds that explode at a predetermined distance, defeating barriers that protect enemies.

The Army wants to acquire 36 more XM-25s, according to a report on army.mil. The first batch might be deployed in a year, but funding has to be secured and the weapons and rounds, which apparently cost some $25,000 and $1,000 apiece, respectively, are still being made by hand.

Mass production won't happen until 2013 at the earliest, according to the report. The … Read more

X-47B robot stealth plane makes first flight

Only six years after the film "Stealth," Northrop Grumman has demonstrated its much ballyhooed X-47B robot stealth plane, successfully completing a 29-minute test flight to 5,000 feet at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Developed under a $635 million Navy contract, the unmanned, tailless jet provides greater range and power by taking off from aircraft carriers, delivering laser-guided bombs and refueling in the air.

The test flight, which had been expected to take place over a year ago, is a first step to demonstrating the plane on a carrier. Northrop Grumman now says that will happen in … Read more

Hold your breath to hide from surveillance robot

If you want to creep past this new security bot, you'd better be good at holding your breath.

TiaLinx's new Cougar20-H is a lightweight, remote-controlled surveillance robot that can detect human breathing and scan through concrete walls with its ultra-wideband radio frequency sensor array.

The Cougar20-H moves around on tracks and can roll up to a building, extend its arm, and start scanning through the wall with its RF array, developed with funding from the U.S. Army.

Operated from a laptop that can be more than 300 feet away, the robot can scan through reinforced concrete by detecting reflected radio waves. It can find people who are moving or even keeping still, so the operator can see them in real time. … Read more

NASA's push to quiet sonic booms

Sonic booms aren't just cheesy ranged weapons that Guile from Street Fighter uses to defend his epic flat-top. They're the result of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier. And they can be loud enough to deafen E. Honda.

The nerve-rattling noise factor has restricted much supersonic travel to the world's oceans, limiting intercontinental flight to sub-Mach speeds. But a series of experiments being conducted by NASA are aimed at enabling a new generation of supersonic crafts that can dampen or even eliminate sonic booms.

NASA aerospace engineer Ed Haering today answered reader questions about "what it's like to try to tame a sonic boom," and included images of an F-15B prototype (left) modified with the awesome-looking Unicorn-like "Quiet Spike."

The retractable, 24-foot-long spike is mounted to the nose of the aircraft and creates three smaller shockwaves that travel all the way to the ground in parallel instead of building up to a sonic boom. That configuration greatly reduces noise when the aircraft goes Mach 1, or about 760 mph, the speed of sound at sea level. … Read more

Hey, interested in robotic dinosaurs from China?

So if you look just below the end of this post, you'll see my bio. All of us here at Crave have similar bios, including contact information. Consequently, we get a ton of e-mails. Some are from readers (and I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to them all). We also get e-mails from manufacturers in China.

Take this one I got this morning from what appears to be a Chinese manufacturer of dinosaurs named Alex. Here's the copy:

hello

I am China dinosaur factory .Hope that you know our product more .Also hope that we can establish long-term cooperative relation.

Thanks, Alex, sounds fun! But that's not the great part. The great part is the photos, one above, and the rest included below. … Read more