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The U.S. Air Force has gone all-in by authorizing full production of the AeroVironment backpack-sized Wasp III micro air vehicle, which will soon to be standard issue for combat controllers and USAF special ops, according to the Pentagon. This follows the U.S. Marine Corps' purchase of a Wasp III system, which it plans to deploy at the platoon level as a complement to the Raven (PDF).

Weighing in at a mere 1 pound, the plane's diminutive 29-inch wingspan can still loft a variety of hefty payloads in addition to its infrared cameras that stream video directly to … Read more

Last week, we brought you new details on two games from the Ubisoft press event held in New York City--Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Far Cry 2. Today we wrap up our coverage with a look at Tom Clancy's EndWar, a new franchise from the publisher.

At first glance, we were quite skeptical of a real-time-strategy game on a console. However, after about two minutes of watching one of the developers play the game using only his voice, we were convinced that the team at Ubisoft Shanghai might be on to something here.

Let us clarify the whole voice control situation---there was barely any manual controlling needing to be done besides aiming with a crosshair and adjusting the camera angle.… Read more

Tonight, Bill Gates gave his last CES keynote before retiring from Microsoft. (Prediction: he'll give a keynote again, but probably not next year). Though entertaining and occasionally educational--Windows Live Photo Gallery got some well-deserved spotlight time for its panorama feature--there wasn't much about digital audio in it.

However, the final set piece featured a Guitar Hero III battle between Gates and Microsoft Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach. Each brought in a ringer--Bach got a Guitar Hero championship who shredded the introduction to Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle." Gates, never to be trumped, … Read more

Canon has released new firmware, version 1.0.6, for the EOS-1Ds Mark III, the company's $8,000 21.1-megapixel flagship SLR camera.

The update "improves the reliability of communication with some CompactFlash cards" and "fixes a phenomenon involving color cast and vertical lines appearing in images," the company said on the firmware download Web site.

(Via Digital Photography Review.)

Hardware and firmware fixes have improved the autofocus performance of Canon's new EOS-1D Mark III camera, but it's still not up to the level of its predecessor, the photographer who first uncovered the issues in June said Monday.

Canon is offering some customers free adjustments to a mirror in the higher-end SLR and advising all customers to install updated firmware. The former improved the $4,500 camera's ability to focus on moving subjects in warm or hot conditions, and the latter helped when it's bright out, said photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith in a blog posting Monday. … Read more

Shortly after Canon announced a hardware fix for autofocus problems affecting some of its high-end EOS-1D Mark III cameras, the leading SLR maker also has added a software fix.

Version 1.1.3 of the Camera's firmware "improves autofocus tracking" when shooting outdoors in bright environments or when shooting low-contrast subjects, Canon said. In addition, the firmware can speed the process of writing images to high-speed SD memory cards.

Canon's biggest rival for single-lens reflex cameras, Nikon, also released some new firmware for its brand new D3 and D300 models that endows them with the color … Read more

I got a hilarious e-mail this morning from video game giant Activision touting the tremendous sales of the latest iteration of its hit franchise, Guitar Hero.

The subject line of the e-mail began, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock earns $115 in first week."

After I got through blinking a few times to make sure I was reading it right--I was--I looked into the body of the e-mail and saw that, yes, the company had left out a rather meaningful word: "million."

So, no, Guitar Hero III didn't sell two copies in its first week. … Read more

Here is why Guitar Hero III should change its name to Conrad I: because Conrad puts the rad in Conrad.

[Via Digg.]

This afternoon Canon posted a service notice on its website for owners of the company's 1D Mark III digital SLR. If you haven't been following the saga of the camera's autofocus problems, Canon admitted a couple of weeks ago that some of that model's units have a problem with the submirror, a small mirror that sits behind the main mirror and helps to divert light to the AF system. As a result, they can end up with inaccurate focus and/or inaccurate focus tracking in AI-Servo AF and continuous shooting modes. The problems are supposedly more … Read more