Military tech

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- If you want to know how U.S. Marines stationed deep in the desert of Afghanistan get highly accurate real-time weather reports, you have only to look to this stunning seaside town and some of its leading ocean scientists.

What started as a Marine's random comment about needing better weather forecasting because of the dangers of flying in extreme desert conditions quickly led to the development of a tool that can be set up just about anywhere by a couple of Marines in minutes. … Read more

Let me introduce you to Norm.

"Norm!"

No, not George Wendt. Norman is an IT security company based in Norway that's selling a box that just might save the world from the next nuclear disaster.

Perhaps you've heard of a beefy piece of malware dubbed "Flame" that's been getting some attention lately. This week it became the latest dark monarch to reign in the underworld kingdom of scary code. Norm -- sorry, Norman -- says its new box could douse Flame and stop destructive cousins like Stuxnet and Duqu in their tracks, too.… Read more

Yalta Conference, 1945: Winston Churchill, check. Franklin D. Roosevelt, check. Josef Stalin, check. Darth Vader... wait, what? Yep, that's the Dark Lord himself hovering behind the "Big Three" at the historic summit to discuss post-war Europe.

He's there courtesy of Agan Harahap, a professional photographer and avowed history buff who photoshops superheroes (and a few villains) into famous historical photos -- to strange and sometimes ironic effect.

Harahap, who lives in Jakarta, Indonesia, told Crave that his Super Hero series arose from his concern that too many people get their view of history from games like Call of Duty these days.

"We don't care anymore about what really happened in past days. We actually learn history from the game, movie etc.," he said. "And after that, what is the meaning [of] hero nowadays?" … Read more

What's your favorite doomsday scenario? Epidemic? Nuclear fallout? The Rapture redux? How about the Mayan apocalypse?

None of these will ruin your day if you live in Survival Condo, a converted nuclear ballistic missile silo in Kansas. With supplies of food, air, and water, you can wait out Armageddon underground.

For years, developer Larry Hall, a former software engineer, has been working on a 1960s-era Atlas F missile silo in north-central Kansas, turning it into luxury lockdown residences in preparation for inevitable end-times (see cleanup photos here). He says all units in the complex sold out this month, and there's even a waiting list. … Read more

Leave it to the Dutch and their famous flair for design to come up with a way to put a little panache into the censoring of Google Earth.

As Granta reports, Dutch artist Mishka Henner has discovered the remarkable way in which the government of the Netherlands has censored Google Earth's satellite views to block out certain military, political, and other sensitive sites.… Read more

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its attached Dragon spacecraft exhaled flames for a few seconds today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After pausing the first attempt at a test firing of the Falcon 9 due to a glitch just moments before the end of the countdown, SpaceX proceeded with a second attempt, which succeeded. The rocket remained stationary, but the system passed the "static fire" test with flying colors, putting Elon Musk's commercial space venture one step closer to reaching the International Space Station for the first time.

The test firing was the height … Read more

SOCORRO, N.M.--Roswell gets all the glory. It has a UFO festival, a UFO museum, and a prominent place in the national mindset. Roswell happened back in 1947, but it wasn't really popularized until the late 1970s.

Before Roswell got famous, Socorro, N.M., made national news in 1964 after a very peculiar incident on an April evening.

Socrorro gets its own UFO Police officer Lonnie Zamora was chasing a speeding car near the outskirts of town when he turned off to investigate a loud roaring sound and a flame in the sky. What he initially thought was a car turned over in an arroyo turned out to be what he described as a shiny whitish object, shaped like an "O" with legs. … Read more

In a world full of cheap, no-name Android devices, aerospace and defense giant Boeing is going after the opposite end of the spectrum with plans to create a high-end, uber-secure phone based on Google's open-source mobile OS.

National Defense Magazine, a trade publication that focuses on business and technology in the defense sector, reports that the so-called "Boeing Phone" will be designed to be more inexpensive than similar proprietary secure devices that can cost tens of thousands of dollars each, but will not compete directly with BlackBerries, iPhones, and other consumer products.

Boeing executives said the phone is near the end of the development cycle and should be available in the last part of 2012.… Read more

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.--I got sucked into a black hole and lived to tell the tale. Fortunately for me, the black hole is the Black Hole here in Los Alamos, a sprawling store full of old surplus equipment from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The lab's legacy The national laboratory was founded during World War II, giving it ample time to pile up a lot of equipment like oscilloscopes, Teletype machines, RadioShack computers, and cryogenic gear.

All that stuff has to go somewhere when it gets replaced by newer machines. For many years, the Black Hole welcomed this detritus with open arms.

The store's founder, Ed Grothus, passed away in 2009. The former laboratory employee and ardent peace activist collected and sold surplus from the lab. A former Piggly Wiggly convenience store was transformed into the Black Hole. It's still open today.… Read more