combat

What's worse than malaria? Malaria with a syphilis shooter. But seriously--a Canadian company has just introduced several "rapid tests" that can instantly detect various combinations of tropical and sexually transmitted diseases.

MedMira this week launched its expanded line of Multiplo rapid tests at the U.S. military's Advanced Technology Applications for Casualty Combat Care Conference in St. Pete's Beach, Fla.

The Multiplo tests will be used to diagnose conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis, malaria and dengue fever in various combinations. This combo feature enhanced by, in some cases, instant results, is … Read more

FaceFighter is a fairly simple, comically violent fighting game with a goofy twist: you create your own opponents, using pictures from your iPhone camera or photo albums--so that means you can bruise and brawl with just about anyone, whether your boss, your best friend, or a celebrity from a magazine. FaceFighter's foe-creation interface is intuitive and easy: you start with a pic, scale and rotate to line up the eyes and mouth, and then scale and rotate again to determine the face's borders. FaceFighter comes with two built-in enemies (Big Ben and Enemy Mime), but you'll quickly … Read more

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--It's one thing for a track runner to bolt when the gun fires. Imagine how hard it is to jump up from a crouch and race up six flights of stairs while dressed in full firefighting gear and lugging a 42-pound pack of hose.

That's just the very first task in what is known as the Firefighter Combat Challenge (see video below), a nationwide competition involving a series of intense tasks that simulate what fighters deal with on a daily basis.

The tour, which appears in cities throughout the country, pulled through Colorado Springs on … Read more

Afghanistan is a rugged country. How rugged is it? It's so rugged the U.S. Army has commissioned special pants for soldiers fighting there.

The new Army Combat Pants are designed to take whatever Takur Ghar and other Afghan mountain ranges have to hand out, according to the Army.

The new pants feature built-in hard knee pads that adjust up or down and side to side. They are made from 7.3-ounce, fire-resistant twill, (compared with the 6.5-ounce stuff soldiers are wearing now) and sport a reinforced, stretchable seat, perfect for glissading after the jihadis. Larger cargo pockets … Read more

In what's portrayed as a new approach, the U.S. Army is including soldiers in the early stages of equipment development, and in the case of the Future Weapons Systems, it's having them pitch it as well.

Last January, defense contractors employed nearly 400 computers, dozens of vehicle mockups, and more than 100 soldiers and engineers in a preliminary test of the Future Combat Systems (FCS), a technological enterprise billed as the "cornerstone of Army modernization."

The Army followed up with a complete line of videos and slick multimedia touting the involvement and input from recently … Read more

Home console flight simulator and air combat games just got a bit easier to control. Just in time for upcoming titles like Tom Clancy's HAWX, Saitek is introducing the Aviator, a flight stick fully tested to work Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. That said, Saitek claims the Aviator will also perform well with the Blazing Angels series of games released earlier on.

Available for both platforms, each Aviator will also have the ability to work with PC games as well, doubling the compatibility. The Xbox 360 version (pictured) not only has the familiar silver Xbox guide button, it … Read more

The Army is investing $50 million into video combat training games and gaming systems over the next five years, in a move to prepare soldiers for battle.

Soldiers, via the video games, will face ambushes and roadside bomb attacks while traveling in convoys, along with a host of other situations that mimic battle under a number of conditions and terrain, according to a report in Stars and Stripes.

The Army's Peo-Stri and gaming unit will monitor the industry, seeking out commercial games and systems it can use for low-cost training, the report noted.

Darwars Ambush is one of the … Read more

Dan the Mantern is responsible for a majority of the stories in the rundown today, so don't hesitate to burn him at the stake if you don't like what you hear. Personally, I think today's show is hilarious: Craigslist crime, driving exams and racial stereotypes, video game pirates, and the evolution of the Chinese "impossible" space drive. Once again, it's East meets West on The 404!

Big thanks to our buddy Jeff Sparkman for today's show title. We are literally the taint on the massive organ that is CNET.com. Anyway, even though Dan helps us by suggesting the stories for the show, I managed to sneak one by him, and apparently Caroline McCarthy also caught wind. It seems like Craigslist just can't stay out of trouble. This time around, a man used the job listings to post an anonymous ad for construction workers and requested that they show up wearing a blue shirt, yellow vest, safety hat and a blue shirt. The man then proceeded to rob an armored car before stripping his clothing to reveal the exact same uniform, effectively allowing him to disappear into the sea of construction workers. He later reappeared to make his getaway by riding an innertube down the local lake. I love the fact that robbers are getting more creative with their schemes--Jason Bourne over here, did this guy just watch "Ocean's 11" or something? For all that Craigslist has given the internet community (apartments, bikes, jobs, casual "encounters"), I think we can let this one slide.

Construction of the X-47B unmanned, tailless, stealth jet is ahead of schedule, with the first flight scheduled for November 2009, reports defense contractor Northrop Grumman.(pdf)

The X-47B is expected to be the first tailless UAV jet to operate off an aircraft carrier, which includes catapult launches and arrested landings; to do that it will also need to be capable of maneuvering precisely and autonomous around the flight deck. But none of that is expected to happen until sea trials in 2011.

The plane, developed under the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program, has the "potential to … Read more