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A prototype high-tech cuff that detects and treats bleeding from combat injuries got a step closer to the battlefield Monday when Siemens Healthcare announced an exclusive contract with the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency to develop the device.

Infantrymen from the 82nd Airborne Division being trained in first aid--here, dressing a leg wound.

(Credit: Mike Pryor, 82nd Airborne/Courtesy of U.S. Army)

The Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation cuff, or DBAC, is designed to limit blood loss from penetrating wounds to limbs--as in the case of a gunshot injury--thus reducing the risk of limb loss or death.

Once the cuff is applied, ultrasound technology within the device automatically would identify the location and severity of the bleeding. This in turn would trigger therapeutic ultrasound elements to emit and focus high-power energy toward the bleeding sites, speeding coagulation and halting bleeding.

Siemens says the compact and lightweight device can accommodate a variety of limb sizes, from a wide male thigh to a narrow female arm. The cuff is intended to shut off automatically and to be operated with minimal training.

When word of the DBAC first surfaced in 2006, both Siemens and a competing team from Philips were awarded contracts by DARPA to develop the technology.

Now that Siemens has landed the deal, it will be working with partners at the University of Washington's Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound; Texas A&M University's Institute for Preclinical Studies; and Siemens Corporate Research to meet DARPA's goal of producing a prototype in 18 months.

Related story:

Portable device could save soldiers' lives

(Credit: Segway)

Visitors to this summer's Olympics in Beijing may see a familiar American gadget on the go, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of China.

China's military demonstrated on Tuesday their skills at balancing and shooting while on Segways (Xinhua photo of demo) during a series of drills of anti-terrorist units in Jinan, Shandong Province, according to Xinhua.

The Segway was demonstrated as a useful tool since it allows soldiers, once they are trained in balancing and maneuvering the machine, to keep both hands on their weapon while still accelerating and turning the device with their body movements. In skilled hands, a Segway could be kept still enough to offer a stable position from which to shoot.

While visually amusing, the use is not entirely surprising as Segway proudly touts its Robotic Mobility Platform (RMP) on its Web site and lists all four branches of the U.S. military as clients.

See also: "Photos: Segway rollouts, recalls and pratfalls"

In addition to an expected increase in sales to the U.S. military, iRobot says it will see growth in its unmanned robot platforms from foreign buyers.

iRobot's Warrior robot can be modified to support chemical sensor devices or functioning weapons.

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

The "Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032," a report put out by the Department of Defense last year, outlined a strategy to increase spending in unmanned technology for the air, sea, and ground.

iRobot, which has already been supplying the U.S. military with unmanned robots for use in ground reconnaissance and combat, has repeatedly said it will benefit from the military's increased need.

But the company now says that as its robots have proven themselves useful in Iraq and Afghanistan, interest from foreign armed forces has also increased.

iRobot has sold robots from its line of unmanned military drones internationally to 13 allied countries, including Australia, Gemany, Israel, and the United Kingdom, since 2006, Joe Dyer, president of iRobot's Government & Industrial Robots division, told reporters in a Web conference Wednesday.

The international market consisted of only a handful of robots sold in 2006, but about 8 percent or 9 percent of iRobot's total revenue for unmanned robots in 2007. This year, iRobot estimates that its foreign market will increase to about 15 percent of its total revenues for its government and industrial division, according to Dyer.

But how do export license approvals work when a company is a supplier of dual-use technology to the U.S. military? Admittedly, iRobot's unmanned platforms are just as suited to benign first-responder search-and-rescue functions as they are to lethal combat. But either way you look at it, iRobot is still selling hardware with high-tech military capability to foreign entities.

"It's on a country-by-country basis. If country X desires to purchase iRobot robots, we take it to (the State Department) for approval. If we receive it, we proceed," Dyer said.

(Credit: RifleGear.com)

This was sent to us by a tipster. I don't normally spend my time reading RifleGear.com, but from the likes of this item, maybe I should.

Awhile back we were treated to a hilarious Photoshop job called the HK-47--an assault rifle decorated with images of everybody's favorite nonpornographic, nontentacled Japanese import, Hello Kitty. We were sad to learn that it was, well, Photoshopped.

But now, out of nowhere, here's a real one. As a protest against assault weapons bans, one rifle enthusiast in California decided to create a weapon that would "alleviate the fears of (his) fellow citizens and gun-banning legislators when (he) put together a new AR-15 for (his) wife." So he modded the AR-15 to make it baby-pink with an image of Hello Kitty holding a weapon, as well as some extra-cute cartoon flowers! Brilliant!

Unfortunately, according to certain other people who write for this blog, Hello Kitty won't make an assault rifle any less terrifying. Apparently, that cat is trying to take over the world.

The next U.S. Air Force maverick may be talking to her plane instead of looking at its dash for updates.

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which the Air Force plans to roll out in 2008, will be the first U.S. fighter to respond to voice commands, the Air Force announced Wednesday.

F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

(Credit: Department of Defense/Joint Strike Fighter Program Office)

The Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate has been working on the idea for some time, trying out different systems from a variety of companies.

After years of testing, it now has a speech-recognition system that works from a microphone within a pilot's oxygen mask in spite of loud ambient noise in the cockpit.

The DynaSpeak speech recognition software the Air Force decided to go with was developed by SRI International in conjunction with Adacel Systems. The system, which ties in to the plane's onboard computer, will be used to give commands for both communication and navigation. The requested data will then come up in the pilot's helmet display.

The advantage of voice recognition is that pilots will be able to stay focused on maneuvering their planes and not will not have to pause that focus to flip switches or press buttons to retrieve information, according to the Air Force.

Unlike many speech-recognition programs, the DynaSpeak system for the military requires no learning curve on the part of the system for a particular person's voice. Any pilot flying the F-35 could begin using it immediately.

The system was first tested in flight simulators in which data was collected on which words were optimal for commands.

The Warfighter Interface Division of the Human Effectiveness Directorate is now testing the system in real planes and collecting data on its accuracy to make sure it's ready for operational tests, evaluation and implementation in 2008.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman visited the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Ariz., as part of his Road Trip 2007 around the Southwest.

Located about 20 miles south of Tucson, the museum is located on a former Titan missile launching site. There, crews of four worked 24-hour shifts during which two people always had to be together to ensure safety and security. In this image, the tip of the missile--with warhead removed--is viewed from above through a glass window that allows museum visitors to peer down into the silo.

See more of his photos from the exhibition here.

Click on the Constant Hawk for more.

(Credit: U.S. Army/Unclassified/Sipa Press)

In 2004, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously told a National Guardsman serving in Iraq, "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." The soldier had been inquiring about the readiness of Humvees for combat conditions--specifically, the need to "up-armor" the vehicles to provide better protection against enemy fire.

But even if a nation's military has to do the best it can with the gear it has, it can also plan ahead for the gear it knows it will need. That's the dual premise behind the U.S. Army's recent recognition of what it calls its "top 10 greatest inventions for 2006." Fittingly, several of the honored inventions deal specifically with the threat that improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, pose to vehicles--and the soldiers riding in them.

Researchers at the Lincoln Lab at MIT have come up with something that can be described as a sound flashlight. It emits powerful, but tightly focused acoustic beams that can penetrate underground.

Haupt and his team

(Credit: MIT)

When the beams hit a mine, the vibrations from the collision push up dirt around the area. That movement of dirt is then registered by a radar device.

"It turns out that mines will vibrate quite differently from anything else," said MIT's Robert Haupt in a prepared statement. "You can determine what types of mines there are--and which countries made them--by their unique signatures."

An estimated 26,000 people are killed or maimed every year by 60 to 70 million undetected land mines in 70 countries. Most are civilians.