Military Tech

Vintage military planes fly high in art exhibit

If there's one medium that you wouldn't expect to see get taken on by graffiti and other contemporary artists, it's military airplanes.

But thanks to the folks behind the Round Trip: Art from the Boneyard Project exhibition, now on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Ariz., visitors can see just that.

Although only five full airplanes have been painted--out of dozens in the museum's full collection--the show also includes two cockpits and a large group of airplane sections, all reimagined with an artist's flair. The exhibition, which runs through May 31, "resurrects more

Incoming! Self-guiding bullet could strike from a mile away

A new design for a self-guiding bullet could allow sharpshooters to accurately fire at targets a full mile away.

The bullet, which is still in a prototype phase, is the brainchild of Sandia National Laboratories researchers Red Jones and Brian Kast. It is designed with built-in actuators and tiny fins that should allow it to rapidly adjust its path in flight.

Designed with the military, law enforcement, and recreational shooters as potential customers, the bullet is four inches long and has an optical sensor embedded in its nose for the detection of a laser on its target, Sandia said in more

Futuristic Navy railgun with 220-mile range closer to reality

Imagine a Naval gun so powerful it can shoot a 5-inch projectile up to 220 miles, yet requires no explosives to fire.

That's the Navy's futuristic electromagnetic railgun, a project that could be deployed on the service's ships by 2025, and which is now a little bit closer to reality with the signing of a deal with Raytheon for the development of what's known as the pulse-forming network.

Rather than using explosives to fire projectiles as do conventional naval weapons, the railgun depends on an electromagnetic system that uses the ship's onboard electrical power grid more

Check suspicious objects with Scorp recon robot

As machines that let first responders look at dangerous objects become increasingly common, Novatiq has started producing a throwable recon robot with the relatively low price tag of roughly $11,300.

The military-grade Scorp was announced last year with slightly different specs. At 13 inches long and 7.7 pounds, it's compact and light enough for backpack portability.

It's also tough enough to be thrown into buildings and dangerous areas, just like the lighter 110 FirstLook from iRobot.

Both machines are remote-operated, roll on treads, and have flippers that enable them to climb stairs, train tracks, and other more

Innovation brought the rise of the Glock handgun

The type of gun responsible for severely injuring former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing 32 people in the Virginia Tech massacre, and murdering rapper Tupac Shakur was a Glock pistol.

Now, these pistols are the top guns of choice for criminals and police alike in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Paul Barrett.

In a new book called "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun," Barrett details how Glock handguns managed to surpass other manufacturers' guns, like Smith & Wesson, by using unique, simple, and low-cost technology.

"Police departments were amazed when they took their officers out to the more

DARPA wand fights fire with physics

DARPA's list of projects reads like a sci-fi writer's dream. The federal agency has studied flying cars, starships, and cyborg insects. Now you can add a magic wand flame suppressant to the agenda.

A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research team at Harvard University created a handheld electrode that puts out fire with no water, chemicals, or smothering.

Details are sketchy as to how exactly the Harvard wand, whose technology may eventually find its way into fire suppression systems for military ships and vehicles, works. We do know, however, that the Instant Fire Suppression program is looking at the feasibility of using electromagnetic fields, ion injection, and acoustics to put out flames. As DARPA so poetically explains, flames are just "cold plasmas comprising mobile electrons and slower positive ions."

There's something very Harry Potter-ish about the flame suppression wand. I almost expected to hear a scientist muttering, "Aguamenti!" during the demonstration video, below.

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Chinese hackers targeting smart cards to grab U.S. defense data

Hackers in China have found a way to infiltrate supposedly secure smart cards used by U.S. government employees, according to security company AlienVault.

The security firm said it has seen dozens of such attacks, which tap into a unique variant of a nasty bit of malware known as Sykipot.

The hackers appear intent on stealing data from the Department of Defense and other related agencies. The malware is capable of capturing the PIN numbers used by government smart cards, thereby allowing access to supposedly secure information.

"Like we have shown with previous Sykipot attacks, the attackers use a spear more

Doomsday Clock moves 1 minute closer to catastrophe

Tick, tock. The infamous Doomsday Clock, which represents how close mankind supposedly is to its annihilation, has been moved one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created and maintains the symbolic clock, announced its decision yesterday.

"It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007."

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Hummingbird robo-drone gets 1.8-gigapixel camera

Starting in the spring, the Hummingbird will be on sentry duty in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army is getting ready to deploy a trio of prototype A160 Hummingbird drones as it evaluates the aircraft for a more full-fledged development program. One key characteristic that sets these unmanned air vehicles apart from others, such as the Predator, already more famously serving in the war zone is that the Hummingbirds are rotorcraft--that is, they fly like helicopters rather than planes.

The Hummingbirds will be equipped with DARPA's Argus-IS sensor system, which features a 1.8-gigapixel color camera--gear that the Army a more