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Tech NewsHoly Hell, the US Military Made the Fastest Quadcopter I’ve Ever Seen
DARPA, the Pentagon’s research division, just revealed a speed demon quadcopter that flies 45 miles an hour. It’s like a cheetah drone. I can’t stop watching glorious footage of this glorious cheetah drone. It’s a product of DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy program (FLA), whose goal is to beef up drone processing power that’ll let them … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech NewsDARPA’s New Autonomous Submarine-Hunter Could Change Naval Combat Forever
In 2010, DARPA announced it was creating an autonomous, submarine-hunting war machine that would be manned with exactly zero people. Now, that vehicle is ready for action. The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV, is now scheduled to be launched April 17 from the Vigor Shipyards in Oregon. The ACTUV will continue sea-trials … Continued
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Tech NewsScientists Found a Way to Control Machines With Your Mind, No Brain Surgery Required
The US military is looking for ways to insert microscopic devices into human brains to help folks communicate with machines, like prosthetic limbs, with their minds. And now, DARPA’s saying scientists have found a way to do just that—without ripping open patients’ skulls. In the DARPA-funded study, researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech NewsResearchers Are Teaching ATLAS To Do Household Chores Like Rosey from The Jetsons
The DARPA Robotics Challenge put countless robots through a series of real-world challenges that involved driving, drilling holes, and climbing stairs. But let’s be realistic, the only thing any of us really want a robot for is housework, and that’s what ATLAS is finally learning. The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, or IHMC … Continued
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Tech News
DARPA’s Building a New Drone That Turns Small Ships Into Aircraft Carriers
Nowadays, drones are found nearly everywhere: Farms, fields, even underwater. They could soon be found on the decks of a new kind of aircraft carrier combing the vast oceans for valuable intel. The US Navy has long wanted to line smaller ships like frigates and destroyers with drones that could buzz around the open seas, … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Robotic Critters Make Excellent Rescue Dogs
DARPA’s BigDog is a four-legged robot that’s too noisy for covert ops on the battlefield. But a different beast-inspired bot from Italy could have use elsewhere: Its legs allow it to trek through tough terrain in disasters, and springs up if it gets knocked over. The Italian Institute of Technology brings us HyQ2Max, a robot … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech NewsRIP BigDog, Darpa’s Robotic Pack Mule
The LS3 robot, more popularly known by its earliest nickname, BigDog, is being retired. Despite hopes that it would one day work as a pack mule for US soldiers in the field, this dog had too much bark. Which is to say, it was simply too noisey. The earliest versions of this quadruped robot were … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
TLDR: All the Paleofuture Stories From 2015 You Swore You’d Read Later
The internet is a big place. There’s so much to read and watch and listen to that it can be overwhelming. We all have those stories that we start, get distracted for one reason or another, and promise ourselves we’ll finish later. Well, if any of those stories were on Paleofuture, here’s your second chance! … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsThe US Military Used Lasers to Shoot Down a Drone in 1973
Lasers are the future of warfare. So it might come as a surprise to many Americans that the US military first used a laser to shoot a drone out of the sky as early as 1973. The laser program was part of Project Delta, an ARPA (now DARPA) initiative to weaponize lasers. In fact, there … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Remember EATR, the Military Robot That Was Supposed to Eat Humans?
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” Cyclone’s CEO Harry Schoell said in a press release in 2009. What could make the CEO of an alternative energy company issue such an insane statement? Well, Cyclone had a contract with DARPA for a … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The Pentagon’s Research Arm is Putting Money Into DNA Manufacturing
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the governmnet division that tries to take cutting-edge technology and turn it into something the military can use. The agency’s latest target? Genetic engineering. The Foundry is a facility which is part of the Broad Institute, a joint MIT-Harvard biomedical research institute. It started work on a … Continued
By Chris Mills -
Tech NewsThe Marines Are Sending This Robotic Dog Into Simulated Combat
The battlefield can be one of the most useful places for robots. And now, the US Marines are testing out Spot, a robo dog built by Boston Dynamics to see how helpful the ‘bot could be in combat. Remember Big Dog, also from Google-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics? Well, Spot is a tinier, more agile … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
ScienceHealth
Paralyzed Man Successfully Given Prosthetic Hand That Can ‘Feel’
A 28 year old man who has been paralysed has been given a new sense of touch following a new breakthrough that saw electrodes places directly into the man’s brain. The research and clinical trial has been carried out by DARPA, the US Military’s research agency. Essentially, the man (who has not been named) is … Continued
James O Malley - Gizmodo UK -
Tech News
A Century-Old Device May Be the Future of Electronics
There’s a new device in the works over at DARPA, the agency known for pushing the technological envelope with mind-controlled prosthetics and drone-launching submarines. This latest innovation? The vacuum tube. You might remember it from the first time humans invented it, way back in 1904. Yes, the vacuum tube, hallmark of early 20th century electronics … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsSploidHow far are we from Terminator’s killing robots? DARPA has the answer
Movies like the Terminator series have convinced us that robots are eventually going to kill us all. That’s still eventually going to happen but we’ve got a long way to go before we build a T-1000 or even an Arnold version, because as DARPA’s 2015 Robotics Challenge shows, even the best and smartest robots right … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsAt the DARPA Robotics Challenge, We Saw A Lot of Robots Fall Over
Yesterday marked Day 1 of the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals, in which elite robots from around the world faced off to compete for $3.5 million in prizes. We saw some of humanity’s finest bots drive vehicles, remove rubble, cut through walls and climb up stairs. We also saw a lot of robots fall over. IEEE … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsEverything You Need to Know About Today’s DARPA Robotics Challenge
The DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals kick off today in Pomona, California, with 24 teams from around the world competing for $3.5 million in prizes. We’re here at the event to bring you the latest robotic thrills and spills, but mostly to keep a lookout for any signs of a robot uprising. Update June 6: Team … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
A Handy Guide to Every Robot Competing In This Weekend’s DARPA Challenge
Having trouble telling Japan’s JAXON from Germany’s Johnny 05? If you have any hope of following along with the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals this weekend, you’re going to need to get up to speed on every robot competing. Thankfully Erico Guizzo and Evan Ackerman over on IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog have put together a handy … Continued
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Tech News
The FBI’s First Aircraft Were Spy Planes From the Vietnam War
When the FBI first bought its own planes in the 1970s it was a minor scandal. But what’s so shocking about the feds having aircraft? The scandal was that they were originally experimental spy planes used in the Vietnam War. The FBI has finally admitted to using fake aircraft companies to fly surveillance missions over … Continued
By Matt Novak
