For the men and women that serve our country, coming back from that life isn’t easy. I don’t have experience with it, but do know many veterans who are going through that.
Today, Google launched a new initiative called VetNet, to help people connect and re-enter the working life. The company is putting its social backend, Google+, to work on this project. → Read More
According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the unemployment rate among U.S. veterans has dropped to 8.3 percent, it still sits above the national average, and for younger vets, the rate is even higher. Taking up the cause of their fellow service men and women looking for a better way to find employment after life in the armed forces, two Iraq War veterans, Yinon Weiss and Aaron Kletzing… → Read More
On stage at the second-day keynote, Major General Robert Wheeler talked about the changing role of industry and enterprise as it relates to technological innovation, and how where once the military led in that department, now the vast majority of advances are being driven by advances made in the private sector. And that means the DoD is in a position of asking for help from a variety of sources. → Read More
It’s only my third official day on the job at TechCrunch, but it’s been a pretty awesome time thus far. We saw an email come through the wires that stopped us in our tracks during our Amazon coverage today. It was technology-related…but not.
We have some great readers at TechCrunch, but this particular reader has an interesting story. He’s not in Silicon Valley, he’s in Afghanistan… → Read More
While for an ordinary civilian the automatic geotagging of your photos or check-ins might be convenient, in the military it can be a lethal mistake. In 2007, geotagged photos of a new fleet of helicopters allowed enemy forces to mortar the base and destroy several of them; it could just as easily have been a field hospital or barracks.
The Army has therefore published an article calling… → Read More
You might remember the scene in The Hurt Locker where some soldiers are ambushed by a sniper and must do a little return sniping. That process of spotting, adjusting the sights, and altering the bullet’s ballistic trajectory bit by bit and degree by degree may soon no longer be necessary: Sandia Labs has developed a bullet with a built-in processor that guides its own flight via tiny adjustable… → Read More
A group of Iowa National Guardsmen, fresh from a harrowing two-and-a-half-hour firefight in Afghanistan earlier this year, found itself questioning the effectiveness of some of their new equipment. They had been issued M240B light machine guns for support fire, but they found themselves constantly reloading with new 50-round belts, which necessitated a ammo bearer with a bunch of belts at the… → Read More
Call me unimaginative, but I always thought blimps were best suited for sporting events and alternate history fiction. The US military would beg to differ, if this pearly-white behemoth is any indication. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Blue Devil Block 2, a floating surveillance platform that could soon appear at war-torn combat zones the world over. → Read More
National Security isn’t always about the flashy solutions. Not everything can be rail guns and one-winged drones. Sometimes you just need a sort of seedy-looking van that slowly, slowly turns into a climate-controlled guard tower. → Read More
Anyone who lives near a deciduous forest knows the joy of the maple seed, or as we called them when we were kids, helicopters. Their single wing spins the seed, slowing its descent — so why shouldn’t a similarly-designed wing be able to spin faster and actually fly upwards? Lockheed Martin has demonstrated a new drone platform, not quite a nano air vehicle but still simple and light, that… → Read More
It’s hard for me to imagine being in a firefight at all, let alone having to make tactical decisions and communicate with other soldiers over the roar of tanks, guns, jets, and explosions. But our troops do it every day — after they’ve gotten used to it, at least. It can be a bit disorientating at first, as you can imagine, and this project by a Missouri professor is intended to get them… → Read More
Here is a nice new piece from Bremont that you can’t get – at least not now. That isn’t to say the watch isn’t ready (because it is), but rather that you need to be among a select group of “pre-selected” military personnel to get one. The pieces will be highly limited as well. Each Bremont C17 Globemaster will be limited to just 50 pieces, and it comes in a few versions. → Read More
The future of on-the-ground military connectivity is a hot item these days; the systems used to keep track of soldiers, send secure communications, and so on, are showing their age… and weight. A unified platform for mapping, orders, requests, and so on is being sought with a fair amount of urgency, and Android has popped up as a fully-fledged system under consideration. → Read More
Back in December we heard about the “Mach 7″ railgun developed by the Navy. Looks like the private sector is hard at work on these things as well, as shown by this video. In fact, the two systems appear to be very similar: the “bullet” is flanked by a pair of break-away shells that help launch the payload properly. This one also shows the whole launch module more clearly, and the slow-mo bit of… → Read More
Supercomputers are expensive to make no matter how you look at it. But if you use a whole bunch of PS3s, you can save over 10x the cost compared to this guy. The Condor project is a supercomputer made up of 1,716 PS3s for the Air Force’s image processing tasks and is considered one of the top forty fastest computers in the world. Its big task involves monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, but not in… → Read More
iRobot recently introduced the 110 FirstLook robot designed for spying, scouting, and surveillance. FirstLook has four cameras, one on each side, giving the operator a 360-degree view around the robot (night vision mode included). The best part is that it’s super rugged and can survive 15 foot drops onto concrete. → Read More
Last month we mentioned how DARPA and Local Motors were trying out a crowdsourcing model for producing a concept combat vehicle. Well, the entries have been vetted and voted on, and they’ve put them into a nice gallery for you. They’re pretty awesome — kind of like the stuff I used to draw in school, but… you know, better. Here are the top 3 (more at Local Motors): → Read More
It looks like the U.S. Military has embraced the smartphone era. A recent field test at Fort Bragg saw members of the 82nd Airborne Division using customized smartphones running customized versions of Android. To what end? One app gives soldiers a GPS-assisted map of the area, while another lets them send photos and other relevant information back and forth. → Read More
What is the U.S. Air Force doing up there? The mysterious X-37B spacecraft will begin its second voyage on Friday, provided the weather cooperates. It’s not the same exact spacecraft that went up last April, but it’s the same model. The Air Force has classified the activities of the spacecraft, so unless we have another Wikileaks we’ll have no idea what it’s doing up there. → Read More
Okay, this is pretty amazing, but also pretty scary. The DARPA “Nano-UAV” project we’ve covered here before is entering the uncanny valley. The aim was to create a small, winged robot that could hover in one place, perhaps providing video or carrying some tiny payload. The previous versions were very robotic-looking and could barely stay in the air for more than a few seconds.
This new one? Looks… → Read More
DARPA, the Defense Department’s R&D wing, does some pretty amazing stuff. And when they aren’t getting what they want from their engineers, they let others help. Like in the Grand Challenge and its related programs — sometimes just dangling a cash prize and some specs out there is worth more than all your eggheads and skunk works combined. → Read More
World leaders will be taking the first steps toward a universal definition of “cyber war,” and how to wage it legally, at the Munich Security Conference later today. (Presumably our invite was lost in the mail.) On the agenda: a new definition of the term “nation-state,” and figuring out how to update the Geneva and Hague protocols to make them compatible with today’s electronic… → Read More
The U.S. military wants to upgrade the rifle that its servicemen use to spread liberty around the world. The current mainstays, the M4 Carbine and the M16 Rifle, introduced to a generation of teenagers thanks to the Call of Duty franchise, are getting a little long in the tooth. The M16 goes back to the 1960s, while the M4 carbine goes back to the swinging 1990s. And while the military has added… → Read More
The magic vision glasses or eye implants have been a staple of sci-fi for a long time. From the mega-vision of the Terminator or Predator to Deckard’s image enhancer to the silly monocular used by Jason Bourne (I mean come on), we’ve always loved the idea of being able to see more than the eye can actually see. And of course the staples of sci-fi are often staples of R&D as well, and this one… → Read More
You guys, it won’t be long before wars really are fought by bunny-hopping space marines in power armor, headshotting dudes from a mile away with railguns. I mean, we pretty much already have all the pieces, it’s just a matter of putting them together. This test firing of the Navy’s experimental railgun (it’s been updated since last time) shows that our geeky weapon dreams are all coming true. → Read More
In the wake of recent high-profile leaks, some branches of the US military have taken a step that may be end up being as controversial as its cause. Ironically, the news comes via a leaked memo obtained by Wired’s Danger Room that insists that everyone from grunts to techs “immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET,” under pain… → Read More
We cover a lot of military research here on CrunchGear, largely because they have the coolest toys. But the truth is that the vast array of gadgets, cameras, sensors, and weaponry available to the modern warrior make him have less in common with your stereotypical G.I. than with a blogger like yours truly. And when Special Operations Command needed to produce a force-wide fleet of devices to… → Read More
It’s a well-established tradition at tech conventions, where nerds like us abound, to stock one’s booth with beautiful women — “come for the girls, stay for the iPod cases” seems to be the idea, and in general it works. But how do you attract the attention of highly-disciplined Lieutenants and cold-hearted strategists? Why, a robot with a .50-cal, of course. → Read More
From one military story to another. It looks like Lockheed and DARPA have jointly developed a system that makes it easier for snipers to pick off their targets. Yes, a real life aimbot of sorta. It’s called the integrated spotter scope, and means that snipers would be able to shoot effectively from a distance of up to 3,600 yards. That’s quite far, indeed. → Read More
Now that the whole “laser on a plane” thing has been resolved, the military is starting to test the technology on smaller platforms, and at longer ranges. Check out the video from first test, after the jump. → Read More
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