DARPA wants to combine DC’s Aquaman sea life control and Cyborg powers to monitor the oceans

DARPA wants to use genetically modified sealife that is integrated with electronics in order to monitor the oceans. The Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors (PALS) program envisions using the natural sensing capabilities of marine organisms to detect the presence of underwater vehicles in strategic waters such as straits and littoral regions. PALS technology would register organisms’ …

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DARPA aims for 100-fold performance improvement for defense-related sensors and devices

The performance and reliability of quantum sensors and devices is dependent on the length of time the underlying quantum states can remain coherent. If you wait long enough, interactions with the environment will make the state behave like a conventional classical system. In many cases, this time is significantly short. DARPA, with an eye on …

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US Air Force putting $10 billion into next generation fighter designs with hypersonic tech and AI

The US Air Force is already accelerating the development of a sixth-generation fighter as China ramps up its military. The Air Force is investing $10 billion in the next generation fighter platform over the next five years. This is $2.7 billion more than previously planned, for the Next Generation Air Dominance system, which will likely …

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Cheap and capable drones and missiles means foreign interventions will no longer all be low-risk

The US and its allies may never actually face China in a shooting war, but sophisticated Chinese drones, missiles and weapons systems are proliferating. The perception that you will enter a low-risk environment when intervening overseas, now needs to be questioned. China has a growing role as a source of sophisticated weaponry. Western air forces …

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China’s J-20 Stealth Fighter will be put on combat patrols over South China Sea

China’s J-20 stealth fighter has officially entered combat service. The fighter jet officially entered military service in September, and was put through its combat paces over nine days of drills with less-advanced J-16 and J-10C fighters last month. The announcement came two days after Beijing announced its Su-35 fighter jets had taken part in a …

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Electric air taxi startup Joby gets $100 million in funding

Joby Aviation is a pioneer in the development of novel aircraft enabled by electric propulsion. For a number of years, Joby did important aerodynamics work with NASA and others on projects such as the X-57 Maxwell and LEAPTech. Above was what Joby Aviation was working on in 2015. The current Joby electric air taxi is …

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Fit soldiers = Fitness Apps = Massive security leak

Australian student Nathan Ruser noticed that trails from Strava users in certain countries made it possible to identify military bases and other facilities operated by countries, including the U.S., in locations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria. Strava released their global heatmap. 13 trillion GPS points from their users (turning off data sharing is …

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China gathering AI and quantum technology researchers as part of military applications push

China has gathered 120 researchers from around the military to work for its top research institute as part of a push to develop military applications for artificial intelligence and quantum technology. More than 95 percent of the new recruits enlisted into the academy hold PhD degrees and are highly specialized in certain fields, particularly artificial …

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Testing Director says the expensive F35s are not combat ready, unreliable and components need redesign

The Director of Operational Testing, Robert Behler, says the F35 stealth fighter is still below requirements and is dependent on workarounds and would not meet Service expectations in combat situations. This is in the updated annual report on the F35. Overall fleet-wide monthly availability rates remain around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with …

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DARPA Selects Orbital ATK for Hypersonic Engine Research

Orbital ATK has entered a new DARPA contract to study the integration of turbine and hypersonic engine technologies into a new aircraft propulsion system under DARPA’s Advanced Full Range Engine (AFRE) program. The AFRE program seeks to develop a new aircraft propulsion system that could operate over the full range of speeds from conventional runway …

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