Articles tagged "DARPA"

Timmy fell down a well? Don't send Lassie, Lassie doesn't exist. Send the robotic cheetah which does exist.

Big Dog didn't get a gun or a laser or anything like that, though. It got a really strong arm, and somehow that's more startling.

Are you wearing your tin foil hat yet?

The rest of the world isn't thrilled about classified experiments taking place 200 miles up.

DARPA wants to get soldiers off the pot and back on the ground.

Bomb-sniffing dolphins are headed the way of the dodo.

A robot would need to be able, for example, to break down a door or climb a staircase, to recognize human objects like “levers and valves,” and to do human stuff like drive a car or use a power tool, according to the contest announcement.

All moral, ethical, and political quandaries aside, one of the big problems with aerial drones is that, eventually, the things must land. It’s the age-old problem of refueling – or for smaller unmanned systems, recharging. But that all could be chang…

In the wars of the future, solider's eyes alone won't be enough to hunt down insurgents. They'll need a little bit of extra help from the new brain wave-powered binoculars that DARPA just invented. Nicknamed the "Luke Skywalker" binoculars when they



For six decades, warring factions of space nerds have toiled away on various plans for heading out into deep space to explore the stars. Now, as Voyager 1 exits our solar system, a new interstellar alliance hopes to unite these efforts and kick thi…

When I was younger I played soccer this time of year, every year. One of my earliest memories of the sport was being confined to playing indoors, where my brother and I shared a similar disdain for the sealed environment which was that, "Indoor socce…

DARPA's four-legged, load-bearing robotic mule was already impressive. AlphaDog could trot around on all fours for 20 miles without refueling. It could carry up to 400 pounds of gear up hills. It could even pick itself back up if it got knocked over…

I really want to get excited about the DARPA-funded robot that's faster than any man on Earth. But then I imagine it's chasing me.

When it comes to military aircraft technology, there's fast and then there's fast. The Air Force has lately been trying hard to redefine notions of speed and distance with its new hypersonic experimental aircraft, the X-51A Waverider. On Tue…

Sometimes DARPA works in mysterious ways. With a $2.8 billion annual operating budget, the Pentagon's (in)famous research and development arm exists to develop future forward technology that will keep our military a stride ahead of the rest, and the

In recent years, military experts have harped on the idea that cyberspace will be the battlefield of the future, and the United States military is getting more aggressive about training soldiers that can fight there. In June, six airmen graduated fro…

When science fiction foretells science fact, it helps prepare us for the future’s arrival, if it comes at all. Thanks to George Orwell, society is on guard against "Big Brother." Thanks to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and _Harrison Bergeron_, we have a general…

IT World "has the wonderful¥† story":http://www.itworld.com/networking/254668/time-machine-why-didnt-internet-tv-take of the Internet being piped into TVs in 1983. There's a video above, but here's a spoiler: It failed miserably. Why? As usual, th…

Recent victories over Hollywood's Stop Online Piracy Act have reinvigorated the fight against a corporate takeover of the internet. But throughout this ongoing crusade to keep the 'net democratic and free, one might ask: how did it even get that way

DARPA, the special projects arm of the Department of Defense that's responsible for developing all kinds of crazy technology for the U.S. military, is still worried about radiation on the battlefield post-Cold War. Dirty bombs -- conventional explosi…