AI fighter pilot obliterates human USAF pilot in simulated dogfights
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s learn in fundamentally different ways to humans, and increasingly that seems to be their advantage in human-machine competitions. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from our XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Who’s better in a dog fight...
Commercial supersonic flights get nearer after NASA green lights X-59 build
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Commercial supersonic flights ended last century after Concorde was cancelled, but Lockheed and NASA wants to bring it back and they’ve created a new X-Plane to do it. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Concorde, the world’s first...
New military virtual reality system lets operators control swarms of drones
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As drone swarms become more common we need new ways to control them. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Ever since drones became a thing the standard practice for piloting one has been one operator for each unmanned vehicle....
Lockheed Martin goes full throttle to develop NASA’s quiet supersonic jet
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Regulators don’t like noisy supersonic aircraft flying over land, so Lockheed and NASA have teamed up to create a quiet supersonic aircraft. One of the reasons why the iconic Concorde was mothballed was because it was too noisy when travelling at supersonic speeds, so...
US Navy puts AI brains into its 3D printers to make them “creative and intelligent”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By combining the power of AI with 3D printing the US military hopes to revolutionise how products are designed and made everywhere. One thing about aircraft, especially ones that fly from aircraft carriers, that are increasingly being turned into floating factories and flying fortresses,...
Lockheed Martin awarded contract to arm US Navy destroyers with lasers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We are entering a new era of warfare, full of AI fuelled semi-autonomous weapons, hypersonic missiles and lasers. The US military is increasingly ramping up its interest in, and spending on, new laser weapons, that will be positioned at forward operating bases, and on...
Lockheed will build America’s next generation of autonomous submarines
WHY THIS MATTERS It is inevitable that more of the world’s military platforms will become autonomous, and America’s submarines are about to get a huge upgrade. As part of its plan to turn undersea drones from remote controlled tools and toys into fully enrolled members of the fleet, last...
Mysterious hypersonic SR-72 demonstrator spotted in California
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Hypersonic platforms, from autonomous aircraft to “carrier killers” and missiles, so it’s inevitable that over the next five or so years sightings are going to increase Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Program (ADP), better known as “Skunk Works,” might be further along in the development...
Lockheed shoots drones out of the sky with it’s newest laser weapon
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Laser weapons are coming of age and it won’t be long before they’re deployed on the battlefield, and that’s bad news for drones and drone fans Remember when you were growing up and every sci fi film you watched, from James Bond to Star...
Lockheed show off their orbiting Mars station concept
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The race for Mars is on and companies are now lining up to get astronauts into orbit, and onto, the red planet, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens. At the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, last week rocket companies,...
Lockheed’s new camera puts a space telescope in your pocket
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Increasingly we’re using new, and advanced, optical systems to monitor everything that goes on around us, both on Earth and in space, and the more the sensors improve the more we can watch. Today’s space telescopes, like the Hubble or the newest kid on the...
Lockheed confirms it’s building the unmanned hypersonic SR-72 aircraft
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The next generation of aircraft, and warfare, will be hypersonic and as China and Russia make big advances in the space the US is stepping up its game. The US has been playing around with hypersonic aircraft for decades now, the most public showing...
The USAF turned an F-16 fighter jet into the world’s most advanced drone
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Militaries around the world are weaponising AI and drones to create semi, or fully, autonomous weapons platforms and the pace of development is accelerating. Earlier this week the US Air Force (USAF) announced that it has managed to turn an F-16 fighter jet into...
British Aerospace unveils the world’s first laser deflector shield concept
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plenty of companies are developing new laser and direct energy weapons systems but none have ever managed to create one, that might be about to change. Deflector shields are the stuff of science fiction – whether it’s the rippling green shields that saw off...
Lasers on fighter jets by 2020, the USAF and Northrop Grumman get cosy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF New threats, such as drone swarms and new hypersonic planes and missile systems, are increasingly testing America’s defensive capabilities, as a consequence the US Military are now pushing the development of laser and directed energy weapons to counter these new threats hard. With new...
New heat resistant material breakthrough gives hypersonic flight a boost
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Materials that don’t react to heat, or cold could make structures safer and solve one of the aerospace industry’s most troublesome issues. Researchers at the University of Southern California have been trying to make a material that doesn’t respond to heat, and it seems...
New US Navy launcher fires swarms of autonomous drones into the sky
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The US Navy launches drone swarms to give its adversaries a new headache to deal with. Following on from a DARPA’s announcement earlier this year about creating a new “Drone Swarm” program with Lockheed, the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) have announced that they...
World first as Lockheeds autonomous submarine launches an autonomous drone
Lockheed Martin just successfully tested the US Military’s next generation “Kill Chain” Following hot on the heels of the US Navy’s first successful tests of their autonomous warship, the Sea Hunter, during the three day Annual Navy Technology Exercise (ANTX) that took place last month in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay,...
Claimed Chinese Quantum Radar breakthrough would render US stealth obselete
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Chinas bold claim of creating the worlds first Quantum Radar system, if true, will render US, and all stealth systems, obsolete. This week Beijing’s state media arm, the Global Times, made the bold claim that a Chinese defense contractor successfully developed the world’s first...
D-Wave readies a 2,000 qubit quantum computer for 2017 launch
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF D-Wave doubles the qubits and boosts previous models performance by 1,000 fold. Forget logic based servers D-Wave Systems, the controversial quantum computing pioneer, will start shipping a quantum computer with 2,000 qubits – twice the size of its current 1,000 qubit D-Wave 2X in 2017. And, seven...
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