Watch DARPA’s smart EXACTO bullets change path mid flight
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Bullets haven’t evolved in many years, but now DARPA’s smart bullets could turn everyone into a professional sniper. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. DARPA’s self-steering bullet, which first appeared in 2015 as you can see in the video...
Mission Impossible style smart contact lens gets US military’s attention
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As technology gets smaller the world’s first true Smart Contact Lenses get closer than ever, and there are plenty of companies hungrily watching the space. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. The bleeding edge US military research organisation Defense...
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....
Colour night vision breakthrough turns the darkest midnight into day
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to see in colour, even during the darkest nights, is a game changer that will have ramifications for multiple industries. When we think of night vision our minds automatically turn to grainy black and green images. But today things have begun to...
Game changing “Unhackable” MORPHEUS computer chip re-configures itself every 50 milliseconds
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to create an unhackable computer sounds like science fiction, but that doesn’t stop researchers from giving it a go. “Unhackable” is a strong word. And so far many of the technologies that people have described as being unhackable, even awesome science fiction...
Department of Defense warns the US is falling behind China on 5G
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF New 5G mobile networks will unleash a torrent of new innovation, and the US DOD fears that the country will be left behind if it doesn’t release new spectrum. The US led the charge on 4G LTE, which gave US companies significant power in...
Pentagon demands satellites that can dodge incoming fire like an NBA all star
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Once satellites are in orbit they stay there, in the same position until they run out of fuel, then they fall back to Earth, but as the militarisation of space hots up satellites need to be able to move. In the event of a...
Researchers have created a digital nose that can sniff out disease
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are many ways to detect disease, and one of the most effective ways is using smell, so scientists have developed a digital nose. An electronic nose typically identifies odours by detecting the “fingerprint” of a chemical compound across an array of sensors that are...
US Military puts the call out for autonomous AI’s that can defend its networks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF After the US Pentagon announced it can no longer keep up with the variety or voracity of cyber attacks the US DOD wants to develop autonomous AI’s that can. After a damning admission from the Pentagon that warned that the US military can no...
The US Pentagon releases it’s plan to become a world leader in AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial Intelligence has great promise in the civilian and military realms, and as countries weaponise it the US doesn’t want to be left behind. The Pentagon, which last year embedded the world’s best robo-hacker into its critical systems to protect them from cyber attacks,...
Shooting lasers at drones helps DARPA keep them airborne forever
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies field drones one of their biggest hurdles is keeping them airborne for long periods of time, DARPA’s latest program hopes to solve that. DARPA, the bleeding edge research arm of the US Military that’s bought and bringing you everything from conscious robots and autonomous...
US researchers have found a safe way to 3D print explosives
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The ability to 3D print explosives is a turning point for the military and other industries that rely on explosives, but it also opens up a debate on the potential dangers of the uses of the technology. According to new research out of the...
US Pentagon surrenders and admits it can no longer keep pace with cyber attacks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the volume and variety of global cyber attacks increase exponentially this is a wake up call that we need a new way to defend ourselves. The US military’s cybersecurity capabilities aren’t advancing fast enough to stay ahead of the “onslaught of multipronged” attacks...
The Pentagon hires the world’s best poker playing AI to play War Games
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Poker is a game of bluff, and acting without perfect information, and so too is war. Over the past year the US Pentagon has installed an autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robo-hacker called Mayhem to monitor and protect its most critical systems from cyber attacks,...
DARPA propose creating an AI that can monitor the whole world for threats
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF An AI capable of monitoring the whole world for threats, of any kind, is a huge undertaking and could become the world’s first “global” intelligence platform. DARPA already has a reputation as the mad scientist lab of the US military, thanks to a range of...
DARPA announces plans to build conscious robots using insect brains
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF On the one hand you can write advanced AI software to control your robots, or we can use what nature’s already given us… There’s a field called Neurobiotics that, unsurprisingly, many people haven’t heard of that I came across recently where scientists try to...
US military genetics program to turn marine life into giant living sensor networks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we learn more about the genetic code and how to modify it organisations around the world are starting to look into new ways of turning nature to their advantage. A few months ago I wrote about how DARPA, the bleeding edge research arm...
US researchers get $1.7m grant to create wonder bio-material that lasts 500 million years
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Everything in the universe is made from material, whether it’s biological or synthetic, and as we unravel natures mysteries we could create products that, literally, last forever. It’s the most durable biological material you’ve never heard of, Sporopollenin, and it makes plastics and other materials...
Here’s how NASA plans to build on Mars and the Moon
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the cost of launching equipment and people into space plummets the reality of colonising other planets is getting closer. It’s one thing to send an astronaut to Mars to be an extraterrestrial tourist for a few hours. But if humanity wants to actually...
US military identifies virtual nations as a potential security threat to US sovereignty
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The internet means citizens can now become part of large, virtual collectives, or nations, and there are fears these nations, with their own rules, welfare and support systems, could threaten the power and influence of sovereign nations. When is a nation not a nation?...
