Government Military Politics

There may be nothing America can do to save Iraq

As reported on The Verge. By Verge Staff  Growing ISIS insurgency threatens to pull Obama back into Iraq, but his options are limited Less than four years after the withdrawal of American troops, Iraq is once again descending into chaos and violence. Islamist insurgents from an al-Qaeda breakaway group have seized large swaths of northern Iraq, and are marchingtoward Baghdad. The unrest has inflamed deep-seated sectarian divides between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq, resulting in…

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Design Military Mobile

The absurd military infographics you can find on Google

As reported on The Verge. By Cassandra Khaw Paul Ford has an offbeat fascination with military infographics. “No matter how abstract they are, these pictures describe systems that the U.S. military uses to make optimal, efficient decisions about killing other humans,” he writes on Medium. The diagrams showcased in the article are complex and esoteric, proving comical by their complete lack of context with phrases like “Publish Subscribe Broker” and “COCOM ‘Living Plans.’” He even discovers a…

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Film Military

Air Force discusses how it would respond to Godzilla

As reported on The Verge. By Jacob Kastrenakes As various films have shown, Godzilla is a devastating opponent in a fight. With a new movie coming out just a week from now, Smithsonian’s Air & Space decided to sit down with two in the US Air Force’s 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Japan to see how they would deal with the giant monster should it show up. “I think Godzilla would be expecting an aerial attack, so to catch him…

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Automotive Military

The US military is building a stealth dirt bike

As reported on The Verge. By Arielle Duhaime-Ross The US military has issued a grant for the development of a stealth motorcycle, reportsDefense Tech. The motorcycle’s “stealthiness” will be a product of its hybrid-electric engine, which will allow soldiers to drive for long periods on rough terrain while emitting virtually no engine noise. And according to Logos Technologies — the company responsible for building the engine — this will be the first hybrid-electric dirt bike ever built.…

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Military

US Navy fine tunes seafaring laser weapon and unmanned robocopters (video)

As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON That electromagnetic railgun is cool and all, but it’s not the Navy’s only wargadget in progress. Apparently, the Armed Forces branch has also been working tirelessly to improve its ship-mounted lasers and autonomous helicopters since we’d last heard about them. The new laser prototype, in particular, is a beefed-up version of what we saw in 2013. It’s capable of firing high-energy beams for $1 per shot, providing ships a low-cost alternative to weapons that…

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Military Security

‘Acoustic cloak’ could shield submarines with a cone of silence

As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT We’ve seen some overly elaborate invisibility cloaks in our day, but Duke engineers have shown that lo-fi may be best for audio. After much refinement, they’ve developed a shield that can hide objects from sound waves thanks to a highly engineered pyramid shape and carefully placed holes. The stacked layers retard sound coming from any angle, so that it appears to have bounced off a flat wall when picked up by a detector…

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Military Photography

Can You Spot the Snipers Hidden in These Photos?

As reported on Wired. BY JAKOB SCHILLER ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT SIMILAR GALLERIES People Around the World Pose With Everything They Eat in a Day Photographer Captures the Grace of Waiting at Heaven’s Door The Decline of Rural America, Captured in Replicas of Decaying Homes Mesmerizing GIFs Show Cities Passing From Day to Night The Drama of an Entire Film, Collapsed Into One Frame The Surreal Grandeur of San Francisco’s Little-Known Salt Fields 1 / 21 Sniper…

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Hardware Dev Military

SHOULD A ROBOT DECIDE WHEN TO KILL?

As reported on The Verge. By Adrianne Jeffries The ethics of war machines By the time the sun rose on Friday, December 19th, the Homestead Miami race track had been taken over by robots. Some hung from racks, their humanoid feet dangling above the ground as roboticists wheeled them out of garages. One robot resembled a gorilla, while another looked like a spider; yet another could have been mistaken for a designer coffee table. Teams of…

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Military Tech

Startup claims the US military is testing its computer-guided ‘smart’ rifles

As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON Not all soldiers are crack shots, but the U.S. military is reportedly hoping to make that happen — with a little help from “smart” rifles, that is. According to a startup called TrackingPoint, the military bought six of its precision-guided firearms that can cost between $10,000 to $27,000 each. These pricey rifles come equipped with a Linux computer in the scope and sensors that automatically determine environmental factors such as the…

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Engineering Military

Christening the USS Gerald Ford: inside the most advanced, most expensive warship ever built

As reported on The Verge. By Matt Stroud Is the $13 billion price tag worth it? This weekend, the United States Navy christened what many claim is its greatest engineering achievement: the USS Gerald Ford supercarrier, the first in a completely new line of warships called the Ford class. The ship, seated in a huge dock on the James River near the southern district of Newport News, Virginia, is the most technologically advanced, the most expensive,…

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