Category: Military

Culture Military

The Liberator, the first completely 3D-printed gun, gets test-fired (video)

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Mat Smith The (almost) all-plastic 3D-printed Liberator pistol was announced by Defense Distributed late last week, but with the gun’s blueprints and construction details now live on the company’s own DefCAD design site, it’s also released a video taken during its testing. In front of a Forbes onlooker, the clip apparently shows a 0.380 caliber bullet being fired by the Liberator. The only non-plastic part of the design is a common nail, which acts as the firing…

Continue reading

Military Mobile

Pentagon Clears BlackBerry, Samsung Devices For Defense Dept Use

By admin | by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by CATHERINE SHU BlackBerry and Samsung devices have been given the go-ahead for use on Defense Department networks. The approved devices are BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets using the Enterprise Service 10 system and Samsung’s Android Knox. The Pentagon said earlier this week that it also expects to clear Apple devices using iOS 6 in early May. Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Damien Pickart said in a statement that “this is a significant step…

Continue reading

Military

Navy launches first drone squadron, comprised of ten Fire Scout MQ-8Bs

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget By Nicole Lee The US Navy has officially introduced unmanned aircraft along with eight newly manned helicopters into its squadron, making it the latest military branch after theArmy and the Air Force to embrace the drone. Indeed, ten of the 18 aircraft to be deployed are Fire Scout MQ-8Bs, an unmanned chopper the Navy wishes to operate from combat ships set in the Pacific in about a year. Built to track targets, the Fire Scout…

Continue reading

Military

US Navy experimenting with drones and blimps to fight Caribbean drug smugglers

By admin | by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Andrew Webster In the wake of budget cuts, the US Navy is turning to older technology in the war on drugs. As the Associated Press reports, last week the Navy began testing two new tools to monitor and capture drug smugglers in the Caribbean: the blimp-like aerostat, which has previously been used for surveillance in Iraq and Afghanistan as well tomonitor the US-Mexico border, and a drone that’s launched from the deck of a…

Continue reading

Culture Government Military Security

They’re watching: why city-wide surveillance failed to stop the Boston bombing

By admin | by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Matt Stroud “If everyone becomes a suspect, then nobody is a suspect.”   All day Sunday, police directed traffic around a blocked-off section of Boylston Street in downtown Boston where bombs had gone off nearly a week earlier, killing three and wounding hundreds. A makeshift memorial had been set up to honor the dead with personal messages and flowers, and old running shoes hung from metal barricades. Similar makeshift memorials…

Continue reading

Military News

Leaked documents show the extent of America’s drone war

By admin | by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris Top-secret documents acquired by McClatchy have revealed the extent of US drone usage. Despite previous claims that drones were used for “targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists,” it’s now clear that the unmanned aircraft are being used far more widely. According to McClatchy‘s Jonathan Landay, at least 265 of the 482 people the CIA killed over a 12-month period ending in September 2011 were assessed to be “unknown extremists;” a far cry…

Continue reading

Military

US Navy to deploy ship-mounted laser in 2014, blasts drones in the meantime (video)

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Alexis Santos Lasers have been flaunted by the US Navy before, but now it’s announced that 2014 will see the very first solid-state laser deployed aboard a ship, two years ahead of schedule. The USS Ponce, a vessel used as an amphibious transport dock stationed in the Persian Gulf, will get the honor of hosting the prototype Laser Weapon System (LaWS). Not only can the hardware set boats and airborne drones ablaze, but it…

Continue reading

Entertainment Military Story

Inside the War Machine: New Documentary Maps an Epic Photo Career

By admin | by admin

As reported on Wired. BY JAKOB SCHILLER Tim Hetherington. Photo: Courtesy of HBO   Tim Hetherington is trying to explain why he documents war. He launches into a cliché about violence and the “human experience” but quickly stops, laughs and says, “No, that sounds too fucking bullshit.” It’s the opening scene from HBO’s new documentary about Hetherington called Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington. The film, which airs April…

Continue reading

Military

US Navy to fund development of vehicle-mounted, drone-shooting lasers

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Alexis Santos Lasers, particularly those that set boats ablaze and incinerate incoming missiles, have long been on the Navy’s mind. Today, the Office of Naval Research revealed its latest energy weapon craving: vehicle-mounted lasers that shoot down drones. Dubbed Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-The-Move, the project is offering private outfits up to $400,000 each to develop such a system that blasts at full power for 120 seconds and juices back up to 80 percent after…

Continue reading

Military

Operational F-35B fighter jet’s first vertical landing was years, billions in the making (video)

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Steve Dent Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program has been a political whipping boy seemingly forever, but a production VTOL ‘B’-variant of the pricey supersonic jet finally did what it was made for: a vertical landing. That happened nearly three years to the day after the estimated $304 million (each!) jet’s first mid-air hover test, at which point the Pentagon pegged the cost at $83 million. Inflation aside, the US Marine’s variant seemed to make a…

Continue reading