Leave it to the Army to start putting garbage to good use. According to reports, a base in Baghdad known as Camp Victory has been getting some of its electricity from generators that turn waste products into sweet, succulent fuel. The device, dubbed the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery (or TGER, for short) can take food slop, plastic, paper, styrofoam, annoying kids, moist towelettes, or smaller, non-functioning versions of itself and mash them down to synthetic gas and hydrous ethanol. Of course the concept isn't without its shortcomings, as it pumps a hefty load of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- but for a place that's short of fuel and high on trash, it's a dream come true.

[Via Wired; Image courtesy US Army]

Although other countries have deployed gun-toting robots and there's no shortage of companies trying to develop weaponized bots for Uncle Sam, it looks like the first test of actual killer robots in battle has ended in a whimper: the Army's TALON SWORD gunbots, are headed home, after being plagued with control issues. Yeah, that's right -- control issues. Apparently it was too hard to prevent the Army's gun-equipped robot from moving its gun "when it was not intended to move." Reassuring, no? The Army doesn't sound too enthused about another go-round, saying, "once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again." Ouch. On the plus side, at least that's 20 more years before we're all put to work in the mines, no?

We knew the Army's supposedly-dead Land Warrior high-tech uniform program still had some life in it, but now it appears that good marks from tests in the field might mean it's going to make a full recovery. The Army sent the 4/9 Infantry (aka the "Manchus") off to war loaded down with the 16-pound Land Warrior kit, and after some on-the-fly adjustments that made the gear lighter and more functional, the soldiers had talked Land Warrior up to the point where the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Combat Brigade Team has now officially requested 1,000 more Land Warrior rigs. The main change is the removal of six pounds of inessential gear, but the crew in the 4/9 also requested and added in a "digital chem light," which allows buildings and waypoints to be marked in green on an electronic map, and restricted Land Warrior deployment to team leaders and above. There's still some tricky funding problems to solve -- some $102M needs to be set aside for the request -- but the Land Warrior project managers say it's looking promising. Now if we could only get some of that HUD monocle action on the civilian side, our morning coffee run would be a lot more interesting.

In a shocking tale of totally expected events, iRobot has been awarded a tidy $286 million army contract to produce a merciless, bone-crushing battalion of 3,000 peaceful, loving, bomb-disarming robots (and their spare parts). This comes hot on the heels of Robotic FX getting its walking papers (as well as a canceled contract) on the same military work, so we can't exactly say we're surprised. Just another chapter in the ever-unfolding legal and philosophical drama that is the iRobot / Robotic FX story. iRobot -- this round is all yours.

While the Army is already taking good care of our wounded robots patrolling through Iraq, a recent deployment of three special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action systems (SWORDS) has placed rifle-equipped bots in the line of fire. The trio, which all handle M249s, are "are remotely controlled by a soldier through a terminal," and while their exact whereabouts and missions remain classified, the armed machines were reportedly designed to handle "high risk" combat scenarios if necessary. Currently, there's no record of a SWORD actually firing its weapon, but considering that each of these devices can potentially remove a human from harm, don't be surprised to see full blown platoons being unleashed when finances allow.

[Via Wired]

Back in the wild, cost-be-damned heyday of 2006, the US military was flying high with its "Land Warrior" technology, a multi-part combat system combining wearable GPS sat-nav, weapon-mounted sensors, and a full color heads-up display (viewed via a sinister looking monocle). But like all good military spending parties, this one came to a close just a few months after it was announced with an order to cut $3.3 billion in funding for the Future Combat Systems initiative. Now, however, it seems that the Senate Armed Services Committee has opted to partially reinstate the program (likely to the chagrin of some soldiers, for whom the gear adds 15 lbs of extra load), allowing two additional battalions to be equipped (joining the single battalion currently using the technology), and spending another $30 million on development and improvement. Now, if only the army would reinstate that Skynet program.

While we're still a bit wary about letting a robotic M.D. get to work on our operating table, we certainly wouldn't trust those two-timing humanoids to sufficiently repair one of their own. Thankfully, the US Army seemingly agrees, as the volunteer-staffed Joint Repair Facility at Camp Victory provides human TLC for robots that receive injuries in the heat of battle. The facility is mostly responsible for mending and rebuilding devices that protect live soldiers from encountering improvised explosive devices, and it has reportedly increased exponentially in use and size since its inception just three years back. Notably, the gurus that work here are famous for repairing even the most obliterated of robots, and while they did admit that some bots are too damaged to repair, those are "few and far between."

[Via CNET]

Fresh from showing off its Mobile WiMax wares at the recent 3GSM conference, Samsung's now providing some of its gear to the U.S. Army, who's apparently considering the speedy wireless technology for possible military use. Unsurprisingly, neither party is spilling a whole lot of details on the arrangement, with Samsung only saying that the Army's Communications Electronics Research & Development Engineering Center (or CERDEC) will spend several months evaluating the equipment, measuring the performance of both mobile users and mobile base stations in a military environment, among other undisclosed things. What is fairly clear is how eagerly Samsung will be anticipating the results, as Korea's Hankook newspaper speculates that a deal with the U.S. military could be worth as much as $3 billion for the company.

No sooner than the Joint Forces Command announces an initiative to utilize hybrid GPS technology to get geo-tracking information to soldiers whilst inside buildings or otherwise obstructed from GPS range, DARPA has went and hired Boeing to do almost the same thing. The Robust Surface Navigation (RSN) program seeks to "exploit signals of opportunity to deliver precise location information to the US warfighter in GPS-denied environments," which could theoretically overcome any GPS jamming techniques that our enemies may try. Essentially, Boeing is looking to companies such as ROSUM to figure out how to provide tracking data via terrestrial broadcast signals and augmented broadcast signals instead of GPS. The 15-month Phase 1 concept development contract is just getting underway, and while no commercial plans have been cooked up just yet, we can't imagine this staying out of civilian hands for too awfully long.

[Via Gizmag]

Suggestions in regard to robotic rights seem to be flying off the shelves these days, but an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Centre has concocted an interesting set of guidelines catering to autonomous killbots of the future. Most likely, it's just a matter of time before machine-on-machine violence becomes commonplace, and John Canning's "Concept of Operations for Armed Autonomous Systems" outlines just how lethal robots should handle themselves when faced with potentially deadly conflicts. Interestingly, the document suggests the the bots should be allowed to make their own decisions when it comes to blasting or forgiving fellow robots, but before they pull the trigger on a human, it should request guidance from a flesh 'n blood friendly. Still, a definite loophole exists in the fact that these simple-minded killers could aim for a "human's weapon" without asking permission, and when his awful auto-aim programming leads to a costly casualty, it'll simply be deemed "collateral damage." Can't say we like the sound of that. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via El Reg]

The mysterious expanses of space have been seeing quite a lot of action lately, but rather than watching a couple of autonomous crafts tackle tasks for kicks, the US military is hoping to set their next router right beside a constellation. Partnering with Intelsat and Cisco Systems, the US Department of Defense is hoping "to test an internet router in space in hopes of benefiting civilian broadband satellite communications." Additionally, the Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project aims to assist in all sorts of "military communications," as it routes IP traffic between space-bound sats and cuts down on the time required to divvy out information. As expected, voice, video, and data will all be supported, and once the three-year initiative is complete, "the technology will be available for commercial use" -- you know, in case you're looking to relocated your networking gear to the Black Hole.

This certainly won't go down as the first (or last) time that a shocking photograph and antsy storytellers blow an event out of proportion, but the HP iPod that reportedly saved the life of Kevin Garrad of the 3rd Infantry Division was actually nothing more than a battle scar. Kevin's body armor is actually the unsung hero, as he didn't even know he was shot until he fished around for his Pod and found a mangled piece of white / chrome kit instead. He did mention that he missed having his tunes on tap for the battlefield rituals, and certainly didn't mind it lessening the blow of a bullet to his armor, but it looks like Apple (or should that be HP?) will have to remove this now-nullified crowning achievement from the trophy case.

[Via The Raw Feed]