You may think that the Navy's just the baby brother to the two other US Armed Forces, but its weapon development record definitely shows otherwise. Just over two years after building an 8-Megajoule railgun, the branch has penned two $7 million checks to defense contractors Boeing and Raytheon for the design and development of a free-electron laser (FEL). For what it's worth, such a device has been yearned for since a day after the dawn of time, as unlike chemical-based lasers, the FEL would be 100 percent electric and easier to move. For those unaware,this stormy petrel of a weapon would be used to blast down missiles in mid-flight, all while putting on a pretty impressive light show. 'Course, the Navy must also figure out how to build a massive energy generating ship in order to use it, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here, okay?

[Image courtesy of AIP]

While the British military has had a love-hate relationship with Apple's darling, the US armed forces are reportedly warming up quite well to the iPod touch. A fresh Newsweek report asserts that the touch is increasingly replacing far more expensive dedicated devices in the field, noting that it is being used to spearhead the future of "networked warfare." Equipped with a rugged shell and software developed by language translation firms (among others), the device is being used to aid communications and acquire information from databases. In fact, the US Department of Defense is "developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe," and snipers are already utilizing a ballistics calculator to add precision to shots. And hey, it's not like easy access to Tap Tap Revenge is really bad for morale, either.

[Via CNET]

While it's not unusual for a nation to desire a full fledged robot army to handle its dirty work, Singapore's Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is actually offering up a reward to anyone who can "build a robot that can operate autonomously in urban warfare conditions." Obviously, the task is easier said than done, but the country is aiming to acquire an intelligent, street-fighting machine that can move in and out of buildings, open and close doors, and most importantly, "search and destroy targets like a human soldier." Notably, anyone (including institutions) in the world is open to participate in the TechX Challenge, but foreigners must collaborate with local partners in their construction. The contest is being created in order to shift away from remote-controlled robots that tie up human resources, but the goals of the project may indeed be a bit lofty for today's technology. Robert Richardson from the University of Manchester, UK has proclaimed that the "competition could present a major challenge to even the most sophisticated robot," and added that doors and elevators would likely give the autonomous drones the most problems. Crafty individuals interested in the admittedly tempting S$1 million ($652,000) reward must (hastily) submit their entry by May of this year, where a few rounds of elimination will eventually end when a winner is chosen in August of 2008.

[Thanks, John S.]

Although glitzy, stat-filled jerseys are certainly sufficient ways to get information off your chest (ahem), a new vibrating vest could give "body language" an entirely new meaning. Joining the air-conditioned and insulating renditions, this snazzy vest features a "tactile display" on the back, which is created by 16 small vibrating motors that are connected to an internal wireless control unit. The jacket "writes symbols and messages on its wearer's back," and while the actual writing resembles Braille more than text, it can supposedly be used to "send important commands to soldiers or firefighters, warning them of imminent danger when ordinary radios cannot be used." Commands are beamed to the vests via a wirelessly-enabled computer, and can stealthily inform platoons to stop, look in a specific direction, run, or slow down. The US Army is partially funding the research, as it hopes to investigate different ways to communicate when hand signals and / or radio transmissions aren't effective. During initial testing, results have shown nearly flawless interpretation by participants, and while we're not exactly sure when we can expect rumble-equipped gear to grace our armed forces, the problem of "excess noise from the motors" has to be quelled before hitting the battlefield.

[Via BoingBoing]

While the folks behind the AACS could probably use a few pointers about constructing a sufficient lock of their own, a group of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovat, Israel have crafted a molecule-sized "keypad lock" that "only activates when exposed to the correct password, a sequence of chemicals and light." Organic chemist Abraham Shanzer and his colleagues suggest that their invention could "lead to a new level of safeguards for secret information," but we tend think the infamous hackers of the world would inevitably crack the code. Nevertheless, the molecule -- dubbed FLIP -- houses a core linker that mimics a bacterial compound that binds to iron, and attached to it are two molecules that respectively can glow either blue or green. Using three "buttons," which just so happen to be an acidic molecule, an alkaline compound, and ultraviolet light, the lock can be "opened" if given the right sequence of chemicals and light, and there's a grand total of two noticeable results possible. Interestingly, the researchers have insinuated that their creation could be used to recognize "when certain sequences of chemicals (like harmful toxins) are released in the body," but we haven't heard a 10-4 from the US Army just yet.

[Via Yahoo, thanks, Antonio H.]

While it probably won't matter much once we're pitting one robot army against another, it appears that the US Air Force is looking into new "subterranean vehicles" that could be used to navigate to underground bombs, traps, or nuclear pods and defuse the situation from beneath. Although we figured the USAF would focus the majority of its attention somewhere above the Earth's surface, the newfangled moles would be deployed a safe distance from the target and "autonomously navigate itself to the target" while cleverly avoiding buried obstacles on its route. While larger digging machines can certainly accomplish the same task, the catch here is that the life-saving worm must not exceed "12 inches" in length and be able to run off of minimal battery power. Similar to other "teams" of robotic creatures feeding off one another to accomplish complex goals, the Air Force envisions swarms of these diggers penetrating and neutralizing potential hotbeds for underground explosives, all without sacrificing human lives. Now if we only had one of these bad boys to sneak up into Best Buy's PS3 holding closet last night, we'd have a winner.

[Via Defense Tech]