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British warships will soon have Siri-like voice controls
British warships will soon integrate Siri-like voice systems into their controls, according to the head of the UK's Royal Navy. Speaking at the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition -- one the biggest arms fairs in the world -- First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Phillip Jones said the Royal Navy wanted to embrace the speed at which warfare is being transformed by IT, and pointed to new Type-31 frigates as an example.
The Navy's $4 billion stealth destroyer has malfunctioned again
The US Navy hasn't exactly been having the best of luck with its pricey new ship. Only weeks after it was officially commissioned the USS Zumwalt, the Navy's new $4.4 billion destroyer has already been put out of action.
ICYMI: portable laser cannons, robotic tackling dummies, and fungus furniture
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-495312{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-495312, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-495312{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-495312").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It, Boeing unveils a drone-destroying laser cannon the size of a travel trunk. Also up, North Korea shows us all how calisthenics are done, a guy makes an ottoman out of mushrooms, and Dartmouth College unleashed a robotic tackling dummy upon its football team. If you come across any interesting videos, we'd love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd. And if you just want to heap praise on your handsome guest host, feel free to hit him up @mr_trout.
Boeing's portable drone-destroying laser uses an Xbox controller
Drones are playing an ever-expanding role in modern warfare, so it's no surprise companies like Boeing are developing news ways to shoot them out of the sky. Its last laser was the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD) -- a huge weapon mounted to the top of a truck -- and now it's touting something more portable. The Compact Laser Weapons System fits in four suitcase-sized boxes and can be mounted onto a tripod. It looks like a giant camera and, like the HEL MD, uses an Xbox 360 controller for targeting. As soon as you're in range though, the system can automatically take over and track the UAV, making sure you get a clean shot. Wired reports that, in one of Boeing's demos, it only took two seconds at full power to set a drone aflame.
Flying Humvee a step closer to reality, still seems like a really bad idea
It looks like AAI Corp has, indeed, landed the contract for feasibility studies of the Transformer flying Humvee project, which as far as we can tell takes a lightly armored (if armored at all) four man vehicle and puts it in the air, practically begging to be hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. And if that doesn't sound sketchy enough, keep in mind that among the design considerations are gas tanks in the craft's wings which, as Spencer Ackerman at Wired points out, would make really obvious targets. The testing should last about a year, and cost DARPA a cool $3 million. If all goes well, AAI could have a partial prototype in 2013.
DARPA's Transformer TX 'flying Humvee' project gets off the ground
Sometimes it feels like the Military-Industrial Complex only exists to keep us entertained with tales of laser weapons and robots that eat enemy combatants -- not that we'd complain if it did! And for today's fantastical wargadget, we have nothing less than a flying Humvee. The Transformer TX project calls for four-man vehicle that drives like a jeep and then takes off to avoid roadside bombs (or impress the ladies). While DARPA has yet to say who will be awarded with the contract for the conceptual design stage of the project, Popular Mechanics has done some digging and it looks like Lockheed Martin and AAI Corp are both on the short list. While the former has declined to talk about its offering, AAI's incorporates something called "slowed-rotor / compound," where a rotor provides lift on takeoff, and when it achieves a certain speed wings take over. We'll be waiting for our review unit, but in the meantime you can get a closer look after the break.
Boeing's Airborne Laser begins flight tests, future uncertain
Boeing was pretty bullish about its aircraft-mounted laser system only a few short months ago, but it looks the program's future is now considerably more uncertain, even as the sole aircraft to be equipped with the rig begins its first flight tests. Apparently, everything with the tests themselves has been going according to plan, with both the high-energy laser itself and the "beam control / fire control apparatus" along for the ride, and Boeing is even reportedly still on track for a missile-intercept demonstration later this year. The recent funding shakeup at the Pentagon, however, has thrown Boeing and its partners in the project for a bit of a loop, with the department now apparently intending to keep only one of the planes in service (instead of the proposed seven) as it transitions the rest of the program towards a purely R&D effort.
Darpa develops a 1.8 gigapixel digicam and no, you can't 'check it out'
Yeah, I know you thought your Hello Kitty digicam was some hot stuff, but believe it or not the kids at Darpa have even got that one beat. Called ARGUS-IS (both named after the mythological eye guy and an acronym for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System) this guy straps a 1.8 gigapixel camera to the bottom of an A-160T Hummingbird robot helicopter. The device is able to hover at high altitude (over 15,000 feet) for up to 20 hours -- keeping tabs of an area of over a hundred square miles. The frame rate is 15 fps and the "ground sample distance" is 15 centimeters -- each pixel represents about six inches. The sheer amount of data taken in by a camera like this is too large to be completely relayed to the ground, but users are able to define upwards of sixty-five independent video windows within the image and zoom in or out. Additionally, windows can be set to automatically track items such as moving vehicles, individuals, the books you get out of the library, and the items you pick up at 7-11 after a night out with the gang.
