Next Generation Robots: Autonomous Subsurface Explorers

"The big question for NASA is: Is there life beyond Earth?"

These robots could one day explore caves on distant planets

Lava Tubular

DARPA's Subterranean Challenge is kicking off today, and robotics teams from across the nation are mapping underground environments with robots.

These Robots Could One Day Explore Caves on Distant Planets

"If there is life in the solar system, these are the most likely places to harbor it."

Squad X Experimentation Exercise

"The human is of course involved with any lethal action, but at this point, it’s about establishing superior situational awareness."

DARPA's "Squad X" teams up soldiers with scout robots

Teamwork is Very Important

DARPA assembled a team called Squad X that uses robots to scout out a battlefield before human soldiers engage in combat.

DARPA’s “Squad X” Teams Up Soldiers With Scout Robots

A training video shows robots scouting an area for human infantry.

"While Loon does routinely fly balloons over the [U.S.] from our launch site in Nevada, we do not currently have balloons in the area."

UFOs over Kansas City turned out to be something strange

Lighter Than Air

Two mysterious white objects that were spotted in the sky over Kansas City, Missouri last night turned out to be DARPA's balloons.

UFOs Over Kansas City Turned Out to Be Something Strange

Spoiler: it wasn't aliens.

"We have a flight test planned for the near future where we will begin flying this particular class of weapon system."

New missile lobs nukes 5x faster than sound

Sudden Death

DARPA wants contractors to develop an "air-breathing" hypersonic weapon. Now Raytheon is ready to test a missile that can travel 5x faster than sound.

New Missile Lobs Nukes 5x Faster Than Sound

The missile comes from a new partnership between Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

"The idea of a magic universal 'undo' button to revert image edits is still far from reality."

Adobe built an AI to spot Photoshopped faces

Undo Button

Adobe trained a neural net to detect faces that were manipulated using Photoshops' liquify tool, though the company hasn't released it to the public.

Adobe Built an AI to Spot Photoshopped Faces

"We live in a world where it's becoming harder to trust the digital information we consume."

"Just as service members put on protective and tactical gear in preparation for a mission, in the future they might put on a headset containing a neural interface."

DARPA wants soldiers to control drones with their thoughts

Mind Control Drones

DARPA has officially funded a program to come up with a brain-machine interface headset that could allow soldiers to control drones with their minds.

DARPA Wants Soldiers to Control Drones With Their Thoughts

A brain-machine interface could allow service members to control "swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles."

"We should integrate it in October 2019 and hope to start testing in 2020."

DARPA: This smart contact lens could give soldiers superpowers

Smart Contact Lens

French engineering school IMT Atlantique revealed what it calls "the first stand-alone contact lens with a flexible micro battery" earlier this month.

DARPA: This Smart Contact Lens Could Give Soldiers Superpowers

Is this the smart contact lens DARPA has been looking for for at least a decade?

The Pentagon wants to build satellite-repairing droids

SpaceBot

DARPA announced plans to invest in space-traveling droids that could repair high-altitude satellites, which would drive down the cost of new satellites.

The Pentagon Wants to Build Satellite-Repairing Droids

Right now, high-altitude satellites have expensive redundancies in case something breaks.

"The idea is that the sounds that the shrimp create would travel to the object, reflect off of it and we would be able to detect it at our sensors."

DARPA wants to use noisy shrimp to detect enemy subs

Cocktail Sauce

DARPA funded a research project that wants to use the noise given off by snapping shrimp and other sea life as ubiquitous sonar.

DARPA Wants to Use Noisy Shrimp to Detect Enemy Subs

Underwater white noise could serve as natural sonar.

Voters would be able to verify that the machine actually read their votes correctly.

DARPA is building an open source voting machine

Hanging Chads

DARPA is developing technology that could finally lead to secure voting machines. It plans to have experts from professors to hackers kick the tires.

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