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Our Deep Throat at the Pentagon's parking lot has sent us an update with new pictures and the reason why the DARPA Challenge cars have taken over the military installation today: "they are showing off." After all, the men with the funny hats pay the bills. You can check his complete explanation here.
Gizmodo reader Andrew Friend was strolling yesterday through the Pentagon's North Parking back to the office when he noticed the car above, MIT's entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge, which aims to produce a car that can run completely automated in any conditions, without human intervention. He reported today that all the challenge cars arrived today—"they must be doing something on the weekend when the parking lot clears out," he said. With no notice of a new challenge, what are all those cars doing there? Some possible answers, Google Maps location and a video showing how good these cars are, right after the jump. Updated: check the extra images from different cars and all the details about what is going on from another reader at the Pentagon right now.
A report released this month by the Pentagon has revealed the truth behind the B-52 bomber—loaded with six live nuclear warheads—flying over the US, a mistake that could have had catastrophic consequences. Their explanation: a 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of printed paper used to differentiate between nuclear and conventional missiles. Really, it can't get any more absurd than this:
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If our computers are ever going to hit speeds that'll allow us to do things like simulate the big bang, create artificial intelligence or create giant, building-sized robots to fight for our amusement, we need to move beyond wires. After all, their physical makeup is going to hit a wall at some point, so rather than just continuing to work at making faster wires, we need to look at what's going to come after wires, and that something is lasers.
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Army dudes sat down with scientists at University of Michigan and other schools and asked for a simple frickin' bionic bat with frickin' stereo cameras, miniaturized radar, ultra-sensitive self-guidance, "energy scavenging" recharging capability and a radio to send data back to troops in urban combat zones. Was that too much to ask? Here's how it's working out for them:
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We thought this was pretty obvious, but after the Pentagon discovered Google Maps' 360-degree panoramic coverage of Fort Sam Houston Army base in Texas, they have officially banned them from "filming inside and making detailed studies of US military bases." How the heck the army allowed cars with cameras mounted on them inside their army bases is yet to be known. Next, CIA officially bans Google from snooping into their secret cake recipes database. [BBC News]
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That busted spy satellite that was going to fall to Earth and hopefully not kill anyone? Well, the Pentagon has decided to not just assume it'd land in an ocean somewhere, and they will take matters into their own hands. That's right: they're going to blow the thing right out of the sky.
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The U.S. Army's office of enterprise information systems is introducing Mac computers to its systems, it is hoped the move will render the Army less open to attack from hackers. Further, by having Macs as part of their system, it is less likely a single attack will take effect across the whole network. These new measures come at a time when the security of digital information has increasingly been under threat.
Our Dear Leaders are always looking for new ways of quelling unrest in nonviolent—at least, notoverly violent—ways. (Let's face it, smacking someone over the head with a truncheon, and causing the blood to flow doesn't look great on news bulletins, does it?) The latest idea emanating from the Pentagon, according to a report by the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, is psychotropic paintballs. Bring 'em on!
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