The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it's not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling—it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say—and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]

[Flight Global]

The catch is, the Navy is insisting upon donating it in tandem with a giant, ugly, rust-laden submsersible barge called the Hughes Mining Barge. The vessel was actually used as a floating dock for the Sea Shadow, protecting it from the prying eyes of Soviet spy satellites.

The WSJ has a great story on Frank Lennon, a Naval museum operator in Providence, RI whose sole attraction—a retired old Soviet sub—was sunk by a tidal wave. While it has recently been exhumed from the deep, Frank has his eye on the Sea Shadow as his next big crowd-getter. Now he just has to figure out what to do with ths shitty old barge it comes with.

Anyone want to take on old Frank for the prize? The Navy is waiting for your calls. [WSJ]

A Royal Navy source told the Times:

It is remarkably difficult to detect a modern submarine with sonar and we work very hard with our own submarines, as do our allies, in making them as quiet as possible so they are not detectable.

And he's serious about that—even after realizing they'd hit something, the French crew couldn't tell what it was. They wrote the object off as a shipping container, only to find out that they had actually collided with another submarine upon docking three days later, after the government had deduced the collision from routine information exchanges with the British.

The problem was that both submarines use passive sonar to map out their surroundings, which doesn't give away their location with the 'pings' of active sonar, and is somewhat less sensitive. Without these 'pings', it was nearly impossible for either sub's passive sonar to detect the other's, leading to the collision and subsequent confusion.

In reality, the whole thing was a bit more subdued than initial reports (or our imaginations) led us to believe. The subs, which were traveling very slowly, just sort of bonked into on another, and the only critical damage to either vessel was to the French sub's sonar system. [Times Online]

Five Big Wins

The internet - You know, ARPANET, or a communications network that heals thyself. The whole porn-music-movie triangle trade was not in the original blueprint.

GPS - The idea that satellites up there could tell us where we are down here is as old as Sputnik, and DARPA had an attempt or two before getting it right with GPS. Again, not originally purposed for civilians and their "points of interest"—more about targeting ballistic warheads, but you know, potato, po-tah-to.

Speech translation - Soldiers in Iraq use handheld machine translators to aid in communication with some degree of success, meaning it's only a matter of time before some German tourists ask you to speak into the microphone.

Stealth planes - Stealth airplane technology was so sneaky it even snuck up on Air Force top brass, who were apparently shocked to learn about the prototype for the original F-117.

Gallium arsenide - Yep, some DARPA egghead discovered you can do more with arsenic than poison KGB triple-agents. It's now found in all kinds of everyday electronics. That may not last, though, because environmentally speaking it's still some pretty nasty stuff.

Five That Didn't Quite Make It

Hafnium bombs - DARPA put $7 million into researching a bomb with massive initial devastation but no radioactive fallout, but alas, it didn't ever work. Apparently if you want the good, you gotta take the bad.

The mechanical elephant - Hannibal would have been proud of this one: During the Vietnam War, some dudes at DARPA wanted to take terrain-friendly robot elephants into the jungle. Even DARPA's director was embarrassed.

Telepathic spies - People who claimed psychic powers were on the receiving end of a lot of government funding in the 1970s. Even though the project was a failure, getting rich by pretending to be psychic does seem to suggest a kind of sixth sense.

FutureMap - Apparently a bunch of Dick Cheney's friends betting on terror targets was considered grotesque by some people. I've still got $30K riding on Dubuque.

Project Orion - This is a nerd favorite: it's the spaceship powered by atomic-bomb turds. I think everyone was sad to see that one go.

Check out the New Scientist story for the real deal behind these 10 projects, and a look at some crazy projects that might make the list in the next 50 years. [New Scientist]

The inventor's story is an interesting one, involving thousands of hours of lab trial and error, as well as international military interest in his product...that far outshined the response from his own country's military.

But apparently the most promising and equitable use for such a paint could be civilian. Airport towers and buildings have a long history of interfering with flight control radars. And to simply make them disappear would be quite useful—as opposed to calling hangar 12 in for a landing or something. [Spiegel Online via NewLaunches][image]

Band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
WCDMA 2100MHz
Data GRPS/EDGE/UMTS
Size 109mm x 46mm x 18.5mm (4.3" x 1.8" x 0.7")
Weight 177g (6.2oz)
Battery Life up to 2 weeks standby time
up to 4 hours talk time
Main Display 262k color TFT, 320x240 pixel resolution
Camera 2 megapixel
Video Yes
Messaging MMS/SMS/IM
Email Yes (POP/IMAP/SMTP)
Bluetooth Yes
Memory 6MB internal, microSD card slot
Availability Unknown
Other Speakerphone, aircraft aluminum body, sapphire display and camera window

The Mobiado Stealth was released yesterday, but so far without a price. [Sybarites]

With speeds of around 60 knots (70mph), this razor-sharp and super-silent craft leaves barely any wake and is thought to be undetectable by radar. This is due, in part, to its angled design and radar-absorbent coating.

Designed and built by VT Halmatic, the defense company's website is keeping schtum on the boat, thought to be a replacement for two of the SBS's current tubs, the VSV (Very Slim Vessel) and its interceptor craft.

"Nobody knows too much," an anonymous source has been quoted as saying, "because there has been a lot of secrecy about them, but they are British built and have been spotted in Poole going very quickly." So, Shhhhhhh - you ain't seen it, roight?

Marines unveil stealth boat as latest weapon in war on terror [Daily Mail]

The Stealth comes in 4 different configurations (starts at $4,399). Each model is powered by a dual-core AMD processor and comes with a minimum of 1GB of RAM, dual TV tuners (1 HD and 1 SD), and enough space to accommodate a 1.5TB SATA drive. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth aren't built-in, which is a sin considering the starting price, but to make up for it you get enough ports for pretty much everything that sits in your living room, and it's even HDCP-compliant. The pricing is too high for this blogger's wallet, but any MCE fans out there with cash to invest can't go wrong.

– Louis Ramirez
VidaBox Stealth

Product Page [Stealth]

Might offer some good stealth in a pinch, or when you're on that next spy mission. Not exactly high-tech, it hooks up to USB 1.1 to send your pictures back to the mothership. And oh yeah, it can light those stogies, too. It's the same size as a regular Zippo, and that crappy camera on board doesn't raise the price too much—it's $30.

Product page [HotGadget, via CrunchGear]

Notice the graphic above, showing a Gizmodo post I wrote yesterday that was accompanied by a rather erotic photo of a muddied-up babe, which some readers said earned them dirty looks from prudish colleagues. Looks pretty tame now, doesn't it? Now you're getting it. There's even a Boss Key that substitutes corporate-looking text for whatever it was you were reading that might've been objectionable. Great way to read the Giz on the sly. – Charlie White

Enter URL Here [work Friendly, via Fleshbot (NSFW)]

The Navy s Swimming Spy Plane [Popular Science]

Stiletto Experimental ship with carbon fiber M-hull design tops 50 knots (60mph) [gizmag]