DARPA, the agency that really did invent the Internet, is now looking at ways the Web might be used to fight the next war.
Last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, attempted the impossible. It launched an unmanned aircraft from a rocket at 20 times the speed of sound with the goal of controlling its flight through the atmosphere for about 20 minutes -- long enough to glide from the California coast to the Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific.
Making computers behave like humans has taken another step forward.
The military research wing that last week launched a hypersonic aircraft test is being investigated after questions were raised about potential conflicts of interest in awarding lucrative contracts.
Every time you watch a Lady Gaga video on YouTube or get driving directions on Google Maps, a server farm somewhere is heating up. The more you do online and the faster it happens, the more energy it takes. Data centers now consume about 2% to 3% of all electricity generated annually in the U.S. That's the same amount it takes to power the state of New York -- and demand keeps climbing.
The U.S. military is preparing to launch a test flight of a hypersonic aircraft capable of reaching any target in the world in less than an hour.
Dear hackers: The U.S. government wants you.
In our modern society, driving is really a necessity. It is a means of getting you to your destination wherever, whenever. Driving is also fun. Some people even consider it an expression of power. Most importantly, driving is really about freedom, about independence.
The military's innovation lab, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, creates the best technology in the world.
The mystery shrouding Google's development of the driverless car slipped a bit earlier this month. Google, it was reported, is quietly lobbying the state of Nevada for legislation that would make it the first state where cars could be legally operated on public roads without someone's hand on the steering wheel
The author of "How to Run the World: Charting a Course" talks to CNN's Errol Barnett about politics and globalization.
Since the WikiLeaks scandal exploded at the end of last year, many commentators have declared this episode marks "the end of diplomacy." Nonsense.
No more will soldiers' vision be limited to the socket-embedded spheres that God intended. The Pentagon now wants troops to see dangers lurking behind them in real time, and be able to tell if an object a kilometer away is a walking stick or an AK-47.
It's too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents, nabbed from the Pentagon's secret network.
Along with the jetpack, the flying car tops the list of classic science-fiction imaginings that lead legions of fans to ask -- why don't we have this yet?
A flying car and a device to help paraplegics walk are named among 2010's top inventions. CNN's Josh Levs reports.
The Pentagon wants computers to see into the future -- and stop crimes before they happen.
It was a glimpse into the future, when convoys rumble toward the battlefield without a driver behind the wheel, aircraft soar without pilots on board and robots glide forward to fight with machine guns and grenade launchers, all the while beaming back video.
Government researchers and officials are hoping to use a relatively small amount of stimulus dollars to help find new ways for the nation to produce, consume and store energy.
A new energy department agency is using stimulus dollars to fund innovative technologies. CNN's Jessica Yellin reports.
HLN's Melissa Long talks to MIT's Riley Crane about a high-tech scavenger hunt.
A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won $40,000 in a high-tech scavenger hunt on Saturday by discovering the location of 10 red weather balloons.
On Saturday, thousands of people nationwide will search the skies in a high-tech scavenger hunt designed to test how far-flung groups can use the Internet and technology to work together.
Cheating death
updated: Mon Oct 19 2009 17:24:00
Just when you think you're dead, perhaps you're not. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
A wiry, slightly hunched man presses in a few numbers, the electronic lock gives way with a beep and the group presses into the crowded laboratory, plastered with ominous warnings about toxins and biohazards.
Historically the federal government has been a small investor in the nation's education system. With the recent economic stimulus bill, however, this changed virtually overnight.
A new tool that allows doctors to use laser surgery in complex operations has been hailed as a breakthrough in minimally invasive laser technology.
U.S. military scientists are developing half-machine, half-insect creatures to collect intelligence behind enemy lines
We'll spare you the far-future posturing and flying-car jokes, but the truth is -- for the 200 million automobile owners in America, the future looks bright. In fact, we've already made some pretty impressive headway. The 2008 Mercedes S-Class can change lanes on the highway automatically, and both the Toyota Prius and the Lexus LS-460 can self-park at the push of a button.
Hard core robot experts tend to turn up their noses at remote-control bots like Robotex's - even if they're fully armed.
More than 130 veterans of the Iraq war now face the daunting challenge of learning to live with a missing arm. To make that transition easier, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, has launched a $55-million project that pools the efforts of prosthetics experts nationwide to create a thought-controlled bionic arm that duplicates the functions of a natural limb.
If your idea of a robot is a metal-plated humanoid jerkily walking into walls then think again. Scientist are creating a new generation of "soft" machines that can change their shape and size, move in ever more agile ways and even split themselves into smaller robots.
Aliph has finally given their old wired Jawbone headset a much-needed upgrade for the Bluetooth generation. The Aliph Jawbone Bluetooth headset is quite simply one of the most eye-catching headsets we've ever had the pleasure of using.
Supercomputers don't come draped in a cape or tights, but they're heroic nonetheless.
A car that can drive itself is the fantasy of any designated driver, but the dream of owning a vehicle that does all the driving while you sit back and relax is one step closer to reality, as in-car artificial intelligence being developed by a team at Stanford University is ready to be used on city streets in the ultimate test of robot cars.
Fortune: Quantum leapupdated: Tue Aug 01 2006 13:21:00
She awakes early on the morning of April 10, 2030, in the capable hands of her suburban Chicago apartment. All night, microscopic sensors in her bedside tables have monitored her breathing, heart r...
Fortune: Quantum leapupdated: Wed Jul 26 2006 11:55:00
She awakes early on the morning of April 10, 2030, in the capable hands of her suburban Chicago apartment. All night, microscopic sensors in her bedside tables have monitored her breathing, heart rate, and brain activity.
For years, the U.S. military has wanted a plane that could loiter just outside enemy territory for more than a dozen hours and, on command, hurtle toward a target faster than the speed of sound. And then level it.
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater.
The X-37 -- an unpiloted, reusable spaceplane -- made its first captive-carry flight today under the wings of the White Knight, flying above Mojave, California desert.
The innovative carrier plane used to air launch SpaceShipOne has a new mission. At the Mojave, California inland spaceport, the White Knight mothership has been involved in fit and high-speed taxi checks with a new passenger -- the X-37, an unpiloted, reusable space plane.
Arguably the most aggressive pursuer of human enhancement is DARPA, the Pentagon's advanced research agency. In 2002 and 2003 it granted the author unusual access to many of its program managers an...
Fortune: DOLITTLE'S RAIDERSupdated: Mon May 02 2005 00:01:00
THERE'S A RAT LOOSE HERE at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and it's coming right at me. Suddenly it veers and goes back the way it came. Then it loops around and darts toward me ag...
THE MAIN REASON PSYCHOTHERAPISTS ARE TREATING Kerry supporters for a new psychiatric disorder--post-election selection trauma, a Florida doctor calls it--is that on the morning of Nov. 2 many of th...
FSB: Call AAAupdated: Fri Oct 01 2004 00:01:00
Even a Gaggle of Geeks Lured by a $1 million prize couldn't figure out how to make a car drive itself 142 miles. The Grand Challenge race, sponsored by the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Resear...
Mansions, supercars, and bespoke suits may be just fine, but in the world of "positional goods" it's hard to beat that most alluring of accessories, the business jet. Except with a faster business ...
"Imagine if you could convince a bunch of robots to act like ants, and further convince them that they really like land mines," observes James McLurkin. "That would be a boon to society."
Nobody won. Nobody even came close.
Of more than 100 entries, only 15 robotic vehicles, ranging from a motorcycle to a mega-military truck, made the final cut.
Move over Bionic Man and make room for BLEEX -- the Berkeley Lower Extremities Exoskeleton, with strap-on robotic legs designed to turn an ordinary human into a super strider.
Brian Gregory lives on a quiet, family-friendly street in Newbury Park, a leafy, lazy California suburb. He sports a beard, geeky glasses, and a small paunch. He does not, by any stretch, look like...
Robin Hanson is a married, 44-year-old father of two who teaches economics at George Mason University, a commuter school with aspirations that's plunked amid the affluent sprawl of northern Virgini...
Shortly after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, the United States scrambled to form the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its mandate: Don't let anyone undermine America's technologic...
Call it plug-and-play warfare. A network of small electronic devices carried aboard airborne drones and mud-caked Humvees could soon allow U.S. soldiers to create ubiquitous wireless networks from ...
FSB: Angelsupdated: Mon Jul 01 2002 00:01:00
Arati Prabhakar
Inside the plain little container I'm looking at may just be our best stopgap against bioterror. Dr. James Baker, chief scientist at the Ann Arbor, Mich., biotech firm NanoBio, holds up the bottle ...
For Tim and Barb Steier, the owners of a crop-dusting business in Blue Earth, Minn., the first aftershock of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks came on the following Saturday. While watchi...
Washington, D.C., is one place that many small business owners naturally shun when prowling for assistance and expansion financing. After all, the nation's capital is the place where those crushing...
I was really sorry to see that Paul Allen closed his Interval Research lab in Palo Alto. Paul is a nice guy who continues to do interesting things--it is amazing what you can do when you have $20 b...
WHEN Jean Kovacs comes into the office each day, she dons a little headset and greets her computer with a brisk ''Good morning!'' In response, her Sun workstation lights up its screen. ''Start mail...
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- Darpa, for short -- may have & done more for U.S. competitiveness than any other organization. The Pentagon agency started or funded some of the mos...
AROUND THE COUNTRY wind tunnels are rumbling, computers whirring, construction workers expanding test buildings. From NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia and Edwards Air Force Base in Southe...
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