DARPA needs drones, fighters, missiles to attack in tandem; wants open systems to make it happen

     Pentagon researchers have decided the most effective way to penetrate state-of-the-art air defenses is the same approach with which users have flummoxed large-scale IT security operations for years:

Open-source, plug-and-play interfaces that allow intruders to assemble a mix of components so unpredictable it is impossible to defend against all the thousands of unique possible combinations, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

So – under a new approach called the System of Systems (SoS) Integration Technology and Experimentation (SoSITE) – DARPA is looking for ways to make sure U.S. attacks remain unstoppable by mixing and matching drones, fighters, cruise missiles, smart bombs, electronic warfare and other systems into unpredictable combinations whose combined capabilities make the combination unstoppable even if each individual system involved in it is not.

Prototypical U.S. tech-dependent air-superiority attacks currently depend on super-advanced, radar-evading fighters that go in ahead of the rest of a strike force to destroy an enemy's stationary radar systems and stay in the area to attack any mobile anti-aircraft missile-systems radar that light up when the main body of attackers arrives.

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Top 31 Amazing DIY Paintings For Your Blank Walls

Top 31 Amazing DIY Paintings For Your Blank Walls

iPhone 6:

  THE iPhone 6, expected to launch later this year, will monitor the temperature, humidity and pressure of its surroundings, according to an Apple analyst based in China.

  Sun Chang Xu, the chief analyst at ESM-China, quoted a contact within Apple who works on MEMS – micro-electromechanical systems – for the company. She said that the new phone would be able to gather information about the weather and relay it to Apple.

  According to technology news website The Register, the iPhone 6 is likely to monitor not only meteorological conditions but also the condition of its owner.

  “The addition of sensors tallies with a recent leak which showed Apple was developing a health monitoring system and an app called Health Book,” the site reports. “The rumoured iWatch would probably work with this app to help [users] monitor their fitness levels and chart day to day exercise.”

  If these sensors do turn up in the iPhone 6, which is expected later this year, Apple would be following the lead of its great rival, Samsung.

  The Samsung Galaxy S4, unveiled a year ago, included humidity and temperatures sensors, and the Galaxy S5 was launched last month alongside a suite of health-monitoring apps.

  Reports published earlier in the year suggested that Apple was planning an app codenamed Healthbook timed to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 6.

  “The software will be capable of monitoring and storing fitness statistics such as steps taken, calories burned, and miles walked,” 9to5Mac.com reported. “Furthermore, the app will have the ability to manage and track weight loss.”

New Robot Fish

  

  Robot fish could one day be enlisted for undercover science missions.

A soft-bodied robot that looks and swims like a fish was unveiled by researchers at MIT this week; they say something like it might be able to infiltrate schools of real fish and gather data about their behavior.

  The autonomous robot swishes side-to-side underwater as different parts of its body are inflated and deflated with a fluid stored as a gas onboard, the creators explained in a video. The result is a flexible robofish can execute escape maneuvers just as quickly as a real fish can — turning its body in a mere 100 milliseconds.

  For years roboticists have been working on durable, flexible bots that mimic other squishy creatures, such as earthwormlike robots that could survive blows from a hammer and octopus-inspired bots that could squeeze into small places for exploration or search-and-rescue operations. 

  The newly revealed robot belongs to a long line of fish-inspired creations, including RoboTuna, an underwater automaton with 2,843 parts controlled by six motors that came out of MIT in 1994.

The Printed Face

  This article was originally published at The Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The news that a man in Wales was able to have his face reconstructed after a serious motorbike accident has brought the wonder of 3D printing to the mainstream. It’s the result of changes in regulation and improvements in the technology and is the start of something much, much bigger.

  The use of a combination of CT scanning and 3D printing methods to treat patients who are suffering from injury or defect is incredibly powerful. As has happened in Stephen Power’s case, it allows expert surgeons to manipulate the precise geometry of the patient’s face or other part of the body before the operation. That means the necessary parts can be designed and manufactured in a normal, albeit slightly compressed, design timescale.

Futuristic Vertical-Flight Aircraft

  

  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense tasked with developing new technologies for the military — is looking to make "radical improvements" to futuristic-looking, helicopter-type vehicles that are designed to take off, hover and land vertically.

  The agency has awarded funds to four companies to develop unmanned vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, as part of the first phase of DARPA's VTOL Experimental Plane, or VTOL X-Plane, program. Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, The Boeing Company, Karem Aircraft, Inc., and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, received contracts to design vehicles that can achieve a higher top speed without sacrificing range or efficiency, according to DARPA officials.

  "The proposals we've chosen aim to create new technologies and incorporate existing ones that VTOL designs so far have not succeeded in developing," program manager Ashish Bagai said in a statement. "We're eager to see if the performers can integrate their ideas into designs that could potentially achieve the performance goals we've set."

Invisibility

   Cloaking devices, a staple of science fiction (think Harry Potter), are getting closer to reality. Researchers at Duke University have built a structure that would hide anything under it from sonar — at least in air. 

   Made of sheets of perforated plastic, the pyramid-shaped cloak changes the shape and speed of sound waves as they hit it. Those changes make the sound waves appear to reflect off the surface the pyramid is standing on, as though it wasn't there.

   To build the cloak, Lucian Zigoneanu, Bogdan-Ioan Popa and Steven Cummer modeled the way sound waves act on a computer. They tried several simulated shapes, and eventually came up with the pyramid design, made with sheets that have holes in them.