Lifeboat Foundation

Very concerning — hope this settles down.

Nato leaders geared up on Friday for a long-term stand-off with Russia, ordering multinational troops to Poland and the three Baltic states as Moscow moves forward with its own plans to station two new divisions along its western borders.

Alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that on the first day of a landmark two-day summit, US President Barack Obama and leaders of the 27 other Nato countries also declared the initial building blocks of a ballistic missile defence system operationally capable, recognised cyberspace as a domain for alliance operations, committed to boosting their countries’ civil preparedness, and renewed a pledge to spend a minimum of 2 per cent of their national incomes on defence.

Continue reading “Nato leaders gear up for threats from Russia” »

The forefront of Russian military technology looks a lot like the Terminator movies, with future soldiers being replaced by humanoid machines. Replacing humans with robots in warfare isn’t a new idea, but this is the first time the principle has actually been employed to design warfighting robots. Russian military officials believe that the human warfighter’s days are numbered, and robotics will soon take over the field, according to Russia Today.

The above video was released detailing what the robot, named Ivan, is capable of. A modification of the current design was already presented to President Putin riding an ATV and autonomously navigating around obstacles. The USA is currently developing many robotic devices for warfare, but they are largely systems departing from the human form. Ending human casualties in warfare is ultimately the goal in developing robotic warfighters, but the question then shifts to what ware will be without human casualties.

Continue reading “Russian Robots will Soon Replace Human Soldiers” »

Nice.

Networks are mathematical representations to explore and understand diverse, complex systems—everything from military logistics and global finance to air traffic, social media, and the biological processes within our bodies. In each of those systems, a hierarchy of recurring, meaningful internal patterns—such as molecules and proteins interacting inside cells, and capacitors and resistors operating within integrated circuits—determines the functions or behaviors of those systems. The larger and more intricate a system is, however, the harder it is for current network modeling techniques to uncover these patterns and represent them in organized, easy-to-understand ways.

Researchers at Stanford University, funded by DARPA’s Simplifying Complexity in Scientific Discovery (SIMPLEX) program, have made progress in overcoming these challenges through a framework they have developed for identifying and clustering what mathematicians call “motifs”: essential but often obscure patterns within systems that are the building blocks of mathematical modeling and that facilitate the computational representation of complex systems.

Continue reading “Mathematical framework that prioritizes key patterns in networks aims to accelerate scientific discovery” »

Listen up all my QC buddies; the air force wants to hear from you. You have QC ideas for fighter jets they want you.

Guess I need to submit them some of mine.

The Air Force wants white papers that describe new ways quantum computing could help achieve its mission, according to an amended Broad Agency Announcement posted Friday. Eventually, the government could provide a test-bed where a contractor might install, develop and test a quantum computing system, according to the announcement.

Last year, the Air Force announced it had about $40 million available to fund research into, and the eventual maintenance and installation of a quantum system — a branch of emerging computing technology that relies on the mechanics of atomic particles to process complex equations.

Continue reading “Air Force Seeks Ideas for How Quantum Computing Can Help Warfighters” »

I hate that I am going to miss the Farnborough airshow.

The Farnborough airshow begins next week and will feature a number of announcements from the 3D printing industry. The show only takes place once every 2 years and will see a flurry of news and displays of the latest aviation technology. These include Boeing’s 737 MAX airliner with its 3D printed LEAP engines and also demonstrations by the first Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II, or Joint Strike Fighter, stealth jets to arrive in the UK.

Additive manufacturing company Norsk Titanium (NTi) hopes their announcements will make an equally large splash. During 2016 a number of press releases by the company have piqued the interest of insiders in the 3D printing industry and also in the aerospace industry. Outside of this group, the name Norsk Titanium may be relatively unknown.

Continue reading “Stealthy 3D Printing at Airshow?” »

Definitely could be tied to and explain some of IARPA’s investment in predictive systems “Robots to determine outcome of future wars: Russian army’s tech chief”

Robots will replace conventional soldiers on the battlefield in the future, says the Russian military’s tech chief.

Continue reading “Era of conventional wars over: Russia scientist” »

Russian military scientists’ work on developing defensive capabilities against the threat of hypersonic weapons systems is in full swing, according to Ground Forces Air Defense Force chief Alexander Leonov.

Speaking to Russian radio station RSN, Lieutenant-General Leonov indicated that “over the long term, we will be faced with hypersonic targets such as warheads [which do not fly to their target according to a traditional ballistic trajectory], as well as hypersonic aerial vehicles; this trend is very promising. Work to combat these prospective weapons must be organized, and is in fact already being carried out.”

The officer indicated that at present, medium and long-range hypersonic missile systems are perceived as the main threat when it comes to hypersonic weaponry.

An unmanned Israeli vessel has test-fired a torpedo.

The Seagull, from Elbit Systems, demonstrated its weapons capability by launching a torpedo off the Israeli coast near Haifa, according to Israeli news site Ynetnews.

“The test was carried out in the Haifa area, and its primary goal was to determine if it’s possible to arm and launch a relatively large precision missile from an unmanned ship,” Ynetnews said. “The next phases in the development of the system are expected to include launching the torpedo at a target to destroy it.”

Continue reading “Israeli robot ship fires torpedo” »

It sounds like an idea for a science fiction film, but here in the UK scientists and engineers are spending time and money to see if they can do exactly that.

British warplanes are already flying with parts made from a 3D printer. Researchers are already using that same technology to build drones.

The military advantage is obvious — building equipment quickly and close to the battlefield — without long waits and long supply chains — gives you an enormous advantage over any enemy.

Continue reading “‘Growing’ drones is under research” »