PRISM 2.0: From 9 to ‘thousands’ of technology and finance companies

June 14, 2013 8:35 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

When Edward Snowden leaked the news about PRISM, we thought it was just 9 U.S. companies that were sharing customers' data with the National Security Agency (NSA). Now it looks like literally thousands of technology, finance, and manufacturing firms are working with the NSA, CIA, FBI, and branches of the U.S. military.

Pentagon gives green light: Now those hundreds of thousands of iPhones, iPads, and iPods can actually be used

May 17, 2013 8:38 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

The problem with clearing smartphones for use in top secret environments is that they are, essentially, full of radios: Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular.

U.S. Department of Defense orders 120K iPads, 100K iPad minis, 200K iPod touches, and 210K iPhones

March 21, 2013 2:49 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

The U.S. military is fairly well-equipped with M16s, Abrams battle tanks, and aircraft carriers. But apparently there is a major shortage of shiny new Apple iDevices.

U.S. military funds research to arm unmanned vehicles against cyberattacks

February 28, 2013 12:08 PM Rebecca Grant
Rebecca Grant

DARPA grants a Carnegie Mellon professor $6 million to develop software that protects unmanned vehicles from attack.

How tech companies and the U.S. military are blocking gay websites

January 7, 2013 12:45 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

This isn't about porn or adult content. The military is blocking access to sites about health, legal rights, bullying, and even suicide prevention.

U.S. military makes robo-horse of doom (well, maybe not doom, but it’s cool)

December 19, 2012 5:47 PM Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, makes really freaking cool horse-robots. Or spider-robots. I’m not sure what this thing resembles, but it’s a human-sized robot that can now do more than trot along and get back up if …

Startup Spotlight: Womens Veterans Connect bridges gap between military and civilian life

November 10, 2012 10:49 AM Rebecca Grant
Rebecca Grant

Women Veterans Connect is a multi-platform service bridging the gap between women veterans and their communities by providing interpersonal connections, along with educational and supplementary life skills services.

Allied Minds and the DOD: 50,000 scientists at 100 labs creating technologies fueling 100 startups a year

October 12, 2012 9:42 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

The U.S Department of Defense spends $100 billion a year funding 50,000 scientists in 100 research labs to create innovative new technologies. Now some of those new technologies will be coming to consumers.

U.S. Army announces latest toy: lightning laser gun

June 28, 2012 8:56 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

I want to apologize in advance to my editors for this post. I’ve been really really good about writing hard news, actual stories. Doing interviews, getting quotes, and generally keeping my nose to the journalistic grindstone.

But I can’t resist …

DARPA invests $3.5M in TechShop to create pop-up weapons factories

May 24, 2012 6:59 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

A fundamental tenet of the modern maker movement is that everyone wants to build something. Especially the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Today DARPA took a break from funding next-generation weapons systems, advanced hypersonic aircraft, and frickin’ laser beams to …

Military personnel and their families have a new ally in times of crisis: Facebook

May 9, 2012 7:00 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Today, Facebook is announcing new military-specific tools for service members in crisis, struggling military family members, and veterans in need of assistance.

The social network has partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs and with Blue Star Families (a support …

Military wants better machine vision for smarter robot cameras

April 9, 2012 7:00 AM Dean Takahashi
Dean Takahashi

Computer vision works much better than it once did, and that could enable a diverse range of machines to see and understand their environments. Such machines could be useful in everything from military scouting to self-driving cars.

That’s why the …

The U.S. military wants YOU… to build a humanoid robot

April 6, 2012 9:07 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

DARPA, the U.S. military’s research arm, is getting ready to issue a call to arms — specifically, humanoid arms on a new kind of robot.

DARPA’s Grand Challenge, a prize competition for technological innovation that could be useful in military …

Like robots? Then you’ll love these pics from a new military robotics lab

April 2, 2012 12:42 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

The U.S. Navy has just taken the wraps off a sexy new robotics facility. The bots created and refined there will be automated wonders, some of them amphibious, some able to fight fires or fly, and ever so much more.…

The next breed of security analyst needs to be from the military

February 28, 2012 10:54 AM Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly

Recruiters need to turn toward to the military for security analysts, a background not generally spotlighted by the industry, according to EMC executive vice president Art Coviello.

“We won’t stop every individual attack,” said Coviello at the RSA conference in …

Scientists have figured out how to make entire events disappear

January 4, 2012 3:58 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Invisibility: It’s not just for fictional magicians anymore.

Scientists at the Pentagon have just published some fascinating (understatement) research on “temporal cloaking”.

As the team noted in Nature,

“To achieve spatial cloaking, the index of refraction is manipulated to …

The U.S. Army is creating the helicopters of the future

December 16, 2011 3:34 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

The Pentagon and the U.S. army are showing off some fancy new equipment in the form of a next-generation helicopter.

These gadgets-in-the-sky will include integrated sensors, faster speeds, automatic “pilotless” flights, better countermeasures and lower overall costs.

The military is …

Bradley Manning, alleged WikiLeaks leak, finally gets his court date

November 21, 2011 1:06 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who was arrested in May 2010 for passing information to WikiLeaks, has finally been given a court date.

Manning’s hearing will begin December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and is expected to …

As vets come home, White House, Google & LinkedIn try to help them find new jobs

November 7, 2011 12:03 PM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

I remember when my stepdad got out of the Navy for the first time. Finding a new, non-military job ended up being so challenging that he eventually gave up and enlisted again. He didn’t get out of the Navy for …