Video from Space Shows Army Creating an Island Off the Coast of the US

via gizmodo.com

The Army has been creating an island since 1998 on the Northeast coast of the United States. Slowly, the US Army Corps of Engineers built concrete dikes to establish its perimeter and then have spent more than decade filling them with mud.

Its name: Poplar island.

Fortunately, no weird stuff is going on there (that we know of, anyway). Poplar Island, which is being rebuilt in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, is 30 miles south of Baltimore Harbor, where all the mud is coming from.

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Army Scientists Build a Better Battery

via gizmodo.com

Single-cell batteries have an inherent design limitation that prevents them from producing more than 4 volts—they simply can't do it, there isn't enough energy density to produce that extra bit of output. That is, until now.

"This is what you would call a quantum leap," Army researcher Arthur Cresce said in a press release. "We've gone from circling around a certain type of four volt energy for quite a while. All of a sudden a whole new class of batteries and voltages are open to us. The door is open that was closed before." This breakthrough comes after years of research by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory into how the various battery components interact with one another.

The research team found that the inclusion of a specific, proprietary (and now patented) additive bumps the battery output from four volts to five—that's a 30-percent increase and a huge deal. As Cynthia Lundgren, chief of the electrochemical branch at the USARL explained:

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These Are The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Armies

via businessinsider.com

With huge cutbacks slated for the U.S. military, the Marines and Army in particular, private security firms are sure to be getting a boost.

The Army is cutting 50,000 soldiers over the next few years and the Marines are looking to shave about 20,000 servicemembers over the same period of time.

So while business was booming for this group private military contractors, who take their military training and offer it to the highest bidder, it's likely to grow even more.

Modern-day mercenaries are stationed throughout the world fighting conflicts for governments that are reluctant to use their own troops or where foreign troops are unable or unwilling to go.

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Secret side of military spending [infographic]

via holykaw.alltop.com

The United States military budget rose for 11 consecutive years, going from $354 billion in 2001 to $721 billion in 2011. That's an increase of 104%. While 2012's proposed budget signals the first decline in military spending in over a decade, it is a drop in the bucket and if the past is any indication, actual spending will surpass the budget and once again take us into record territory.

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Army Helicopter Accidentally Drops Hellfire Missile Over Texas Homes

via gizmodo.com

One hundred homes in Killeen, near Fort Hood, Texas, were evacuated last Tuesday's night after a missile accidentally fell from an AH-64 Apache helicopter. The residents were able to return one hour later, after the US Army found the projectile on the ground.

The helicopter was doing a routine flight. People on the ground reported the object falling from the helicopter around 8pm, which immediately prompted the evacuation. The missile was later recovered by US Army personal, who found it partially sunk into the ground.

Fortunately, it had neither explosives nor a propulsion system. A Fort Hood official assured the population that their aircraft never fly over populated areas with live munitions.

The missile was most probably an AGM-115 Hellfire, a 100-pound destructive beast that usually carries a highly explosive 20-pound warhead.

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Marines New Classified Weapon

via aviationweek.com

The U.S. Marine Corps has chosen a classified weapon to arm the AAI RQ-7B Shadow tactical unmanned aerial system (UAS) for a field evaluation in Afghanistan.

“The weapon is classified. It’s a high-TRL [technology readiness level] system,” says Lt. Col. Scott Anderson, product manager for Shadow in the Army’s UAS program office, which is supporting the Marine Corps’ plan to weaponize the aircraft to meet an urgent operational need.

The Marines are working to have the unidentified weapon declassified to make it easier to test and deploy the armed Shadow.

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The Navy Built Its Own Private Indoor Desert and Jungle

via gizmodo.com

What do you do when your budget is slashed, but you still need to test out weapons of the future for fighting across deserts and jungles? Build your own desert and jungle. Artificial sandstorms and monsoons? Check.

Inside the Navy's super-teched-out, $17 million Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (that's LASR, to you), foreign battlefields are miniaturized. The lab's Desert High Bay features specially-acquired sand to replicate an Afghani IED disposal—robot arms that will perhaps save lives in war's future participants. The super-flexible, explosive grappling and shoveling arm seen here is controlled PlayStation-style via remote operator, who's able to put the cyborg-grabber through the same rigors of the real desert. The one not inside a 50,000 square foot building in Washington, DC.

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Groupon Is Hiring An Army Of Engineers In Silicon Valley

via businessinsider.com

Groupon, which already has about 200 engineers working out of its Palo Alto office, is looking to hire as many as 100 more, boosting the Chicago-based company's headcount out West, the company tells us.

Groupon is going to host a big recruiting event for the office later this spring. The company is already buying billboards along the highways running from San Francisco to the South Bay.

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The Military's Super Shipwrecking Railgun Just Got Really Real

via gizmodo.com

It fires a 40-pound metal slug up to 5,600 miles per hour from New York to Philadelphia, slamming into its target with 32 times the force of a "1-ton car being thrust at 100 mph." Railguns aren't sci-fi anymore.

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Is Vladimir Putin Behind An Army Of Internet Trolls?

via businessinsider.com

We noticed a number of complaints from Russian opposition figures last year who claimed to be have been targeted by bots and online trolls, seemingly run by Kremlin-sympathizers.

Today, it looks like proof has arrived. Miriam Elder at the Guardian reports that Russia's Anonymous collective appear to have hacked and publicized a variety of correspondence within the pro-Kremlin youth group.

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The Biggest Employer For Young Americans Is Still The US Military

via businessinsider.com

The U.S. military.

That's according to a study done by Millennial Branding. The study involved 4 million Facebook profiles of people ages 18 to 29, which had been pulled from Identified, a startup that has been billed the LinkedIn for the Facebook generation.

Another interesting finding is that only 7 percent of people in that age range work for a Fortune 500 company -- more work in startups.

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How the Army Trains Soldiers For an IED Attack

via gizmodo.com

Not all of the US military's simulators are designed for pilots. At the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center combatants can now experience what it's like when an improvised explosive device goes off, and how to deal with the aftermath.

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

via venturebeat.com

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.

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Your custom robot army is here - Tech Article

via news.cnet.com

My Robot Nation is aiming to make it possible for almost anyone to design their own 3D robot model--and have it delivered to their door. Eventually, the company wants to expand to a wide variety of products but is using robots as a way to establish itself.

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Army test of hypersonic weapon 'flawless'

via msnbc.msn.com

The U.S. Army hypersonic weapon prototype streaked across the Pacific Ocean at several times the speed of sound Thursday in a flawless maiden test flight. The success could pave the way for a new military capability to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour.

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US Navy's electromagnetic railgun hits testing milestone

via engadget.com

If there's one thing you want your multi-million dollar electromagnetic railgun to be, it's reliable, and the US Navy announced today that it's reached a key milestone towards that goal. It's now successfully fired its prototype gun 1,000 times, which translates to as many as 15 shots per week.

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NATO: 13 killed in Kabul suicide bomb attack

via cnn.com

Five troops and eight civilians were killed in central Kabul when a suicide bomber struck a vehicle in a military convoy, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said Saturday.

Master Corporal Byron Greff, a Canadian, was killed in the attack, according to the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command.

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The Navy's Robot Jet Fighter Goes for Its First Cruise

via gizmodo.com

UAV's are big, but they're not jet big—something the Navy's trying to correct with its X-47B, which aims to replace traditional fighters. Y'know, the ones with humans in them. Watch the drone killer stretch its wings a little.

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A Virus Has Infected the US Drone Fleet.. Are You Serious?!?!?!

via gizmodo.com

Wired's Danger Room has learned that a computer virus has infected the United States' Predator and Reaper drones. The virus is a keylogger that keeps track of every pilots' keystroke as they perform missions over Afghanistan and other locations.

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Army to cut nearly 50,000 soldiers over 5 years

via armytimes.com

The Army is preparing to launch in March a five-year, nearly 50,000-soldier drawdown, using a combination of accession cuts and voluntary and involuntary separations, similar to the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, according to Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, service personnel chief.

Bostick, the Army G-1, said the pending drawdown initially will focus on the temporary 22,000-soldier increase launched three years ago to support the Afghanistan troop surge.

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