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Department of Defense Gadget Show
blackp writes "DefenseLINK has an article about Force Protection Equipment Demonstration IV. This year they had over 2,600 gadget and equipment for defense and government agencies. The list includes kevlar suits, body heat camo, a RoBoCop Suit, even biometric identification. Some pictures are available, although somewhat limited. This show seems perfect for the geek with a big budget." Or the government with a big budget. Still, some neat things on display.
Does that mean the first one will be really good, but the second and third one would be shit?
Fist Sport!
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Damn, I thought, a RoboCop suit already! Wow! Then I read:
Ugh... yeah. That's cool. Damn impressive even... but ROBOCOP?!? These guys obviously didn't watch the movie... :-)
Did anyone else see that MATILDA robot and think of it as only a slightly more advanced Dobie-O-Matic?
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
This year's one day seminar on Integrating Speech Technology in Language Learning has been cancelled. The InSTIL seminar was all that had been left of what was once a funded U.S. research program to use speech recognition to help people learn to read. However, over the past few years the budget of the Interagency Educational Research Initiative has been slashed and the Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership program has been ZEROED. The IERI and LAAP programs were created to deal with DARPA funding deficencies, but DARPA has not taken up the slack for speech recognition in language instruction. Fewer U.S. polyglots will have a far greater impact on intelligence-gathering efforts than bandaids like Project Babylon or any of the DARPA advanced speech recognition programs can possibly provide. Please join me in asking John Poindexter and his advisory board and NIST to help get this vital funding back in the budget.
Also, the Linguistic Data Consortium sent their catalog update out yesterday. As usual, there are no new corpi of people attempting to read a language as they are acquiring it, at any age.
paging mister gates, blue light special...
Now, this truely shows off technology at its best. I mean where the hell are its bionic limbs, or it's thermal imaging, or even it's fricking lasers. Its a goddamn gormless bloke being led by a dog. Pathetic.
Is it just me or does it seem like the same technology year after year. It gets refined a bit but I don't think that we get the fruits of any new ideas.
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
This one was invented catch white-collar criminals off-gaurd.
Very interesting stuff. Check it out!
Check out the power point presentation:
Pigeons
Pigeons will be available on a first come first served basis in the Hangers.
Plastic sheeting will be available to vendors in the hanger areas.
Shooting of pigeons, even with non-lethal weapons, is not allowed.
and of course...
Marines at the FPED are not an on-site Labor Force. Attempting to use them as such is at your own risk
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Luckily they're just misusing the term to refer to a bomb squad blast armor that's also a biological/chemical suit. Nothing really new, just the combination of two old technologies.
Now, when they take that same suit, add in hydraulic strength multipliers and an advanced HUD, I'll be worried. Unless I get there first.
Back in the 'good old days' of warfare, either side was equally equipped to take on the other. This resulted in long, bloody wars that finally ended when either of the sides was exhausted and horrified at the death and destruction. Following these wars (from the Punic to the American Civil War) a long period of peace followed until the horrors of war were forgotten and the fools in power became ambitious. This type of peace is sometimes called "balance of power" because both sides are deterred from battle by the knowledge of the other's equal ability to wreak damage in return.
However, as modern times have arrived and technology growth quickens for those who have it and lags for those that do not yet it is becoming clear that the balance of power has been broken and the United States has become the sole military superpower in the world. During the Cold War there was a deterrent to war which was called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). The Soviet Union provided a balance of power to the United States through it's ability to rain an equal amount of world-ending nukes on the U.S. as the U.S. could do on the USSR. With this knowledge, neither side was too willing to jump at the chance at sneak attack though the possibility was wide open with the introduction of ICBMs.
Now the USSR is no more and the U.S. has risen to the top of the technological ladder. As the rest of the world crawls slowly towards the fulcrum of the Balance of Power, the U.S. quickly moves away from it. The technological prowess of the U.S. military is unmatched and continues to improve, which in turn continues to make the balance of power tilt more steeply in the U.S. direction.
Without a balance of power, other countries get antsy. They do not and can not have the expectation of a fair war, nor can they assume that the sole superpower is benign. So they turn up their rhetoric criticizing the U.S. Every little diplomatic faux pas is taken as a grand gesture of disrespect and threat of military aggression. No peace can possibly exist in such an atmosphere. What may seem like peace is only a thin veneer covering a boiling cauldron of dissatisfied lesser powers waiting to boil over or destroy the peace from within.
What the U.S. needs to do is placate our allies. The U.S. would be seriously hurt if allies were to turn against it because of the balance of power issue. Even now France and Germany and Russia have turned their collective backs on the U.S., this after enthusiastic support only 2 years ago. We cannot afford this kind of desertion of allies. It would be wise to simply give up this development of new weaponry and concentrate on making the existing technologies cheaper and more reliable. Even regressing several decades in technology would help bring about a better balance of power.
I have been pwned because my
...is an ED-209. Sure it has a little problem with stairs, but I'm confident they'll lick that in the next revision. Plus it's got enough firepower to blast a RoboCop into itty bitty pieces! :)
"What about Kenny?"
*shrug* "That's life in the big city."
CowboyNeal writes:
"Some pictures are available, although somewhat limited..."
You could say that. There is one picture of a treaded robot/tank, a picture of a girl with a standard ATM-ish card reader and finally, to really show off the state-of-the-art, a picture of a guy with a dog.
My
Limekiller
2,600 gadgets ? I didn't know there were that many new boxes, phone phreak tools and kiddie scripts out there! I need to get back on IRC and USENET to see what I am missing :(
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
[quote]For example, one company, Med-Eng Systems, Inc., showed off its "RoBoCop"-like suit made of thick layers of Kevlar for protection against heat, flames, blast fragmentation and impact. It weighs about 40 pounds and comes with a special undergarment, boots and gloves to protect wearers against chemical, biological and radiological exposure.
...as far as i can tell it's just really good at taking abuse
"It's an all-in-one," said Danny Crossman, product line manager for blast systems, explained. And another company representative, technical adviser Ray James, added, "It's the only bomb suit in the world that integrates adequate protection against a explosive device with biological and chemical protection." [/quote]
how can they call it a RoboCop suit with a clear conscience, given that this thing kicks absolutely NO ass?
RoboSufferer jacket... RoboMartyr overcoat maybe.
FFS guys, your .mil just took over an entire contry in a month... do you realy think it needs more power?
That so many technological improvements are pushed by the 'defence' industry to come up with new and exciting ways to kill people...
Oh to live in a world where the prime driving force for innovation is a desire to improve living conditions, feed more people, educate the masses rather than killing them.
*sigh*
Couldn't they just mod an AIBO to do that job? Especially for the Bunker Buster job: Strap some C4 to it, "Woof! Woof! Time to die.. BOOM!" (Okay, I'm joking about the AIBO, but haven't we seen oodles of home robot Slashdot articles in the last couple of months that could probably do the job for less, and be controlled by a cell phone?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
From the story, in the section on sandbags: ... said, "can be used for flood-fighting, terrorist activities or any type of security situation."
Al Arellanes
Is he supplying terrorists with advanced weapons of mass sandbagging?
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
My company was there this year and a couple years ago (we do risk management software). The show is quite interesting because it's a good mix of technologies, from Jersey barriers to bullet-proof glass to software. It's also not just a cheesy trade show, but some serious display by both commercial companies and Gov't agencies. The site for the show is here.
The coolest technology was a compressed-air powered bullet for training. Police and military can use their service weapons to basically play paintball. It's nice because the feel of the weapon is exactly what it would be in real-life situations instead of them having to use a fake training weapon with different characteristics.
--- witty signature
... after you attend, they have to kill you.
-pyrrho
Considering the U.S.'s behaviour, don't you think the so called Department of "Defense" should consider a name change?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
If ridiculous platitudes were all it took to keep the peace, we wouldn't have anything to worry about, I guess.
Are Murphy's Laws of Combat trite aphorisms? Sure. But that doesn't mean that they don't contain some important nuggets of truth.
For example, the statement that "there's no such thing as a fair fight" is paramount in U.S. warfighting doctrine and has been for some time. The only thing that a soldier, sailor, or airman cares about as much as accomplishing the mission is bringing himself and his unit home as intact as possible. War is by nature a risky business, but the fewer casualties that our soldiers and allied forces incur, the better.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think any sane individual wants to see civilians hurt, but soldiers in the opposing military knew what they were getting into when they decided to mess with Uncle. Besides, the faster and more efficiently we can decimate a country's military command-and-control structure, the faster we can restore peace and stability.
They that would sacrifice their
Funny how nobody ever brings up China or the Soviet Union in these discussions. Or Cuba, which doesn't even need a defense force. These nations routinely spent 40% or more of their entire economies on defense spending, and let their people starve as a result. Oh, but the U.S. spends 4%, and we need to cut it in order to nourish people who hate us. That's just peachy.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
...from Raytheon's Stinger page:
The Stinger Family of Weapon Systems is combat-proven, fire-and-forget, lethal, lightweight, and multimission. That's the "Stinger Advantage."
I wonder if this trade show has booth babes...
The pigeon slide was a great find. The first item, "Pigeons will be available on a first come first served basis in the Hangers." is great, military humor. Notice it only says you can't shoot them -- even with a stun gun. That's what the plastic sheeting is for. Create a plastic net and "shoo" them out (non-lethal arms merchants) or snare them and make a nice soup.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Every time someone wants to get a news-op, they drag out how much it costs for something that you could buy at the local hardware store for much less.
Guess what? Your local hardware stores probably aren't ISO-900x compliant. Their suppliers probably aren't. If some unauthorized cheap toilet seat pinches a general's butt, no one will be able to track back the supply and manufacturing trail to 2002/03/01, the 3rd shift, line 2 of PlastiButtCo, employee Al Kali.
The price is expensive, but that's $5 for the toilet seat, $5,000+ for the time and paperwork. (Not that soft, triple-ply padding doesn't happen from time to time.) It's stupid, butt^h that's the system.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
so... let's see... if we have HALF of the current US defence budget to spend on feeding people... we could feed... let's see... 4.056 BILLION people...
You mean well, but are naive. We can feed them now, but what about in the decades to come when these 'saved' people have children and so on. Or will the food come with strings attached that require population control and cultural changes? Or will it just be laced with contraceptives? Your proposed solution merely delays things; it sets the stage for an even greater human catastrophe in the not-so-distant future.
Get over the idea that throwing money at a problem will solve it. That's failed many times. Hunger will be with us until people's behaviors and attitudes change (zero or negative population growth in some 'western' nations). Or until people live under repressive regimes that force change (China).
Don't bring a knife to a gunfight
:-)
Always, always, bring the knife! You are not limitted to one weapon. Check out modern grunts. Lightweight assault weapons with hundreds of rounds of ammo, body armor, night vision, etc. and they still carry a knife. Why? As explained to many a grunt: "it is the most reliable weapon you will carry, zero moving parts, zero electronics".
... who's annoyed that we hear about this a month after the event, and not a week before so that we could actually make plans to attend?
Witold
www.witold.org
witold.org
It's for package management, a very important part of force protection.
We've got a long way to go before terminator or robocop. Can't they at leaste put some plexiglass up infront of that camera?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...I know because I've gone to it before. I went while I was stationed at Quantico. They hold every year at the airfield (home to HMX-1, the President's helo pilots and the only experimental helo squadron in the Marine Corps, thus the "X" in their name).
To understand the purpose of the show, you need a little context about what happens at Quantico. It's the home to all Marine Corps doctrine, experimentation, and development. Yes, those may be done in other places, but the commands that control them are all in Quantico. It is also home to the FBI and DEA Academies. Many of the other services have similar setups around the D.C. area. So, Quantico is the ideal location for this sort of thing.
The show's purpose is to let the people who make R&D and purchasing decisions to see what's coming down the pipeline from various companies. Some are things that companies would like to see the military or law enforcement test (and eventually adopt) others are things that are in the military pipeline for deployment and are being showcased. The show let someone see a new product and decide that it is something they'd like to test. They can then acquire some, give them a whirl, and recommend the product if they like it. It also lets you see what's crap. I remeber a Tawainese company that was making a futuristic rifle and had it at the show. The thing looked freaking awesome, until you picked it up. It was heavy as hell & shoddily made ("Should the upper reciever be rattling on this thing?" "Ah yes - that is because our rifle is so flexible!").
In many ways it's very much like a computer trade show. You wander around & hear the sales pitch, try things out, and get lots of free crap. Except instead of getting a hard-on looking at IBM's newest server line, you get the hard-on playing with H&K's newest sidearm.
The Iraqis actually resisted.
That's not "RoBoCop", that's "OverclockedCop" -- they need a case-mod.
Just leave the case open.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
In deus ex we see thermoptic camo and sophisticated robots. In the force protection equipment demonstration we see thermoptic camo and sophisticated robots. Maybe not the political/social situation but the technology is sure coming closer... And I sure as hell am gonna grab one of those big bots and ride it around everywhere. Do YOU wanna mess?
"Guns don't kill people, bullets do."