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.

Comments

A Robocop Suit?

[ringbarer]

Does that mean the first one will be really good, but the second and third one would be shit?

Fist Sport!

Re:A Robocop Suit?

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Naturally, you'd get it from Villian Supply.

without enough polyglots, soldiers are in trouble

[js7a]

I am been completely disappointed with DARPA's neglect of language learning lately. And people ask why we don't get better intelligence.

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.

Re:not quite robo cop

[AndroidCat]

comes with a special undergarment

Kevlar Depends for when something goes BANG in a big way?

Official Site

[heli0]

Here is the official site for the event.

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

Whew

[Jade E. 2]

I wonder if I'm the only one who read 'RoBoCop Suit' (what's with the capitalization there?) and thought "Oh, no, they beat me to it!"

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.

Re:Whew

[AndroidCat]

One thing they probably didn't add is air-conditioning. 40 lbs of sealed suit and other stuff as well? That's not "RoBoCop", that's "OverclockedCop" -- they need a case-mod.

Re:New?

[qortra]

I think you're right; every one of the technologies that I've seen mentioned already exists (and is even in use today). However, I think we are pretty close to a breakthrough in many of these areas; as a few fringe technologies mature, I think we'll begin to see totaly new gadgets. The thing is, law enforcement agents, soldiers, etc. can't be counting on untried, untested technology, so I'm sure that manufacturers cater to a far more conversative crowd.

If you want new exciting technologies, this is probably not the place to look.

what we really need

[Tumbleweed]

...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."

Pictures

[limekiller4]

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.

2,600 gadgets?

[GMontag]

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 :(

How dead do you want them.

[nickgrieve]

FFS guys, your .mil just took over an entire contry in a month... do you realy think it needs more power?

Re:How dead do you want them.

[Peyna]

Iraq in 1 month, but when we invade France we'll need more power to get it done faster.

Re:Unfair?

[GMontag]

You have apparently missed Rule 1 of warfare:

There is no such thing as a fair fight.

Well, you missed Rule 2 also:

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

Well, maybe Rule 3 also:

If the enemy is in shooting range you are too.
(modified by asymetric Artillery advantages and close air support)

Well, Rule 4 too . . .

Waltzing Matilda

[AndroidCat]

Those on display included MATILDA, built by Mesa Associates, which uses a robotic arm to investigate and detonate suspected bombs and packages.

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?)

Who are they selling these to again?

[zipwow]

From the story, in the section on sandbags:
Al Arellanes ... said, "can be used for flood-fighting, terrorist activities or any type of security situation."

Is he supplying terrorists with advanced weapons of mass sandbagging?

-Zipwow

Was there

[Darth Maul]

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.

Re:Isn't it sad?

[dvk]

Oh, yeah... a perfect world with no weapons... and then the first wacko who enjoys destroying and hurting people (and those always get born, it's human nature) goes around and due to total defenselessness of the rest of the environment, at best hurts a LOT of people, or at worst, if he's power hungry, takes over. Oh, and since you can't ban sticks and stones, then if he is physically stronger, he would have the sme advantage over the rest of the people as any armed human over less armed one. GREAT. Scratch that attempt at utopia.

See, humans come in all forms and shapes. Some are born power hungry. Some evil. Some both. Unless you are protected from them, you are the next victim.
The only difference between "pacifists" and "peace-loving people", and those who are "warmongering" and "hawkish", is that the latter are ready to protect themselves and their society from those who would attack it.
The former come in two categories - those who simply don't get the real world and think everyone else is 100% peaceful and harmless as a daisy, and those who aren't that naive, but are cynical enough to let the "hawkish" to protect them and their family while acting all nice and dovish and "better than the warmongers".

-DVK

One Drawback...

[pyrrho]

... after you attend, they have to kill you.

They still call it that?

[labratuk]

Considering the U.S.'s behaviour, don't you think the so called Department of "Defense" should consider a name change?

And only a peace creep could be so smug.

[nurightshu]

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.

Re:And only a peace creep could be so smug.

[ObviousGuy]

Here's the thing I was trying to get at before I was modded down to -1. Fighting wars is inevitable, but a rapid buildup of military might so far above and beyond even the next most powerful country is a sure-fire strategy for hastening the next war.

What the soldier, sailor, or airman cares about is irrelevent. They are training for war and of course they want the latest and greatest gadgets when they go into battle. But they are not the ones who decide military strategy nor State department strategy. We hope that those in the upper echelons of government have the insight and foresight to avert wars when at all possible. When these leaders are only focused in war waging instead of peace making we end up with a situation not unlike what we are faced with now, i.e. a world suspicious of the United States and its motives.

There was a great SNL skit back when Reagan was President where Reagan and his policy advisor were preparing for a meeting with the Russian premiew. The policy advisor role played as Gorby and asked the President, "With a fully functional missile defense shield, won't the USA be able to attack the USSR with impunity?" (paraphrased) The President just sat there with a puzzled look. It was pretty poignant. This is the biggest problem with a huge unbalance of power. The smaller states must ally amongst themselves *against* the larger power and be wary of even the slightest aggressive move on the large power's part. This is because they must either look out for their own safety or trust the larger power not to abuse its dominant position. Only one of those choices is a real option, and it doesn't bode well for either the dominant power or peace in general.

Re:That's not what I said...

[DNS-and-BIND]

The U.S. spends a fraction of its budget on defense. The U.S. spends more than half the budget on Social Security and Medicare, which are "feeding people" by your definition.

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.

Military Humor and Pigeon Soup

[toupsie]

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.

Re:Unfair?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Never get involved in a land war in Asia? Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line?