UK Marine Uses Jet Suit To Practice Mock Maritime Boarding Operations

 

Task & Purpose: Watch a jetpack-flying Royal Marine board a ship like freakin’ Boba Fett  

This thing is sick.  

I hope you are ready for jet-powered Marines to attack the enemy as if they are Mandalorians because a new video from Gravity Industries shows what it may look like: an armed, bearded, jet-backpacked operator doing a high-flying hop from a rubber boat onto a ship in mere seconds. 

“The footage speaks for itself,” the company wrote on YouTube after its successful demonstration of its Jet Suit, which gives an operator more than 1,000 horsepower of jet power literally at their fingertips.  

Read more .... 

WNU Editor: This is so cool.

More News On A UK Marine Using A Jet Suit To Practice Mock Maritime Boarding Operations  

The Royal Navy is testing using jet suits to fight high-seas piracy -- The Verge  

Watch a UK Marine Jetpack onto Speeding Ship, Pull Out Gun -- Futurism 

Iron Man-Style: Watch UK Royal Marines Test Jet Suit During Boarding Op Drill -- Sputnik 

Watch: Royal Marine With Jet Suit Practice Mock Maritime Boarding Operations -- Zero Hedge

Retire Top U.S. General: Technology Exists That Could Transport A Human Anywhere On Earth Within An Hour.

Photo: Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast. USAF

Warzone/The Drive: Recently Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow Raising Claims About Advanced Space Technology

Retired Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast says fantastic technology exists that could transport a human anywhere on earth within an hour.

Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space. While military leadership rattling the space sabers is nothing new, Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever. Is this mere posturing or could we actually be on the verge of making science fiction a reality?

Read more ....

WNU Editor:You have to wonder what he knows that we (in the public) do not know.

Daily Mail: Real-life 'rocket man' wearing a jet pack launches from Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth before flying past stunned passengers aboard a private yacht

* Jet pack inventor Richard Browning made a demo flight from the giant warship
* His firm Gravity Industries has been working with the Royal Navy on the device
* HMS Queen Elizabeth is presently moored off of the coast of Maryland in the US
* The aircraft is playing host to a defence expo and tech-themed conference

A real-life rocket man wearing a jet pack launched from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth on a demonstration flight today.

Richard Browning — the inventor and pilot of the device — carved a graceful arc through the air from the warship, stunning a private yacht with a close fly-by.

The flight occurred while the naval vessel was moored 3 miles off the coast of Annapolis, Maryland, in the midst of a three-month war-game exercise with US allies.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I want a jet-pack.

China Is Monitoring How Its Workers And Soldiers Think

More than a dozen Chinese businesses and the country's military (stock image) have used a similar brain technology. The gadgets were developed by the state-funded brain monitoring project Neuro Cap, based out of Ningbo University, around 90 miles (150km) from Hangzhou

SCMP: ‘Forget the Facebook leak’: China is mining data directly from workers’ brains on an industrial scale

Government-backed surveillance projects are deploying brain-reading technology to detect changes in emotional states in employees on the production line, the military and at the helm of high-speed trains

On the surface, the production lines at Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric look like any other.

Workers outfitted in uniforms staff lines producing sophisticated equipment for telecommunication and other industrial sectors.

But there’s one big difference – the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company.

The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.

Read more ....

Update: China is mining data directly from workers' brains using mind-reading hats to spot emotional and depressed employees (Daily Mail)

WNU Editor: The military applications from this technology are endless.

The U.S. And Its Allies Are Losing Their Military Technological Edge Over China

The Chinese Air Force to demonstrate its latest J-20 stealth fighter jet. Reuters

IBTimes: US and the Western bloc will find it hard to retain military edge over China

In the last 17 years China built more submarines, destroyers, frigates and corvettes than Japan, South Korea and India combined.

China is moving fast to get a leg-up on the US in arms capability even as global military, diplomatic and economic balance of power undergoes an inevitable shift. The Chinese focus currently is on challenging the hitherto unquestioned US dominance in airborne battle while significant strides have been made in naval warfare and guided weapons projects as well, the Military Balance 2018 report by ISS says.

While the western bloc will hold onto a tenuous edge in military capability for some more time, the steady rise of China and Russia increases the possibility of a 'great power conflict'. According to the report, nations are sensitive to the possibility of conflict more than ever before and are boosting defence spending.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: We are already seeing these advancements in space .... China and Russia developing ‘destructive’ weapons for space conflict, US warns (The Independent).

A Look At How Soldiers Will Power Their Batteries In The Future

Army Times: Army tests 'HALO'-inspired knee brace that can charge your radios, mobile devices

The Army is looking for a way to lighten the load of batteries soldiers have to carry around to use their gadgets, and rising to the top of the heap is a tricked-out knee brace that absorbs the energy every time your feet hit the ground.

The PowerWalk, also known as the bionic power knee harvester, looks like a very tactical knee brace, but it's wired to a battery pack that can power radios and other equipment with a weight of less than 7 pounds.

"It's modeled after the HALO video game, which had a brace that was modeled after an old Natick prototype," Noel Soto, a project engineer at the Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, told Army Times in a Nov. 23 interview.

The team took the futuristic-looking body armor and made it lighter and smaller, Soto said.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: if there is one thing that soldiers do a lot of .... it is walking.

Bulletproof Spray Paint?

New York Daily News: Watch: Daily News staffers try destroying items covered in Line-X's indestructible coating

You'd think cracking an egg would be much easier than this.

The Daily News recently got to test the durability and strength of Line-X, a spray-on protective coating that makes things "indestructible." Staffers tried breaking eggs, light bulbs, clay pigeons and red solo cups, but none of them broke, cracked or even dented.

Line-X is mostly used for truck bed liners, but it's also been used for blast-protection on military vehicles and inside the Pentagon.

Dennis Weese, Line-X president, said the coating is made of pure polyurea which combines strength and flexibility to maximize toughness.

Read more ....

Update: Can a Super Spray Make Cars and Trucks Indestructible? (FOX News)

WNU Editor: The Line-X website is here.

Can A Bullet Be Stopped?

John Spencer, Modern Institute Of War: Wanted: Bullet Stopping Breakthroughs

I am not a scientist.

I’m definitely not a scientist. I’m a warfighter. And what I carry into battle today is not much different than what I carried when I entered the army in 1993. The M4 rifle is slightly updated from the one I carried in 1995. The 5.56 mm rounds or 7.62 mm ammo belt is Vietnam vintage. The entrenching tool, weapon magazines, knives, flashlights, poncho, and boots are for the most part exactly the same.

You can see why I find scientific inventions that support the Nation’s tip of the spear underwhelming.

Yes, I’ve seen many of the prototypes for things such as exoskeleton suits, robotic mules, and hand held drones that are all supposed to help the future ground soldier. But that’s just it; it’s always the future soldier. I guess I had higher ambitions for the scientists that put a man on the moon and invented the internet.

A Taliban militant or ISIS terrorist on today’s battlefield can fire a rifled weapon literally invented before the 1800s at American Soldiers and with a well-aimed shot this enemy can inflict a casualty.

So, I have a simple question and challenge to the scientific community writ large – whether a research university, warrior scholar, or mad scientist, I believe the question is simple enough:

Where is the invention that can defeat a bullet in flight?

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The author is talking about discovering science and developing technology that does not exist .... but if such technology should ever be developed and applied .... it would truly be revolutionary and change warfare in ways that one can only imagine.

Is The West's Military Edge In Technology Being Eroded?

RQ-4 Block 10 Global Hawk unmanned drones at an undisclosed location. The number of countries known to operate UAVs has doubled over the past five years. Photograph: Northrop Grumman

The Guardian: West's military advantage is being eroded, report warns

The west is losing its advantage in weapons technology as defence spending in Asia and other regions soars, survey says.

The west’s decades-long advantage in military technology is being eroded as defence spending in the rest of the world, notably Asia, soars, an authoritative report says.

The latest annual Military Balance by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) shows that advances in weapons-related technology once the preserve of the west – including cruise missiles, unmanned drones and electronic warfare – are becoming increasingly accessible to more and more countries.

The number of countries known to operate UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) has doubled over the past five years, and China has exported them to Iraq and Nigeria.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: What you pay is what you get .... and Asian countries are definitely spending money on modernizing their military forces.

These Are The 6 Emerging Technologies That The Pentagon Is Betting On

Fingertip: The US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies 'as tiny as bumblebees' that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings

Brendan Orino, Brookings: Six technologies that the U.S. military is betting on

At a time when budgetary resources at the Pentagon are being squeezed, the U.S. military is in search of force multipliers. From the nuclear enterprise to command and control to robotics and beyond, emerging technologies offer ways to modernize forces in innovative—and often efficient—ways.

On January 21, Michael O’Hanlon sat down with General Paul J. Selva of the United States Air Force and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss the future of military technology innovation. Selva explained that “We are going to place multiple small bets on places where we think we can make a difference, where we think the leverage of the technology exists to actually move the enterprise forward, and look at the potential for a third offset.” Particularly, technologies in the commercial sector could provide the force multiplier effects the military is looking for. By changing the way forces organize around available technologies, “we might be able to change the pace and scope of the fight on the battlespace,” Selva said.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: There are still limits to number 4 (artificial intelligence)  and number five (missile defense) .... and one can debate if it is even possible. But the rest of these emerging technologies are feasible and deployable .... what is lacking is the money to  fully research and develop these technologies, and the political will to commit to it.

Pentagon Wants Its Soldiers To Have Wearable Tech

A woman tests an Apple watch in Omotasando in Tokyo. The company is working with the Pentagon to develop wearable tech. Photo: REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Reuters: Pentagon teams up with Apple, Boeing to develop wearable tech

The Pentagon is teaming up with Apple, Boeing, Harvard and others to develop high-tech sensory gear flexible enough to be worn by people or molded onto the outside of a jet.

The rapid development of new technologies is forcing the Pentagon to seek partnerships with the private sector rather than developing its technology itself, defense officials say.

"I've been pushing the Pentagon to think outside our five-sided box and invest in innovation here in Silicon Valley and in tech communities across the country," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in prepared remarks on Friday.

"Now we’re taking another step forward."

More News On The Pentagon Wanting Its Soldiers To Have Wearable Tech

Pentagon, Boeing and Apple team up to develop stretchable electronics -- ENCA
The Pentagon Teams Up With Apple, Boeing, Harvard For Wearable Tech -- Ubergizmo
Flexible Electronics Are the Goal of Pentagon’s First Silicon Valley Partnership -- Defense one
Pentagon Funding New High-Tech Venture -- AP
Defense Department To Build Silicon Valley Innovation Hub, Invest $171 Million In Wearables -- IBTimes
Pursuing Electronics that Bend, Pentagon Advances Partnership with Tech Firms -- WSJ
Apple to help US military build flexible hybrid electronics -- Computer World

Boeing Has Just Patented A 'Star Wars'-Style Force Fields

CNET: Boeing patents 'Star Wars'-style force fields

Aircraft and military manufacturer Boeing has been granted a patent on a system that is designed to prevent explosion shockwaves from harming a target.

A new patent granted to aircraft, defense and security company Boeing is taking its cues from science fiction. Just like the glowing energy shields seen protecting troops, machines and even spacecraft in Star Wars and Star Trek, the design -- named "Method and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc" -- uses energy to deflect potential damage.

As it is described, the system is not designed to prevent direct impact from shells or shrapnel; rather, it is designed to protect a target -- such as a vehicle or building -- from the damaging effects of shockwaves from a nearby impact.

More News On Boeing Patenting A 'Star Wars'-Style Force Fields

May the force-field be with you: Boeing granted patent for 'shock wave attenuation' -- CNN
Boeing Just Patented A Force Field Made Of Lasers -- Popular Science
May The Force Be With You: Boeing Patents Shockwave Shield -- Sputnik
Boeing Patents 'Star Wars'-Style Force Field Technology -- ABC News
Not Just In The Movies Anymore: Boeing Patents Force Field To Protect Vehicles -- Tech Times
That Boeing Force Field? It Probably Won’t Ever Work -- Wired

This Police Radar System Has Applications For The Military In Urban Conflict Zones

USA Today: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

WNU Editor: The military applications for this tech are obvious .... especially in urban conflict zones.

Where AI (Artificial Intelligence) Research May Lead To

Why There Will Be A Robot Uprising -- Patrick Tucker, Defense One

In the movie Transcendence, which opens in theaters on Friday, a sentient computer program embarks on a relentless quest for power, nearly destroying humanity in the process.

The film is science fiction but a computer scientist and entrepreneur Steven Omohundro says that “anti-social” artificial intelligence in the future is not only possible, but probable, unless we start designing AI systems very differently today.

Omohundro’s most recent recent paper, published in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, lays out the case.

We think of artificial intelligence programs as somewhat humanlike. In fact, computer systems perceive the world through a narrow lens, the job they were designed to perform.

Read more ....

My Comment: This is a little futuristic for me .... but there are people who are thinking about this right now.

Both China And The U.S. Are In A Race To Develop 'Cloaking Technology'

Cloaking technology from BAE makes a tank (left) show up on radar screens in disguise (right). It's one of many "invisibility cloaks" being developed. (BAE Systems)

‘Invisible’ Airplanes: Chinese, US Race For Cloaking Tech -- FOX News

New stealth technology makes airplanes invisible not only to radar, it renders them hidden to the human eye as well – just like an invisibility cloak in a Hollywood sci-fi thriller.

News reports from China last week touted the country’s work on a “cloaking” technology that uses a hexagonal array of glass-like panels to bend light around an object, obscuring it from view as though hidden by an invisibility cloak. Experts say the technology is legit – and not unlike American and European projects from the past few years.

“The general public … might not hear about how far the U.S. has really come, because it is and should remain classified,” firearms expert Chris Sajnog, a former Navy SEAL, told FoxNews.com. “Other countries are still playing catch-up -- but they're closing the gap.”

Read more ....

My Comment: True stealth technology has always been an elusive goal .... but it appears that recent developments are changing that.

War Games: Star Trek Replicators For The Army

How New Scanners Will Revolutionize Security And Warfare

Cutting the queues: The laser scanners will be ten million faster than existing security scanning technology, which would presumably shorten lines at airports but also cause privacy issues

Homeland Security Buys 'Big Brother' Laser Scanner That Can Tell If You Are High, What You Are Carrying And Even What You Had For Breakfast... From 50 Meters Away -- Daily Mail

The latest scanners acquired by the U.S. government will be able detect the most minute traces of molecular discrepancies in both individuals' bloodstream and carry on luggage from 50 meters away.

Using advanced laser technology, Picosecond Programmable Laser scanners will show traces of drugs, chemicals, weapons, and even food you recently digested at the push of a button.

A non-governmental company originally developed the technology but has since partnered with the Department of Homeland Security, implying that the scanners will likely be deployed throughout airports and other high-risk areas.

Read more ....

My Comment: The security and military applications for this tech .... which is portable .... is astounding.

Touchscreen Troops

The Daily Exclusive: Touchscreen Troops -- The Daily

Soldiers to increasingly tap military apps on Pentagon-issued iPads, smartphones.

Modern warfare? There’s an app for that.

Well, not from Apple, but there are a handful from the Pentagon — and more to come. They’re being downloaded on tablets and smartphones to help combat troops complete their missions.

Right now, in transports and fighters, pilots and navigators are on Air Force-issued iPads, checking their orders and reviewing their flight plans.

And this summer, the Army is putting Droids in the hands of grunts headed to Afghanistan so they can receive streaming surveillance video from drones, scan their surroundings for threats, call for fire support and request medical evacuations. Sailors and Marines are connected, too.

Though not a nuclear warhead or an M-16 rifle, the smartphone and the tablet are indeed weapons — helping the warfighter defeat the enemy.

Read more ....

My Comment: My only concern with these new developments is on the possibility of information overload. But for the moment .... the U.S. military is gong-ho to push this program.

A Backpack Radar That Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres

Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres -- Popular Science

If you’re a soldier suspecting an ambush, you probably don’t have much time to spare, and you definitely can’t afford to be carrying any unnecessary weight. That’s why so much military tech involves shrinking whatever’s portable, and why, now, a company has thrown its radar-in-a-backpack into the ring.

The SpotterRF M600C weighs four pounds, uses just 10 watts of energy, and looks like the headrest on the driver’s seat of a jalopy (which is a good thing). If ambusher or otherwise comes within 150 acres, the system tracks it, no matter what the weather conditions are.

Read more ....

My Comment: I can see them improving this tech to cover even greater territory.

20 Innovative Defense Technologies

Military Transformers: 20 Innovative Defense Technologies -- Information Week

Department of Defense technologies under development, from brainy microchips to battlefield transformer vehicles, promise to make the U.S. military more nimble. Here's a visual tour of 20 breakthrough ideas.

Read more ....

My Comment: I have blogged on these new technologies before .... but it is nice to see it all bunched together in one post.