As unlikely an idea as it sounds, mechanized insects seem to be the next wave of military technology. According to the current research conducted by DARPA, the Hybrid Insect MEMS project aims to transform "insects into unmanned air-vehicles" for various purposes. In other words, they're developing something that you could call pseudo-cyborg insects. Find out the rest of the details of this interesting study by reading our full article.

 

While it may seem like something out of an old Japanese cartoon about giant robots saving the world, the technology actually does exist, and may be replacing today's conventional prosthetics sooner than you think. Yes, the people hard at work at using robotics to help our differently-abled brothers and sisters to lead more productive lives have discovered an alternative power source for functioning artificial limbs. What's that alternative power source, you ask? Rockets.

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the rocket-powered bionic arm uses a miniature rocket the size of a pencil to generate pure steam from hydrogen peroxide - and it's this steam that forces pistons to move up and down, thereby powering the advanced machinery in the arm to function and provide motion. And provide it does - the arm quantified as ten times more powerful than other robotic arms, and can do the same amount of movement three or four times faster.

With the arm using rocket technology and all, shouldn't the thing be as noisy as...well, a rocket? Researcher and roboticist Michael Goldfarb reassures that it isn't. "You can be in a room where people are talking at very low levels and never hear it. You have to be very quiet to hear this thing operate."

What about the steam, though? Apparently, the bionic arm is made so that the steam used to power its motors gets vented out through a porous skin-like cover, evaporating like so much sweat. And even then, it's not going to be that noticeable, as Goldfarb reports that the amount of water involved in the entire process is pretty much the same as what a person would normally sweat from their arms.

So when are we going to see the rocket-powered Bionic Arm on the market? Probably not for a while. The arm itself is still in its prototype stages, and the minds behind it are busy thinking up on how to make the model lighter, sleeker and more affordable. It might not be too long a wait, however, provided that DARPA doesn't pull its fundings on the project - as the agency plans on releasing a commercially-available version in two years' time.

Certainly good news that even with today's advancements in entertainment technology, we're also using what we know to help better the lives of everyone around us.

Some days ago, we gave you word that a PS3 was aiding in attempts to drive a car up Colorado's Pike Peak. We've got more information on that project by Axion Racing, as well as some video of the autonomous vehicle in action.

LinuxDevices is reporting that Axion Racing is using a PS3 running Linux to help the company with their unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) project, known as "Spirit". The Spirit UAV project outfits a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee with state-of-the-art cameras and sensor equipment in an attempt to make the Jeep drive itself.

Axion's recent addition to the project was a PlayStation 3 unit housing Yellow Dog Linux. The said PS3 unit, along with the Linux system and additional software, would be used to "quickly examine information from a RGB road finding camera," albeit to help with navigation on roads.

Axion is preparing Spirit to run in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, which has UAVs conducting "simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area."

In the meantime, if you want to know more about Spirit, we've got a video that explains the different components that are used to drive the Grand Cherokee. This is from 2005 though, so it won't actually showcase the PS3, but it does give you an idea of the kind of processing power they were looking for, something that the PS3 managed to give them in a sleek, black package.

Just how powerful is the Sony PlayStation 3 game console? We know for a fact that it can produce cutting-edge sound and graphics at a whim. We already know that it can help doctors fight tumors. Now we're about to find out that it's good enough to drive a car atop Colorado's Pike Peak.

Yep, and we're not talking about doing it in a racing game. We're dead serious when we say that you can take the back seat and the console will guide a car effortlessly when partnered with GPS, infrared cameras, stereo cameras and Yellow Dog Linux.

At the center of it all, of course, is the Cell processor which we've heard all too well about. Based on the same technology that fires up IBM's Power PCs, the Cell uses its mathematical muscle to do all the complex calculations at lightning-fast speeds to effectively pull off the automotive feat.

Racing's renowned team Axion will showcase this incredible development in the upcoming DARPA Challenge sponsored by the US Government. At stake is US$ 2 million to be won.

Axion has come close to winning the contest twice before as they ranked sixth a few years back and finished in at third in their last outing. Autonomous driving has always been their cup of tea but this time they want to add a little sugar to their spice by throwing in the high-end game console to the repertoire.

"We felt having cars drive themselves was getting a little too easy, so we threw the Sony PlayStation into our bag of tricks," says Axion team leader Bill Kehaly as he jokes around with the idea. The DARPA Challenge takes place on the 3rd of November in a venue yet to be announced.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has set out to develop a mechanical arm with functionality on par with a flesh-and-blood limb by 2009. So far, the researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has already developed a prosthetic arm which allows its user to actually feel an object it grasps.

The forefather of this project, Proto 1, was attached to nerves in the user's chest and shoulder. This paved the way for direct sensory feedback, triggering the sensation of grip in the nerve receptors that map to the missing hand. In addition to this, Proto 1 also allows for more natural walking, since it can swing freely.

Now, APL expects to complete the newest model, Proto 2, by the end of the summer. The arm is said to be stronger, faster and more flexible. In addition to this, it will provide even more sensory feedback, including limb position and temperature.

Of course this comes at a price, users will need to become even more bionic with this new product. The installation of the mechanical arm requires replacing surface electrodes with tiny sensors that will be implanted or injected into the body to allow for better feedback to the user.

This technology looks to provide a very good replacement arm for those who have lost their original limbs. However, it also poses two questions that society will have to tackle eventually. When it [the bionic arm] is further refined, will we be finding people who would willingly swap out their biological limbs for the improved bionic arms? Secondly, is it ethical to do so?

When man uses his imagination, everything is possible. Thanks to innovative inventions over the years, we've learned how to fly, talk to people from across the world,  use microwave - sky's the limits. More breakthroughs are being discovered daily, and this one scientist believes he's got a chance to actually send a message back in time.

John Cramer, a physicist who previously revealed time travel theories, garnered more than US$ 35,000 to support his idea of using lasers, prisms, splitters, fiber-optic cables and other gadgets to detect non-local signals from photons. Success of this experiment could very well mean the possibility of time travel.

Skeptics are to be expected when it comes to such ambitious projects. Cramer, however, is not fazed. "I'm not crazy. I don't know if this experiment will work, but I can't see why it won't. People are skeptical about this, but I think we can learn something, even if it fails," he said.

People supporting him comes from all places: a gas-and-oil businessman, a music industry executive, a biotechnology scientist, a retired physicist and rocket scientist, and a photographer.

In general, all of them believes that the project may fail, but is feasible. A small investment is nothing if time travel gets proven because of it. As the businessman said, you can always go back in time and get your money back.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) refused to fund the experiment for being "too weird." They would rather spend money on developing Metal Gear liquid robots and cyborg beetles than taking a shot at time travel.

For more info, click on the Read link below.

A recent test run of an experimental jet engine saw it traveling up to 10 times the speed of sound. To give readers an idea of how powerful that is, it reached an altitude of 530km in a 12-minute run. Scientists have high hopes for the said engine and its possible application for air travel.

DSTO scientist Dr Warren Harch spoke specifically on the engine's practical application saying that "this technology has the potential to put numerous defence and civilian aerospace applications within our reach during the next couple of decades" This is very good news for international commuters everywhere, but how big a difference will it make?

If this new technology could be refined and adopted, it is predicted that a flight between Sydney and London would only last for two hours. The said scramjet engine, which is essentially an air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet, was tested by both Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the United States' Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in a collaborative effort.

DARPA spokesman Steven Walker spoke on the test, saying that it "has obtained the first-ever flight data on the inward-turning scramjet engine design. We are pleased ... and believe that a hypersonic airplane could be a reality in the not too distant future." Apparently, this technology could be adopted by the military before it sees commercial use.

That said, the future looks very bright for travelers everywhere. Theoretically speaking, it could possibly reach a point where people residing in Sidney could actually work at London and still be home that night for a home-cooked meal. Keep checking back here for the latest scientific breakthroughs.

A month back, we ran an article that argues how unlikely it is for humans to ever travel back in time unless they want to find a black hole and plunge headlong into certain doom in a foolhardy effort to go through a wormhole that hopefully leads to some desolate corner of the universe in a time almost indeterminable.

Sounds real tough, doesn't it? Not really, says physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington. For starters, he says it's theoretically possible to conduct an experiment that may spawn a different approach using an old Einstein paradox. By splitting light particles called photons, he could test what forces bind the sub atomic pieces such that they remain "entangled" even when light years apart.

To put it into context, Cramer says the ideas of the most famous physicist of this generation, Stephen Hawking, regarding time are wrong. Hawking has long fathered the idea that time travels in a straight and linear path through the time-space continuum. The theory essentially suggests that time moves only forward and going against it to travel to the past is impossible. The theory also says that travel to the future is a possibility as long as a body travels in the speed of light or faster.

Cramer agrees about the part concerning future travel, but he says time can ping back both ways in the laws of quantum mechanics, a study that deals with the actions and motions of the smallest particles known to man. He says that by using the Einstein paradox as a model, we can see that split particles influence each other no matter how far apart. This, Cramer says, is only possible if a signal or energy pattern binding the particles transcends time by traveling forward and backwards.

Experiments could have been underway, but neither NASA's Institute of Advanced Concepts (NIAC) nor the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) would cough up the US$ 20,000 that Cramer is asking for. The NIAC is on its way to closing down and the DARPA says the Cramer study is just too strange. Incidentally, DARPA is involved in developing liquid robots and cyborg beetles.

"We're about to hit the wall if we don't get funding," he said. "It would be a shame because even if this doesn't work, I'm sure we'd learn something from trying," says a dejected Cramer.  To find out more about the UW study, follow the read URL.

Darth Vader uttered once, "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've created." But when it comes to artificial technology (A.I.), we sometimes can't help but be mesmerized.

Like this one for starters: Stanford University Associate Professor Sebastian Thrun said that we will have robot-driven cars by the year 2030. The professor uttered the rather brave prediction during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which was held this year in San Francisco.

Thrun's expertise includes Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and he, together with his colleagues, will be joining a competition on November 3 to prove his point. The said competition, which will be hosted by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will serve as a testing ground for first wave of intelligent robot cars.

Today we can drive about 100 miles before human assistance is necessary. By 2030 you'll be able to see them on the highway, with a driving reliability that will exceed humans by orders of magnitude. We believe this technology will affect all of us. It is going to have enormous significance for people who can't drive because of disabilities or because they are ill or impaired.

The associate professor's pet project is named "Junior" which is a converted 2006 Volkswagen Passat. All steering, throttle, and brakes were modified to be fully computer-controllable. An on-board computer has been placed to determine its location and position using radar and GPS.

Totally Games' Alien Syndrome work for the PSP and Wii only marks one of many milestones for this storied developer, well-known among older gamers for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, for starters. TG founder and president Larry Holland talks to Gamasutra about three things, one of which this writer severely disagrees with.

• Updating the 1984 Sega Alien Syndrome for the very much present-day PSP and Wii.
• Being invited to work with DARPA - that's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• Why Totally Games moved out of the flight/space sim genre it made its name on, because the genre's "on a long and slow decline." (This writer says: nuts to that)
  

The original arcade Alien Syndrome was an arcade shooter (sorry for the redundancy), so to bring the game up to speed for the early 21st century for a handheld and a Wiimote, Totally Games decided to fuse it with elements from the action-RPG (ARPG) genre.

The gameplay of this new version definitely places emphasis on the action component of the ARPG genre by requiring the player to refine his skill with range and melee weaponry in order to progress through the game. In addition there is plenty of loot to collect, weapons to upgrade, character skills and proficiencies to balance and an inventory to manage.

In summary, the game is all new, with new characters, weapons, environments, gameplay and a new story. Therefore this version of Alien Syndrome is not a simple graphics upgrade but a complete re-design from the ground. The result is an intense, ranged-combat oriented game with lots of strange and horrific aliens threatening to tear the player from limb to limb.

The Wii version of Alien Syndrome will come with special mini-games designed around the Wiimote's motion-sensing, geared to crafting items for the player. The interface will also be unique to the game (likely because you use the Wiimote with the interface, no doubt). Other than that, Holland says the Wii and PSP versions "share much" and are being developed concurrently.

Talking about working on a government project, and breaking the hearts of all X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter veterans everywhere at the full article.