War

Massive Half-Life 2 Drydock Needs Defense and Some Paint

This is a drydock in HullBreach, a complete conversion for the Half-Life 2 video game. The team has an ambitious goal of creating 100% new content for the game, and they've been hard at work on it for several years. The game is set 2,000 years in our future, and involves a bloody world war that threatens to engulf the planet. So the upshot is, even 2,000 years from now, we won't be getting along. More »

4:00 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Kevin Kelly
3,041 views, 11 comments

Latest by Tenshi21: @Garrison Dean: All the laser weapons were destroyed in the Second Coming of Christ in 2443. more »

futurism

Mental Illness on the Rise Throughout the Globe

It's become common sense to admit that war can make soldiers crazy — the condition has been called everything from "shell shock" to "post traumatic stress disorder." But now a study published yesterday offers concrete evidence that war drives civilians crazy too. In the first nationwide study of civilian mental health in war zones, a group of researchers in Lebanon surveyed thousands of people in that country to correlate their exposure to war with the likelihood that they would develop a mental illness. The results don't bode well for the future mental health of the globe. More »

12:45 PM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,068 views, 26 comments

Latest by MarlboroTestMonkey7: Last week I saw german tv documentary which interviewed families on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict, I felt sorry and in despair because their unwillingness to see a way out, replacing all rational argument for a peaceful resolution with more »

lego

Famous Vietnam War Photographs, with Stormtrooper Legos

During the Vietnam War, world-famous photographers like Marc Riboud and Eddie Adams captured iconic (and traumatic) moments on film. In 2008, most war photographs are created by embedded journalists whose images are tightly controlled. So British photographer Mike Stimpson decided to make his contribution to the repository of war photography by staging mock Vietnam-era moments using Lego. This one, based on a 1967 protest in Washington, DC, stars Stormtrooper Legos as the US Army. See, it looks just like the original image. More »

8:00 AM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By LISA KATAYAMA
4,376 views, 5 comments

Latest by kraffft: @ylee: People who tweak out on buggy brainware are sometimes said to have "gone io9." more »

lasers

Navy Initiates a Five-Year Plan to Build Laser Blasters

Long range laser weapons that do more than make little red dots show up on distant objects have long been a dream of science fiction creators and the military alike. Now it looks like a true, long-range laser blasting weapon may be ready for action within the next five years. The Navy is ponying up cash for three defense contracts to build out a laser developed a few years ago at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The laser, called a FEL (for "free electron laser"), can generate 10,000 watts of power, all across the visible spectrum. That means it could theoretically be optimized to shoot through fog or cloud. The Navy wants its current contractors to develop a prototype 100 kilowatt FEL, and then later one on the megawatt level. Noah Shachtman has all the details over at his Wired blog Danger Room. [Danger Room]

10:45 AM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,798 views, 34 comments

Latest by BlindKarma: Where's the five year plan to create light sabers?Doesn't the military care about my burning desire to slice anything they put in front of me into two? more »

dystopia

Career of Tomorrow: Car Bomb Forensics Expert

Yes, it's another dystopian morning filled with the smell of burning chemicals and scorched ideology. And nothing says dark future more than working as a car bomb forensics expert, the detective who gets called in when a car bomb like this one (set off in Thailand over the weekend) goes off. It turns out you can learn an awful lot about who set this bomb off from reading the debris it left behind. More »

7:00 AM on Mon Mar 17 2008
By Annalee Newitz
643 views, 13 comments

Latest by codydog: @geekgrrl: You think you are joking. The worst ship disaster in American history was a steamboat boiler explosion. 1,700 est. killed. Google Sultana Disaster. more »

memo to hollywood

Earth Battles The Moon, Who Wins?

NASA is readying two spacecraft to slam into the Moon's South Pole in an effort to find hidden polar ice a year from now, which gives Hollywood plenty of time to prep the movie and release it when all of this Moon-violence is at a fever pitch. After the spacecraft crash dead-on into the moon, another standby ship will fly through the plume that gets thrown up, grab some of the debris, and then analyze it. But what if this were a major motion picture? Things would turn out a little differently. Here's our idea. More »

1:37 PM on Thu Feb 28 2008
By Kevin Kelly
918 views, 18 comments

Latest by ganirambis: Yeah, the Loonies win in the Heinlein novel. Because of gravity. more »

future war

Japanese Military Continues Its Quest to Make Gundam Real

Since late last year, the Japanese military has been working on projects aimed at "realizing" Gundam, the mobile armor suit that is both combat exoskeleton and A.I. in several popular anime and manga series. Just yesterday, the Defense Ministry of Techinical Research and Development Institute in Japan rolled out these new tanks, whose high-tech specs don't make it sentient armor exactly but certainly fit the bill of "smart tank." Want to see a strangely incongruous image of one of these tanks crunching its way out of a festive-looking tent in the suburbs? More »

7:00 AM on Thu Feb 14 2008
By Annalee Newitz
3,852 views, 24 comments

Latest by Klebert: Looks like it's development designation is TK-X; here's some more info [www.janes.com] . At only 40 tons, I'm guessing that outer layer of turret armor is some sort of ceramic like on the Stryker. Still 40 tons doesn't scream 'heavily armored' more »

future war

Can a Robotic Weapon Be Programmed to Have Ethics?

Combat robots and computerized missile launchers may one day be better soldiers than humans because they are programmed with ethical behavior and will never engage in friendly fire. You learn about all this and more from videos just posted from the awesome Technology in Wartime conference, held two weeks ago at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, and organized by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. (Caveat: I'm the Vice President of CPSR, and helped organize this conference.) More »

12:40 PM on Wed Feb 6 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,059 views, 48 comments

Latest by cde: If we introduce ethics to weapons, wouldn't suicide be an issue? Great, not only de we have to deal with an uncooperative nuke, the nuke's going to get all emo over ending its self-existence, and never go through with it. more »

robots

Israeli Bomb Disposal Robot Has a Terrible Job Cleaning Up After Humans

Yesterday in Israel, a bomb disposal robot inspected the scene of a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in the town of Dimona. The bot is remote controlled, and used an articulated arm to remove the jacket of the alleged bomber to be sure he doesn't have more explosives on his body. Want to see what else the robot does as it finishes its inspection of the area? (Warning: Images of a corpse may be disturbing.) More »

7:00 AM on Tue Feb 5 2008
By Annalee Newitz
7,547 views, 143 comments

Latest by antimatty: @ManchuCandidate: i am not at all disturbed by this. this is war. this is life, and this has been happening since the dawn of humanity. corpses are just a part of life. more »

futurism

Weaponizing Climate Change for Battle

A new article in Foreign Policy suggests that geoengineering (or weather engineering) may be part of the next high-tech battle strategy for troops who want a force multiplier. The article is an updated version of an essay by futurist Jamais Cascio. Others have already speculated about how the ability to control rain systems and pull down lightening may be the future of warfare. In fact, all the technologies to do this already exist. But Cascio thinks forced ecosystem imbalances may be the weapon of choice for offensive geoengineers. More »

11:45 AM on Thu Jan 31 2008
By Annalee Newitz
800 views, 19 comments

Latest by Dybbuk: @rdcoyner: thanks for the response. I guess my point (joke?) was poorly made. That point was, despite ratification, the ABM was tossed into the trash without a hearing let alone a vote. more »

really giant machines

Diving Into the Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck

The Kursk was a Russian nuclear cruise missile submarine that was lost under mysterious circumstances involving some explosions in 2000. Here it is a year later, dredged up from the waters by a Dutch crew. Want to see the insides? More »

7:00 AM on Thu Jan 24 2008
By Annalee Newitz
5,319 views, 21 comments

Latest by NeoPoliticus: You now, the irony is that the sub was only 350 feet down - while it was 450 feet long. All they had to do was raise up the rear to near the surface to save the men. more »

technology in wartime

Will We Hold Robots Accountable for War Crimes?

Now that the military is using autonomous surveillance/combat robots created by iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robot vacuum, a strange question emerges: What do we do if a robot commits a war crime? This isn't idle speculation. An automated anti-aircraft cannon's friendly fire killed nine soldiers in South Africa last year, and computer scientists speculate that as more weapons (and aircraft) are robot-controlled that we'll need to develop new definitions of war crimes. In fact, the possibility of robot war crimes is the subject of a panel at an upcoming conference at Stanford. More »

1:00 PM on Thu Jan 17 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,473 views, 36 comments

Latest by robotman: The problem here is not about robot sentience. There are massive military plans to create robot systems that will decide who, where and when to kill. Although there is currently always a human in the loop to decide on when to use lethal more »

concept art

Sexy Recruitment Posters For The Empire

Although most of the stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies turned out to be vat-grown clones of Boba Fett's daddy, perhaps some of them were citizens from around the Empire doing their duty. These concept art recruitment posters by Feng Zhu might have been plastered in cantinas and spaceports around the galaxy in an effort to beef up the Imperial presence. After all, you can't expect your average clone to do everything, can you? More sexy troopers after the jump. More »

9:30 AM on Wed Jan 2 2008
By Kevin Kelly
145,005 views, 51 comments

Latest by DrusillaLouise: Hey,I'm built like those girls and I'm not weird. Am? =l Oh dear.Anyway, as much as I enjoy strong women characters, sex has been used for propaganda purposes for centuries, its hardly some geek-fuelled, mass media driven modernist plot.Also I more »

review

Four Years From Now, Iraq War Is Much Worse

The book version of acclaimed webcomic Shooting War just came out. Set in 2011, Shooting War follows a videoblogger to Iraq, where the war continues, worse than ever. The comic, originally posted at Smithmag.com, explores the (bleak) future of mainstream media as well as the mainstreaming of bloggers and vloggers. The book version adds 110 pages of new material and smooths out the webcomic's sometimes jerky flow.
More »

8:45 AM on Tue Nov 27 2007
By charliejane
73 views, 1 comment

Latest by Vermillionaire: D: more »

battlestar galactica: razor

Everything You Need To Know About The Flashback Episodes

Battlestar Galactica's two-hour telepic Razor will hit the airwaves on November 24th. Have you been doing your homework? Here's a handy Razor guide so you can feel fully briefed and prepared as it unspools on your viewing device of choice. More »

10:00 AM on Mon Nov 19 2007
By Kevin Kelly
257 views, Comment

io9

Rapid Deevolution Creates Lake of Fully-Armored Fish in Just 50 Years

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