By Josh Wolfe
The Advanced Research Projects Agency?Energy (ARPA-E) is a United States government agency founded in 2009. Modeled after DARPA, the agency that brought us the Internet, ARPA-E is tasked by Congress with promoting and funding research and development of advanced energy technologies. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes IT
The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) is a United States government agency founded in 2009. Modeled after DARPA, the agency that brought us the Internet, ARPA-E is tasked by Congress with promoting and funding research and development of advanced energy technologies. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Boston Dynamics developed the robot for DARPA. It will compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in December 2013. Advancing the technology to assist humans in disaster response is the goal. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
The military uses long-wave infrared (LWIR) cameras as thermal imagers to detect humans at night. These cameras are usually mounted on vehicles as they are too large to be carried by a single warfighter and are too expensive for individual deployment. However, DARPA researchers recently demonstrated a new five-micron pixel LWIR camera that could make this class of camera smaller and less expensive.
The U.S. Military relies on the space-based Global Positioning System (GPS) to aid air, land and sea navigation. Like the GPS units in many automobiles today, a simple receiver and some processing power is all that is needed for accurate navigation. But, what if the GPS satellites suddenly became unavailable due to malfunction, enemy action or simple interference, such as driving into a tunnel? Unavailability of GPS would be inconvenient for drivers on the road, but could be disastrous for military missions. DARPA is working to protect against such a scenario, and an emerging solution is much smaller than the navigation instruments in today’s defense systems.
(Phys.org) —DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is getting closer to its goal of securing robotic hands that mimic the hand’s finer movements, at an affordable cost. A research project has been under way to develop artificial hands; the main goals have been of an economic as well as technical nature; DARPA has been looking for robotic hand systems that offer not only optimal dexterity but can also come at a lower cost than in the past. The high costs associated with effective robotic hands have been $10,000 and up. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Two teams of DARPA performers have achieved world record power output levels using silicon-based technologies for millimeter-wave power amplifiers. RF power amplifiers are used in communications and sensor systems to boost power levels for reliable transmission of signals over the distance required by the given application. Further integration efforts may unlock applications in low-cost satellite communications and millimeter-wave sensing. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
First there was Deep Blue, then Watson, and now… SyNAPSE? IBM scientists revealed last week that they’d developed a nanofluidic circuit, which is a fancy term for a transistor which operates in ways that mimic the human brain. This is huge news on two fronts: it not only opens up new potential applications for artificial intelligence, it also offers the possibility of finally breaking free of Moore’s Law as transistors continue to approach the scale of individual atoms.
Let’s back up and explain some of these terms in more detail. SyNAPSE, a backronym of “Systems for Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics,” is actually a DARPA program that was initiated to develop brain-like computers. IBM has taken the lead on this project, but research teams from several top universities, as well as HRL Laboratories — a jointly-owned research arm of General Motors and Boeing — have also contributed to the project. IBM introduced “cognitive computer chips” in late 2011 as part of the SyNAPSE program, but last week’s nanofluidic advancement hasn’t been officially mentioned in conjunction with that program. That doesn’t mean it won’t make an ideal technological adaptation to push SyNAPSE further forward.
The nanofluidic circuit was described by bothThe Atlantic Wire:
The new so-called nanofluidic circuit works a little bit like a network of streams. A charged fluid moves over the surface of the circuit changing its properties (e.g. flipping a switch “on” or “off”) with the positively and negatively charged atoms in the fluid. Like the synapses of the brain, the ions operate in three dimensions, a game changer in terms of efficiency and uncharted territory in terms of computing.
And by The New York Times‘ tech blog:
The advantage of the new method is that it is both nonvolatile — it requires only a small amount of electricity to change the materials from one state to another, and they then remain in that state — and is potentially reversible, meaning that it could be used to build a device like a transistor. …
“We could form or disrupt connections just in the same way a synaptic connection in the brain could be remade, or the strength of that connection could be adjusted,” [IBM Fellow] Dr. [Stuart] Parkin said.
Efficiency would be the key advancement here in terms of chip making. The reason why ARM Holdings has long dominated mobile processor architecture has to do with its early lead in terms of energy efficiency. Battery life has always been a limiting factor in mobile computing, and any chip design that can minimize battery drain without sacrificing performance is likely to be in high demand. Parkin followed up with VentureBeat after IBM published the paper on this nanofluidic process in Science:
We are using tiny currents of ions of atoms generated by these electrical signals to change the state of matter of this oxide material. It is a means to build low-energy, highly efficient devices by …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
When Apple launched the iPhone 4S in the fall of 2011, it shattered sales records, selling over 4 million units in the first three days. A big part of that success was Siri, the revolutionary new interface which responds to voice commands. It appeared that Steve Jobs had done it again. (This time, from beyond the grave no less!). Back in the ‘80’s, he had transformed personal computing by introducing the public to the graphical user interface (first developed at Xerox PARC). Then came first iPhone with its multi-touch interface, revolutionary for its time (but developed by FingerWorks, acquired by Apple in 2005). Now, Apple appeared to be taking it to the next level, with an interface that didn’t require hands at all. Once again Siri was not only a technological triumph, but a smart business move. Rather than spend years lavishing billions of dollars on an R&D program, Apple picked up Siri for a reported $200 million. Even better, the initial research was financed by DARPA. (Thanks Uncle Sam!) Alas, things were not what they seemed. In fact, Siri could signal the beginning of the end for Apple. First, the obvious. When you ask Siri for something, it inevitably sends you to Google. So while Apple impresses consumers, their arch-rival at Mountain View profits. Apple has since launched their own maps (not very effectively, I might add), but their only other option for basic search is Microsoft, which wouldn’t be much of an improvement in terms of competitive concerns. Second, even Siri itself is not truly an Apple product. Much of the critical technology is provided by Nuance Communications, a leader in speech recognition. So it’s hard to see how Siri gives Apple any competitive advantage at all. Probably most importantly, with Apple’s paltry R&D budget, it is unlikely that they will be able to compete beyond interfaces and devices (and with the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy 4S, even their position there seems to be eroding). As I wrote in an earlier post for Forbes, a variety of companies, ranging from Facebook to IBM are investing heavily in systems that combine natural language with Big Data. Apple, for its part, doesn’t seem to have any significant artificial intelligence platform beyond the Siri interface and no big data effort to speak of. If they did, we would know about it. Despite Apple’s well deserved reputation for secrecy, even they wouldn’t be able to hide hiring the top notch talent that they would need to build a strong artificial intelligence platform. There’s just not that much of it around. So it appears that Apple is at a crossroads. They have plenty of cash and leadership positions in both smartphones and tablets, two high growth categories that are far from saturation. Moreover, their notebook and iPod businesses continue to be wildly profitable. However, it’s tough to see how Apple will compete 3-5 years from now when Big Data and artificial intelligence become an important part of the consumer experience. As I’ve pointed out before, it’s not …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The Department of Defense announced a series of small (in defense contracting terms) contract awards to a series of publicly traded companies Thursday. Among them:
The article Pentagon Hands Out $84.4 Million in Small Contracts originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines. and Raytheon Company. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Machine learning – the ability of computers to understand data, manage results, and infer insights from uncertain information – is the force behind many recent revolutions in computing. Email spam filters, smartphone personal assistants and self-driving vehicles are all based on research advances in machine learning. Unfortunately, even as the demand for these capabilities is accelerating, every new application requires a Herculean effort. Even a team of specially-trained machine learning experts makes only painfully slow progress due to the lack of tools to build these systems. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
On Friday, the Department of Defense awarded world-largest pure-play defense contractor Lockheed Martin four separate contracts worth a combined $173.7 million. Among these:
The article Lockheed Snags $174.7 Million Worth of Pentagon Contracts originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Lockheed Martin. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Over the past two days, defense contractor Raytheon has won a pair of Department of Defense contracts — one of considerable size, and the other of considerable mystery.
The big contract Raytheon won this week was actually a firm-fixed-price contract “modification,” exercising an option under a larger contract to supply the U.S. Missile Defense Agency with AN/TPY-2 advanced mobile radar systems.
A phased array, X-band radar, AN/TPY-2 forms an integral part of America’s Ballistic Missile Defense System, where it is used for threat “surveillance, interceptor track, in-flight data uplink/downlink, target classification/ typing/ identification, and intercept assessment” functions. In the instant contract, Raytheon will receive $8.2 million to supply MDA with one AN/TPY-2 prime power unit. Added to the main contract award, this brings Raytheon’s take on the work to a whopping $580.2 million.
Raytheon’s more interesting contract win, however, came from the mysterious DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. On Thursday, DARPA awarded Raytheon $21.6 million under a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to do … something. As the Pentagon’s contract announcement states: “The statement of work for this effort is classified.”
Sure, they could tell you what the contract’s for. But then they’d have to kill you — probably with a drone strike.
The article Raytheon Wins a Mysterious Defense Contract originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Raytheon Company. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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By ScottCWaring
Bogey on your six? DARPA can help with that. In what one can only assume is the first step towards developing a fully functional fleet of Star Destroyers, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently announced that it is looking to test fighter jets equipped with laser turrets as early as 2014. Lockheed Martin won the $9.5 million contract from DARPA and is currently working on phase three of the Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control project, which would allow tactical aircraft to fire mounted lasers, through extreme turbulence, at enemies coming from behind.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at IGN Tech
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a consortium of top semiconductor companies will hand out $194 million to universities for research that addresses the physical limitations of semiconductors and chips.
The funding is part of the Starnet program, which will support research conducted primarily at six universities—the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Notre Dame, University of California at Los Angeles and University of California at Berkeley—over a five-year period, according to Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a research consortium focused on university chip research. SRC is backed by companies such as IBM, Intel, Micron, Globalfoundries, and Texas Instruments.
The research will focus on transistors, nanomaterials, quantum computing, scalable memory, and circuits. A goal is for the industry to be ready to move into a new era of computing with smaller circuits that are energy efficient and practical to manufacture. Another goal is to create scalable computing architectures with new forms of chips, memory and interconnects.
The research is also intended to protect U.S. security interests, while making the country a leader in semiconductors, DARPA and SRC said in a statement. DARPA is a division of the U.S. Department of Defense, and has funded key technology research in the past.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a consortium of top semiconductor companies are handing out US$194 million to universities for research that addresses the physical limitations of semiconductors and chips.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Computerworld Latest
DARPA distributed systems are to hibernate in deep-sea capsules for years, wake up when commanded, and deploy to surface providing operational support and situational awareness.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
No doubt about it, DARPA has created some pretty jaw-dropping inventions over the years, but their latest project will likely have you s****ing your pants in fear: the autonomous hovering V-bat drone — basically, an Imperial Probe Droid for the 21st century.
Continue reading…
Source: IGN Movies
