defense

Robot Toyota lift truck performs unmanned tasks

Routine use of robotic lift trucks may not be far off.

Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, along with a team of engineers, have transformed a Toyota 8-Series lift truck into an autonomous bot capable of working alongside human supervisors using voice commands or hand gestures.

The 3,000-pound-capacity lift truck from Toyota Material Handling (TMHU) is capable of locating, lifting, moving, and placing supplies while traversing just about any type of terrain. It was demonstrated last month at an event hosted by the U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency at Fort Lee, in Virginia.

"Robotic forklifts have the potential to protect both military and civilian personnel working in high-risk environments, such as hazardous material storage facilities, said Brett Wood, president of TMHU.

The demo included a review of the robot's safety features, sensor capabilities, and human-robot interface.

The researchers and engineers developed a complex network of systems to enable the lift truck to navigate real-time conditions faced by lift truck operators (navigating obstacles and interacting with other moving vehicles, for example). To do this, they added a camera, sensors, laptops, servomotors, Wi-Fi, and a PDA.

"We chose the internal combustion Toyota lift truck because it can be operated outdoors on packed earth or gravel and because, with mini-lever control some of its functionality can be controlled electronically rather than solely mechanically," said MIT Professor Seth Teller, who headed the project.

The modified vehicle wirelessly exports video from its own point of view, so the human supervisor, even if hundreds of miles away, can see whatever is nearby (provided there is network connectivity between the lift truck and supervisor's tablet).

In September 2009, for example, the team demonstrated the lift truck operating autonomously at MIT, in Cambridge, Mass., while under the supervision of an operator in Washington D.C.… Read more

Star Wars: Battle for Hoth invades iPhones

Five words that may make your day: Star Wars meets Tower Defense.

That's Star Wars: Battle for Hoth in a nutshell. The game combines obvious elements of Tower Defense with one of the franchise's all-time greatest action sequences.

In other words, it's up to you to defend Echo Base against endless hordes of droids, snow troopers, Imperial AT-ATs, and the like.

To do that, you'll deploy infantry, towers, snow speeders, and even X-Wings.

The game spans 15 levels and offers two modes of play: Classic and Fortress. It also treats you to clips, music, and sound … Read more

Pentagon, State Department OK social-network use

The U.S. Defense Department and State Department are allowing greater use of Facebook and Twitter, while warily noting that social media can be a boon for spies and "compromise operational security."

Last week, the State Department released a manual (PDF) saying that personal use of Facebook and Twitter is permitted on work computers, and the agency "will not arbitrarily ban access to or the use of social media."

It came with the usual caveats for employees: don't disclose classified information; maintain a distinction between an official and personal account; and "be alert to … Read more

Defend against waves of zombies

BioDefense: Zombie Outbreak is a one-player zombie-survival game that mixes elements of real-time strategy with an open-map tower-defense game.

The core of BioDefense is a survival mode, in which you protect your base from random waves of zombies. You have to juggle several interdependent factors as you construct and defend your base: you have to build collectors on top of "toxium" deposits (toxium is the game's currency, and a finite resource on the map), but you can only build where you have light--so you also need to build spotlights. Predictably, spotlights are fragile, so you need to … Read more

Touch-screen tower defense

Pew Pew Land is a cartoony tower-defense game with fairly conventional gameplay but cool two-player capabilities over Bluetooth.

Fans of the tower-defense genre will quickly pick up Pew Pew Land's touch-screen interface and fast-paced tactics: you have to defeat a fixed number of enemy waves on each level, strategically placing a variety of upgradable towers (eight types in all, from simple shooters to rockets and lasers) along a fixed path with an entrance and exit. If you let too many enemies get by, the level ends. The game's help is scant but adequate, and Pew Pew Land's … Read more

U.S. CyberCom launches with first commander

With Army Gen. Keith Alexander named as its first commander, U.S. Cyber Command has a challenging mission and Alexander a demanding job.

Receiving a promotion to four-star general, Alexander on Friday was officially given the reins of U.S. Cyber Command by Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a ceremony in Fort Meade, Md. That signaled the initial launch of the division, which won't be up to full capability until October 1.

The mission of U.S. Cyber Command, or CyberCom, is to synchronize the Defense Department's various networks and cyberspace operations to better defend them against the … Read more

Ford recruits 'virtual soldier' for ergonomic tests

Ford's newest employee has moved from the army to the assembly line. But since he's virtual, that type of job change shouldn't pose a problem.

Designed to test the safety of Ford's auto factories, Santos is a virtual avatar that can mimic and record all the physical strains and pains that plague us poor humans. By reaching, lifting, and stretching in his own virtual world, he can provide feedback on how those activities might affect an actual person.

Initially created for the U.S. Department of Defense to help find ways to relieve physical strain on soldiers, Santos is now working at Ford testing the ergonomics of assembly lines. His job is to perform the same physical tasks that a factory worker would perform when building a car to gauge their impact on the human body. The automaker's goal is to improve the quality and safety of its factories before assembly lines are even created.

Space Station: Frontier for iPad is hard to put down

I check the iPad apps lists every day in the hope to uncover new gems. Though the frequency of apps coming into the app store is probably better described as a trickle rather than a flood, there's already been a few keepers that I've spent a lot of time with. One new addition to my iPad is a strategy game like no other I've seen so far and I think it has just the right elements to keep strategy gaming fans coming back for more.

Space Station: Frontier HD ($4.99) takes elements from tower-defense-type games and … Read more

NSA's boot camp for cyberdefense

If you're the kind of person who worries about the security of computer networks, you should know that the National Security Agency is worrying about it too.

Since Tuesday, the NSA has been conducting its 10th annual Cyber Defense Exercise, a competition that pits students from a series of military academies against each other--and against the competition's leaders at NSA--in a bid to see who has the best cyberdefense skills. The idea? To "build and defend computer networks against simulated intrusions by the National Security Agency/Central Security Services Red Team."

The competition will last until … Read more

Defend the castle!

Castle Conflict is a charming little arcade strategy game that has gotten much better since its limited debut.

Based on a fairly primitive desktop game, Castle Conflict starts with a straightforward premise: two castles fighting against each other, sending out units to do battle and gather resources (i.e., the trees that pop up randomly in the middle of the battlefield). You play the castle on the left, on a small 2D screen, and as you build up resources, you press touchscreen buttons to create new units. You start with a limited palette of units: cheap but fragile peasants to … Read more