Last year, the Pentagon’s premiere research arm gave IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) nearly $5 million to make electronics that mimic the “function, size and power consumption” of a cat’s brain. Last week, IBM’s lead researcher on the project, Dharmendra S. Modha, announced that he had made major progress toward that goal, simulating on a supercomputer the number of neurons and synapses inside a feline mind. Now, a leading neuroscientist is blasting the whole project as a “scam” and a “hoax.”

Modha told a supercomputing conference that his cortical simulator had generated the digital equivalent of a billion neurons connected by 10 trillion individual synapses. It was, apparently, the first baby step toward Pentagon mad science division DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) goal of re-creating a brain that’s as compact, as efficient and as power-smart as the one inside a house pet. Some colleagues went so far as to compare it to the Large Hadron Collider.

But neuroscientist Henry Markram is considerably less impressed. “What IBM reported is a scam — no where near a cat-scale brain simulation,” he writes in an open letter to Bernard S. Myerson, IBM’s Chief Technology Officer. “I am absolutely shocked at this announcement. Not because it is any kind of technical feat, but because of the mass deception of the public.”

Markram isn’t exactly a disinterested observer, as IEEE Spectrum’s Sally Adee notes. He’s got his own ersatz mind project, called Blue Brain, that’s also affiliated with IBM. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Markram claims Modha has simply put together a “PR stunt here to ride on Blue Brain.”

Still, such public criticism is unusual — especially when you consider that it’s also an indirect indictment of DARPA, one of the leading funders of artificial intelligence research.

All these kinds of simulations are trivial and have been around for decades — simply called artificial neural network (ANN) simulations. We even stooped to doing these kinds of simulations as benchmark tests four years ago with 10’s of millions of such points…. If we (or anyone else) wanted to we could easily do this for a billion “points,” but we would certainly not call it a cat-scale simulation. It is really no big deal to simulate a billion points interacting if you have a big enough computer. The only step here is that they have at their disposal a big computer. For a grown-up “researcher” to get excited because one can simulate billions of points interacting is ludicrous.

…This is light years away from a cat brain, not even close to an ant’s brain in complexity. It is highly unethical of Mohda to mislead the public in making people believe they have actually simulated a cat’s brain…. That IBM and DARPA would support such deceptive announcements is even more shocking.

I think the proper response here is: mee-yow! I can’t wait for round three of this cat-brain cat fight.

Funding Source: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Funding Type: None, RFI
Total Available: N/A
Award Ceiling: N/A
Deadline: 11.16.10
Eligibility: Unrestricted

Description:
The Tactical Technology Office (TTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting executive summaries, white papers and proposals for advanced research and development of Innovative Systems for Military Missions. Innovative Systems are integrated systems or critical systems components, which often incorporate emerging advanced technologies, and which enable revolutionary improvements to the capability, efficiency and effectiveness of the military. TTO seeks responses relating to three (3) mission thrust areas (“mission thrusts”): * Advanced Weapons Systems * Advanced Platforms * Advanced Space Systems Responses to the thrust areas may be submitted at any time during the open period of this solicitation. TTO’s solicitation focuses on the high risk/high payoff development, integration, demonstration and evaluation of innovative systems or critical systems components enabled by, and incorporating, new or emerging technologies. Proposed efforts must also show significant promise to provide the U.S. military with revolutionary new mission capabilities, and/or enable significant increases in mission effectiveness.

Par Sara Flounders

Le 28 octobre, le président Barack Obama a signé le décret d’autorisation de la Défense pour 2010, c’est-à-dire le plus gros budget militaire de l’histoire des EU. Il n’est pas seulement le plus gros budget militaire au monde, il est en même temps plus important que l’ensemble des dépenses militaires du reste de la planète.

Workers World

Et, d’année en année, il ne cesse de croître. Le budget militaire de 2010 – qui ne couvre même pas toute une série de dépenses ayant trait à la guerre – a été fixé à 680 milliards de dollars. En 2009, il était de 651 milliards alors qu’en 2000, il n’était encore que de 280 milliards. Il a donc plus que doublé en dix ans.

Quel contraste avec la question des soins de santé !

Le Congrès américain a ergoté autour d’un plan des soins de santé de base – une chose que possèdent tous les autres pays industrialisés sous une forme ou une autre – durant plus de six mois. Il y a eu d’intenses pressions de la part des compagnies d’assurances, des menaces de la droite et des mises en garde sévères : le plan des soins de santé ne pourrait accroître le déficit d’un seul cent.

Pourtant, au beau milieu de ce débat d’une importance vitale pour les soins médicaux des millions de travailleurs et de pauvres qui ne bénéficient d’aucune couverture de soins, une subvention gargantuesque aux plus importantes des sociétés américaines a été adoptée sans qu’il y ait pratiquement de discussion et d’articles dans la presse, alors que la chose concerne des contrats militaires et des systèmes d’armement, lesquels génèrent chaque fois de véritables déficits.

L’organisation Médecins pour un programme national de santé estime qu’un plan de santé entièrement financé par l’État coûterait 350 milliards de dollars par an, ce qui, en fait, équivaudrait au montant économisé avec l’élimination de tous les frais administratifs de l’actuel système privé de soins de santé – un système qui exclut presque 50 millions de personnes.

Comparez cela aux dépassements du budget militaire chaque année. Même le président Obama a déclaré, en signant le budget du Pentagone : « Le Bureau gouvernemental des comptes (GAO – Government Accountability Office), a examiné 96 importants projets de défense de l’an dernier et a découvert que les dépassements totalisaient 296 milliards de dollars. » (voir : whitehouse.gov , 28 octobre 2009)

La pyramide de Ponzi à 50 milliards de dollars de Bernard Madoff, dont certains prétendent qu’elle est la plus grosse arnaque de l’histoire, semble minable, en comparaison. Pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas d’enquête pénale sur ce vol de plusieurs dizaines de milliards de dollars ? Où sont les questions du Congrès ou les manifestations d’hystérie médiatique sur ces 296 milliards de dépassements ? Pourquoi les PDG des sociétés ne sont-ils pas amenés menottés au tribunal ?

Les dépassements de frais font partie intégrante des subventions militaires aux plus grandes des sociétés américaines. Ils sont traités comme des affaires ordinaires. Qu’importe le parti au pouvoir, le budget du Pentagone grossit, les dépassements de frais grossissent et la proportion des dépenses domestiques rétrécit.

Accro à la guerre

 Le budget militaire de cette année n’est que le dernier exemple de la façon dont l’économie américaine est maintenue à flot à l’aide de moyens artificiels. Des décennies de relance constante de l’économie capitaliste via le stimulus des dépenses de guerre ont créé une dépendance morbide vis-à-vis du militarisme, au point que les entreprises américaines ne peuvent plus s’en passer. Mais ce moyen n’a plus l’ampleur suffisante pour résoudre le problème capitaliste de la surproduction.

On a justifié ce coup de seringue annuel de plusieurs centaines de milliards de dollars en disant qu’il contribuerait à amortir ou à éviter complètement une récession capitaliste et à résorber le chômage. Mais rappelons la mise en garde du fondateur du Workers World Party, Sam Marcy, en 1980, dans « Generals Over the White House » (Les généraux sont au-dessus de la Maison-Blanche), lorsqu’il parlait d’une très longue période pendant laquelle ces stimulants allaient être de plus en plus nécessaires. Finalement, il se fait qu’ils ont un effet diamétralement opposé et qu’ils se muent en un dépresseur massif qui contamine et pourrit toute la société.

La racine du mal réside dans le fait que la technologie devient plus productive, que les travailleurs ont une part de plus en plus restreinte de ce qu’ils produisent. L’économie américaine dépend de plus en plus du stimulant des superprofits et des dépassements des coûts militaires (296 milliards de dollars !) pour absorber une part de plus en plus grande de ce qui est produit. C’est une partie essentielle de la redistribution constante de la richesse loin des poches des travailleurs et directement dans celles des gens richissimes.

Selon le Centre du contrôle des armements et de la non-prolifération, les dépenses militaires américaines sont aujourd’hui considérablement plus élevées, en dollars 2009 ajustés à l’inflation, qu’elles ne l’étaient au plus fort de la guerre de Corée (1952 : l’équivalent de 604 milliards de dollars actuels), de la guerre du Vietnam (1968 : 513 milliards) et de la mise sur pied de l’ère militaire sous Reagan, dans les années 80 (1985 : 556 milliards). Et, pourtant, cela ne suffit plus à maintenir l’économie américaine à flot.

Même en forçant les pays riches en pétrole dépendant des EU à devenir des nations débitrices via des achats sans fin d’armes, on ne pourra résoudre le problème. Plus de deux tiers de toutes les armes vendues dans le monde en 2008 provenaient de sociétés militaro-industrielles américaines. (Reuters, 6 septembre 2009)

Alors que, dans les années 30, un gigantesque programme militaire était en mesure de tirer l’économie américaine d’un effondrement dévastateur, sur une longue période, ce stimulant artificiel sape les processus capitalistes.

L’économiste Seymour Melman, dans des ouvrages comme « Pentagon Capitalism » (Le capitalisme pentagonal), « Profits without Production » (Des bénéfices sans produire), « The Permanent War Economy : American Capitalism in Decline » (Une économie de guerre permanente : le capitalisme américain en déclin), mettait en garde contre la détérioration de l’économie américaine et du niveau de vie de millions de personnes.

Melman et d’autres économistes progressistes étaient partisans d’une « conversion économique » rationnelle ou d’un passage de la production militaire à la production civile par les industries militaires. Ils expliquaient comment un seul bombardier B-1 ou un sous-marin Trident pouvait payer les salaires de milliers d’enseignants, fournir des bourses ou des soins ambulants ou reconstruire des routes. Cartes et graphiques montraient que le budget militaire emploie beaucoup moins de travailleurs que les mêmes sommes dépensées pour couvrir les besoins civils.

C’étaient toutes des idées valables et raisonnables, hormis le fait que le capitalisme n’a rien de rationnel. Dans sa pulsion insatiable à vouloir maximiser les profits, il choisira les aumônes du superprofit immédiat et laissera de côté même les meilleurs intérêts de sa survie à long terme.

Pas de « dividende de paix »

Les grands espoirs, après la fin de la guerre froide et l’effondrement de l’URSS, de voir des milliards de dollars se muer désormais en « dividendes de paix » se sont écrasés face à la croissance astronomique continue du budget du Pentagone. Cette pénible réalité a tellement démoralisé et submergé les économistes progressistes qu’on n’accorde quasiment plus d’attention aujourd’hui à la « conversion économique » ou au rôle du militarisme dans l’économie capitaliste, même s’il est infiniment plus important aujourd’hui qu’aux moments les plus forts de la guerre froide.

Les centaines de milliards de dollars des subventions militaires annuelles sur lesquelles ont compté les économistes bourgeois depuis la Grande Dépression pour amorcer la pompe et réenclencher une fois de plus le cycle de l’expansion capitaliste ne suffisent plus, aujourd’hui.

Une fois que les sociétés sont devenues dépendantes des centaines de milliards de dollars de subventions, leur appétit n’a plus connu de limites. En 2009, dans un effort pour écarter la liquéfaction complète de l’économie capitaliste mondiale, on a refilé plus de 700 milliards de dollars aux banques les plus importantes. Et ce n’a été que le début. Le renflouage des banques se chiffre aujourd’hui en milliers de milliards de dollars.

Même 600 ou 700 millions de dollars par an de dépenses militaires ne peut plus relancer l’économie capitaliste ni engendrer la prospérité. Pourtant, l’Amérique des entreprises ne peut s’en passer.

Le budget militaire s’est accru dans des proportions si importantes qu’il menace maintenant de submerger et de dévorer la totalité du budget social. Son poids réel met à plat les fonds nécessaires à chaque besoin humain. Les villes américaines s’écroulent. L’infrastructure des ponts, routes, barrages, canaux et tunnels se désintègre. Vingt-cinq pour cent de l’eau potable américaine est considérée de « piètre qualité ». Le chômage atteint officiellement 10 pour cent et, en réalité, il est le double de ce chiffre. Le chômage chez les jeunes Afro- et Latino-américains dépasse les 50 pour cent. Quatorze millions d’enfants aux EU vivent dans des ménages situés en dessous du niveau de pauvreté.  

La moitié  des dépenses militaires sont cachées

Le budget militaire annoncé pour 2010, 680 milliards de dollars, ne représente en réalité qu’environ la moitié du coût annuel des dépenses militaires américaines.

Ces dépenses sont si importantes qu’il y a un effort concerté pour cacher de nombreuses dépenses militaires dans d’autres éléments du budget. L ‘analyse annuelle de la Ligue des opposants à la guerre a répertorié les véritables dépenses militaires américaines pour 2009 et les a évaluées à 1.449 milliards de dollars, et non pas l’officiel budget de 651 milliards. Wikipedia, citant diverses sources, est arrivé à un budget militaire total de 1.144 milliards. Mais qu’importe qui compte, il ne fait absolument aucun doute que le budget militaire dépassée aujourd’hui les 1.000 milliards de dollars.

Le Projet des priorités nationales, le Centre d’information sur la Défense et le Centre du contrôle des armements et de la non-prolifération analysent et dénoncent de nombreuses dépenses militaires cachées qu’on a planquées dans certaines autres parties du budget total des EU.

Par exemple, les allocations des vétérans, qui totalisent 91 milliards de dollars, ne sont pas reprises dans le budget du Pentagone. Les pensions militaires (48 milliards au total) sont répertoriées dans le budget du département du Trésor. Le département de l’Énergie cache dans on budget 18 milliards de dollars de programmes d’armes nucléaires. Les 38 milliards du financement des ventes d’armes étrangères est compris dans le budget du département d’État (= ministère des Affaires étrangères). L’un des postes cachés les plus importants représente les intérêts des dattes encourues lors des guerres passées : 237 milliards et 390 milliards de dollars. C’est en réalité un subside sans fin aux banques et celles-ci sont étroitement liées aux industries militaires.

Chaque partie de ces budgets goitreux est censée augmenter de 5 à 10 pour cent par an, alors que le financement des États et des villes par le fédéral diminue annuellement de 10 à 15 pour cent, ce qui amène des crises de déficit.

Selon le Bureau de la gestion et du budget, 55 pour cent du budget total américain pour 2010 ira à l’armée. Plus de la moitié ! Pendant ce temps, des pans entiers des dotations fédérales aux États et villes sur le plan des services humains vitaux – écoles, formation des enseignants, programmes de soins à domicile, repas scolaires, entretien des infrastructures de base de la distribution d’eau potable, entretien des égouts, des ponts, des tunnels et des routes – diminuent à vue d’œil.

Le militarisme nourrit la répression

L’aspect le plus dangereux de la croissance de l’armée est la pénétration insidieuse de son influence politique dans tous les domaines de la société. C’est l’institution la plus éloignée du contrôle populaire et la plus encline à l’aventurisme militaire et à la répression. Des généraux retraités font une tournante dans les conseils d’administration des sociétés, deviennent des vedettes du crachoir dans les principaux organes médiatiques, des lobbyistes, conseillers et hommes politiques grassement payés.

Ce n’est pas une coïncidence si, non contents de posséder la plus importante machine de guerre du monde, les EU ont également la plus importante population carcérale de la planète. Le complexe carcéro-industriel est la seule industrie à connaître une croissance. Selon le Bureau de la statistique du département américain de la Justice, plus de 7,3 millions d’adultes étaient en probation, en liberté sur parole ou incarcérés en 2007. Plus de 70 pour cent des personnes incarcérées sont des Afro- ou Latino-américain(e)s, des Amérindiens et autres personnes de couleur. Les adultes noirs risquent quatre fois plus la prison que leurs homologues blancs.

Exactement comme pour l’armée, avec ses centaines de milliers de contractuels et de mercenaires, la frénésie à vouloir maximiser les profits a abouti à une privatisation croissante du système carcéral.

Le nombre de détenus a augmenté sans relâche. Il y a 2,5 fois plus de gens dans le système carcéral actuel qu’il y a 25 ans. Comme le capitalisme américain est de moins en moins en mesure de procurer des emplois, des formations à l’emploi ou un enseignement tout court, les seules solutions proposées sont les prisons ou l’armée, provoquant ainsi la désolation chez les individus ou au sein des familles et des communautés.

Le poids de l’armée pousse l’appareil répressif de l’État vers toutes les couches de la société. Il y a une augmentation énorme des polices en tous genres et d’innombrables agences de police et de renseignement.

Le budget de 16 agences de renseignement américaines atteignait 49,8 milliards de dollars, pour l’année fiscale 2009 : 80 pour cent de ces agences secrètes de renseignement sont des bras du Pentagone. (Associated Press, 30 octobre 2009). En 1998, ces dépenses étaient de 26,7 milliards de dollars. Mais ces agences ultrasecrètes ne sont pas reprises dans le budget militaire. Pas plus que les agences de répression de l’immigration et de contrôle des frontières.

Les forces armées américaines sont stationnées dans plus de 820 bases militaires disséminées dans le monde entier. Et ce chiffre n’inclut pas les centaines de bases louées, de postes clandestins d’écoute et ainsi que les centaines de navires et de sous-marins.

Mais plus la machine militaire prend de l’ampleur, moins il est possible de contrôler son empire mondial, parce qu’elle n’offre pas de solutions ni n’améliore les niveaux de vie. Les armes high tech du Pentagone peuvent lire une plaque minéralogique de voiture à partir d’un satellite de surveillance, leurs lunettes de lecture nocturne peuvent pénétrer l’obscurité la plus profonde et leurs drones peuvent incendier un village isolé. Mais elles sont incapables de fournir de l’eau potable, des écoles ou la stabilité aux nations qu’elles attaquent.

En dépit de toutes ces armes du Pentagone à la technologie fantastique, la position géopolitique américaine se dégrade d’année en année. En dépit de sa puissance de feu massive et de son armement à la pointe de l’art, l’impérialisme américain a été incapable de reconquérir les marchés mondiaux et la position du capital financier américain. L’économie et l’industrie des EU ont été entraînées vers le gouffre par le simple poids du maintien en état de la machine militaire. Et, comme l’a montré la résistance en Irak et en Afghanistan, cette machine ne peut rivaliser avec la détermination des peuples à vouloir contrôler eux-mêmes leur propre avenir.

Puisque la puissante économie capitaliste américaine n’est capable que de proposer de moins en moins aux travailleurs d’ici, aux EU, il est certain que ce niveau de résistance déterminée va s’enraciner également.

Source : Investig’Action

La thèse du Dr Ronald C. Arkin

Maîtriser les comportements criminels des robots autonomes, c’est le titre un brin anxiogène d’un ouvrage du Dr Ronald C. Arkin, qui travaille sur un logiciel de contrôle éthique des machines à tuer de l’armée. Il y fait le point sur une question – vitale – qui risque de se poser rapidement : sur quels critères une intelligence artificielle prend-elle la décision d’appuyer sur la gâchette ?

Next year the Air Force will launch atop of an Atlas V rocket an unmanned space plane code named “X-37″.

It will have a 4′ x 7′ cargo bay and extensive improvements that was learned during the space shuttle era.

But the X-37 has a deeper ancestry than the space shuttle that reaches back to the beginnings of the space program:

The X-37 embodies other modifications of shuttle technology. All shuttle-era hydraulics have been eliminated; the new spaceplane’s flight controls will be operated electromechanically, making the X-37 fly-by-wire. Unlike the shuttle, with its one vertical stabilizer, the X-37 has two short diagonal ones, called ruddervators—surfaces that combine the functions of rudders and elevators. These reduce the amount of propellant needed to handle trim and control during the high-speed, high-angle-of-attack reentry, and provide room for a centerline speed brake that manages the vehicle’s glide energy just before landing.

Upon reaching orbit, the craft will deploy a solar array that will power batteries. Those batteries have replaced hydrogen fuel cells, the shuttle’s power source in orbit. The vehicle will maneuver in space powered by a combination of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine. Theoretically, the X-37 could rendezvous with other satellites of interest to the Air Force, friendly or otherwise.

If the X-37 is to carry out such national security missions, its roots will extend back beyond the space shuttle, to earlier spaceplanes. Says Mark Lewis: “I would draw a heritage not only to the shuttle, but to my very favorite program that never was: the X-20.”

A follow-on to the X-15 rocketplane, which didn’t have the power to get to orbit, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane, initiated in 1957, would have ridden a massive Titan III booster all the way to orbit if needed, and carried a pilot. (Neil Armstrong was one NASA test pilot selected to fly it, but in 1962 he transferred to the Apollo program.) Dyna-Soar would have given the Air Force a manned system that could have filled a variety of needs: research, reconnaissance, or even attack. It was designed to reach any target in the world in 45 minutes, deliver a weapon, and glide to a friendly base. Its altitude and hypersonic speed would have made it very difficult to intercept.

While this type of capability sounded like something the Air Force needed, the service had difficulty justifying it. NASA was making progress with blunt-body capsules that reentered the atmosphere without the need for pilot control, and intercontinental ballistic missiles were dominating the nuclear delivery mission. A controlled-reentry spaceplane puzzled Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; he directed the Air Force to study whether concepts such as NASA’s Gemini could handle some of the roles better. In December 1963, shortly after prime contractor Boeing started building the vehicle and after about $660 million had been spent, McNamara killed the X-20.

I’m not surprised that McNamara killed the Dina-Soar program. Like all short-sighted politico types, he only saw the next war for empire and resources on the horizon.

Not above it.

Space Shuttle Jr.

DARPA, el “brazo loco de la ley” del Departamenteo de Defensa de los Estados Unidos, ha empleado cinco años y 21 millones dólares para desarrollar un nuevo juguete. Se trata de una clase de rayo láser, sustancialmente diferente a los desarrollados hasta el momento, al que han bautizado High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS). El dispositivo combina tecnologías de láeres sólidos y líquidos, y puede ser montado en aviones para -entre otras cosas- derribar misiles.   —–>>>

Hace más de 40 años que DARPA investiga y desarrolla proyectos relacionados con latecnología láser. Sus científicos han puesto a punto aplicaciones que aprovechan sus características únicas para crear herramientas de comunicaciones, incluso entre submarinos. También forman parte de los sistemas de guiado de misiles. Y -por supuesto- también los han utilizado para volatilizar cosas. Dentro de este ultimo grupo se encuentra elHigh Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS, Sistema de Defensa Área de Láser Líquido de Alta Energía). HELLADS es, básicamente, un sistema de rayos láser de alta energía que el ejército estadounidense podrá usar para destruir objetivos enemigos con gran precisión.   —–>>>  

El dispositivo comenzó a desarrollarse hace unos cuatro años, y ha costado -al menos oficialmente- 21 millones de dólares. Como ocurre a menudo, DARPA ha contratado a otras empresas para que creen el aparato. En este caso, la responsabilidad de poner en marcha HELLADS ha sido el contratista Weaponeer Textron. Entre las características más sobresalientes de este láser se destacan su gran potencia -unos 150 kilowatt (kW)- y su pequeño tamaño. En efecto, el dispositivo no es más grande que el refrigerador de tu casa, lo que permite montarlo prácticamente sobre cualquier vehículo. De hecho, DARPA piensa usarlo a bordo de aviones. Si todo sale como creen en la Agencia de Proyectos de Investigación de Defensa Avanzada del Pentágono, los combates aéreos del futuro se parecerán a algunas escenas de batallas que hemos visto en las películas de la saga Star Wars.

Su pequeño tamaño le permite ser montado a bordo de un jet militar, desde donde podrá dispararse contra otros aviones, blancos en tierra o utilizarse para derribar misiles enemigos que se aproximen con malas intenciones. El equipo completo pesa unos 750 kilogramos. Puede parecer mucho, pero es bastante menos de lo que pesan otros láseres similares. Esta reducción significativa en su peso se debe a que los ingenieros deWeaponeer Textron combinaron en HELLADS un láser de estado sólido con uno de estado líquido. En general, los láseres de estado sólido son pequeños pero deben ser disparados con intervalos para evitar su sobrecalentamiento. En cambio, los que basan su funcionamiento en un líquido pueden disparar de forma continua, pero requieren de grandes y complejos equipos de refrigeración para no derretirse -literalmente- mientras disparan. En DARPA aseguran que HELLADS posee lo mejor de ambos mundos, y pesa “un orden de magnitud menos” de lo que pesaría un láser de estado sólido equivalente.

El director del proyecto, Don Woodbury, dice que el secreto del éxito de HALLADS se debe a una inteligente “combinación de la alta energía de un láser de estado sólido con el manejo térmico propio de los láser de estado líquido”. El desarrollo del láser, cuyo acrónimo en ingles significa algo así como “el arma infernal”, comenzó en 2004 con un prototipo de una potencia de 1 kW. En 2006 se construyó una segunda versión más poderosa, de 15 kW. La ultima versión del juguete puede emitir rayos de luz coherente con una potencia de 150 kW. Los analistas militares aseguran que es lo suficientemente potente como para confiarle la delicada tarea de derribar misiles enemigos.

DARPA piensa usarlo a bordo de aviones.

Otros, sin embargo, se permiten ser un poco menos optimistas. Phil Coyle, del Center for Defense Information, no está demasiado convencido sobre la efectividad de este tipo de armas. No es que un láser de semejante potencia no sea un logro impresionante o que no tenga la capacidad de derretir un misil. Pero “una cosa es disparar a un blanco fijo, en un campo de pruebas, y otra muy diferente es lograr enfocar un punto determinado sobre un misil que se mueve a gran velocidad. Esto último es equivalente a tratar de encender leña húmeda con un fósforo”, dice. Puede que  Coyle tenga razón. HELLADS es impresionante, pero quizás a la hora de utilizarlo en el campo de batalla resulte un fracaso.¿Que pasaría si, sabiendo que EE.UU. posee un láser como esta, el enemigo cubre sus misiles con una pintura reflectante? Como ocurre a menudo, las cosas “en el mundo real” pueden ser bastante diferentes a lo que parecen en el tablero de dibujo de un ingeniero. Se requiere una gran dosis de “magia informática” para mantener enfocado un láser que se mueve a Match 2 o 3 sobre un pequeño y escurridizo blanco que se acerca zigzagueando a una velocidad similar. Sin embargo, en DARPA están felices con HELLADS. El tiempo dirá si se trata solamente de otro artilugio loco creado por la agencia, o se convierte en un instrumento de destrucción más de la caja de Pandora que atesora el ejército.

One autonomous vehicle program stands out above all others worldwide – the DARPA sponsored series of robotic vehicle demonstration programs which award million dollar prizes to winners. DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is operating under a mandate from Congress to have one-third of all military trucks capable of unmanned operation by 2015. DARPA has previously been responsible for starting the Internet, termed the ARPANET originally, and for the creation of unmanned aircraft used in war zones. DARPA’S 2005 Grand Challenge competition produced 23 finalists for an autonomous driven vehicle to cover a 132 mile, six hour plus, course across the desert. Five teams completed the course, with the winner being a team from Stanford University. Its latest Grand Challenge competition provides insights into advanced technologies similar to what’s needed for ITS-Parks.

The DARPA Urban Challenge Program – Some 89 different international teams signed up to participate in that recent competition; whittled the number of competitors down to 25 for a national elimination test; and had 11 teams participate in the final event (including two from Germany), with six completing the course. The course was 2.8 miles long and required each vehicle to successfully complete a series of urban related tests. A General Motors and Carnegie Mellon SUV named “Boss” won the competition.

Varsha Sadekar, GM’s program manager, made the following remarks about the significance of the program: “For us at GM, the Urban Challenge is much more than an exercise of creativity. When we look at Boss we are seeing the future of the automobile. Autonomous driving is not a technology for our children’s children – it’s a reality that will, at least in part, be reflected in our own lives in the near future.” He went on to mention a number of technologies used in Boss that are already available on some GM vehicles:

• OnStar, GM’s GPS based satellite positioning capabilities for navigation assistance
• Adaptive cruise control – The driver sets his desired speed like a conventional cruise control system, and also sets desired headway spacing to the car ahead. A radar or laser based sensor senses the intervening space and accelerates or brakes the car to maintain the desired gap
• StabiliTrak uses sensors to detect the difference between the steering wheel angle and the direction you’re actually turning and, depending on the situation, applies quick, precise force to the appropriate brakes to help the driver control the vehicle’s direction to keep it on course
• Lane departure warning -.The lane departure system uses a camera located between the inside rearview mirror and the windshield to detect lane markings on the road and alert drivers when they inadvertently stray from the lane.
• Side blind zone alert – Radar sensors warn a driver about to change lanes if another vehicle is in the driver’s blind spot.

The next part of this post will cover the nature of the parking portion of the Urban Challenge.  Under Rules, and Technical Evaluation Criteria, were included requirements for parking, lane following and car following, all of which are needed for ITS-Park future success.

Today’s post is about the artificial hand the i-limb.  This product has become so lifelike its amazing. People are now able to control the limb almost as though it were the real deal, with far less wires and far less problems.  Also the hands articulation is top notch allowing for all sorts of normal movements that previous claw type artificial limbs could only dream of achieving.  This product is incredibly expensive however, and as far as I’ve found is basically limited to military uses.  I did read that the limb had to be toned down due to it being far to strong.  Pretty cool eh?  The company that makes it is Touch Bionics which looks like its based out of Spain,  I have added their website to the links on the side mostly just cause its so awesome.  Check out some www.youtube.com videos of this thing in action!!! Also their living skin products are amazing as well.  The stuff of sci-fi movies come to life, this company is far ahead in cutting edge technology.

Check out the youtube video here :

Some other advances have come in the shape of artificial skin.  This skin which fits over the prosthetic looks an feels and acts like real skin.  Its pretty incredible to see.  Take a look below at this picture

Look at the Darpa Artifical arm with skin!

All in all I’d say the future of bionic limbs is coming along swimmingly.  I’m curious to see  if advanced technology plus a competitive market will lower the prices on these guys.  Hopefully they can work on some of the articulation of the thumbs and some of the neurological processing.  This company has developed a wheel chair that can be controlled by thoughts:

Also seems pretty cool.

Here’s an interesting schematic on how bionic limbs work.  They don’t look to pretty just yet huh?

A company in germany known as Fiesto-AG have developed this arm which works using 33 artificial muscles and actual metalic articulated bones.  The muscles are pneumatically controlled.  Looks pretty awesome right?  Still needs some kinks worked out to get the arm to have the same type of motion as a real arm.  I think were looking at a few years but then bionic arms here we come!!

Global treaty could ban file-sharers from Internet after ‘three strikes’
File-sharers could be jailed under proposed ACTA provisions

Raw Story
November 4, 2009

Leaked details of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated in secret by most of the world’s largest economies suggest Internet file-sharers could be blocked from accessing the Internet if they are repeatedly accused of sharing copyrighted material, say media and digital-rights watchdogs.

“The provisions would pave the way for a globalized three-strikes and you’re out system,” Geist blogged Wednesday, referring to a proposal from copyright holders to have Internet service providers cut off service to anyone accused at least three times of illegally sharing copyrighted material.

http://jibble.org/shakespeare/

Magic Lantern a candle in the wind

Have to abuse a few more metaphores

Seth Wisely said: citizens ought spook spooks’ masters

The Samara Micro-Air-Vehicle is a product of over three years of work at the University of Maryland’s Aerospace Engineering Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory. The Samara is an applicant in the DARPA nano air vehicle program. Unlike the ornithopter we saw in July, this vehicle uses only one wing for flight. A small propeller on a rod mounted perpendicular to the wing provides rotation. The pitch of the wing is changed to climb, descend, or hover.

You can see a video of the flight tests after the break. The sound the Samara makes reminds us of classic alien invasion movies and the use of Verdi’s Requiem for the background music during flight tests (2:43) seems quite fitting. At about 5:45 there is some on board video footage that is just a blur of the room spinning by. This would be much more useful if a few frames per second were snapped at exactly the same point in the vehicles rotation.

[Thanks Waggy]

A friend just sent me the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Network Challenge and I love it!  A $40,000 cash prize will be awarded to the first entrant to submit the latitude and longitude of all ten balloons.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads.

How to compete:

1. Register on this web site on December 1, 2009   http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/ 
2. Find other people interested in helping you solve the DARPA Network Challenge.
3. Starting December 5, submit locations to the web site immediately after you find them.
4. For updates, follow us on Twitter  http://twitter.com/DARPA_News 

Schedule:

Announcement October 29, 2009

Registration Opens December 1, 2009

Balloons Launched December 5, 2009

Submission Deadline December 14, 2009

Additional information:

DARPA Network Challenge Website: http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/ contains latest rules and other links

DO YOU KNOW ABOUT GOVERNMENT INNOVATIONS IN THE WEB 2.0 WORLD ?

Most “conspiracy” researchers like myself have found that the last 200 years of history prove an undeniable case for the emergence of a One World System in our lifetimes run by the Rothschild banking establishment and founded on the traditions of the Talmud. Hoax or not, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a tangible demonstration of the Plan for global domination. The evidence is all around us, just as the evidence for the destruction on 9-11 points to Israel and the complicity of high-ranking public officials. The publications from the Club of Rome likewise read like “progress reports” for the Protocols agenda. For all of ‘us’ who will be subject to this agenda, and yet remain outside of the zones of open hostility, day-to-day life has been compared to the hapless frog in a slow-to-boil pot; each day a little more hot and a little less free.
   The peculiar directions of science and medical research over the last century are incredibly revealing in the amount of comprehension attained in biological control and we are left to guess at how much of each day’s “measure” is serving this Grand Design. I started this blog in July09 in the midst of a “pandemic” that is not happening because of a deep foreboding that the Controls being sought are nearly in hand. There is no rational/logical explanation for things like mandatory vaccines, forced healthcare, carbon-footprint permits and the like when it flies in the face of experiential science. What else can it be but the consolidation of the Plan? Every article here in my blog is telling an aspect of this story; One story about One World, where everything coalesces under the rulership of an earthy oligarchy. Once they rule you, they own you, and then they will create or annihilate you as they see fit. There is no future but Their future and ‘we’ are to be made less than fully human to eliminate their competition. It’s an old ‘conquerors’ trick, once merely a device of speech and record-keeping to alter social perceptions but today achievable in physical fact.  How will we be ‘less than human’ –perhaps by becoming programmable DNA computers. Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing

DARPA has been working on an artificial intelligence ‘interface’ for untold years, calling it the “Golem Project” in respect of the Talmudic tradition. I don’t know how many of the visible aspects of DARPA’s Golem program apply to its greater activity, but in essence I assume that all of it does. The impetus in DNA computing, according to Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute speaking in 2003, is to find a “molecule that can recognize, cut and join DNA sequences in specific ways”, what he suggests will be “designer enzymes…that can do things and go to places that silicon can’t –such as inside our cells to make and control drugs.” http://www.usc.edu/dept/molecular-science/index.html . Phage and virus already do this naturally –enter our cells and install a program– so the question is begging about the ability of virus-like ‘nano-machines’ harnessed for the activity of synthesizing specific enzymes to run an assembly program. If you were going to ‘assemble’ a DNA computer capable of replicating and replacing its own parts, wouldn’t the ideal machine have an immortal and unlimited source of those parts? Cancer cells are just such an immortal cellular anomaly. A pharmaceutical-generating program that can control cancer cells in the self-performance of chemotherapy has the capacity I would think of becoming an immortal DNA computer, capable of replacing itself with endless ‘perfect copies’ while keeping the overproduction of those cells in check. 

Such thoughts account for the intentional induction of cancer-causing substances today. Cancer cells may become the needed raw material for constructing immortal bio-bot computers. The staggering potential of DNA computing forecast by Leonard Adleman is that “One gram of DNA can store as much information as a trillion compact discs”. “What’s more”, states the text of the USC webpages above, “myriad DNA molecules can examine every possible [pathway] at once, rather than one at a time as in a conventional computer”. With this much incredible promise, is it likely that the DNA computing science would take a backseat? If I’m on the right track with this projection, a lot of agendas appear to be satisfied. I’m over my head here, but too intrigued not to steer for personally unchartered waters. Explanations for the presence of sophisticated and nano-sized materials in food, vaccines and chemtrails are not forthcoming and yet they are turning up in products of every description. At the atomic level, organic, inorganic and cellular materials have new and different properties, most informative of which comes from electrochemical experiments.  As in the past, this new technical platform will be maximally spun-off and exploited in some ultimate pursuit of global mastery.

In response to David A. Patterson’s commentary directed at me in the HBR debate: Is the U.S. Killing Its Innovation Machine? He is Pardee Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. This blog debate is in response to his article: Revamping DARPA Is Vital to Preserving the U.S. Lead in IT.

My response to professor Patterson:

Resistance to change, fear of criticism, spinning results, avoiding accountability, clinging to past models — these are all symptoms commonly found in failing institutions. I wish I could claim to be the first to make such an observation, but actually the same can be found in the writings of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. among many others.

Actually my personal view is closer to my friend who sadly passed this past year who was deeply involved in tech transfer and commercialization at Berkeley for many years. Jay Morrison quite often shared his frustrations with me on just how challenging his job was with tech transfer at Berkeley, even if his professional passion and deep love of his community provided a regional bias.

In our many communications, I never recall Jay claiming that start-ups were natural at UCB…, rather we talked about heavy lifting — nor has it been in the few I reviewed at UCB — or the thousands of cases I have observed worldwide, to include Google. One thing nature does not have is self-serving bureaucracies, although certainly the actors are conflicted… although insufficiently evolved to claim otherwise.

It requires no courage to promote the university system, or to call for more R&D– certainly not here, nor does it lead to a better system. I certainly gain nothing from it. The power of universities in our society is indeed impressive, which is why so few dare cast a deserved stone on the pristine surface of academia. Tough love is an accurate description of my intent and role. I believe strongly in learning– institutions should (must) earn their credibility on a case by case basis– not just from peers, but those who support them. I have audited too many institutions for blind admiration, and consumed far too many dissertations with wildly inconsistent levels of quality awarded with the same degree, yet am still often impressed and amazed at the quality of a few.

I am free from both emotional and career bias, so on this topic I am more credible than a product of a university, and certainly any official.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time reviewing Peter Drucker’s work in celebration of his life and contributions, having shared with my own personal network that we could have well used his advice and thought leadership over the past few years.

Rather than provide quotes, I would invite others to revisit his work as well– for your own learning opportunity– I share his view on life long learning rather than a one time event that lasts a lifetime… look closely at his observations on decentralization, bureaucracy, measurement, and accountability. It might also be worthwhile to review his and many other’s work on the natural inclination of entrenched organizations and cultures to protect the past rather than create the future.

My opinion based on thousands of cases in one of the more active careers in small and emerging businesses, to include counseling many university leaders on same, is to embrace diversity and competition. Small independent labs free from conflict, bureaucracy, and bias are simply that — they provide an advantage in some technologies that we would be foolhardy to ignore, particularly today with networked computing. Small and emerging business create most of the jobs, most of the wealth, and the vast majority of competition. Universities are not at all effective at creating businesses. Many are tragic. Too claim otherwise simply ignores an enormous wealth of brutally earned truth. Entrepreneurs deserve much better.

My own Kyield emerged from a self-funded lab, and served hundreds of university thought leaders who benefited from our pro-bono work and contributions, including the editor of this publication (MM: HBR — speaking of late ’90s) and most others worldwide. Would you have me be dishonest in what we learned? What purpose would that serve? What religion? What master if not the truth?

I’ll stand firmly by my position, even if (especially when) surrounded by those with direct conflicts of interest, yet still provided the podium — precisely how this debate was born, which threatens the very engine that supports governments and universities.

cnet:

What if the wisdom of Web could be yours, without having to read through it one page at a time? That’s what the military wants.

DARPA has hired a company to develop a reading machine to reduce the gap between the ever increasing mountain of digitized text and the intelligence community’s insatiable appetite for data input.

BBN Technologies was awarded the $29.7 million contract to develop a universal text engine capable of capturing knowledge from written matter and rendering it into a format that artificial intelligence systems (AI) and human analysts can work with. (PDF)

The military will use the Machine Reading Program, as it’s officially called, to automatically monitor the technological and political activities of nation states and transnational organizations-which could mean everything from al-Qaeda to the U.N.

To pull it off, BBN will “develop techniques that can generalize across the linguistic structure and content of diverse documents to extract relations and axioms directly from text rather than relying on a knowledge engineer to encode such information.”

“The machine reading system that DARPA envisions is not evolutionary, but revolutionary,” said BBN Technologies VP Prem Natarajan. “Such a system could eliminate many of the impediments to stability that our military faces such as a lack of understanding of local customs, and give us the ability to assess global technology developments continuously.”

However, BBN also expects the program to enable a plethora of new civilian applications, everything from intelligent bots to personal tutors. The system could provide unprecedented access and automated analysis of the world’s libraries, allowing for vastly expanded cultural awareness and historical research, according to the Cambridge, Mass.-based company.

BBN already offers a broadcast monitoring system that automatically transcribes real-time audio stream and translates it into English, creating a continuously updated, searchable archive of international television broadcasts.

“Imagine if the Reading System could be applied to scouring the World Wide Web for good deals on cars one time, and then applied to integrating new findings in genetics to an automated theory of disease,” DARPA posits in its bid solicitation.

It should also be able to crank out one a heck of a term paper.

Professor David Patterson from UC Berkeley enters the HBR debate on U.S. competitiveness: Revamping DARPA is vital to Preserving the U.S. Lead in IT.

My comment on the blog:

David,

I appreciate your frustration, having heard much the same from many.

However, I would suggest that we have larger issues at work here than just failed tweaking of the DARPA model.

Our economy is suffering not from insufficient centralization, but rather lack of diversity. While I am one that agrees that DARPA can and should play an important role, it is a very minor issue in the grand scheme of things.

What we need is an entirely new research model that is less dependent upon DoD funding, and frankly less dependent upon universities and federal labs. Many if not most of the essential innovations that can benefit society I see on the horizon would be best served by smaller independent labs free from institutional conflicts.

The world has changed dramatically since DARPA was envisioned. Given the systemic failure all around us, we should be debating the fundamentals of the systems, and designing all new models tailored to the current environment.

Mark Montgomery
Founder & CEO
Kyield

Gene Steinberg and David Biedny celebrate the life of Fortean/science-fiction writer Mac Tonnies on the November 1st, 2009 Paracast with guests Greg Bishop, Patrick Huyghe, Paul Kimball and Nick Redfern, people who were close friends or worked with Tonnies on various projects.

A very touching send-off for Tonnies.

Somehow, I have to think that in the many Universes of the Multi-verse, Mac got up that Monday morning as normal and went to work as if nothing happened, still thinking about publishing his book.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/paranormal/www.theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_091101.mp3

___

Western militaries have been searching for a technological edge against whatever enemy-of-the-decade we happen to be fighting against for the past sixty-five years. Power supplies happen to be part of that equation since if western militaries can lower the incidences of refueling airborn and ground fighting machines, that means they can spend more time fighting the ‘enemy.’

Enter Project Kugelblitz.

The announcement came in May 2006 that – after decades of secretly investigating UFOs – the Ministry of Defence had come to the conclusion that aliens were not visiting Britain. The MoD’s claims were revealed within the pages of a formerly classified document – entitled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region, and code-named Project Condign – that had been comm­issioned in 1996 and was completed in February 2000.

Released under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act thanks specifically to the work of FT contributor Dr David Clarke and UFO researcher Gary Anthony, the 465-page document demonstrated how air defence experts had concluded that UFO sightings were probably the result of “natural, but relatively rare phenomena” such as ball lightning and atmospheric plasmas. UFOs, wrote the still-unknown author of the MoD’s report, were “of no defence significance”.

Inevitably, many UFO investigators claimed that the MoD’s report was merely a ruse to hide its secret know­ledge of alien encounters, crashed UFOs, and high-level X-Files-type conspiracies. And although the Government firmly denied such claims, the report did reveal a number of significant conclus­ions of a genuinely intriguing nature.

The atmospheric plasmas which were believed to be the cause of so many UFO reports were “still barely understood”, said the MoD, and the magnetic and electric fields that eman­ated from plasmas could adversely affect the human nervous system. And that was not all. Clarke and Anthony revealed that “Volume 3 of the report refers to research and studies carried out in a number of foreign nations into UAPs [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena], atmospheric plasmas, and their potent­ial military applications.”

That such research was of interest to the MoD is demonstrated in a Loose Minute of 4 December 2000 called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) – DI55 Report, which reveals: “DG(R&T) [Director-General, Research & Tech­nology] will be interested in those phen­omena associated with plasma form­ations, which have potential applic­ations to novel weapon technology.”

This was further borne out in an article on Condign written by James Randerson and published in the Guardian on 22 February 2007 (“Could we have hitched a ride on UFOs?”). It stated in part: “According to a former MoD intelligence analyst who asked not be named, the MoD was paranoid in the late 1980s that the Soviet Union had developed technology that went beyond western knowledge of physics. ‘For many years we were very concerned that in some areas the Russians had a handle on physics that we hadn’t at all. We just basically didn’t know the basics they were working from,’ he said. ‘We did encourage our scientists not to think that we in the West knew everything there was to be known.’”

And it wasn’t just the British Ministry of Defence and the Russians who recog­nised the potential military spin-offs that both plasmas and ball lightning offered – if they could be understood and harnessed, of course. Official documentation that has surfaced in the United States reveals that only two years after pilot Kenneth Arnold’s now-historic UFO encounter over the Cascade Mountains, Washington State, on 24 June 1947, the US military secretly began looking at ways to exploit such phenomena.

While the US Air Force was busying itself trying to determine whether UFOs were alien spacecraft, Soviet inventions, or even the work of an ultra-secret domestic project, the US Department of Commerce was taking a distinctly different approach. In its search for answers to the UFO puzzle, the DoC was focusing much of its attention on one of the most mystifying and controversial of all fortean phenomena: ball lightning.

A technical report, Project Grudge, published in 1949 by the Air Force’s UFO investigative unit detailed the findings of the DoC’s Weather Bureau with respect to ball lightning, which it believed was connected to normal lightning and electrical discharge. The phenomenon, said the DoC, was “spherical, roughly globular, egg-shaped, or pear-shaped; many times with projecting streamers; or flame-like irregular ‘masses of light’. Luminous in appearance, described in individual cases by different colours but mostly reported as deep red and often as glaring white.”

The Weather Bureau’s study added: “Some of the cases of ‘ball lightning’ observed have displayed excrescences of the appearance of little flames emanating from the main body of the luminous mass, or luminous streamers have developed from it and propagated slant-wise toward the ground… In rare instances, it has been reported that the luminous body may break up into a number of smaller balls which may appear to fall towards the earth like a rain of sparks. It has even been reported that the ball has suddenly ejected a whole bundle of many luminous, radiating streamers toward the earth, and then disapp­eared. There have been reports by observers of ‘ball lightning’ to the effect that the phenomenon appeared to float through a room or other space for a brief interval of time without making contact with or being attracted by objects.”

Possibly unknown outside of official circles – until I made the discovery at the US National Archives, Maryland, two years ago – is the fact that a complete copy of the Air Force’s Project Grudge document was, somewhat surprisingly, shared with US Army personnel at the Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, in early 1950.

Even more surprising is a curiously-worded entry contained in the covering letter from the Air Force to Edgewood staff that accompanied the Grudge report: “You are aware we have already discussed with Mr Clapp the theor­etical incendiary applications of Ball-Lightening [sic] that might be useful to the several German projects at Kirtland. Useful data should be routed to Mr Clapp through this office.”

Precisely who the mysterious Mr Clapp was, I have thus far been unable to determine; however, the fact that he is described as ‘Mr’ is a strong indication that he was not a member of the military. ‘Kirtland’ can only be a reference to Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. Named in 1942 after Roy C Kirtland – the oldest military pilot in the Air Corps – the base is located in the southeast quadrant of Albuquerque, New Mexico, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport airport, and employs over 23,000 people. Moreover, Kirtland AFB has been the site of numerous mystifying UFO incidents since the late 1940s.

As for the reference to “the several German projects” apparently in place at Kirtland at the time, this is almost certainly related to the US Government’s controversial Operation Paperclip which, in the post-World War II era, saw countless German scientists – some of whom were Nazis, and many of whom were engaged in advanced aerospace research – secretly offered employment in the US, and particularly at military install­ations in New Mexico, such as the White Sands Proving Ground.

HARNESS-CAVALIER
So, can we assume from the hints contained in this letter that by early 1950 some sort of combined Army-Air Force project, or at the very least, an exchange of information, was underway at Edgewood Arsenal – possibly working in tandem with a similar project at Kirtland Air Force Base – to try to understand and harness the power of ball lightning?

The answer would appear to be yes. Documentation has disclosed the identity of a project nicknamed Harness-Cavalier, the purpose of which was indeed to understand and capitalise on the true nature of ball lightning, and which, from 1950 to at least the mid-1960s utilised the skills of per­sonnel from Edgewood Arsenal, Kirtland Air Force Base, and also Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.

Via the Freedom of Information Act, a whole host of documents from the files of Harness-Cavalier – now numbering more than 120 – have surfaced, demonstrating that those attached to the project were kept well-informed of any and all developments in the field of ball lightning, and part­icularly how it might be exploited militarily.

Such documentation includes: “Theory of the Lightning Ball and its Application to the Atmospheric Phenomenon Called ‘Flying Saucers”, written by Carl Benadicks in 1954; “Ball Lightning: A Survey”, prepared by one JR McNally for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee (year unknown); DV Ritchie’s “Reds May Use Lightning as a Weapon”, which appeared in Missiles and Rockets in August 1959; and “An Experimental and Theoretical Program to Investigate the Feasibility of Confining Plasma in Free Space by Radar Beams”, which was written by CM Haaland in 1960 for the Armour Research Foundation, Illinois Institute of Technology.

The strongest evidence that confirms Edgewood Arsenal’s deep interest in the potential use of ball lightning on the battle­field can be found in a December 1965 document entitled “Survey of Kugelblitz Theories for Electromagnetic Incendiaries”. Written by WB Lyttle and CE Wilson, the document was prepared under contract for the US Army’s New Concepts Division/ Special Projects at Edgewood.

This is totally fascinating in that this explains quite a bit of why the US military kept the stories of ‘UFOs’ alive and were able to keep the prying eyes of the public away from their various research projects.

Exploring ‘ball-lightning’ and the use thereof would solve quite a lot of the problems of refueling fighters and other esoteric weaponry DARPA could dream up to kill people.

Tesla  invented the concept himself one hundred years ago when he imagined transferring artificial electrical ‘ball lightning’ from transfer station to transfer station around the world (spawning a theory about the 1908 Tunguska, Siberia explosion).

No wires or cables required. A completely ‘wireless’ network world-wide.

For free.

We don’t know for sure if the Pentagon has this ability and we only have people like Andrew D. Basiago’s claims they do, but imagine the implications!

Project Kugelblitz: Evidence that the US military planned to harness the power of ball lightning

___

Una agencia de defensa de EEUU tiene previsto tenerla operativa en 2013

La TTO(Tactical Technology Office) de la DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), una agencia de defensa estadounidense, estudia el desarrollo de la tecnología que permita que en 2012 o 2013 ya exista la posibilidad de establecer conexiones estables de banda ancha entre naves espaciales en órbitas bajas y tierra firme. Quieren además que sean conexiones de baja latencia y de al menos 100Mbps, para poder aplicarlas a telemetría o control en tiempo real. Por Rubén Caro.

Internet es un invento magnífico. Una inabarcable inmensidad de conexiones que llega aparentemente a todas partes. Una vasta red descentralizada en la se puede dejar un paquete de datos con la dirección del destinatario, y él solito encuentra su camino, pasando a través de una infinidad de nodos y encrucijadas. Es algo que damos por hecho, pero bien pensado es bastante impresionante.

Este proceso se lleva a cabo usando unos protocolos, unos convenios de comunicación, llamados [TCP/IP]urblank:http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). Esos protocolos definen, por ejemplo, cómo debe tratarse la información de una web, o qué forma deben tener los datos de un email. Estos protocolos son respetados por todos los nodos de la red para hacer posible la comunicación.

Los nodos intermedios en la red redirigen automáticamente los paquetes de datos hacia el siguiente nodo sucesivamente, hasta que éstos llegan a su destino. Todo eso pasa en fracciones de segundo, por que las conexiones entre nodos están hechas con cableado de cobre y con fibra óptica. La señal se propaga con gran rapidez y sin interferencias. Entonces se pueden establecer conexiones permanentes en las que la ruta a seguir por los datos se calcula sólo una vez. Después, todos los datos son enviados por esa misma ruta mucho más rápido, sin necesidad de recalcular el camino cada vez.

Internet sin cableado a 500km de altura

En la TTO(Tactical Technology Office) de la DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), una agencia de defensa estadounidense, se han propuesto conseguir que internet viaje también por el espacio, y no sólo por cables de fibra óptica enterrados por todo el planeta. La finalidad según ellos es hacer posible el intercambio de datos científicos de telemetría y el control en tiempo real de misiones de investigación. Evidentemente hay que añadir usos militares no mencionables públicamente.

Pretenden que en el año 2012 o 2013 ya esté operativa la nueva tecnología, que deberá ser capaz de permitir conexiones estables y persistentes entre nodos en tierra y nodos situados en órbitas bajas. En esas órbitas, a unos 500km de altura, debe conseguirse una cobertura mínima del 95% en cualquier punto, incluyendo los polos, y de manera continua. “Casi las 24 horas del día, 7 días a la semana”, según menciona el documento que han hecho público. Deberá además ser capaz de transmitir gran cantidad de datos a gran velocidad, mínimo de 100Mpbs, para hacer posible su aplicación en tareas de precisión.

Los retos son las distancias y las interrupciones

Los principales problemas que deben superar son relativos a la latencia, el tiempo que tarda en transmitirse la información tratándose de distancias tan grandes, y a las interferencias y posible pérdida de datos. Por eso mismo, debe implementarse una red capaz de seguir funcionando aunque la conexión se retrase o no se mantenga de forma continua. Ya sea por causa de la distancia entre nodos, una avería temporal, interferencias meteorológicas o de cualquier otro tipo, o como no, ataques militares. Eso no importa, la red debe seguir funcionando.

Bautizadas como redes DTN (Delay-tolerant networks, o también Disruption-tolerant networks) por la propia DARPA, estas usan protocolos pensados para no depender de la continuidad de la conexión. Los datos se fragmentan en paquetes independientes, que una vez enviados pueden tomar caminos distintos en la red. Si falla un nodo de la red, los paquetes de datos deben ser redirigidos hacia otro nodo. Incluso en casos extremos se puede usar la redundancia , es decir, enviar varias copias de los mismos datos por caminos distintos para asegurarse de que llegarán al destino.

Un hito en la historia de internet

Los nodos serán pequeños satélites, previsiblemente geoestacionarios (que tienen una posición fija respecto a un punto de la superficie del planeta) y estarán distribuidos uniformemente por el globo, incluso en los polos. Aún no están determinadas las características técnicas definitivas, o el coste, pero supondrán un hito importante en la historia de internet.

Y es que si la propuesta sigue adelante y se lleva a buen término, será la primera vez que se consiga establecer una red de telecomunicaciones de semejantes prestaciones sin el uso de conexiones cableadas. Y además en órbita. Podría suponer la base de la tecnología que permitirá la conexión interplanetaria en el futuro, cuando la humanidad empiece a establecerse fuera de la Tierra. De momento sólo es eso, una propuesta.

Fuente: Tendencias21. Se prepara la internet del espacio