An interview with Peter Singer on the military robotic revolution and the ominous and little-discussed questions of this convergence. [More]
Indias Missile Defense: Changing the Nature of the Indo-Pakistani Conflict — Taylor Dinerman —The Space Review — Jan 25, 2009
India is considering developing a comprehensive missile defense system to protect itself from Pakistan. Taylor Dinerman describes the rationale behind that system and the role satellites might play. [More]
The latest U.S. nuclear showdown doesn't involve a foreign enemy. Instead it pits President Barack Obama against his Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and concerns the question of whether America needs a new generation of nuclear warheads. [More]
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century — Peter W. Singer —Brookings — Jan 25, 2009
Peter W. Singer discussed the ways in which robotics have and will change the face of war, as well as the larger implications of these revolutionary developments. [More]
President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon. [More]
Iran in Scramble for Fresh Uranium Supplies — Robin Pagnamenta, Michael Evans and Tony Halpin —The Times (UK) — Jan 23, 2009
Western powers believe that Iran is running short of yellow cake uranium, the raw material required to manufacture nuclear weapons, triggering an international race to prevent it from importing more. [More]
New ways are being developed to test how well machines can match aspects of human intelligence, including animated human faces, androids, a jazz improvization program, and military robots. [More]
Nathan Eagle, a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, in New Mexico, is launching a project similar to Amazon's Mechanical Turk but that distributes tasks via cell phones. The goal of his project, called txteagle, is to leverage an underused work force in some of the poorest parts of the world. [More]
NASA's plans for the mammoth Ares V rocket could do more than just launch new lunar landers and cargo to the moon. It could also haul massive telescopes that dwarf the Hubble Space Telescope or fling deep space probes on faster missions to the outer planets. [More]
9 Ways NASA Can Tackle Climate Change — William S. Marshall and James Clay Moltz —Scientific American — Jan 19, 2009
NASA could be one of the nation's most potent weapons in battling climate change. The space agency has conducted decades of research into weather, life-support systems and the atmospheres of other planets providing it with unique skills to address this problem. [More]