Phillip Ball questions technology guru Ray Kurzweil about his argument that future warfare will be dominated by cyberwarfare and military robots.

A look at how military robots could change the nature of warfare. One expert argues that the introduction of fighting robots would be "on the short list" of seminal events in all of military history right alongside the development of iron weapons, gunpowder, and the atomic bomb.

An advanced, general-purpose molecular manufacturing technology could have a significant destabilizing effect and lead to an international arms race; even a nuclear power might not be able to deter a nano power, concludes a preliminary study by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

Researchers at the University of Iowa are using artificial intelligence programs to create computer simulations of human soldiers to help test the performance of future U.S. Army combat systems.

Pentagon war planners have revised plans for potential wars on the Korean peninsula, in the Middle East and elsewhere based on assumptions that conflicts could be fought more quickly and with fewer troops than previously thought.

The battlefield of the future will be revolutionised by computing, robotics and biotechnology to create "killer insects" that can hunt down their prey in bunkers and caves and eat humans alive, experts say.

The U.S. Army is planning a transformation based on "Future Combat Systems." New technologies will include hybrid electric vehicles, robotics, lasers, mobile network communications, and an array of smart weapons and sensors based on enabling technologies such as micromechanical systems (MEMS), biotechnology and nanotechnology.

U.S. military planners and robot designers are developing the next-generation of military robots -- some of which could see action soon in Iraq -- by incorporating lessons from Afghanistan, where robots saw their first significant military action.

When even the infantry -- long characterized as "grunts" and "mud soldiers" -- is focused on moving digits, it is clear a major shift is underway in the way the U.S. military fights. What the Afghanistan conflict has brought home to the armed forces is how much the new way of war is built around an unprecedented dependence on information.

A powered exoskeleton could transform the average joe into a supersoldier.