Science & Tech

Nuclear Weapons Are Getting Less Predictable, and More Dangerous

Facing steerable ICBMs and smaller warheads, the Pentagon seeks better tracking as the White House pursues an unlikely arms-control treaty.

Science & Tech

The Bay Area’s Spy Camera Ban Is Only the Beginning

San Francisco just became the first city to ban use of facial recognition technology by government entities. Oakland may be next.

Science & Tech

Moscow to Weave AI Face Recognition into Its Urban Surveillance Net

City authorities say the planned system will have access to all 160,000 existing cameras.

Science & Tech

Engineers Pitch Clean-Energy Plants Along Border

A proposal imagines how building solar panels and wind turbines along the U.S.-Mexico border could unite calls for a Green New Deal and a border wall.

Science & Tech

Pentagon ‘Matchmakers’ Aim to Keep US Tech Firms from Taking Chinese Money

Defense officials hope to protect cutting-edge technologies by getting innovative firms funded by U.S.-friendly investors.

Science & Tech

The Push to ‘Predict’ Police Shootings

Tracking officers’ stress exposure and body-camera practices could help keep them from pulling the trigger.

Science & Tech

US Military Testing Whether Human Pilots Can Trust Robot Wingmen in a Dogfight

DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution program aims to find out — and so shape America’s future arsenal.

Science & Tech

The Pentagon Still Buys Software Like It's 1987

The Defense Innovation Board recently discovered that a 32-year-old report "pretty much said it all."

Science & Tech

Don’t Expect the US Military’s Next Fighter to Be Joint

While the Navy’s and Air Force’s next tactical jet might share some capabilities, a Navy official says, they won’t share an airframe.

Science & Tech

Robots and Lasers Are Bringing Shipbuilding into the Digital Age

Even decades-old aircraft carriers are being mapped onto digital models at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Science & Tech

DIU Is Helping the US Army Field More Backpack-Sized Drones

The Pentagon’s internal startup accelerator wants to get consumer quadcopters in the hands of soldiers in a matter of months, not years.

Science & Tech

US Drones May Soon Run on Open-Source Software

The Defense Innovation Unit is exploring whether a popular commercial platform could help the military keep up with the rapidly advancing drone industry.

Threats

Pentagon Warns Of China’s Rise in the Arctic, Missile Subs, Influence Operations

Annual "China Military Power" report notes that Beijing’s deterrence fleet is up to six ballistic missile subs.

Science & Tech

Instagram and Facebook Ban Far-Right Extremists

Alex Jones, Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan have all been removed from the platforms.

Science & Tech

Maduro’s Media Crackdown Fails as Protests Overwhelm Caracas

The blue armband uprising of Venezuelan soldiers shows that viral messaging remains the future of protest.

Science & Tech

Here's the US Navy’s Drone Tanker, on the Road

A test prototype of Boeing’s MQ-25 carrier-based refueling aircraft gets a ride to its test airfield.

Science & Tech

One Defense Agency is Building a Bot Army

And it's saving the department hundreds of thousands of work hours a year, a defense official said.