America’s House of Representatives proposed a new structure for the U.S. Space Force in what’s being called “the Starfleet amendment”. Space News reports: Before the House passed the so-called “Starfleet” amendment, Space Force officials had been internally debating a new rank structure to set the space branch apart from its parent service the U.S. Air Force. The amendment in the House…
Tag: air force
Facial Recognition Designed To Detect Around Face Masks Is Failing, Study Finds
Many facial recognition companies have claimed they can identify people with pinpoint accuracy even while they’re wearing face masks, but the latest results from a study show that the coverings are dramatically increasing error rates. CNET reports: In an update Tuesday, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology looked at 41 facial recognition algorithms submitted after the COVID-19 pandemic was…
AI thrashes human fighter pilot 5-0 in simulated F-16 dogfights
In the first contest of its kind, artificial intelligence has taken on a trained US Air Force pilot in a simulation of air-to-air combat. The AI defeated the human with ease, winning 5-0 Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2252760-ai-thrashes-human-fighter-pilot-5-0-in-simulated-f-16-dogfights/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
AI Claims ‘Flawless Victory’ Going Undefeated In Digital Dogfight With Human Fighter Pilot
“A simulated F-16 Viper fighter jet with an artificial intelligence-driven ‘pilot’ went undefeated in five rounds of mock air combat against an actual top Air Force fighter jockey today,” reports The Drive in an update to a story shared by Slashdot reader schwit1. From the report: The event was the culmination of an effort that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency…
Six things to know about NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter
When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida later this summer, an innovative experiment will ride along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-nasa-ingenuity-mars-helicopter.html…
Perseverance, newest Mars rover, to launch July 30
NASA is targeting 7:50 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 30, 2020, for the launch of its Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-launch-newest-mars-rover-perseverance-july30-2020…
How a Chinese Agent Used LinkedIn to ‘Lure’ American Targets
Today the BBC told the story of Jun Wei Yeo, “an ambitious and freshly enrolled Singaporean PhD student” who was gradually recruited by Chinese intelligence. Yeo “would end up using the professional networking website LinkedIn, a fake consulting company and cover as a curious academic to lure in American targets.”
Some of the targets that Yeo found by trawling through LinkedIn were…
‘If War Breaks Out on Top of the World’
The United States Air Force’s elite “PJ” pararescue units and Alaska National Guard units “are ready to respond if war breaks out on top of the world,” reports a new article in Popular Mechanics: With much of the ice cap melted, the Arctic is teeming with competitive activity because it’s no longer an impenetrable land of glaciers — void of economic…
Six things to know about the Ingenuity Mars helicopter
When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida later this summer, an innovative experiment will ride along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-ingenuity-mars-helicopter.html…
The F-16’s Replacement Won’t Have a Pilot At All
“The next combat aircraft to enter the U.S. Air Force inventory will not be a manned sixth-generation fighter or even the Northrop Grumman B-21,” reports Aviation Week. “By fiscal 2023, the Air Force expects to deliver the first operational versions of a new unmanned aircraft system (UAS) called Skyborg, a provocative portmanteau blending the medium of flight with the contraction for…