7 ambitious DARPA projects that will help out the military of the future

Thanks to its multibillion dollar annual budget and access to some of the sharpest minds around, few research labs could dream of having the resources that DARPA enjoys.

Short for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA is the wing of the U.S. Department of Defense that’s responsible for developing emerging technologies for military use. With everything from brain implants to robo-suits, the agency trying is hardest to make future tech a 2018 reality — and to do it sooner than those who would seek to use that technology against the United States.

Here are seven of the most attention-grabbing DARPA research projects we know about. (And if these are the ones they’ve publicly announced, just think about the ones we don’t yet know of!)

Soft Exoskeletons

When people talk about the future of warfare they often discuss using technologies such as drones or robots as a replacement for human troops on the ground. The distinction doesn’t have to be quite so binary, though. Cutting edge technologies can also be used to “supercharge” troops by giving humans enhanced abilities, including faster speeds and greater strength.

Working with researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, DARPA’s Soft Exosuit is a lightweight skeleton frame for soldiers which can augment its wearer’s strength and endurance; using in-built sensors and a micro-computer to intelligently match the requirements of its user.

Implantable health trackers

Your body offers you all kinds of feedback about how you are faring when it comes to health. However, a DARPA project created in association with the U.S. Army Research Office promises to take this to the next level — courtesy of tissue-integrated biosensor technology.

The idea is to implant tiny soft hydrogel-based sensors under the skin, and use them to measure biomarkers related to oxygen, glucose, lactate, urea, and ion levels. These sensors could stay in the body for up to two years, and read out information direct to connected devices like smartphones. A consumer-facing version of the same technology could one day help individuals manage chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Self-guiding bullets

A sniper bullet that changes trajectory after its been fired sounds totally like the stuff of science fiction. However, it describes a real life project being carried out by DARPA which could soon nullify misfiring problems related to weather conditions, wind or plain old shooter errors.

EXACTO ammunition uses an in-built guidance system to keep it on target. Sadly, the whole “secret government project” thing means that specifics about how the guidance system works are classified.

Submarine-hunting drone

DARPA

When you think of a drone, you probably picture the kind of unmanned aerial quadcopter that Amazon could one day use to deliver packages. DARPA has different ideas, though. It has created a 140-ton autonomous drone boat with the goal of tracking enemy submarines. It could also be used for detecting mines in the open ocean.

DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel can continuously operate for 60-90 days with no human intervention necessary. Following successful sea trials, the “Sea Hunter” prototype is now being further developed under the banner of the Office of Naval Research.

Giant airships

Talking of giant vehicles, DARPA’s Walrus project set out to create an airship able to haul a payload of 500-1,000 tons (around 1-2 million pounds) up to 12,000 nautical miles in less than a week. Such a vehicle would be immensely useful for quickly deploying large numbers of troops, complete with all their gear and other equipment.

Sadly, the Walrus project seems like it will never get off the ground. But DARPA continues to investigate various Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft (HULA) initiatives.

Robot insect spies

Years of exposure to spy movies has likely led our enemies to be suspicious of suave tuxedo-wearing types eavesdropping in the background. You know what could get around that? Cyborg insect spies.

A variety of different insects have been explored as part of the HI-MEMS program, including flying moth implants and beetles. Using implants, researchers have shown that it’s possible to stimulate insect brains and control them in flight. Eventually such insects could be used in the field to gain access to areas not easily reachable by humans or robots.

Brain-computer interface

Elon Musk may be interested in building high speed brain-computer interfaces, but even he’s not got the resources at his disposal that DARPA has. Working with various organizations as part of its Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, DARPA wants to develop “an implantable system able to provide precision communication between the brain and the digital world.”

The idea behind the project is to find ways of converting the chemical and electrical signals of the brain into machine readable data, and vice versa. The end result could mean a neural link that lets the human brain tap into video feeds or, on the other end, allows computers to see exactly what we are seeing at any moment.

T-Mobile fined $40 million because it played fake ringtones and lies to rural users about call quality

Unlike the Uncarrier.

The FCC has fined T-Mobile $40 million for faking connections to rural customers in Wisconsin, according to a release. It also inserted fake ring tones into those calls to make it seem like they were connecting and failing, even though no one was on the other end of the call to pick up.

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau opened an investigation following rural carrier and consumer complaints that T-Mobile callers were unable to reach consumers served by three rural carriers in Wisconsin. Although T-Mobile reported to the FCC that the problems had been “resolved,” the Commission continued to receive complaints that calls were failing.

In addition, call completion complaints filed directly with T-Mobile showed patterns of problems with call delivery to consumers in at least seven other rural areas. The investigation also revealed T-Mobile’s practice of injecting false ring tones into certain calls. T-Mobile reported that it had done so on hundreds of millions of calls and admitted that its actions violated the Commission’s prohibition of injecting false ring tones on any calls.

What’s the big deal? T-Mobile has typically had poor connectivity in rural parts of the U.S., owing to a shortage of available low-band spectrum. While the 600MHz auction has resolved the spectrum crunch, it’s still rolling out.

This fine stems from years of malfeasance and taints the company’s reputation as a straight-shooting, honest carrier.

Nokia 7 Plus vs. OnePlus 5T: A close contest

The OnePlus 5T still offers the best specs in this segment, but the Nokia 7 Plus has a better camera and outstanding battery life.

HMD Global revived the Nokia brand last year, primarily focusing on the budget segment. After a relatively quiet start, the Finnish manufacturer saw increased momentum in the fourth quarter of 2017, where it managed to sell 4.4 million phones, outpacing the likes of OnePlus, HTC, and Google.

HMD is adopting a more aggressive strategy for 2018, with the company rolling out a slew of handsets aimed at various price points. The most interesting of the new additions is the Nokia 7 Plus, which is the first phone — and the only one thus far — from the manufacturer to feature an 18:9 panel.

There’s a lot to like in the Nokia 7 Plus: it is powered by the Snapdragon 660, offers dual cameras at the back, and has a 3800mAh battery. The camera part is particularly interesting, as it is using the same sensor arrangement as the Pixel 2 XL for the primary camera. In fact, the phone itself is akin to a Pixel 2 Lite as it were, based on the overall design and the specs on offer.

Meanwhile, the OnePlus 5T is on its way out, with the phone on sale for just five months. The OnePlus 6 is scheduled to make its debut imminently, and while its predecessor isn’t available in most countries, it is still up for sale in India, the company’s largest market. India is also a key market for HMD as the Nokia name still carries a lot of weight here.

With the Nokia 7 Plus set to go on sale later this month for ₹25,999 ($400) and the OnePlus 5T retailing for ₹32,999 ($505), there isn’t much to separate the two phones in terms of pricing. It’s time to find out if the Nokia 7 Plus can hold its own in this category and take the fight to the OnePlus 5T.

Nokia 7 Plus vs. OnePlus 5T: Specs

Where they’re both equal

OnePlus’ insistence on a clean software experience with OxygenOS allowed it to stand out in this category, and HMD Global is going one step further by partnering with Google on Android One. All HMD phones going forward will run Android One out of the box, as the Finnish manufacturer commits to Google’s vision of pure Android.

OxygenOS is one of the best skins around because of its clean interface interspersed with OnePlus’ own tweaks — such as face unlock and gestures — and although HMD also has a clean interface, it is missing the customizations that give OnePlus phones an edge.

Both phones also have a headphone jack, and there’s no water resistance or wireless charging.

What the Nokia 7 Plus does better

The OnePlus 5T has a fairly utilitarian design that sees a unibody aluminum chassis with antenna lines at the top and bottom of the device. There’s not a whole lot to get excited about on the design front, but the limited edition Lava Red color variant definitely makes the phone stand out. That’s the case with the Sandstone White/Star Wars option as well.

Meanwhile, the Nokia 7 Plus has much more flair. The copper accents at the front along with the inserts at the back and the midframe make the phone stand out, and the ceramic coating at the back makes it easier to hold than the OnePlus 5T.

The Nokia 7 Plus is built like a tank.

Although both phones have widely varying designs, the unifying factor is the build quality. Both phones have top-notch build quality, and you get the feeling that they’re built to last from the moment you pick up either device. That’s particularly true of the Nokia 7 Plus, which is machined out of series 6000 aluminum — this phone is built like a tank.

And while HMD doesn’t officially list the weight of the device, it doesn’t feel significantly heavier than the OnePlus 5T.

If there’s one area that HMD excelled at last year, it’s rolling out updates. The company ensured it rolled out monthly security patches and platform updates to its portfolio of devices — often beating the Pixels to monthly patches. It doesn’t look like that will change this year. If anything, partnering with Google over Android One will allow HMD to offer updates at the same time as the Pixels. If you care about timely updates, there isn’t another phone out there that can come close to the Nokia 7 Plus in this category.

The Nokia 7 Plus wins out in two key areas: camera and battery life. With hardware being largely commoditized, it’s often the camera that serves as the differentiator in this category. And on that front, the Nokia 7 Plus has the edge over the OnePlus 5T. The 12MP primary camera takes stunning photos in daylight conditions, and is just as capable in low-light scenarios.

Nokia 7 Plus on the left, OnePlus 5T on the right.

The Nokia 7 Plus takes photos with accurate colors, whereas the OnePlus 5T tends to oversaturate images. Low-light photos taken on the Nokia 7 Plus have much more detail to them as well. It’ll be interesting to see what the OnePlus 6 offers on the camera front, but for now the Nokia 7 Plus is the outright winner in this category.

The Nokia 7 Plus also destroys the OnePlus 5T when it comes to battery life — the 3800mAh battery manages to easily deliver two days’ worth of usage from a full charge. And yes, it has an FM radio, just like Nokia phones of old.

What the OnePlus 5T does better

The OnePlus 5T continues to be a performance monster. The hardware on offer combined with the uncluttered OxygenOS interface makes the OnePlus 5T one of the fastest phones in the market today. The 6.01-inch AMOLED panel is also marginally better than the IPS LCD display on the Nokia 7 Plus. You get much more vibrant colors, excellent contrast levels, and the OnePlus 5T is calibrated to the DCI-P3 color profile.

The OnePlus 5T has a more vibrant display, and the hardware is a cut above the Nokia 7 Plus.

The OnePlus 5T also has UFS 2.1 storage, whereas the Nokia 7 Plus is using an older eMMC 5.1 storage module. Without getting into the technicalities, the eMMC standard uses a half-duplex system — wherein it can undertake either a read or write operation, but not both at once — whereas UFS can handle read and write tasks simultaneously.

As such, UFS storage modules can hit a higher bandwidth, and are ideally suited for multi-tasking use cases. There isn’t a noticeable difference when it comes to day-to-day usage between both standards, but if you’re installing a lot of apps and trying to use the phone at the same time, you will see a few stutters on the Nokia 7 Plus, but not on the OnePlus 5T.

Which should you buy? Nokia 7 Plus

This is an easy one to answer as the OnePlus 5T is no longer on sale in most parts of the world. The phone is still up for purchase in India — OnePlus’ largest global market — but it’s clear that potential customers are now waiting to see what’s on offer with the OnePlus 6.

Sure, the Nokia 7 Plus doesn’t match the OnePlus 5T in terms of sheer performance, but it does offer a lag-free software experience that’s a delight to use. And crucially, it has a camera that beats out the OnePlus 5T, and it delivers much better battery life.

The Nokia 7 Plus is set to go on sale in India from April 30, with pre-orders kicking off on April 20, and is slated to hit the UK on May 2. HMD’s strategy of offering phones across various price points will allow the brand to get more momentum in 2018, particularly in markets like India.

The main downside is U.S. availability — although HMD has stated that a few of its devices would make its way Stateside, there’s no indication yet if the Nokia 7 Plus is on that list. That’s a shame, because the Nokia 7 Plus has all the ingredients to be one of the best phones in the $400 segment.

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Pete Lau shares the first camera samples taken with the OnePlus 6

OnePlus CEO gives us an early look at the camera capabilities of the OnePlus 6.

The OnePlus 6 hype machine is in full swing, with the Chinese manufacturer teasing new details about its upcoming flagship on a daily basis now. We saw yesterday that the phone will be the first OnePlus device to offer water resistance, and just a few hours later OnePlus CEO Pete Lau shared the first camera samples taken with the device on Weibo.

The photos give us a preview of the OnePlus 6’s camera capabilities, and the metadata suggests the device will sport a 16MP primary camera. The photos were taken at Stanford, and certainly look impressive.

With the teasers coming in thick and fast, it’s likely OnePlus will officially unveil its upcoming flagship in a matter of weeks. The phone will sport a Snapdragon 845 and come with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, along with a new “refined” form factor.

What do you make of the first set of images taken with the OnePlus 6?

Google’s latest do-it-yourself AI kits include everything you need

Google’s AIY kits have been helpful for do-it-yourselfers who want to explore AI concepts like computer vision, but they weren’t really meant for newcomers when you had to supply your own Raspberry Pi and other must-haves. It’ll be much easier to get started from now on: Google has released updated AIY Vision and AIY Voice kits that include what you need to get started. Both include a Raspberry Pi Zero WH board and a pre-provisioned SD card, while the Vision Kit also throws in a Raspberry Pi Camera v2. You won’t be going on extra shopping trips (or downloading software) just to get the ball rolling.

At the same time, Google is promising more help when you’re ready to get cracking. A companion Android app helps with setting up your kit, and the AIY website itself has been revamped with clearer instructions aimed at younger creators. The kits should now be better-suited to STEM students, not just tinkerers willing to dive in feet-first.

Both the Vision ($90) and Voice ($50) packs are reaching Target’s online and retail stores in April, and they’ll be available through other stores around the globe. That’s definitely a price hike, but it’s also a realistic price hike — you’re now paying for everything up front. In that sense, they’re kinder to parents and anyone else who might not always read the fine print.

Source: Google Developers, AIY Projects, Google Play

Gaze upon this great LG G7 ThinQ render

The first real look at LG’s 2018 flagship.

We’ve been tracking the LG G7 ThinQ’s rumors, leaks, sketchy images and renders for some time now, but this is absolutely our best and most reputable look at the phone yet. It comes courtesy of @evleaks, of course, who sent out a crisp and clear promo render that looks exactly like what you’d see in an official LG-sanctioned ad after its announcement.

LG G7….ThinQ. pic.twitter.com/qEVKHbfGFd

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) April 17, 2018

The render gives us a lot of information. It offers up a great look at a thick metal frame, which is reminiscent of the LG G6. Subtle side bezels and curved display corners complete the understated look. It also does a brilliant job of disguising what is an all-but-confirmed display notch at the top. With the choice of a wallpaper that’s dark at the top it makes the display notch near-invisible, but simply crank up the brightness on the image and it comes into view.

So if we take it at face value that this is an official render that’s been leaked, we now have more information on the size of the notch relative to the phone and what’s in there. A quick glance shows a cluster of the typical sensors on the left, a front-facing camera dead in the middle, and a small earpiece speaker to the right. The width of the notch looks to be about one-third the width of the screen, which makes it larger than the Huawei P20 Pro but not as wide (proportionately) as the iPhone X. People sure are heated about notches right now, and making it that wide probably isn’t going to help.

LG G7 ThinQ: Rumors, Specs, Release Date, and More!

@evleaks is typically spot-on with his leaks, so we shouldn’t look past the point that he also tosses the “ThinQ” moniker in there. So yeah, that’s definitely happening.

The LG G7 ThinQ will be announced on May 2, so we have just a couple of weeks to wait before seeing it all unveiled officially. Does this new render help or hurt your feelings about the upcoming flagship? Let us know in the comments below!

LG G6

• LG G6 review!
• LG G6 specs
• LG G6 vs. Google Pixel: The two best cameras right now
• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
• LG forums

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Tesla pauses Model 3 production again

As Tesla attempts to meet its own projections for Model 3 production, Buzzfeed reports that it is temporarily shutting down the car’s Fremont, CA assembly line — where a report earlier today claimed it’s undercounting injuries — for four to five days. This follows a similar pause in March, and the company gave the same response now as it did then, saying “These periods are used to improve automation and systematically address bottlenecks in order to increase production rates. This is not unusual and is in fact common in production ramps like this.”

Last year Tesla projected it would manufacture 5,000 of the mass-market aimed EVs per week by the end of Q1 2018, but its production report a couple of weeks ago showed the number at 2,020. CEO Elon Musk has recently pointed out an over-reliance on robots and battery module production at its Gigafactory in Nevada as limiting factors. Now Musk has pointed out July as a potential target, saying that production of AWD models is likely to begin after it hits the 5,000 per week number.

Source: Buzzfeed

ESPN+ now streams on Roku devices

ESPN+ launched on seemingly every platform under the Sun except for one: Roku. That’s something of a glaring omission, isn’t it? Thankfully, ESPN has been quick on the draw. ESPN+ has gone live through a new ESPN channel on Roku devices, giving you the same live sports (though sadly, no eSports) and on-demand shows whether you’re using a dedicated player or a Roku-enabled TV.

The price remains the same: it’s $5 per month, or $50 per year. This addition still doesn’t make ESPN+ ubiquitous (it’s notably absent from game consoles and most smart TVs), but the rapid expansion suggests it might just be a matter of time before you have at least one big screen viewing option.

Source: Roku

iHeartRadio offers curated playlists to free users

iHeartRadio added on-demand music streaming powered by Napster to its broadcast radio-centric service in 2016. The company later added curated activity-, era- and genre-based playlists for paid subscribers since then, too. Now the company is bringing this Playlist Radio feature to all of its users, including free members.

Introducing the brand new Playlist Radio feature on iHeartRadio! Explore hundreds of expertly curated playlists for FREE! Open the iHeartRadio app now and give it a try. https://t.co/E8vNKW5ap8 pic.twitter.com/uspoL9ij5j

— iHeartRadio (@iHeartRadio) April 16, 2018

iHeartRadio promises thousands of hand-curated music playlists that have created around specific moods, activities, genres and eras. Only paid users will be able to create their own playlists, save music from our curated playlists, listen to music offline, play the songs in the order they please, and instantly replay playlist songs they love. Free members will be able to listen to the curated playlists, including ones made for road trips, ’80s music and workouts.

iHeartRadio isn’t the only streaming service with curated playlists, of course. Apple Music and Spotify. users can listen to curated lists, as well. Spotify free members can create their own playlists, but they’re limited to 6 skips per hour and will hear ads (and sometimes similar tracks instead of the ones in the playlist itself). Apple of course doesn’t have a free tier, but it does have curated and subscriber-made playlists available.

Source: iHeartRadio

Google Maps uses landmarks to provide natural-sounding directions

Most navigation apps give you instructions based on streets or distance. But that’s not really how humans provide directions — they’ll usually point to landmarks that are much easier to spot than a tiny street sign. And Google, apparently, knows this. Users are reporting that Google Maps has started offering directions based on local landmarks. Instead of “turn right at Main Street,” it’ll tell you to “turn right after Burger King.”

It’s not certain just what points of interest Google will use for directions, the regional availability (beyond New York City, at least) or the scale of the introduction. We’ve asked Google if it can shed some light on the situation. If this is more than a small-scale test, though, it could take a lot of the stress out of driving through an unfamiliar town.

So @googlemaps instructed me to “turn right after Burger King” … I think this is the best update yet. #mindblown

— Deemah MS (@iamdeemah) April 14, 2018

Google Maps told me to make a right “right after the White Castle.” Does it do that now?

— Scott Stein (@jetscott) April 14, 2018

Via: CNET

Source: Deemah MS (Twitter), Scott Stein (Twitter)