The Israeli military are back with a brand new addition to their arsenal - a camouflaged robotic snake which comes complete with a camera and microphone embedded within its head. Just like the Biblical prophecy, striking this mechanical serpent's head will bring thing to a close, and it remains unknown just how long will it take for this new robot to enter operational status. Guess enemies of the Israeli nation will have more than just nukes to worry about now...

Check out this super high definition machine from the military - a F-16 simulator which is powered by 120 (yes, count 'em!) Intel Dual Core PCs complete with $400 graphics cards within a special industrial casing. Apparently, this simulator is able to offer 20-40 visual acuity, which is nearly enough to fool the naked eye. All that graphical and processing firepower is used to run Simusphere - a 180-degree field of display which relies on a combination of 9 projectors in order to provide a visually impressive image no matter where you turn your head. We sure as heck don't mind flying these every day if that's part of the job...

Remember the shoulder-mounted weapon that we see in the Predator movies? Well, the US military has already achieved something like that in the form of the XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapon. This will most probably be the shoulder-fired weapon of choice for the US military in situations that are required to kill or neutralize hidden targets. The use of High Explosive Air-Burst (HEAB) munitions with the XM25 comes in handy as it was specially programmed to detonate at a precise point in the air, all without requiring any impact - news that would definitely make the baddies hiding out in their caves shudder with fear.

This week, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher are hosting the D7 conference in San Diego and today, Kara Swisher interviewed Eve Ensler, playwright of the “The Vagina Monologues” and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

Eve Ensler was among those who testified at the hearing recently held by the Senate Foreign Relations Comittee and called “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones.” The goal is to end the use of rape as a weapon of war in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where 1,100 women a month are raped, in part as a consequence of the region’s coltan trade. Coltan, or columbite tantalite, is a mineral from which niobium and tantalum are extracted, tantalum is a necessary component for the manufacturing of a wide range of consumer electronics such as cell phones and computers.

We hope that if the consumers are aware of this dramatic situation, it will help to change it. Read the full interview on All Things Digital.

Photos from Black Hills Industrial Minerals and Tierra/ Red Iris.

GPS lovers, take note. The global positioning system (GPS) operated by the US government could fail as early as next year, as a recent report showed that "it is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption." Well this isn't good news for folks who grew up on GPS navigation when getting around as they'll have to learn the arcane arts of reading and folding paper maps all over again just like their forefathers, using their brain to do more than just change lanes when driving. Don't say you have not been warned if you happen to drive somewhere with your vehicle GPS system dying on you sometime next year.

Walls have ears, or so the saying goes. Well, smart folks at MIT aim to debunk that by developing a secure conversation masking system which relies on a comprehensive system of power strips and sensors in order to drown out confidential conversations, regardless of whether you're in a room or office environment. Known as the Distributed Acoustic Conversation Shielding System, all you need to do is make sure that room has a working power outlet to hook this up to - each of the special power strips come with a PIR infrared sensor, a microphone and a small speaker. Everyone in a private conversation will activate their personal sensor so that the system can 'log' them into the conversation, tracking their location as they walk from room to room, chatting away. Whoever approaches that does not have a sensor will alert the PIR in a nearby power strip, where it will immediately beam masking audio so that the private chat remains, well, private.

Scientists have stumbled upon a method to control the human brain using flashes of light, after successfully conducting experiments at the MIT Media Lab, activating a specific set of neurons in a monkey’s brain. The strongest point of this optogenetic technique is its specificity, where a combination of lasers and genetic engineering will enable scientists to control the firing of specific class or neurons to the millisecond. This will also enable researchers to point out problematic cells and circuits without harming innocent bystanders so that potential side effects can be minimized.

If you're wondering just who else is eavesdropping on your conversation, why not fork out a bundle for some peace of mind with the Securephone? This is but an ordinary looking HTC P3470 at first glance that has been outfitted with encryption technology according to military grade specifications - meaning triple-layer 256-bit cipher, layered encryption based on AES, Twofish and Serpent to make sure whatever you speak out remains private - that is, unless you're shouting real loud and operatives planted near you are able to hear what you're saying. Don't forget to watch out for lip readers in your midst as well, and if you're going to blow £1063.75 on this thing, might as well spend double the amount to get the other person whom you always keep in touch with a similar Securephone.

Color shifting used to be the stuff of fiction for many since time immemorial, but modern technology has made it a possibility thanks to an uber smart team of boffins from the New University of Lisbon who developed a transistor which is able to change the color of virtually any surface - be it paper, glass, plastics, ceramics and metals among others, to one of your choice. We are thinking about the impact that this technology will make in the military world, as well as the consumer electronics market.

Trust DARPA to come up with impossible requests - they have just come up with a demand for an accurate computer simulation of a living humanoid brain. As for the purpose of this accurate simulator, it remains to be seen whether DARPA will use it for benign or sinister purposes. This new initiative has been dubbed Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery (REPAIR) - don't you just love military acronyms? DARPA claims it is all about "understanding how neural-based sensory stimulation could be applied to accelerate recovery from brain injury". In fact, in DARPA's terms, this is what they want in the excerpt below.

Creation of an in silico [in a computer, that is, not a bubbling jar with an actual brain in it] bio-computationally accurate model based on collection of multi-region, multi-scale neural activity in a non-human primate performing a complex dexterous task... constructed in such a manner as to allow for analysis of performance metrics, such as, time to target or targets, assessment of accuracy, control of simultaneous degrees of freedom, and learning time for task acquisition...It is expected that the bio computational model employ appropriately sophisticated mathematical analysis to capture the complexity of parallel processing, inter-neural activity, and plastic adaptation within the brain.

Good luck to the team trying to develop something as complex as the human brain, but, "stealth" technology might have been categorized as "crazy" once...

We have a Joint Tactical Fighter program, and now comes along the Joint Program Executive Office Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JPEO-JTRS) that is hard at work developing the Rifleman Radio which aims to offer secure networking capabilities to our troops on the ground. Coming in a rugged design that is lightweight, it boasts push-to-talk functionality and built-in GPS, in addition to doubling up as a hands-free headset. The device is able to hook up to its proprietary network automatically, where this network is able to expand and contract as though it has a life of its own, depending on the radios added or subtracted. Sounds like the perfect tool for squad leaders and team leaders to keep in constant communication with their subordinates.

The mighty US Army has something similar to the layman on the street - they too are finding the iPod touch from Apple to be an invaluable ally on the battlefield, since it is able to perform many functions that helps link one soldier with others in addition to viewing intelligence resources such as translation software and aerial images from drones. Perfect for soldiers who don't know a hint of Arabic to communicate with villagers thanks to the translation. Other applications written for the iPod touch (and iPhone, of course) include one that allows an uploaded photo of a street sign to return results of intelligence in the local area including water sources and sympathizers. Hopefully Apple will release a ruggedized device of its iPods and iPhones for our men and women in uniforms.

A pen is just a pen, right? We don't think so - not with the Mil-Tac Tactical Defense Pen hitting the market for $89. What makes this piece of writing instrument so expensive? Well, it was specially designed to handle all rough and tough conditions, being constructed from aircraft grade anodized aluminum while featuring a blunt end that doubles up as a control device and an integrated clip. Good thing this is refillable, otherwise our pockets would be severely depleted if we use this as our primary writing instrument. Would love to see future iterations that allow one to launch missile attacks from this at the press of a button.

Snipers are often legendary in their own right, and you can tell that it is a popular role for glory hunters in the virtual world as gamers take pride in their "sniping ability" over a computer with the mouse and keyboard being their equipment of choice to take down digitized avatars of opponents from afar. Well, the real world works on a totally different scale, and the US Army hopes to lay the smack down in future wars with their Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System (ARSS). This system is actually a .338-caliber rifle mounted to the bottom of a Vigilante unmanned helicopter, where a modified Xbox 360 game contoller will then be used to target your subject, letting you do the dirty job without having to step foot outside of the barracks. Eerie.