The United States is challenging every entrepreneur, engineer, developer and inventor to create the first military robot. The individual or team that creates a humanoid robot capable of walking on two legs and performing various tasks — driving vehicles and using tools — will be awarded $2 million by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The humanoid army isn’t intended for the battlefield, however; the military is interested in using robots for disaster-response scenarios in which rob...

Singapore-based wireless carrier M1 began offering camera-free iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S handsets on Friday. The Singaporean government does not allow its soldiers to carry phones equipped with cameras, but requires that all men serve two years in the military. M1 no doubt wanted to address those potential customers who wanted iPhones but could not carry one with a camera. The camera-free iPhone 4 starts at $449 while the high-end iPhone 4S is priced at $974. According to CNET Asia, Singtel and StarHub are also ...

Our friendly FedEx man was kind enough to deliver us the soon-to-be-released Casio G’zOne Commando from Verizon Wireless. Unlike most full-touchscreen smartphones, this Android 2.2.1 device is designed to be abused. The Commando meets military standards 810G for immersion, rain, and shock, dust resistance, vibration, salt fog, humidity, solar radiation, altitude, along with low and high temperature storage.  The handset, which is not the lightest full-touchscreen we’ve handled — but certainly ...

French digital journalism monitor OWNI published an interview Monday with former right-hand man to Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg. Domscheit-Berg shot from anonymity to the spotlight recently when he announced that he was leaving WikiLeaks and launching a new project called OpenLeaks. “In these last months, the organization has not been open any more, it lost its open-source promise,” Domscheit-Berg said of WikiLeaks. He did not elaborate, but OpenLeaks will apparently be focused on achievi...

Today, Sprint announced the availability of the ES400S, a rough, rugged, Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone from Motorola. The availability of the handset marks the first time that a branded and stocked Motorola enterprise device has been sold through a wireless carrier. Certified for MIL-STD 810G, a 4-foot drop, and IP42 sealing specifications, the ES400S will be available at the end of October to qualifying business customers for $499.99. The ES400S sports a biometric fingerprint reader, VoIP capabilities, ...

Okay, maybe the “not really a bird” thunderbird won’t be taking the place of the Gallic rooster as the avian mascot of France, but as far as the French military is concerned, Thunderbird is number one. Back in 2003 the French military began debating whether it would be wise to continue using a proprietary email client, such as Microsoft’s Outlook, or if it would be of greater benefit to transition to an open source client like Mozilla’s Thunderbird. In 2007 the decision was made,...

The Galileo navigation satellite project has been in the works for some time now in Europe, spearheaded mainly by the drive to mitigate reliance on U.S. foreign satellite guidance systems. Galileo will, in theory, “offer greater accuracy — down to a meter and less; and greater penetration — in urban centers, inside buildings, and under trees; and a faster fix” when compared to the U.S. run GPS satellites. The new system is set to be offered with a tiered service model, five tiers to be...

In an effort to help assist deployed servicemen and women in the United States Military, Google is allowing anyone with a .mil email address to sign up for a Google Voice invite and get pretty much instantaneous access. Google’s reasoning behind this (a pretty good one, though you couldn’t buy PR this good) is that when deployed, it’s incredibly difficult to stay in touch with family and loves ones. Timezone differences, different schedules, and everything else make it hard to communicate an...

Tired of your phones cracking right in half? Maybe you should start checking out some military-spec grade devices. AT&T and Samsung are set to launch the a837 in the coming weeks, and we’ve just got a flood of pictures and specifications. Here’s a breakdown of the specs:Push-to-talkBluetoothQuad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (850MHz/1900MHz)Video ShareAT&T NavigatoraGPS1.3 megapixel cameraConference calling with up to 6 participants total4.66 ounces3.95 x 2.05 x .90 inchesAt lea...