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 robots will be able to assist service members in high-risk situations. “Robots undoubtedly capture the imagination, but that alone does not justify an investment in robotics,” said DARPA Acting Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel. “For robots to be useful to DoD they need to offer gains in either physical protection or productivity. The most successful and useful robots would do both via natural interaction with humans in shared environments.” The Robotics Challenge will begin in October 2012 and run through December 2014. Read on for DARPA’s press release.

DARPA SEEKS ROBOT ENTHUSIASTS (AND YOU) TO FACE OFF FOR $2M PRIZE!

April 10, 2012

Hardware, software, modeling and gaming developers sought to link with emergency response and science communities to design robots capable of supervised autonomous response to simulated disaster

As iconic symbols of the future, robots rank high with flying cars and starships, but basic robots are already in use in emergency response, industry, defense, healthcare and education. DARPA plans to offer a $2 million prize to whomever can help push the state-of-the-art in robotics beyond today’s capabilities in support of the DoD’s disaster recovery mission.

DARPA’s Robotics Challenge will launch in October 2012. Teams are sought to compete in challenges involving staged disaster-response scenarios in which robots will have to successfully navigate a series of physical tasks corresponding to anticipated, real-world disaster-response requirements.

Robots played a supporting role in mitigating fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and are used by U.S. military forces as assistants for service members in diffusing improvised explosive devices. True innovation in robotics technology could result in much more effective robots that could better intervene in high-risk situations and thus save human lives and help contain the impact of natural and man-made disasters.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge consists of both robotics hardware and software development tasks. It is DARPA’s position that achieving true innovation in robotics, and thus success in this challenge, will require contributions from communities beyond traditional robotics developers. The challenge is structured to increase the diversity of innovative solutions by encouraging participation from around the world including universities, small, medium and large businesses and even individuals and groups with ideas on how to advance the field of robotics.

“The work of the global robotics community brought us to this point—robots do save lives, do increase efficiencies and do lead us to consider new capabilities,” said Gill Pratt, DARPA program manager. “What we need to do now is move beyond the state of the art. This challenge is going to test supervised autonomy in perception and decision-making, mounted and dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength and endurance in an environment designed for human use but degraded due to a disaster. Adaptability is also essential because we don’t know where the next disaster will strike. The key to successfully completing this challenge requires adaptable robots with the ability to use available human tools, from hand tools to vehicles.

“Robots undoubtedly capture the imagination, but that alone does not justify an investment in robotics,” said DARPA Acting Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel. “For robots to be useful to DoD they need to offer gains in either physical protection or productivity. The most successful and useful robots would do both via natural interaction with humans in shared environments.”

The DARPA Robotics Challenge supports the National Robotics Initiative launched by President Barack Obama in June 2011.

To answer questions regarding the Robotics Challenge and provide an opportunity for interested parties to connect, DARPA will hold a virtual Proposers’ Day workshop on April 16, 2012. This online workshop will introduce interested communities to the effort, explain the mechanics of this DARPA challenge, and encourage collaborative arrangements among potential performers from a wide range of backgrounds. The meeting is in support of the DARPA Robotics Challenge Broad Agency Announcement. More information on the BAA and Proposers’ Day is available at: http://go.usa.gov/mVj.

[Via Innovation News Daily]

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 planning to offer camera-less iPhones, although it’s unclear when the device will be launched on those carriers. It is unclear if or when camera-free versions of the iPhone will become available outside Singapore.

[Via Engadget]

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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 not the heaviest at 5.4-ounces— sports a ruggedized composite case which protects a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with flash, 1460mAh battery, 512MB RAM, 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen display, and a host of other assets. Want to know what our first impressions are? Good. Have a look at the gallery below and hit the jump to read on.

The first thing we noticed about the device is how crisp the screen is. With ruggedized anythings, function is oft sacrificed for the sake of form. But with the Commando’s screen this does not appear to be the case. The 3.6-inch window has a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and, from what we can tell so far, doesn’t disappoint. Blacks are very black and the touch sensitivity seems to be on-par with most other Android devices — we fired off several emails and text messages without issue.

The exterior of the Commando is well accented with red composite inlays that compliment the phone’s drop-me-I-dare-you physique quite nicely. The phone has no fewer than five physical buttons on its left and right sides and we’re not sure how we feel about that — we seem to always hit a button when picking up the phone. We’ll wait to levy judgement on this design choice in our full review.

The Commando is running a slightly modded version of Android 2.2.1, but we don’t think even the most devout Android purists will mind. The modifications, for the most part, add a more ruggedized look to things — like the dialer and homescreen — and, thus far, have stayed out of the way.

We’ve ripped off a few test pictures with the device’s 5 megapixel shooter and so far the results have been favorable. The handful of close range and landscape shots we’ve taken appear to be very clean and there doesn’t seem to be anything glaringly wrong with the Commando’s camera.

The handset also support Wi-Fi hotspot creation, which, again, provides those needing a phone that can survive the elements with a nice blend or form and function.

Those are most of our initial musings.  We plan to take this handset out on the mean streets of Boston and drive it like it’s stolen — it is a rental after all — and we’ll be sure to bring you are full writeup ASAP.

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 achieving WikiLeaks’ initial vision as Domscheit-Berg saw it. The OpenLeaks website is now live (www.openleaks.org), though no content has been published at this point. It will initially be a vehicle for short essays that will serve as a test for the site “without pressure.” This will be the case through early 2011, and then the site will turn to “bigger media.” OpenLeaks is currently a 10-man operation but those numbers will likely rise with haste; Domscheit-Berg said the team is “drowning in applications” from people who want to join the crusade.

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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, Wi-Fi a/b/g, GPS, 3-inch touchscreen display, EV-DO Rev. A, HSPA/GSM for travel, and 256 MB RAM. This thing looks like it could take a licking and keep on ticking, no?

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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 exact, and will also come with an integrity check of sorts, warning users if and when their reported location may not be exactly bang on. Any good news for those of us stateside? Sure is. The U.S. and EU have agreed to make both the GPS and Galileo systems interoperable; newer navigation hardware will be able to position you using either constellation as well as benefit from any future improvements to the United States’ system. Europe started launching Galileo ‘sputniks’ into orbit in December of 2005 and the main constellation is set to go live sometime in 2010. Here’s to hoping that our beloved smartphones are updated with the new technology sooner rather than later.

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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 and Google’s looking to help change that. Here’s a quote from the Google post:

“For servicemen and women who are constantly on the move, having a single number and an easy way to retrieve messages from loved ones can be invaluable. To help our service members communicate with their loved ones and show our support to those serving our country, Google is launching a new program. Starting today, any active U.S. service member with a .mil email address can sign up for a Google Voice account at www.google.com/militaryinvite and start using the free service within a day.”

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-talk
• Bluetooth
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (850MHz/1900MHz)
• Video Share
• AT&T Navigator
• aGPS
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Conference calling with up to 6 participants total
• 4.66 ounces
• 3.95 x 2.05 x .90 inches

At least the military-spec phones are finally getting a much needed hardware bump, right? This thing isn’t exactly a looker, but with pretty limited choices on AT&T, this might be one of your only hopes. We’ve heard this model is set to directly compete with Verizon’s Casio G’zOne phones, and be comparible in terms of pricing. Look for it priced from $99-$150 starting around September 15th, though we’ve heard pre-orders might be starting on the first of the month.

Thanks, Kall!

Click on over to our Samsung a837 gallery!