Tech

U.S. Vets Targeted by Foreign Actors Aiming to Sway Elections, Experts Tell Congress

Actors from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and elsewhere gain access to online forums by impersonating vets they find online

  • Patrick Tucker, Defense One

NASA's TESS Spacecraft Is Finding Hundreds of Exoplanets – and Is Poised to Find Thousands More

Beyond the outer edge of the Solar System, mysterious, unknown worlds await by the thousands. Astronomers can now finally find them and explore them - but will we find another Earth?

  • Daniel Apai and Benjamin Rackham, The Conversation

As Secret Pentagon Spending Rises, Defense Firms Cash in

Classified spending has edged up faster than overall defense budget requests, and accounts for nearly 11 percent of the $716 billion proposed for 2020.

  • Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One

U.S. Marines Try Using Drones to Bring Blood to Battle

The light unmanned aircraft made hundreds of supply drops during recent Australian live-fire wargames.

  • Patrick Tucker, Defense One

A Hitch at NASA Headquarters

NASA has carried out its first all-female spacewalk, but hints of outdated thinking about women in space remain.

  • Marina Koren, The Atlantic

The Endless Aerial Surveillance of the Border

New reports suggest that drone activity at the southern border is spreading to nearby cities, erasing the line between police procedures and immigration enforcement.

  • Sidney Fussell, The Atlantic

The Exquisite Boredom of Spacewalking

A trip outside the International Space Station is, at its core, a home-improvement project.

  • Marina Koren, The Atlantic

New Tech Promises to Stop Drones from Overflying Stadiums — and Find the People Flying Them

Raytheon says its products helped police nab four flying drones over an outdoor concert.

  • Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One

The Army’s Next Attack Helicopter Could Look Like This

Bell’s new 360 Invictus is the latest entrant hoping to fill the Army’s vertical-lift gap — and it’s remote-controlled.

  • Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One

The Pentagon Has Officially Taken Over the Security Clearance Process

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is now responsible for conducting 95% of the government’s background investigations.

  • Jack Corrigan

NASA Hands Elon Musk a Reality Check

A shared effort to deliver NASA astronauts to space recently got a little awkward.

  • Marina Koren, The Atlantic

Google Says Google Translate Can’t Replace Human Translators. Immigration Officials Have Used It to Vet Refugees.

Documents shared with ProPublica show that immigration officials have been told to vet refugees’ social media posts using Google Translate. Language experts caution even students against using the service.

  • Yeganeh Torbati, ProPublica

A New Joystick For the Brain-Controlled Vehicles Of the Future

An innovative sensor strip promises a far better way to connect human brains to machines.

  • Patrick Tucker, Defense One
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The Air Force Will Start Work on Flying Cars This Fall

It’s about replacing the V-22, eventually. But it’s also about finding new ways to harness commercial innovation.

  • Patrick Tucker, Defense One

SpaceX Missed Some Urgent Emails About a Satellite Standoff

Stopping collisions in space starts with good communication.

  • Marina Koren

Report on Election Security Gains Attention, and a Sharp Rebuke

A Virginia cybersecurity company asserted many states were vulnerable to election system intrusions. Critics called the report flawed and questioned whether the company was looking to exploit legitimate anxiety about election security.

  • Jessica Huseman, ProPublica

So Many Innovation Hubs, So Hard to Find Them

It’s still too hard for emerging companies and the agencies looking for them to find each other.

  • Anne Laurent

Trump Administration Seeks to Quash Lawsuit Over OPM Hack

Government says feds are not entitled to damages as hackers intended to use the personal information they gathered for spying, not identity theft or fraud. 

  • Eric Katz

Pentagon Shelves Neutral Particle Beam Research

One of the U.S. military’s most ambitious space-based projects has crashed back to Earth.

  • Patrick Tucker, Defense One

Why is the Pentagon Interested in UFOs?

During a military mission, whether in peace or in war, the inability to identify an object within an area of operation represents a significant problem.

  • Iain Boyd, The Conversation

Why Soviets Sent Dogs to Space While Americans Used Primates

Researchers didn’t know how people would react to weightlessness. So they sent animals first.

  • Marina Koren, The Atlantic