Almost 1 In 3 U.S. Warplanes Is a Robot

By Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman

Remember when the military actually put human beings in the cockpits of its planes? They still do, but in far fewer numbers. According to a new congressional report acquired by Danger Room, drones now account for 31 percent of all military aircraft.

To be fair, lots of those drones are tiny flying spies, like the Army’s Raven, that could never accommodate even the most diminutive pilot. (Specifically, the Army has 5,346 Ravens, making it the most numerous military drone by far.) But in 2005, only five percent of military aircraft were robots, a report by the Congressional Research Service notes. Barely seven years later, the military has 7,494 drones. Total number of old school, manned aircraft: 10,767 planes.

A small sliver of those nearly 7,500 drones gets all of the attention. The military owns 161 Predators — the iconic flying strike drone used over Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere — and Reapers, the Predator’s bigger, better-armed brother.

But even as the military’s bought a ton of drones in the past few years, the Pentagon spends much, much more money on planes with people in them. Manned aircraft still get 92 percent of the Pentagon’s aircraft procurement money. Still, since 2001, the military has spent $26 billion on drones, the report — our Document of the Day — finds.

The drones are also getting safer. (To operate, that is; not for their targets below.) Drone crashes get a lot of attention; 38 Predators and Reapers have crashed in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far; most recently, Iran looks like it got ahold of an advanced, stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel. But the congressional report finds that the Predator, for instance, has only 7.5 accidents per 100,000 hours of flight, down from 20 accidents over that time in 2005 — meaning it’s now got an accident rate comparable to a (manned) F-16.

But the report doesn’t mention some of the unique vulnerabilities of the drones. There’s no mention of the malware infection that reached into the drone cockpits at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, a story Danger Room broke. Nor does it go into the workload problems for military imagery analysts caused by the proliferation of the drones full-motion video “Death TV,” which is pushing the military toward developing selective or “thinking” cameras. The ethical issues attendant to remote-control war also go unexplored.

Still, the report does explore the downsides of the Pentagon’s drone obsession. There are way too many redundant drones, it finds, and the expensive sensors they increasingly carry drive the costs of a supposedly cheap machine up. They’re also bandwidth hogs: a single Global Hawk drone requires 500 megabytes per second worth of bandwidth, the report finds, which is “500 percent of the total bandwidth of the entire U.S. military used during the 1991 Gulf War.” And it also notes that a lot of future spy missions might go not to drones, but to the increasing number of giant blimps and aerostats, some of which can carry way more sensors and cameras.

And the current fleet of flying robots is just the start. The Navy’s developing a next-gen drone that can take off and land from an aircraft carrier. Future missions, the report finds, include “stand-off jamming” of enemy electronics; “psychological operations, such as dropping leaflets” over an adversary population; and even measuring the amount of radiation in the earth’s atmosphere. The military’s working on increasingly autonomous drones — including tiny, suicidal killers — and on increasing the number of drones a single ground station can operate.

The Air Force even holds out hope for a “super/hyper-sonic” drone by 2034. It’s a good time to be a flying robot.

Congressional Research Service reports typically aren’t public. But we’re embedding it here, so you can read it in full for yourself. It compiles and updates a lot of useful information about military drones:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/77662547/1105-001

LG unveils 'Ultra HD' TV - a new type of hi-def with pictures as sharp as IMAX

By Rob Waugh

LG's new 84-inch 3D flatscreen offers a resolution of 3840x2160 - offering eight megapixels on screen.

It's 16 times the sharpness of normal hi-def - and not far off the resolution of an Imax screen. Sadly, no home TV service, video player or disc format can take advantage of the screen's full power - yet.
LG's set will be one of many televisions to offer resolutions above Full HD. There are several resolutions of 'Ultra HD', from the relatively modest 2K up to 8K.

The 4K resolution of LG's set might become a new standard for TVs and cameras that go beyond ordinary HD.

David Fincher's The Social Network was shot and screened in 4K, and an increasing number of cinema films use the format.

LG's 3D set offers a 4K resolution - but there will may be even sharper TVs in future. The BBC has already shot test footage in 8K. It's yet to be decided which could be used for broadcast.

There are few devices that can play the format, thus far - although if your PC is up to it, YouTube will host 4K footage

Toshiba already makes a '4K' television, and several other manufacturers look set to follow suit at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.

LG's set will also offer wi-fi, so users can 'mirror' what's on screen on personal devices such as tablets, and a 3D depth control

of existing Full HD TVs. 3D Depth Control allows users to personalise the viewing experience by controlling the 3D effect while 3D Sound Zooming provides users with 3D sound that rivals even the best home cinema systems.

CES 2012: Apple’s mystery TV is year’s hottest phantom gadget

by Matt Hartley

LAS VEGAS — Once again, Apple Inc. is conspicuous by its absence.

As the technology world descends on Las Vegas this week for the industry’s annual game of show that is the Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s most valuable technology company is, as per usual, nowhere to be seen.

Apple doesn’t exhibit at CES. The Cupertino, California-based computer giant has long employed a strategy of launching new products and services at its own carefully timed and scripted press events, where it can command the spotlight.

Still, despite its absence, Apple is consistently one of the most talked about companies each year at CES, as rumours and speculation run rampant while the tech world wonders what the company might have up its sleeve.

Of course, this year is no exception. With rumours of an Apple flatscreen television set flowing freely this year, some of the biggest names in the technology industry are already rushing to outmaneuver their most cunning rival, despite the fact Apple hasn’t announced anything at all.

Part of the reason so much attention is paid to Apple in Las Vegas each January is that the company tends to launch new products in the weeks following CES. The iPhone was actually unveiled at the same time as CES in 2007, but not in Las Vegas, rather at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco.

Two years ago at CES, amid rumours that Apple was preparing to launch a tablet, computer manufacturers and software companies were tripping over one another to show off their own touchscreen computing devices.
This year, Apple’s unannounced TV strategy is once again the topic of heated debate. Only this time, the phantom product that has set the tech world on edge is the rumoured Apple flatscreen television, which may or may not exist and which may or may not be hitting the market this year.

Speculation about the existence of a true “Apple TV” — of course, Apple already has its Apple TV set top box — began to gather steam following the publication last fall of Watler Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” Mr. Jobs tells Mr. Isaacson in the book. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud … It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

Although Web-connected television sets aren’t exactly new, manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and now Lenovo are all stepping up their efforts to marry advanced Web functions and applications with their flatscreen television sets.

Many of these connected TVs feature either Google Inc.’s Android operating system, or the Silicon Valley giant’s own Google TV platform, which enables users to scour the Web for videos and other content using Google’s search technology.

This week at CES, industry heavyweights Samsung and LG are expected to throw their weight behind Google TV — joining Sony and Vizio — launching new flatscreens featuring the technology.

The next logical platform for the Internet is the television set, and consumers are already adopting new Web-delivered video entertainment options en masse. In North America, Netflix Inc.’s online streaming service now accounts for nearly one third of all downstream Internet traffic.

While some consumers are content to watch videos and other Web content on tablets or PCs, increasingly, they want to have those same experiences on the big screen in the living room, facilitated through a video game console, set top box or Web-connected television.

For television manufacturers, Internet-connected televisions appear to be the next evolution of the living room big screen, providing the potential for a new wave of upgrades that still hasn’t materialized since the launch of 3D technology.

Depending on which rumour you want to believe, Apple’s phantom TV may also feature the company’s Siri voice recognition technology, enabling users to change channels or search for movies using verbal commands instead of a remote control.

If Apple is indeed pursuing this type of technology, the company would not be alone. Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect video game technology already allows users to control their experience with verbal commands and hand gestures, while Lenovo’s new K91 smart TV — unveiled here in Las Vegas this week — also features voice technology.

True to form, Apple is reportedly preparing a media event for later this month in New York City. Although no one is quite sure what the company will say at that time, one thing is for certain: when the Apple spotlight turns on, the world will be watching.

'US would take action if Iran closes Hormuz'

By BLOOMBERG

US army chief Dempsey says Iran could block Strait of Hormuz, but US would get it back open.

Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time,” and the US would take action to reopen it, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said Sunday.

“They’ve invested in capabilities that could, in fact, for a period of time block the Strait of Hormuz,” Dempsey said in an interview airing on the CBS “Face the Nation” program. “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that.”

Should Iran try to close Hormuz, the US “would take action and reopen” the waterway, said Dempsey, US President Barack Obama’s top military adviser.

Blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic shipping lane linking the Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf, would constitute a “red line” for the US, as would Iranian efforts to build a nuclear weapon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on the same program.

Continued pressure, rather than threats of air strikes, is the best way to forestall Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Panetta said.

Panetta: Applying pressure on Iran is the responsible course of action

While the US shouldn’t “take any option off the table,“ Panetta said “the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing and to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said January 1 on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would use air strikes against Iran unless the country dismantled its nuclear program or allowed inspectors to verify that the work isn’t aimed at making a weapon.

Dempsey suggested that curbing Iran’s nuclear work by bombing its facilities would be difficult.

“I’d rather not discuss the degree of difficulty and in any way encourage them to read anything into that,” Dempsey said. “My responsibility is to encourage the right degree of planning, to understand the risks associated with any kind of military option.”

US plans in case of Israeli strike

Should Israel decide to undertake a unilateral military strike against Iran, the US priority would be protecting American troops in the region, Panetta said.

Dempsey and Panetta sought on CBS to provide assurances that the new US military strategy, announced last week, won’t limit the US ability to stop aggressors.

“What we’re looking to do here is not constrain ourselves to a two-war construct, but rather build a force that has the kind of agility” needed to adapt to any scenario, Dempsey said. Previous US war planning called for preparing to fight two conventional wars simultaneously.

The plan was driven by the need to cut almost $490 billion from projected Pentagon spending through 2021, including about $261 billion through 2017. Panetta said last week the details won’t be released until the Pentagon presents its 2013 budget request to Congress by early February.

Iran stand-off could trigger oil price spike

Fears of another oil price spike are climbing as the war of words between the West and Iran intensifies.

By Emma Rowley and Garry White

The worst-case scenario is that the ratcheting tensions will end in a military confrontation that would close the Strait of Hormuz, the strip of water between Iran and Oman that represents the world's most important shipping lane.

Roughly 40pc of the world's seaborne traded oil passes through the waterway, so the suggestion that traffic could be hindered has inevitably lifted the oil price. Brent crude, London's benchmark oil, advanced 5.9pc last week.

The threat has arisen as Iran responds to Western sanctions designed to make it end a nuclear programme said to be aimed at producing an atomic bomb.

New Year's Eve saw Barack Obama, the US President, sign an act banning foreign financial institutions that do business with the Iranian central bank from trading in the US, which has refused Iranian oil since 1979.

Meanwhile, the EU – which takes about a fifth of Iran's oil exports – is close to imposing its own sanctions.

The impact is already being felt, with Iranian citizens queuing up at banks to convert their savings into dollars as their own currency plunges further.

As the sabre-rattling grows louder, Tehran has warned that closing the Strait would be "easier than drinking a glass of water".

Analysts agree it would be fairly simple to disrupt ships' passage through the waters. All Iran would have to do is put a few mines into the Strait and it would be a no-go area until the US Navy cleared the waters.

So how much risk is there that the Strait closes? Many think it is the most unlikely outcome. Iran would take a severe economic hit from the move, as it would not be able to export its own oil or import vital materials.

However, there are worries that politics rather than economics will rule Iran's behaviour and that it could lash out at its opponents.

"At some point sanctions become an act of war," Vali Nasr, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration, has warned.

There is also a risk that the situation could escalate as an unintended consequence of the domestic political backdrop in Iran.

While last year the Arab Spring political uprising represented the major risk to the oil supply, this time around it is the "Iranian Spring election factor", according to Malcolm Graham-Wood, an energy analyst at VSA Capital.

With the Iranian elections due on March 2, industry watchers expect the anti-West rhetoric to ratchet up several notches – and, accordingly, nerves around the oil supply.

Analysts at Barclays Capital explain "that the rising rhetoric on closing the Strait and the new military exercises [by Iran in the area] run the risk of triggering an unintended escalation through miscalculation.

"For example, we cannot rule out the possibility that Iran might start to selectively stop and inspect ships travelling through the Strait, a move that could certainly create a broader crisis."

In terms of the longer-term – and more likely – impact of the row, the risk is not so much the fallout from a possible closure of the Strait so much as the negative impact the sanctions will have on oil production from Iran, as demand for their product suffers. A reduction in capacity again adds to the risks that the oil price will spike.

Since most oil price predictions are based on sluggish global demand as the world economy wobbles, as opposed to geopolitical tensions, analysts see the Iran situation as the single biggest factor that could send the oil price upwards. A higher oil price will, of course, drag on economic growth, as it signals rising costs for businesses and individuals.

So will anyone benefit from the stand-off? Perhaps those oil traders with a cool head, who remember that previous bristling over the Strait, as seen in the 1980s, did not leave the waters closed.

"Only brave hearts would go against the current move with the risk of a short-term spike looming," said Ole S Hansen, senior commodity strategist at Saxo Bank.

"But look out for any news that points towards an easing of the tensions as it could trigger some aggressive selling."