department of defense

But what, then, were those programs? Herein lies the most intriguing—and potentially ground-breaking—question that the Pentagon study leaves us wondering: What exactly are the secret compartmentalized programs that the whistleblowers and government witnesses misidentified as being related to UAP technology? What, exactly, are the Pentagon, intelligence community, or defense contractors working on that, from a concentric circle or two away inside the shadowy world of SAPs, looks and sounds like reverse-engineering…

Last year, the Pentagon failed its sixth annual audit in a row. An Arizona lawmaker has a proposal for how to help the Department of Defense finally pass one: use AI. On Friday, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation that would direct the Secretary of Defense to use artificial intelligence technology to audit the Pentagon’s financial statements for the current fiscal year. With assets worth $3.8 trillion and a 2024 budget of around $850 billion, the Defense Department is the largest and most…

Former White House physician and current House Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) left the West Wing in 2019 amid a fog of allegations of inappropriate workplace conduct and alcohol abuse while on the job. Since his departure, he’s claimed the rank of a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral in his public statements, but according to a report from The Washington Post, Jackson was quietly demoted in 2022 to the rank of Captain after the release of a scathing report on his behavior by the Pentagon’s inspector general.  In 2018,…

White House pharmacists reportedly distributed uppers and downers like candy to Trump administration officials during his time in office, according to a new report from the Department of Defense Inspector General.  The 80-page document, which was released on Jan. 8, found that “all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards.”  The investigation,…

An artificial intelligence startup targeting air travel has raised $34 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to more aggressively pursue deals with the Department of Defense.Air Space Intelligence Inc. has long sold its tools — which have been described as Waze for air travel — to commercial carriers including Alaska Airlines. The startup's marquee product, called Flyways, can help flight dispatchers pick routes for planes, taking into account factors like flight traffic, weather and airport conditions.…

What would it look like for the Defense Department to be able to lean on the commercial space community in times of need? That’s the question examined by a new report from the RAND Corporation released last week. The paper, titled “A Framework for Building a Civil Reserve Space Program,” looks at how the Pentagon has built programs to activate commercial air and sea assets during conflicts, and lays out questions for how a similar partnership in the space domain might work. Origin storySpace Operations Command asked RAND…

Kodiak Robotics has unveiled its first autonomous test vehicle for the U.S. Department of Defense, a Ford F-150 pickup truck that the startup has upfitted with its software and sensor stack. The DOD is using the vehicle to test autonomous surveillance and reconnaissance missions in off-road terrain, diverse operational conditions and GPS-challenged environments. Kodiak won the $50 million two-year contract with the Army in December 2022, and now has another year to build and deliver two…

Ukraine’s citizens and military has relied on Starlink terminals for communication, but the country has also previously used it to operate drones in a combat capacity, much to Elon Musk’s chagrin.Photo: Chris McGrath (Getty Images)The Department of Defense said Thursday it was purchasing SpaceX Starlink satellite communication terminals and other services, and all that’s being put on a plane to be used by the Ukrainian military to help fight back the ongoing Russian invasion.Twitter Investor Sues Elon Musk Over Sneaky…

Schmidt became CEO of Google in 2001, when the search engine had a few hundred employees and was barely making money. He stepped away from Alphabet in 2017 after building a sprawling, highly profitable company with a stacked portfolio of projects, including cutting-edge artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and quantum computers.Schmidt now sees another opportunity for technological reinvention to lead to domination, this time for the US government in competition with other world powers. He may be uniquely well…

Ending the bitter Cloud war, the Pentagon has awarded its multi-billion dollar Cloud-computing contract to all the major players -- Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle - that can reach up to $9 billion in total till 2028.The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) will allow mission owners to acquire authorised commercial cloud offerings directly from the Cloud Service Providers contract awardees."No funds are being obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The…