We’ve covered the sluggish progress of the U.S. Navy’s railgun program in the past, but it now looks like we are inching closer to seeing one of the electromagnetic weapons on an actual boat. After years of testing in the laboratory, the gun is finally being tested outdoors. Recent upgrades make the railgun exceptionally more durable and powerful, but when will the weapon actually make it to the high seas?
Unlike traditional propellant-based weapons systems, railguns launch shells at high speeds using a series of electromagnets. We were all teased on the concept in 2012 as footage leaked of the weapon demonstrating its capabilities on land and now it looks like the prototype weapon is receiving some major upgrades to increase its firing capacity. According to the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the goal is for the railgun to be able to launch ten shots per minute at 32 megajoules. (That’s the equivalent force of 32 one-ton cars crashing into a target at 160 miles per hour.)
Needless to say, the ability to accelerate an object via electromagnetism to nearly Mach 6 speeds in a split second is no easy task. The project has been delayed multiple times over the past decade and many of these snags are due to durability and structural concerns. For example, in 2009, it was reported that even a few shots can dislodge internal components including the conducting rails and even the gun barrel itself. With the latest upgrades, the Navy now believes the launcher core could potentially fire more than 400 projectiles before structural failure, and the barrel could last for up to 1,000 rounds.
Eventually, the Navy plans to install the final railgun onboard its Zumwalt-class destroyers. With the ability to generate 78 megawatts of electricity, these ships were specifically designed to one day operate railguns, and are currently the only surface ships capable of doing so. Originally, the Navy had sought to build more than 32 of the Zumwalts, however, that number has been slashed to three.
Currently, these ships utilize 155-millimeter long-range guns as we await the railguns’ final unveiling. The USS Lyndon B. Johnson Zumwalt could be the first of the three ships to be outfitted with the Navy’s final railgun product, however, seeing as the ship is set to be christened in 2018, there is still some waiting involved.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.