French officials have unveiled a humanoid diving robot that they hope will give a big artificial hand to the practice of underwater archaeology. Ocean One, which looks like something out of a scuba-diving sequel to "Transformers," is the work of a team of roboticists, including Oussama Khatib of Stanford University. It is intended to help researchers explore underwater archaeological sites that are too deep to be explored by human divers. It was unveiled by culture officials Thursday in the French city of Marseille after a trial sifting through the wreckage of "The Moon," a 17th century warship, where it had managed to collect a delicate ceramic pot and bring it back to the surface. According to Stanford, the concept for Ocean One was born from the need to study coral reefs deep in the Red Sea, far below the comfortable range of human divers.

Meet OceanOne, a robot avatar that lets humans explore deep under the Ocean's surface, without any of the dangers or time limits associated with diving. While a human diver is constrained by pesky things like air and pressure when doing underwater research or excavations, a robot can stay underwater for much longer, collecting samples in hostile underwater environments. OceanOne was tested at the archeological site of the shipwreck La Lune off the coast of France. La Lune, a flagship that sank in the Mediterranean in 1664. It lies under 300 feet of water, far beyond the reach of recreational SCUBA divers, who limit themselves to 130 feet.

The sea has been called the final frontier, as its unexplored depths hold mysteries that humans have not been able to reach – until now. Dubbed'robo-mermaid', OceanOne is a humanoid outfitted with human vision, force feedback and artificial brain that can dive hundreds of feet deeper than any human ever has. And the maiden voyage of this droid proved bountiful as it pulled treasure from the'La Lune', King Louis XIV's vessel which has been sitting 328 feet below the surface since 1664. Dubbed'robo-mermaid', OceanOne is a humanoid outfitted with human vision, force feedback and artificial brain that can dive hundreds of feet deeper than any human ever has. Dubbed'robo-mermaid', OceanOne is a humanoid outfitted with human vision, force feedback and artificial brain that can dive hundreds of miles deeper than any human ever has Louis XIV's ship La Lune was wrecked off Toulon in November 1664.

If you were in the audience for Oussama Khatib's IROS keynote in Hamburg last year, you may remember him talking about this crazy thing: We, of course, cornered Oussama immediately afterwards, because humanoid robotic submarine what?! It turned out that OceanOne, as it was called, was involved in a top secret (or something) project in collaboration with the French, which has (now that it's over and wasn't a disaster) been un-topsecretified so we can finally, finally tell you about it. Originally, OceanOne was not an archaeological robot--it was conceptualized by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia as a way of monitoring deep coral reefs in the Red Sea. Christian Voolstra, assistant professor of marine science at KAUST's Red Sea Research Center, explained where the idea came from in an interview last year: Currently people use a so-called ROV (remote operated vehicle), which is a little submarine with two robotic arms and very limited dexterity. Using the ROV to examine delicate coral colonies proved to be troublesome.

Oussama Khatib held his breath as he swam through the wreck of La Lune, 100 meters below the Mediterranean. The flagship of King Louis XIV sank here in 1664, 20 miles off the southern coast of France, and no human had touched the ruins – or the countless treasures and artifacts the ship once carried – in the centuries since. With guidance from a team of skilled deep-sea archaeologists who had studied the site, Khatib, a professor of computer science at Stanford, spotted a grapefruit-size vase. He hovered precisely over the vase, reached out, felt its contours and weight, and stuck a finger inside to get a good grip. He swam over to a recovery basket, gently laid down the vase and shut the lid.

Stanford's five-foot "virtual diver" was originally built for studying coral reefs in the Red Sea where a delicate touch is necessary, but the depths go well beyond the range of meat-based divers. The "tail" section contains the merbot's onboard batteries, computers and array of eight thrusters, but it is the front half that looks distinctly humanoid with two eyes for stereoscopic vision and two nimble, articulated arms. Those arms are what make OceanOne ideal for fragile reef environments or priceless shipwrecks like La Lune, which sank off the coast of France over 350 years ago and hasn't been touched until now. Force sensors in each wrist transmit haptic feedback to the pilot, allowing them to feel the object's weight while staying high and dry on a dive ship. The robot's "brain" works with the tactile sensors to ensure the hands don't crush fragile objects, while the navigation system can automatically keep the body steady in turbulent seas.

Yemeni government troops newly-trained by a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Shiite rebels routed al-Qaida militants on Friday from a city in the country's south, military officials said. Houta, the capital of Lahj province, is now firmly under government control, the officials said. The coalition-trained troops, which are loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government, were based in the southern Al-Anad base from where they launched the fight to retake the provincial capital, they added. The officials said the militants fled on Friday from Houta to nearby towns and farmland. The assault came at a time the coalition helicopters and U.S. drones have waged series of airstrikes targeting al-Qaida hideouts and strongholds across Yemen's southern region.

Over the past several decades, the United States has been an aggressive first mover in a war-fighting regime centered on guided munitions and integrated battle networks. These innovations have allowed U.S. forces to operate relatively uncontested in space, in the air, and on and under the sea, and to dominate conventional force-on-force land combat. For a variety of reasons – the geopolitics of rising powers, the global diffusion of technology and counter-reactions by its adversaries chief among them – the preeminence enjoyed by the United States in this regime is starting to erode. It's an amazing document for which this first sentence barely does justice for what is revealed throughout. So, once again we are given a DARPA press release of sorts that covers a program supposedly in development.

The US has officially christened its experimental self-driving warship designed to hunt for enemy submarines for months at a time. The 132ft-long (40-metre) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface without a crew. The ship's projected 20 million ( 14.2 million) price tag and its 15,000 ( 10,650) to 20,000 ( 14,300) daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the navy. The 132ft-long (40-metre) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface without a crew. The ship's projected 20 million ( 14.2 million) price tag and its 20,000 ( 14,300) daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the navy The vessel was unveiled by Deputy US Defense Secretary Robert Work and has been developed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

PORTLAND, OREGON – The U.S. military on Thursday christened an experimental self-driving warship designed to hunt for enemy submarines, a major advance in robotic warfare at the core of America's strategy to counter Chinese and Russian naval investments. The 132-foot-long (40-meter-long) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface for two or three months at a time -- without a crew or anyone controlling it remotely. That kind of endurance and autonomy could make it a highly efficient submarine stalker at a fraction of the cost of the Navy's manned vessels. "This is an inflection point," Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview, adding he hoped such ships might find a place in the Western Pacific in as few as five years. "This is the first time we've ever had a totally robotic, trans-oceanic-capable ship."