The United States Army is employing a prototype generative artificial intelligence tool to identify references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) for removal from training materials in line with a recent executive order from President Donald Trump. Officials at the Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)--the major command responsible for training soldiers, developing leaders, and shaping the service's guidelines, strategies, and concepts--are currently using the AI tool, dubbed CamoGPT, to "review policies, programs, publications, and initiatives for DEIA and report findings," according to an internal memo reviewed by WIRED. The memo followed Trump's signing of a January 27 executive order entitled, "Restoring America's Fighting Force," which directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate all Pentagon policies seen as promoting what that the commander-in-chief declared "un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational theories" regarding race and gender, a linguistic dragnet that extends as far as past social media posts from official US military accounts. Chris Robinson confirmed the use of CamoGPT to review DEIA materials. "[TRADOC] will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President. We ensure that these directives are carried out with the utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives," Robinson says.

Residents and officials from multiple US states are demanding answers about mysterious drone sightings that have been blamed on everything from foreign governments to alien UFOs. Numerous'SUV-sized' craft first appeared in New Jersey in mid-November, and have since spread to New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Drone sightings have also been reported in states such as Texas, Oklahoma and California as well as foreign countries such as Germany. But it's unclear whether these reports are related to the activity plaguing the Northeast. In New Jersey, the drones sometimes appear in groups and often remain in the same place for hours at a time, according to eyewitnesses.

Intelligence analysts have revealed why they believe Russia is behind the mysterious drones invading the skies over New Jersey. US Army general Darryl Williams described a situation that mirrors what has unfolded at American/NATO bases across Europe that are known to supply arms to Ukraine. And retired police lieutenant and intelligence analyst Tim McMillan told DailyMail.com Lt McMillan and other experts have noted that the New Jersey sightings circled around Picatinny Arsenal, home of the US Army's CCDC Armaments Center, which is responsible for manufacturing and supplying Ukraine with artillery ammunition. These experts suggest that Russia could be carrying out an intelligence-gathering mission known as'ferreting', meant to intentionally trigger and test their foreign rival's airspace defense procedures and response time.

After decades of research and development, the United States Army is taking yet another run at developing a powered exoskeleton to help soldiers carry heavy loads on the battlefield--but don't expect a futuristic suit of combat armor straight out of Starship Troopers or Iron Man anytime soon. Soldiers assigned to the Army's 1-78 Field Artillery Battalion training unit at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, recently completed a three-day "proof of concept" evaluation of several off-the-shelf "exoskeleton suits" in late September and early October, officials confirmed to WIRED. The evaluation was overseen by the service's Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), the organization responsible for developing new technology for soldiers. Official photos from the evaluation published to social media showed Advanced Individual Training students hauling artillery shells to and from a M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer and M777-towed howitzer with telltale black exoskeleton harnesses contrasted against their camouflage uniforms, part of a field exercise undertaken "to assess the potential of human augmentation, improve soldier performance, and determine if these exoskeletons meet the demands of our warfighters," as the service put it. While a DEVCOM spokesperson declined to identify which commercially produced systems were evaluated by soldiers, the Army announced its intent in August to award a contract to exoskeleton maker SUITX to "give users experience of advanced soldier augmentation technologies," according to a government notice.

The US Army is closer to unleashing robots on the battlefield after sending one dubbed'Lone Wolf' to the Middle East. The robot dog features an AR-15/M16-pattern rifle on its back that is attached to an AI-powered rotating mount capable of spotting aerial targets. The armed machine was sent overseas for rehearsal drills at the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center in Saudi Arabia. The military shared a photo of Lone Wolf last week, showing a Korean-made Ghost Robotics Vision 60 Quadrupedal-Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) at an undisclosed location. The US Army recently carried out testing of a new war machine in the Middle East.

Palmer Luckey Is Bringing Anduril Smarts to Microsoft's Military Headset The founder of Oculus VR is returning to headsets--this time for the battlefield. When Palmer Luckey was hacking together virtual reality headsets at his startup Oculus VR in the mid-2010s, he would sometimes imagine a future in which US soldiers used the technology to sharpen their battlefield senses. That vision is now virtually a reality after a deal that will bring software from his defense startup, Anduril, to a US Army head-mounted display developed by Microsoft. "The idea is to enhance soldiers," Luckey tells WIRED over Zoom from his home in Newport Beach, California. "Their visual perception, audible perception--basically to give them all the vision that Superman has, and then some, and make them more lethal."

A General Motors pickup has never hauled something like this. GM Defense is collaborating with military contractor Black Sage Technologies to integrate a drone defense system into the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) that GM Defense recently began supplying to the US Army. The ISV is based on the last-generation Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 midsize pickup and manufactured in Concord, N.C., using frames supplied by NASCAR's Hendrick Motorsports. The midsize truck was engineered for high-speed off-road driving and designed to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, slung from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, or air-dropped from a cargo plane by parachute for quick deployment into the field. The vehicle can be outfitted to fit nine troops, but there are several configurations that mix passenger, cargo and arms carrying capabilities.

In the years leading up to, and through, World War II, animal behaviorist researchers thoroughly embraced motion picture technology as a means to better capture the daily experiences of their test subjects -- whether exploring the nuances of contemporary chimpanzee society or running macabre rat-eat-rat survival experiments to determine the Earth's "carrying capacity." However, once the studies had run their course, much of that scientific content was simply shelved. In his new book, The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life, Seattle University Assistant Professor of Film Studies Dr. Ben Schultz-Figueroa, pulls these historic archives out of the vacuum of academic research to examine how they have influenced America's scientific and moral compasses since. In the excerpt below, Schultz-Figueroa recounts the Allied war effort to guide precision aerial munitions towards their targets using live pigeons as onboard targeting reticles. Excerpted from The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life by Ben Schultz-Figueroa, published by the University of California Press.

The US Army is planning to demonstrate a 300-kilowatt laser weapon, the most powerful ever built, next year. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing are building the device, which is the size of a shipping container and mounted on a heavy truck. "The high power, compact laser weapon… will produce a lethal output greater than anything fielded to date," Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said in a statement. The US Navy deployed the first high-energy laser weapon, known as LaWS, on the USS Ponce in 2014, with a reported 30 kilowatt output. Most military lasers tend to be in the 30 to 100 kilowatt range, which is mainly useful for shooting down small drones, so the new weapon is a significant increase.

The US Army is planning to demonstrate a 300-kilowatt laser weapon, its most powerful ever, next year. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing are building the device, which is the size of a shipping container and mounted on a heavy truck. "The high power, compact laser weapon… will produce a lethal output greater than anything fielded to date," Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said in a statement. The US Navy deployed the first high-energy laser weapon, known as LaWS, on the USS Ponce in 2014, with a reported 30 kilowatt output. Most military lasers tend to be in the 30 to 100 kilowatt range, which is mainly useful for shooting down small drones, so the new weapon is a significant increase.