Gawker: valleywag, military

Battlefield iPhones to Run Facebook of War

Ryan Tate — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:51:07 EST

Raytheon made an iPhone app for mapping units a combat zone, and for new types of communication, like "friending" other tanks. It'll presumably sell for, like, $50,000 in Apple's military app store, and still earn less than iFart. (Pic)

You're In the Googleplex Now

Ryan Tate — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:13:28 EDT

After a yearlong Army deployment to Iraq, how does it feel to enter Google's bubble of notoriously cushy working conditions, stateside? It's as disorienting as you might think, reports public affairs specialist Dale Sweetnam, now embedded with Google.

Sweetnam, who is still in the Army but enrolled a special training program, wrote that his head was "still spinning" after a month at Google. No drills! No schedules! And suddenly he's having to wrestle with lava lamps. And familiarize himself with the very un-Army concept of adult "recess:":

Our wonderful facilities manager teamed up with the Google chef (yes, we actually have a chef) and put on a "Recess at Work" event for the office. The afternoon included square pizzas, chicken nuggets, juice boxes, four square and dodgeball.

Not that it's all fun and games; Sweetnam helped launch a system allowing military families to send audio care packages to servicemen and women via Google Voice. He's also meeting with veteran's groups and pitching the media on charity-related stories. Take his call! Everyone begrudges some entitled Googlers their hot fudge sundaes, but who can resist a man in uniform, with a service record and a juice box?

No Social Networking for U.S. Marines

Ryan Tate — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:41:50 EDT

The Marines have banned Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, subject to exceptions for "mission-critical need." Staying in touch with family back home while fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not mission critical.

A U.S. Strategic Command source tells Wired.com's Noah Shachtman that social networking sites made it too easy to spread "scams, worms, and Trojans" among the Marines. So the U.S. is now in the peculiar situation of deeming social networks safe enough for its teenaged girls, but too perilous for Marines, in active war zones. The Marines will remain completely safe from movie quizzes, virtual jello shot requests and online snowball wars for one year.

How Valley tech makes it into Iran

Paul Boutin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Americans used to covertly sell weapons and technology through Israel to Iranian moderates — sometimes with Ronald Reagan's approval. Today, Iran gets American military technology from companies in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. Wired military tech writer Noah Shachtman writes: "The U.S. is the biggest arms-dealer in the world; soaring oil prices given Iran the cash to go get those weapons. It's nearly impossible to stop countries from reselling their U.S. weaponry to Iran." He links to a longer Mother Jones report on "transshipment." Got any info on specific made-in-Sunnyvale technologies that have leaked to the other team? Send 'em in. (Photo by Wikimedia)

Iran hacks world media with Photoshop

Paul Boutin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Left: The head-turning photo that appeared all over the world yesterday. Right, the original photo. The New York Times, which ran the altered version, explains how the photo spread "from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," to "the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites." We lucked out by running other photos for variety. (Photo by Sepah News via AP)

Iran's anti-Israel missile tech — a primer

Paul Boutin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:00:00 EDT

Skip the politics, let's get to the tech: The Shahab-3 missiles that Iranian solidiers test-fired today — a blatant bring-it to Israel and America — could land a nuke in Tel Aviv. (The city's startup sector was recently dubbed the world's #8 tech hotspot by CNET, less than 240 milliseconds from Sand Hill Road and believe me, no packet loss from those guys.) The missile is based on North Korea's Nodong-1, an Iranian-funded adaptation of the Soviet Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein's troops lobbed at Israel in the first Gulf War. No, it's not true that these missiles are so old they use vacuum tubes instead of silicon chips. It's not true that their guidance systems are built from American GPS gear, as much as the Valley would like to take credit. What is true is that the Shahab-3's biggest vulnerability — a tendency to tumble out of control on the way down to the target — may have been fixed.

The Shahab-3 is just over 50 feet long and 4 feet thick. It weighs over 17 tons at launch. Don't let its stubby profile mislead you — it can be programmed to change course several times in midflight, making it hard to shoot down.

The weapon debuted 10 years ago, in a parade during Iran's Sacred Defense Week. The parade missile was reportedly decorated with signs reading, "Israel would be wiped from the map" and "The U.S. can do nothing." Since then, refinements to the design have increased its estimated range from 800 miles to as much as 1,250 miles, carrying a warhead up to 1,500 pounds — plenty of room for a nuke. Tel Aviv is only 650 miles from the Iranian border.

If you really want to go deep on the Sahab-3, there's lots more in a Federation of American Scientists report, and this encyclopedic Global Security entry includes several detailed diagrams. But take note: Even the FAS doesn't have new data from the past two years. (Photos by AP/Ruhollah Vahdati, AP/Sajjad Safari, AFP/Getty Images)