The line consists of three controllers – two assault rifles and a sniper rifle – and a range of peripherals. The two assault rifles are designed to work just like the PS3’s DualShock controllers, with buttons positioned in such a way as to be comfortable for both right and left-handed players. The sniper rifle is only compatible with PlayStation Move and its corresponding games. Other accessories include a universal gaming backpack designed to accommodate any of the three major consoles – Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii – with a padded main compartment and multiple pockets. The line also includes three headsets: a Universal Gaming Headset with 3D Effect that appears to be compatible with pretty much anything with a 3.5 mm headphone jack (including Xbox 360, most computers, and even iOS devices), a bluetooth Throat Mic Headset compatible with the PS3 and any bluetooth-equipped computer, and a wired Throad Mic Headset with a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

CTA’s announcement does not give any pricing or release date information on any of these items, saying only that they “will soon be available at major retailers.” Given the criticism that has been leveled at violent video games in the past, it will be interesting to see what kind of reception these accessories receive. Rest assured that there will be at least a few accusations of the Army using these controllers to try and sway impressionable young gamers into enlisting. Personally, all I really want to know is whether that bluetooth throat mic will work with my iPhone.

What do you think of these controllers? Will you buy them? Should the Army be in the business of making video game controllers? Sound off in the comments.

[Source: CTA Digital]

On one hand this extremely human-like robot, developed by Boston Dynamics, is jaw-dropping in its technological achievement. On the other hand it’s utterly frightening, as it’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to T-800.

It’s actually called PETMAN, which is short for Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin. It is being developed for the U.S. Army, who plans to use the robot to test protective gear used by troops – like chemical suits and whatnot.

Of course, in order to properly test the Army gear, the robot needs to act like a soldier. And act like a soldier it does. It walks, runs, crawls, bends, and just generally moves like a human. As you’ll see in the video, the thing even does pushups. Not only does it move like a solider, but in order to truly test the effectiveness of the gear, the robot sweats like a solider. PETMAN can simulate respiration and changes in skin temperature in order to mimic real life circumstances.

Check it out:

According to ieee spectrum, the PETMAN got its start as a 26 million dollar Army program. It can run at about 4.4 miles per hour and according to its developers, might eventually receive a head.

“There are all sorts of things robots like PETMAN could be used for,” said Boston Dynamics VP of engineering Robert Playter. “Any place that has been designed for human access, mobility, or manipulation skills. Places like the Fukushima reactors could be accessed by PETMAN-like robots (or AlphaDogs), without requiring any human exposure to hazardous materials. Perhaps firefighting inside of buildings or facilities designed for human access, like on board ships designed for human crews.”

Or, you know, enslavement of the human race or whatever.

Boston Dynamics is already known for their advancements in the field of robotics. They’re the guys behind BigDog, the robot designed to traverse rough terrain that can carry up to 320 lbs. You can see BigDog in action below. It’s amazing how something with four legs can look so spider-like.

Blogging about the Iraq war under the pseudonym "LT [Lieutenant] G" since December 2007 the popular blog called "Kaboom: A Soldiers War Journal," detailed the daily life of the war describing firefights, combat patrols and tribal meetings.

The entry that landed the lieutenant in trouble with his superiors was a May 28 post titled "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage." In the post LT G writes about turning down a promotion to become an XO (Executive Officer).

"I want nothing to do with a lateral promotion to XO (Executive Officer) that involves becoming a logistical whipping boy and terminal scapegoat for all things NOTGOODENOUGH. I’ve been out here in the wilds too long, dealing with matters of life and death, to go back to Little America for PowerPoint pissing matches."

In a re-creation of the conversation LT G had with his superiors about turning down the promotion, LT G writes about the consequences of his decision and what his superiors reaction was.

"Fine, I’m not going to make you do it. (Even though I spent three days trying to do so.) But you are now on my shit-list, and I want to fuck you over for daring to defy and defying to dare. A bullshit tasking will eventually come down the pipeline, and I got a rubber stamp with your name on it. And yes, I know your performance has been outstanding, and we have consistently rated you above your peers, at the top echelon. Doesn’t matter now."

In his final post titled "A Tactical Pause" LT G explains why he had to shut down his blog. "Due to a rash posting on my part, and decisions made above my pay-grade, I have been ordered to stop posting on Kaboom, effective immediately."

He continues,"My ‘The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage’ post on May 28 did not go through the normal vetting channels. It’s totally on me, as it was too much unfiltered truth. I’m a soldier first, and orders are orders. So it is."

He closes the post writing, "Thank you for caring. Agree or disagree with the war, if you’re reading this, you are engaged and aware. As long as that is still occurring in a free society, there is something worth the fighting for."
 

These new rules were instituted on April 17, but (as you might expect) the Army wasn’t eager to make them public.  Wired managed to get hold of them, however, even though “the guidelines are kept on the military’s restricted Army Knowledge Online intranet.”

The enforcement of these guidelines will ostensibly keep secrets secretive and soldiers safe, but their scope has some soldiers up in arms (figuratively speaking, of course).  So what, exactly, has been affected?

“[L]etters, resumes, articles for publication, electronic mail (e-mail), Web site postings, web log (blog) postings, discussion in Internet information forums, discussion in Internet message boards, or other forms of dissemination or documentation” must all get approval (italics mine).  Wouldn’t it be easier to just take away soldier’s pens and computers?  Or maybe the Army could get John Yossarian to do some editing.

Matthew Burden, a retired officer, thinks the whole thing is pointless, anyway.  “The soldiers who will attempt to fly under the radar and post negative items about the military, mission, and commanders will continue to do so under the new regs,” he wrote.  “The soldiers who’ve been playing ball the last few years, the vast, VAST, majority will be reduced.  In my mind, this reg will accomplish the exact opposite of its intent.”

Nonetheless, the Army’s bureaucracy isn’t known for being quick to change its mind.  Soldiers who wish to obey its commands may have to put service before self and blog.

Flash platform developer Brajeshwar Oinam seems to think it’s an inevitability. Oinam, an Indian himself, is taking some flack in the comments section of his blog for being demeaning towards his own countrymen.

His written English is broken, but, basically, Oinam is warning Digg fans about the invasion by “the Indian troll,” one of the “Indian Technical Swarm” that has a date with outsourcing destiny.

The demeaning part:

Yeah, we know. Americans are fat and loud. The French are stinky and rude. Indians work in call centers. Stereotypes suck. We got it.

Muhammad Saleem, at his blog, The Mu Life, continues Oinam’s thread, no doubt releasing a breathy “hmmm” just like in his picture. Saleem explores the idea of “dirty marketing” via social media that exploits cheap labor in developing countries.

In Saleem’s estimation, a dirty marketer could hire 15 “drones” for less than $1000 per month (about 34 cents per hour) to create multiple Digg.com accounts, submit and digg selected content.

Boom. Instant buzz. Brilliant.

While it’s a good evil idea, it’s a non-starter because it seems it would be reasonably easy to block a sudden surge of new Digg members from certain IP addresses workin’ the dirty on the site.

Unless a new and better evil idea includes a way to get around that. I’ve heard the Indians are excellent hackers, too, Brajeshwar, just like how Americans are excellent at shooting things.

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Of course, governments around the world didn’t already have access to these images until Google Earth.

UPDATE: The Indian military didn’t consider this much of a threat back in October.

An Indian Navy source said the pictures in themselves “do not pose a serious threat to security.”

“Everyone knows where the (Indian) president’s palace is, everyone knows how many rooms it has – these details are there in school books. As for the location, there is no mystery about that either.”

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Yes, I am speaking of Hass MS&L and the BlogWorks team. Ha! Bet you thought I meant someone else, but geez, come on, I said successful blogging intitiatives that go beyond blog launches.

From O’Dwyer’s, comes the story that the US Army has contracted Hass MS&L’s BlogWorks for a blogger outreach program. From the story:

The U.S. Army has hired Manning Selvage & Lee to do outreach to pro-military bloggers, Jud Branam, managing director of Haas MS&L, told O’Dwyer’s.

Branam said he could not go into any detail about the work. He would only confirm that the Detroit office was recently hired by the military.

A Haas MS&L e-mail sent to bloggers says the Army is interested in testing a “new outlet for public information.” The Army promises “exclusive editorial content” on selected issues.

The blogs are viewed as a way to distribute “good news” about Iraq stories. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes stories about progress in Iraq are largely missing from the mainstream press.

France’s Publicis Groupe owns MS&L, which also blogs on behalf of General Motors.

Well, this is an interesting way to go about it, and the full pitch letter to the bloggers can be seen on One Hand Clapping. My only complaint on the pitch letter is that it’s way too long for bloggers. Short and sweet and to the point is my new mantra for pitch letters, especially ones to bloggers.

The Washington Post’s Early Warning Blog had a different take, though. They think that the Army hiring MS&L is a desperation move, but I have to disagree. MS&L did quick outreach, informing the political bloggers that there is information and access out there, if they are interested. It’s about access, which is never a bad thing. It’s not like all bloggers work in the Beltway, or for the Post, so it’s a way for them to get information and interviews as well, should they so desire.

Now, it also depends on how the Army brass are going to work with bloggers – but I don’t think MS&L has that full control of the Army press officers. If the Army is upfront, honest, and doesn’t try to spin – but just communicates – I think the program could go well.

As a side note, this is not the first proactive blog campaign undertaken by BlogWorks. Last November, they did blog outreach for Hefty Serve ‘N Store plates and bowls. There were a few mis-steps there – bad targetting, bad mail merges – but they learned from that experience, and seem to have done a better job with the Army. Full disclosure, I asked for some of the plates and bowls, and they are pretty neat.

Jeremy Pepper is the CEO and founder of POP! Public Relations, a public relations firm based in Arizona, USA.

He authors the popular Musings from POP! Public Relations blog which offers Jeremy’s opinions and views – on public relations, publicity and other things.

Satellite photos of New Orleans, taken on Wednesday, August 31, at 10:00 a.m. have become available via Google Maps, according to a new entry in the site’s blog.

Instructions for viewing the newer images were posted by Google Maps Product Manager Bret Taylor to the Google Blog:

Developers have been discussing the update and other available image resources. One mentioned in a discussion thread that NOAA has made images of the hurricane available online.

Agencies like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army have requested donations to help with evacuee assistance. Both organizations provide mechanisms via their web sites to donate; options for contributing by phone or mail can be found as well.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Tom Foremski’s report today in Silicon Valley Watcher makes for very interesting reading.

He says IBM’s plan comes hot on the heels of their Q1/05 financial results, which missed financial analysts’ expectations and led to IBM announcing layoffs of up to 13,000 employees, with the majority of those lost jobs in Europe. Also see this ZDNet report with additional commentary.

Tom’s report says that IBM hopes blogging could help stem further losses if it can galvanize employees into becoming an army of online evangelists for IBM’s products and technologies. Employees will be taught what blogging is, and they will be guided on what is appropriate blogging content.

The goal is to help improve IBM’s competitive position in key IT markets by having more of its tech gurus participating in online communities and discussions.

This huge-scale blogging plan is visionary, to say the least, but the goal must be regarded as extraordinarily ambitious. Mind you, imagine if only one percent of IBM’s 130,000 employees become outward-facing bloggers – that’s 1,300 new bloggers suddenly on the scene, about as many as Microsoft currently has in total (that was the number in March, anyway).

But we already know that IBM has been making strong moves into corporate blogging for some time. In early March, I posted commentary about their 2,800 internal employee blogs. I bet that number has increased substantially and geographically in the ensuing two months.

There are also the efforts IBM is making to categorize and tag content on their employee intranet, a behemoth site(s) with over five million pages. The goal there is clear – enable employees to more effectively find and use information, and enable them to assign attributes to information in a way that makes it easy and simple for others to find and make connections to and from it.

This is all about reducing costs, and improving workplace efficiency and employee productivity, as well as the obvious goal.

For the moment, a last word from Tom’s report:

This type of evangelism through blogging can be extremely effective and potentially reduce advertising and marketing costs-a very large line item for most companies. Such savings could offset job cuts-the traditional way IBM and other tech companies reduce their costs.

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

While I agree with David on screening, I do feel that agencies can and should play a pivotal role in guiding content and then figuring out how to amplify it.

For example, as I told Shel Israel recently, Waggener Edstrom should have a daily blog that highlights the 25 most important posts coming out of Microsoft’s army of corporate bloggers that also includes an agency POV for the press.

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Infoworld: Care and feeding of blogs

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.