Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The Flare Bright Meshnav swarm concept that links several vessels together. (Flare Bright)Driven by recent geopolitical conflicts, UK company Flare Bright is expanding its advanced software-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) technology from aerospace into the naval domain to secure at-sea operations with its Tactera system. This low-cost, full-stack, GPS-free navigation solution can add various low-cost sensors, such as lidar and radar altimeters, to a host vessel’s existing navigation stack, which typically includes GPS, a camera, and an inertial navigation system (INS). Using a unique set of algorithms to process data from these sensors, it can deliver navigational accuracy in…

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told a forum in late September he was seeking “resilience through unity” with a new alliance that would let world officials and non-governmental groups prepare together in case of disaster.For Taiwan, that could mean an attack or blockade by the militarily more powerful China.Lai’s pitch to 500 experts and guests augured an international expansion of a roughly five-year-old domestic, military-civilian, whole-of-society awareness campaign similar to that seen overseas when larger countries bear down on smaller rivals.Taiwan’s “efforts promoting whole-of-society defense resilience have progressed toward closer international connections and cooperation,” Lai said.The…

The Royal Thai Army has received four additional UH-60M Black Hawks. Pictured is a Thai UH-60M delivered earlier. (Gordon Arthur)The Royal Thai Army (RTA) continues to modernise its rotary-winged aviation fleet. Its latest receipts are four new Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, as well as the arrival of its first Boeing AH-6i Little Bird helicopters.The Black Hawk quartet was formally accepted into RTA service at a ceremony in Lopburi on 18 September 2026.They are connected to a Department of Defense contract notification dated 28 October 2024. That US$1.2 billion deal for Sikorsky covered UH-60Ms for Australia, Brazil, Greece, Sweden and…

Autonomous maritime systems maker Saronic has broken ground on Port Alpha, a major new shipyard facility in Texas aimed at revolutionizing U.S. shipbuilding. Saronic press release Saronic announced the groundbreaking of Port Alpha, a next-generation American shipyard built to restore the nation’s maritime industrial capacity. Situated on 835 acres at the Port of Brownsville with the option to expand to nearly 4,400 acres, Port Alpha represents a private capital investment of more than $3 billion. The shipyard, which will be capable of building both autonomous and manned ships, is expected to generate up to 10,000 direct jobs and create an…

MCLEAN, Va., Sept. 29, 2026 — HII (NYSE: HII), America’s largest military shipbuilder and the global leader in autonomous seapower, was awarded a contract by the U.S. Navy to build 10 ROMULUS unmanned surface vessels (USVs) for the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program. The award marks a major advancement in the U.S. Navy’s transition from experimentation to fleet-scale deployment of trusted, operational autonomy across the maritime domain. “HII has made deliberate, early investments in the development of autonomous systems, advancing capabilities essential to the Navy’s hedge strategy,” said Chris Kastner, HII president and CEO. “We remain firmly committed to…

Two weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian TV Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of the evening newscast. She held up a hand-drawn sign behind the anchor’s head that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you!” She shouted, “No to war!” until she was dragged away.No one has protested the war on Russian television since then, partly as a result of tighter security and a general climate of fear. But in October 2024, Margarita Simonyan, one of Russia’s chief propagandists, gave another explanation. A growing number of…

Smart Shooter, a designer, developer, and manufacturer of innovative fire control systems, today announced that it has been awarded a 36-month, single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract by the U.S. Department of War’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), with a maximum ordering ceiling of up to $150 million. Under the agreement, Smart Shooter is the sole supplier of the SMASH fire control systems, training, and related services covered by the contract. The U.S. Department of War announced the award on September 29. JIATF-401 coordinates counter-UAS efforts across the U.S. military and federal agencies, working with government and industry partners to address…

Dana White is still involved in the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua fight no matter how much Eddie Hearn might protest.On Thursday, the UFC CEO responded to questions about why he wasn’t in attendance for the first press conference to announce the highly anticipated heavyweight fight, which was held in London. While White was absent, his business partner and fellow Zuffa Boxing executive Nick Khan was there seated next to Saudi money man Turki Alalshikh.While the actual promoters for the event — Eddie Hearn for Joshua and Frank Warren for Fury — shared the stage, White revealed that his team…

I have found myself writing about the demise of 2XKO quite a bit, but this time, we have insight from Riot Games to back up what I’ve been saying for quite some time now: the expectations were insane. According to Co-Founder Marc Merrill on the Lemonade Stand Podcast, Riot required numbers in the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions of monthly users, for 2XKO to be considered sustainable for the long-term. This is due to how expensive…

A wider, more muscular chest can dramatically change the way your upper body looks. It makes the shoulders appear broader, gives the torso more presence from the front, and adds thickness to shirts, jackets, and T shirts. However, it is important to be clear about what training can and cannot do. You cannot change the width of your rib cage or collarbones through exercise. What you can do is build more muscle across the chest, particularly through the pectoralis major, to create a fuller and visually wider appearance. The pecs are large muscles with fibers that run in different directions.…