Yesterday the Department of Defense released a memo outlining the government’s first official policy for social media access by military personnel. Somewhat surprisingly, it gives them unrestricted access to blog, Tweet, poke and ping just like everyone else. Effectively immediately, Department of Defense personnel across the board, including civilian employees and troops alike, have full access to popular new media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the rest. Before the new policy was announced, appropriate internet usage was determined individual commanders, many of whom barred those in their charge from posting on blogs or accessing social media networks. Of course, there are still some measures in place to ensure that new media activity doesn’t take up bandwidth when it’s limited or compromise mission security—”cleaning my rifle on the john, lol!” is a good troop overshare; “cleaning my rifle before we storm this Taliban bunker in Marjah, lol!” is a bad troop overshare—but the Pentagon’s new policy gives the OK for uses both personal and official. It’s always heartening when our government shows itself to be forward-thinking on matters of the internet, and allowing DoD employees to use the internet to its full, inane extent is definitely a step in the right direction.

In today’s Remainders, a buncha dreamers: too many people read too much into a fake Apple tablet ad; DARPA, having loved Avatar, casts about for 3D surveillance; a new B&O TV that will cost more than $10,000, and more. Ad Busters A few very serious people have been taking this very fake Apple tablet ad very seriously. Why? Who knows. It comes from the very heart of tablet render fakery, nowhereelse.fr. It has USB ports in the back that would necessitate a device twice as thick as the one shown.

Huh. Last Thursday, DARPA announced a workshop for Transformer. That is, their flying car program. “The objective of the Transformer (TX) program is to demonstrate a one- to four-person transportation vehicle that can drive and fly, thus enabling the warfighter to avoid water, difficult terrain, and road obstructions as well as IED and ambush threats” Sounds like something as small as a Jeep, but as easy to shoot out of the sky as a Helicopter. The Sphere goes on to recount the not-so-brief history of failed and embarrassing flying cars.

Playboy has a fascinating article on Dennis Montgomery , the man who conned the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Navy, the Air Force, the Senate Intelligence Committee and even Dick Cheney’s office into his phony anti-terrorist decryption technology. Montgomery—then co-owner and Chief Technology Officer of Vegas-based “eTreppid Technologies” and a notorious gambler with $12 million in debt—staged false demonstrations on his laptop, using his “top secret software” to convince the previous administration about an absolutely stupid idea: Arabic TV station Al Jazeera was transmitting encrypted instructions which included “target coordinates” and flight numbers to sleeping Al Qaeda operatives around the world, using clues in their programming. How serious was the government about this? On December 21, 2003, Montgomery fake information fired up all alerts, getting the country into a mass panic attack after Department of Homeland Security’s secretary Tom Ridge announced a risk of an attack “that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11″ based on “credible sources.” The credible sources was Montgomery. Nothing ever happened then, but that was the beginning of the scam

Playboy has a fascinating article on Dennis Montgomery , the man who conned the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Navy, the Air Force, the Senate Intelligence Committee and even Dick Cheney’s office into his phony anti-terrorist decryption technology. Montgomery—then co-owner and Chief Technology Officer of Vegas-based “eTreppid Technologies” and a notorious gambler with $12 million in debt—staged false demonstrations on his laptop, using his “top secret software” to convince the previous administration about an absolutely stupid idea: Arabic TV station Al Jazeera was transmitting encrypted instructions which included “target coordinates” and flight numbers to sleeping Al Qaeda operatives around the world, using clues in their programming. How serious was the government about this? On December 21, 2003, Montgomery fake information fired up all alerts, getting the country into a mass panic attack after Department of Homeland Security’s secretary Tom Ridge announced a risk of an attack “that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11″ based on “credible sources.” The credible sources was Montgomery. Nothing ever happened then, but that was the beginning of the scam. Later, Montgomery declared that the Department of Defense paid his company “$30 million in contracts and and appropriated another $100 million in their black budget .” After reading the article, I still can’t understand how the hell a crook like this was able to con an entire administration, the largest intelligence agency in the world—who at the end discredited Montgomery’s fake montage—and the most powerful military force, with such a preposterous idea.

Meet the IQ Pentagon : a 4-inch Rubik’s Cube -like puzzle that’s probably so infuriatingly complex that it’s got a better chance of ending up embedded in your TV screen than a Wiimote. But hey, maybe that’s just me. Think Geek are the culprits, and they’re flogging the harbinger of frustration for $60—just in time for holiday frenemy presents. [ ThinkGeek via DVICE ]

The Pentagon has been dreaming of portable pain guns for as long as we can remember , and if it has its druthers, said fantasy could soon become a reality. The Thermal Laser System (or the IR-Lesslethal device, if you prefer) has been brewing since at least 2005, but just recently the weapon prove to testers that it could create a beam strong enough to cause alarm and pain without actually damaging the skin or retina. Think of it as a portable crowd controller (or your worst nightmare, either one). Of course, there’s still quite a bit of testing to get through before it’s actually rolled out for military or police use, and there’s the fact that leaving no marks leaves open the possibility for undocumentable abuse. Not like that would ever happen , though

Last year, DARPA granted aerospace firm, Aeronvironment, a chunk of change and six-months to demonstrate a bird-sized Nano Air Vehicle (NAV). This video shows the result: the “smallest ever free-flying aircraft to hover and climb with flapping wings.” The image above comes from Aeronvironment , and shows what it wants the prototype in the video below to ultimately look like. DARPA’s goal is to have a 10 gram aircraft with a 7.5-centimetre wingspan. They want it to get into tight hiding spaces and send back GPS and image data. Aeronvironment’s progress is also notable because such robots previously couldn’t carry their own batteries, and had to use guide wires. “It is capable of climbing and descending vertically, flying sideways left and right, as well as forward and backward, under remote control,” says the company.

The Pentagon is known for its ominous pet projects, but here’s one we can honestly say doesn’t have us losing any sleep: Cyborg crickets. No, seriously, cyborg crickets. This is a good thing! Why? Simple. When a building collapses, say from an earthquake or a terrorist bombing, survivors are often trapped in the rubble.

The Pentagon’s wacky sci-fi department DARPA has been working on robotic hummingbird-based drones to serve as miniature spies. They’re not nearly as agile or adorable as real hummingbirds, but DARPA is well on their way to achieving that dream. Program manager Todd Hylton is aiming for “an approximately 10-gram aircraft that can hover for extended periods, can fly at forward speeds up to 10 meters per second, can withstand 2.5-meter-per-second wind gusts.” Right now, though, the teeny robobird can only fly for about 20 seconds at a time. But with some hard work, some day we will produce a robotic hummingbird that will strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. Wait, is fear the right word? [ Wired ]