The rather beautiful looks of the robot in this image hide the fact that in reality it would be part of a swarm of military bots designed to creep into caves, bunkers and other hostile areas to grab intel on the baddies hiding within. Yes: it sounds like Minority Report, Dr Who and Robot Wars all rolled into one. And yes: it might just end up as a real machine, since BAE Systems has just been awarded US$38 million by the Army Research Lab to head up the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology project to develop the technology. The promotional video gives us a few more clues, despite its game-like looks, and if you don't like spiders then the image of one of the other potential drone bots will surely give you the heebyjeebies.

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Like every other red-blooded American boy, I enjoy the notion of propelling a piece of lead at up to Mach 8 and at "extreme" ranges. That's why I was glad to hear that BAE Systems has delivered a rail gun capable of such feats, and that the US Navy signed for the package.

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This is the British Royal Navy's newest class of submarine, the Astute. And this is what the nuclear-powered behemoth can do: generate its own air and water; sit in the English Channel and fire cruise missiles at North Africa; but perhaps the most extraordinary feature of the British-built sub is that it will never need to be refuelled throughout its 25-year lifespan, meaning it can sail round the world 40 times without surfacing - if your seamen don't need feeding, that is.

The Brits have put in an initial order for three of the subs - a snip at $2.33 billion each - and each one is expected to enter into service in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The contractor, BAE Systems, in Barrow, says it learned a lot from US sub builder Electric Boat - namely to build sections of the sub vertically (hence the 12-storey construction towers at the plant) which saved on manpower. Check the big beast in the gallery below, and the specs after the jump.

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