They’d taken a SCAR assault rifle and put a “black box” inside the handgrip, networking it with the soldier (”with a kind of Bluetooth” according to the PR guy), and also to home base. The grip is a sealed, 10-year unit that logs the number of bullets fired and remaining ammo à la Aliens. They’re also working on pairing to specific soldiers, perhaps using biometrics. Deactivating it if the Taliban get it, for instance? “In the near future,” said PR man enigmatically.

The second part of the suite is the Moving Red Dot Fire Control Unit, which is a networked firing solution computer for the grenade launcher. You press a button next to the trigger to activate the laser rangefinder, then the computer calculates the solution and shows it to you in the LED display. That’s right — laser-guided grenades. You are your own air support. [FN Herstal]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles, and sounds disappointed when admitting he’s never been Tased.

OSA PB2 “Less-Lethal” Multipurpose Pistol
Ever since I watched Rosa Klebb trying to kill Bond with her shoe-dagger, I considered the Russians the world experts in tiny hideaway weapons. The PB2 is an eeency-weeency little double-barrelled “less-lethal” pistol weighing less than 200g, firing anything from rubber bullets to flares to flashbangs. It’s also got a safety and integral laser sights, which can be upgraded to near–Scott Summers strength on order. Just don’t practice on some poor country bumpkin like they did here. [OSA]

DrugWipe by Securetec
The DrugWipe is what makes the customs guys all-knowing. It’s a tiny drug test in a pocket. These plastic sticks can test up to four classes of illegal drugs in a single go. According to Securetec’s PR guy, your saliva can give you away 12 hours after doing — or even just being near — cocaine, weed, opium, meth or whathaveyou. All the government grunts have to do is wipe your tongue. Won’t open your mouth? They can also swipe your sweat and random stuff you’re carrying. [Securetec]

Spy Watch
When I approached the director of a small security/protection company to ask about this normal-looking watch, he wouldn’t tell me a whole lot. What I managed to squeeze out of him is that although it’s normal size, it also records audio and video. Near the two o’clock mark you can see a tiny lens, activated by buttons on the side. He wasn’t the only cagey guy on the show floor — the guys in a nearby booth forbade me from taking pictures of their micro surveillance gear.

Trikke uPT
The Trikke uPT (ultralight personal transporter) was the funnest (and funniest) thing at the entire expo, and that’s saying a lot when you’re surrounded by a pirateload of guns. It’s an idea so simple its inventor, the dark-suited Dutchman whizzing around on it, couldn’t figure why his potential buyers would spend any money at all on the wayyyy more expensive Segways parked in the next booth. The uPT is a trike tricked out with a 250W electric motor and a 35km range lithium-ion battery; it weighs just over 16kg. And like that blasted Segway, there are plenty of models to choose from. [Trikke]

RiotBot by Technorobot
The RiotBot is billed by its makers as “the first robot for riot control”. It uses a PS3-looking remote controller to zip this PepperBall-equipped metal beast at 20km/h into all kinds of riots. The carbine fires at 700 rounds per minute and can be operated for two hours. [Technorobot]

MaxFit Gloves
It’s usually next to impossible to do precise tasks with gloves on. Most of the time, your hands move around in the gloves, you can’t feel what you’re holding and you end up feeling as useless as a eunuch in a whorehouse. But the MaxFit workgloves are fanfriggintastic. They were the thinnest, grippiest workgloves I had ever worn. Their try-out test was having me grip an Armor-All lubed PVC tube, then try to twist it out of my hand — it didn’t budge. Unfortunately, though the site advertises that it’s good for construction, DIYers and backyard work, I couldn’t help but wonder what ulterior activities they were promoting it for at a security show. [MaxFit]

Piexon Guardian Angel
The Guardian Angel is a tiny plastic toy that looks like your niece’s water pistol, but it’s actually a lightweight, disposable two-shot explosive-propelled pepper-spray gun. The cartridges give it way more range than a spray can. Just don’t carry it around in Scandinavia or other places where it’s banned, or they’ll arrest you for it (like they nearly did with me two months ago). Buy the way, it’s interesting to note that the Piexon website names “liberal politics” as a chief reason for needing more protection these days. [Piexon]

Rimmex 288 Prototype Amphibot
The Rimmex 288 is a prototype amphibious robot that can roll straight into water — streams, rivers and lakes mostly, or just very muddy terrain — and then roll right back out again. Its single arm with six degrees of freedom can be swapped with whatever you like — from a gun to an X-ray, apparently, depending on your, uh, objectives. [ROV Developpement]

Apoorva Prasad is a freelance writer and photographer based in Paris, France, who recently covered the Milipol 2009 military-police expo for us. He has a thing for holo-scoped assault rifles and sounds disappointed when admitting he’s never been Tased.

The Air Force and Boeing achieved a directed-energy breakthrough with these tests. MATRIX—Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments—performance is especially noteworthy because it demonstrated unprecedented, ultra-precise and lethal acquisition, pointing and tracking at long ranges using relatively low laser power.

I’m sure that description would get Governor Tarkin wet. Boeing — along with the Air Force and the Army — also tested the Laser Avenger, a kinetic-laser hybrid weapon that fires a high power death ray coupled with a 25mm machine gun.

Obviously, the kids in the funny uniforms are happy with their new toys, but I would like to see if they can do the same with a small thermal exhaust port only two metres wide. [Boeing via PopSci]

The Japan Trend Shop also says the 2mm-thick lenses wouldn’t shatter, even if a 500g shaft of iron is dropped on them from 1.2m. You know, for those times when you escape the clinches of some evil mastermind at the last minute. I guess I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but it still kinda sounds like they’re just pulling numbers out of the air.

If you’re in the market for a pair of super-rugged glasses, these puppies will only set you back $US317. Yikes. [Japan Trend Shop via DVICE]

See, the US Army is right. ICBMs are the fastest way to deploy ISR-Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance-spy bots. They only take minutes to launch and reach a target anywhere in the world. Loading them with spy bots will provide with access to real-time data about any conflict area, in virtually no time:

ISR platforms delivered from missiles can potentially provide battlefield information that is only seconds old when transmitted from long ranges. This information is particularly valuable since it is so current. It provides the potential for striking a very mobile enemy before he has time to alter his position.

But then, ICBMs usually carry a much dangerous load: nuclear warheads. You can be sure that the the Russians — or the Chinese or the North Koreans — won’t be happy about detecting an ICBM launch off Alaska. That’s exactly the reason why other similar efforts pioneered by Darpa were scrapped. The US Army boffins, however, say they have a plan to avoid the confusion: Use a different kind of ICBM.

How different that missile could be? A ballistic missile is a ballistic missile. They follow a trajectory across oceans and continents to open and drop whatever load they have, being that nukes, spy bots or cotton candy. Then, the Army also says that they want the spy bots to be fully armed, just in case they want to strike seconds after they find the enemy.

See, that still doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. Like the old Russian proverb says: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a nuclear missile.” [Wired]

The X-Flex wallpaper is really a layer of Kevlar-type material, in between sheets of “elastic polymer wrap”, which provides both flex and strength so that the projectile doesn’t knock the wall down. It seems really effective — check out Pop Sci’s video here for evidence — and the US Army is considering using it for bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s also incredibly easy to attach, being basically a rollable sheet, although I’m not sure if it can be unattached and reused. Still, its effectiveness is really impressive. [Pop Sci]

[Noise for Airports via NotCot]

This is the Shinshin ATD-X, the prototype of what could be Japan’s very own stealth fighter if they don’t get to buy Lockheed Martin F-22s. It’s very sleek, but I’m sad it doesn’t transform like a Varitech.

The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it’s not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling — it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say — and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]

Blitzer will continue testing through 2010, until they fire “tactically relevant aerodynamic rounds”. That means shells designed to obliterate enemy tanks, bunkers and anything that moves on the ground. Looking at it, I can’t help but to think on Cowboy Bebop and Spike’s Swordfish II fighter. Just imagine General Atomics mounting an optimised model in an oversized version of their Reapers. [General Atomics via Popsci]

To be able to instantly detect contraband like this would be a game-changer in Iraq, where the (effectively) free transit of roadside bombs and IEDs is a constant threat, so the Iraqi government is willing to pay a premium for devices that promise as much — they’ve already bought 1500 of the detectors at a price of $US16,500 to $US60,000 each. Despite the steep price and fierce user loyalty though, US government officials say the devices don’t work at all:

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security centre at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of defence, said the centre had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

Capital “S” Sceptical organisations like the James Randi Educational Foundation have joined the cause too, flagging the ADE 651’s manufacturer’s claims that the device works with spooky-sounding “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction” and offering a (rhetorical) bounty to anyone who can prove they actually work.

ATSC, the company that manufactures the device out of the UK, wouldn’t even talk to the New York Times, cementing an already obvious conclusion: This is a case of a bogus company taking advantage of credulous, vulnerable consumers by selling a device that seems like it works by virtue of being many users’ only means of bomb detection, meaning that they never notice when it doesn’t work — it’s just another car passing through a checkpoint; who knows if the bombing later that afternoon had anything to do with it!— and always notice when it does, even if by pure chance.

You may have failed miserably at designing a universal contraband detector, ATSC, but hey, at least your scam was well engineered. [NYT]