iRobot makes Roomba, the little circular robot that vacuums your house on its own. But you probably didn't know that that same company makes robots for the military and has done so for quite some time. In fact, iRobot created the PackBot, a robot that the military uses to dispose of bombs. According to Techland, the latest robot created for the military is called "Warrior," and is controlled using an Xbox controller.

The First Person Cultural Trainer (FPCT) has been awarded the Best Game award in the Government Category of the 2011 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge. FPCT is sponsored by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command G-2 Intelligence Support (TRADOC). The Serious Games Showcase was part of the Interservice/Interindustry Training and Simulation Education Conference (I/ITSEC), and was held in Orlando, Fla., from November 28 through December 1.

CTA Digital has revealed a new partnership with the U.S. Army to manufacture branded video game accessories. The company says that this is the first licensing agreement it has entered into. Oddly enough, tax payers may be saying the same thing. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company will reveal three new U.S. Army branded gaming headsets, three rifle controllers, and a "battle ready backpack" for game console systems at CES in Las Vegas on January 10-13 (booth #31265).

As pointed out by our very own Beemoh, The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense wants to update its military simulations with the latest first-person shooter technology. This, they say, will focus the concentration of soldiers that train using the software.

Non-profit gamer charity The Ablegamers Foundation has awarded the Disabled Veteran Grant 2011 to three disabled veterans - just in time for the holidays. The group awarded two Xbox 360 gaming systems complete with a one-year subscription to Xbox Live Gold, and one completely customized Xbox controller from Evil Controllers to the recipients of its annual event.

Gamers Outreach celebrates the fourth anniversary of their military division, Fun for Our Troops this month. The organization provides games and hardware to U.S. military troops - something it has been doing since its inception in 2007. Gamers Outreach collects new and used video game and console donations, which they use to create video game care packages for troops serving overseas in areas of Afghanistan and Iraq. To date, they have sent a total of 332 packages (and over 2000 games) to individual troops, units, and MWRs throughout the world.

An Oklahoma research team led by communications professor Norah Dunbar and the Air Force Research laboratory have managed to score an unprecedented grant of $10.7 million USD to develop a video game to train intelligence officers in the government.

Dunbar, along with Scott Wilson, associate director for Innovative Technologies at the OU K20 Center, is overseeing the development of the game, which is called Intelligence Crisis: codename MACBETH (or "Mitigating Analysts Cognitive Bias by Eliminating Task Heuristics").

EA's studio DICE has released some interesting stats from its recent Battlefield 3 online multiplayer beta test that are worth mentioning. According to DICE's internal figures, around 8,125,310 players took part in the multiplayer beta test. In fact DICE even counted how many bullets were shot during the entire test! Players fired a total of 47 billion bullets and killed 1.5 billion other players. Around 19 million of those players were killed with a knife, while an additional 21 million COM-stations were destroyed.

The United States Army is testing a new PC strategy game that teaches captains who are being deployed to Afghanistan how to think like local village elders do. The game is called CultureShock: Afghanistan and is being tested at the U.S. Army Engineer School via the captains’ career course at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. The purpose of the game, according to its creators is to teach cultural awareness and to show officers what drives the decision making process of local leaders whom U.S. forces will have to encounter and communicate with.

Robert Daly, who served as the head of Foundation 9 Entertainment's wholly owned studio, Pipeworks, today resigned, after several weeks of criticism over what some former military men were calling faked credentials. Daly became the target of harsh criticism when professionalsoldiers.com obtained his military records from the US's National Personnel Records Center and United States Army Special Operations Command, which showed he was an analyst, rather than a Special Forces soldier - which he publicly claimed to be a member of numerous times.

According to the Guardian, the independent UK broadcasting watchdog OfCom is examining ITV's use of footage from the Bohemia's ARMA 2 videogame in a documentary special that was presented as an IRA film from 1988. The video was shown during the show Exposure and was presented to viewers as real footage showing the IRA using weapons provided by Muammar Gaddafi.

According to this IndustryGamers report, Pipeworks studio lead Robert Daly has been called out publically over his claims that he served in the U.S. Special Forces. Pipeworks is the developer behind the Deadliest Warrior video game, which is based on the popular Spike TV show of the same name.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Zombie Studios lead designer Richard Dormer talk about why their upcoming Kinect game based on the controversial security firm has decided to steer clear of blood, killing civilians, swearing, and moral dilemmas.

Operation Supply Drop, a [501(c)(3)] non-profit charity that creates video game care packages for American servicemen and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, has collected $10,000 in donations in its seven months of existence. The group says that this is all thanks to the public which has been very generous in giving them the funds they need to fill the request for video game filled care packages to units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States Army is using Crytek’s CryEngine 3 game engine technology to create a new simulation to help train soldiers. The Army plans to spend $57 million on the project. The technology that will go into the simulation and the technology to use it is being developed by Orlando-based Intelligent Decisions. The Dismounted Soldier Training System (DSTS) enables soldiers and units to train inside a video game environment that features real weather conditions, realistic graphics, squad-based interactions, and advanced motion sensor technology that provides full 360-degree movement within the game.

To celebrate the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend Gamers Outreach Foundation will host a 24-hour game-a-thon charity with the proceeds going towards entertainment products for troops deployed overseas. Gamers Outreach Foundation has teamed up with The Game Fanatics to offer a cool way for gamers to show appreciation to the military. The Game Fanatics is supporting the Gamers Outreach Foundation’s military division (Fun for Our Troops). Money raised through the fundraiser will go towards a portable gaming kiosk that will be donated to the Dallas Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Gamers can also donate games and consoles to GOF.

The United States Army isn't the only military outfit that has a video game; the Chinese People's Liberation Army has apparently helped develop a similar first-person shooter alongside Chinese game development studio Wuxi Giant Interactive Group.

In development for nearly two years, the military simulation follows the daily grind of a typical CPLA soldier. The scenario takes players through the paces, learning various military tactics and culminates in a large-scale military battle. The game is called Mission of Honor and offers several modes including basic training, solo missions and team-based combat.

We assume the goal of Mission of Honor is similar to that of America's Army: as a recruitment and early training tool for young males in their late teens.

The game will be released soon, though how it will be distributed is still a mystery.

The United States Navy has begun crowd sourcing ideas for fighting Somali pirates using a massively multiplayer game, according to a Fast Company report. Using a new game platform called MMOWGLI (Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet), U.S. military forces and Civilian players on converging on virtual pirates. MMOWGLI is the product of years of research, and will feature 1,000 military and civilian players. It will launch on May 16. The new program is the first effort by the military to integrate both crowd sourcing and gamification into traditional military wargames.

MMOWGLI was developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to test the feasibility of using massively multiplayer online games to solve difficult strategic problems like real-world high seas piracy. The MMOWGLI game launching in May focuses on combating Somalian piracy, but the gaming platform is designed to be open enough that it can be adapted to other military hotspots and situations.

The United States Army and the Air Force have officially certified Unity development technology for use on the military's secure networks. This includes the company's game development technology and its Unity Web Player. More importantly, this allows would-be game developers and projects designed to creates serious games and other applications to do so. This also means that software developed for training can now be installed on networks, laptops and mobile devices used in the field.

Microsoft’s Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson) announced via his official blog that military personnel will now have an easier time when conducting commerce on Xbox Live. One of the biggest requests from soldiers serving in the military is to have the ability to use "Military States" as billing addresses. Today Microsoft is allowing just that. As of today Xbox Live now accepts AA (Armed Forces of the Americas), AE (Armed Forces Europe) and AP (Armed Forces Pacific) as options for credit card addresses. To make changes to these addresses, simply makes changes to the billing section on Xbox.com.

"We hope this makes it easier for the men and women in the United States Armed Forces to stay connected to the Xbox LIVE community," said Hryb in the post announcing the new changes.

"Thank you for everything you do," he added.

Indeed, anything that makes it easier for Americans serving our country is a good thing.

Here's an odd study to consider: using a 9 volt battery can make your skills at gaming better - as long as you can stand some small level voltage running through your head. According to an odd DARPA-funded study, running low-level electricity through the scalp might help the mind focus on tasks such as video games. The research used low-level electricity in concert with a military training game to test the theory. Researchers found that test subjects playing a military training game had improved performance when they were affected by transcranial direct-current stimulation (tCDS).

Sponges connected to the temples of subjects generated an electrical current were attached to their temples. Then the test subjects played DARWARS Ambush!, a simulation game designed to help train soldiers for serving in Iraq. The simulation lets players scan for dangers on a landscape, such as improvised explosive devices or enemy gunmen.

The Department of Defense have developed a new simulation technology to help the Navy track enemy submarines and they are testing it by rolling it into a commercial computer game. The Defense Advanced Research Project Arm's Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) software simulates tracking the evasive maneuvers used by submarines. The agency says that the software will soon be rolled into the ACTUV program's computers.

But the real kicker is who will get to test this new technique: simulation game players. DARPA has integrated it into the Dangerous Waters computer game by Sonalysts Combat Simulations and has made the ACTUV Tactics Simulator available online as a free download as well.

American military research and manufacturing company Picatinny Arsenal, has created the Robotic Vehicle Trainer, a "realistic" video game that can be used to train soldiers to operate bomb disposal robots. Picatinny Arsenal has received a patent for "a process to safely train soldiers how to operate a variety of robots used in Iraq and Afghanistan to detonate improvised explosive devices, or IEDs."

The company created Robotic Vehicle Trainer to give soldiers a realistic simulation of IED removal in a combat environments. The game uses the same controls used for the real-world robots used in Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD).

Robotic Vehicle Trainer was created by Bernard Reger, chief of the Combat Support & Munitions Systems Branch under the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Centre (ARDEC).

The U.S. Army has enlisted developer C² to develop seven iPhone apps that teach Patriot missile crews how to launch missiles at targets, according to a report in The Escapist. The developer has completed the first app and delivered it to the army, and is already working on the second. The first app teaches "launch station march orders and emplacement," using a combination of video from real launch crews in action, illustrations, and other visual aids. The app is meant to be used in a classroom with an instructor, according to the report.

Obviously, these apps are not for public consumption. Future apps from C² for the Army will help train missile crews in specific areas (from The Escapist report):

More art inspired by Wikileaks has made its way to the streets. Art that merges still images taken from a leaked video and HUD imagery from Halo 3 has been released as street art in Valencia, California. The unique art went up last week. The imagery is a combination of Halo 3 HUD elements and stills taken from a video leaked by Wikileaks in which U.S. soldiers shoot at civilians from a helicopter. The video shows two Reuter's reporters and unarmed civilians being murdered. The overlay, one would guess, is that the soldiers operating the helicopter were shooting at people as if it was a "video game."

This is the second piece of art from artist "Sandwich," whose first piece showed a picture of Wikileaks front man Julian Assange with the message "If you don't know, now you know."

See it full screen here.

The U.S. Air Force is set to unveil a $2 million super computer comprised primarily of PlayStation 3's on Wednesday. Called its fastest super computer to date, the new system has been codenamed "the Condor Cluster" by the Department of Defense.

Researchers at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio used off-the-shelf PlayStation 3's and traditional graphical processing computer components to create the system. The Condor Cluster will reportedly be used for radar enhancement and recognition capabilities, according to the Air Force.

The Air Force added that the $2 million price tag is about 10 - 20 times cheaper than what it would normally cost to build such a system.

Source: UPI

Canada’s Department of National Defence has submitted a federal government tender request for 500 videogames.

Among the games requested, according to The Star, are 93 copies of Gears of War, 82 copies in total of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 36 copies of Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. All in all, it’s estimated that the total value of the games sought is around $25,000.

Capt. Sandra Bourne, a spokesperson for the Canadian Forces, said about the order, “It’s a strange one.”

Notably absent from the list—Medal of Honor, which Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay criticized earlier this year.

Wired’s Danger Room columnist recently took a trip to the Association of the U.S. Army conference held in Washington D.C. to get a look at the latest and greatest gadgets that contractors are developing for America’s armed forces.

Among the items was a videogame, dubbed Call of Duty: Afghanistan by Wired, which allows trainees to work on a variety of skills, including maneuvering and leadership tactics.

While Electronic Arts made the adjustment to rename the Taliban to “Opposing Force” in the multiplayer part of Medal of Honor, a ban on the game appearing in GameStop stores located in Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) locations is still in place.

The decision by AAFES officials puzzled a Stars & Striped columnist, who inventoried other violent games available in AAFES locations, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

While there’s no doubt Electronic Arts totally succumbed to pressure when it removed the Taliban (in name only) from the upcoming Medal of Honor videogame, a letter written to the Colorado Retail Council (CRC) by a former Congressman and ex-Air Force General shows the type of opponents EA was assembling as media hysteria about the game spread.

In a letter dated September 30, just a day before EA announced its change to Medal of Honor, former Colorado Republican Congressman Scott McInnis and Bentley Rayburn (pictured left and right respectively), a retired U.S. Air Force General, affixed their names to a letter urging the CRC to denounce the Medal of Honor game.

As seen on the Colorado Springs Independent website, the pair argued their case to CRC President Christopher Howes, calling the ability to play as the Taliban a “complete disgrace” and adding that “out of respect to our troops no retailer in Colorado should sell it.”

The duo continued: