• DHS seeking unattended sensors technology for border surveillance

    DHS is seeking information from companies who can build unattended ground sensors that can detect and locate people, boats, or vehicles moving along rivers, roads, and paths in dense forests; DHS says it needs this capability for border surveillance to monitor those entering the United States illegally in rough terrain

  • VoiceKeyID from Porticus

    Relative to other biometric technologies, the pace of adoption of voice biometrics has been rather slow; this may now change owing to an innovative solution from a Massachusetts-based company; Porticus offers a voice biometric authentication application which is not only robust and inexpensive, but which is uniquely suitable to an economy - and society - in which reliance on mobile devices is growing; there are some twelve vendors — none of them American — who offer voice identification software; Porticus, however, is the only company that has developed voice identification software that resides in the device itself rather than on the network; the solution also has intriguing military and intelligence applications

  • Surge in counterfeit items in Pentagon's supplies

    The U.S. Defense Department’s supply chain is vulnerable to the infiltration of counterfeit parts, potentially jeopardizing the lives of American soldiers; government investigators examined 387 companies and organizations which supply the U.S. Department of Defense, and found 39 percent of these companies and organizations encountered counterfeit electronics during the four-year period 2005-8; the number of counterfeit incidents grew from 3,868 in 2005 to 9,356 in 2008

  • Brite-Strike's LED-technology gloves saving officers' lives

    The Massachusetts company’s new product aims to help save officers’ lives: it is a pair of tactical, fingerless gloves that have a translucent, reflective, plastic octagonal stop sign on the palm, into which Brite-Strike puts a high-power LED that flashes with a range of up to a quarter of a mile; on the back of the glove are reflective translucent green strips, with two LEDs

  • BioStorage approved for cargo pre-screens

    Shipments of pharmaceutical and biotech materials typically include temperature- and time-sensitive materials — but under the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, which took effect 1 August, all cargo transported on passenger aircraft is required to be screened at the piece level, prior to being transported; TSA approves Indiana-based BioStorage Technologies to pre-screen its shipments to avoid airport delays

  • TSA denies Unisys' ITIP contract bid, reaffirms selection of CSC

    Unisys filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the awarding the TSA’s Information Technology Infrastructure Program (ITIP) contract to Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC); the ITIP award has been worth over $1 billion to Unisys and going forward was valued at $500 million over five years to run TSA’s information technology infrastructure; the 2-year long battle is now over, with TSA denying Unisys’s bid and saying CSC will restart the contract 1 September

  • SB 1070 boycotts cost Arizona millions in cancelled meetings

    Strong feelings about Arizona’s tough immigration laws are costing the state millions according to resort and hotel operators; the state has lost about 40 conventions and $15 million so far. Arizona hotel association chief executive says that is “a lowball guess”

  • Indoor locator device for firefighter, first responders on the horizon

    After several years of research and slow, halting progress, development of an indoor locator device to be worn by firefighters and other emergency response personnel could reach the production stage next year

  • Software vendors will be forced to fix vulnerabilities under deadline

    Software vendors tend to take their time fixing security vulnerabilities discovered in their products; Zero Day Initiative, which serves as a broker between security researchers who find flaws and software companies who need to fix them, says there are 122 outstanding vulnerabilities that have been reported to vendors and which have not been patched yet; the oldest on the list was reported to IBM in May 2007 and more than thirty of the outstanding vulnerabilities are older than a year; Zero Day Initiative has just announced a new policy: vendors will now have six months to fix vulnerabilities, after which time the Zero Day Initiative will release limited details on the vulnerability, along with mitigation information so organizations and consumers who are at risk from the hole can protect themselves

  • Border security funding boosted by $600 million, paid for by increasing H-1B fees

    The Senate, by unanimous consent, passed a bill last night which increases border security funding by $600 million; the bill includes $300 million for 1,500 additional Border Patrol agents, Custom and Border Protection officers, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel; $196 million for Justice Department programs; $32 million for two more drones; and other money for things like communications equipment and new facilities; the measure will be paid for by increasing fees for H1-B visas

  • Terrafugia redesigns Transition flying car

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowed Terrafugia to add 110lb of extra weight to the original design of the Transition —thus allowing for more car-safety features to be added while still allowing the Transition to qualify as a “light sport” aircraft; even with the redesign, though, the Transition is beginning to look more like a single-seat rather than a two-seat aircraft, and there may yet be more weight gains on the horizon as the new design is built

  • Criminals, spies dominate cyber world, with little to deter them

    White House cyber security coordinator Howard Schmidt says the U.S. economy essentially rests on safe Internet facilities; last year saw $10 trillion in online business, a figure forecast to hit $24 trillion in another decade, he noted; yet, incredibly, the business world has yet to grasp the threat that online thieves and vandals pose; almost half of small businesses don’t use antivirus software and even fewer use it properly, Schmidt warned

  • Commerce Department seeks comments on cybersecurity and its impact on innovation

    The U.S. Commerce Department seeks comments from all stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on measures to improve cyber security while sustaining innovation; the department says that the Internet has become vitally important to U.S. innovation, prosperity, education, civic activity, and cultural life as well as aspects of America’s national security, and that a top priority of the department is to ensure that the Internet remains an open and trusted infrastructure, both for commercial entities and individuals

  • Largest-ever Gulf dead zone spans from Galveston to Mississippi River

    The dead zone off the Texas coast is larger this year than scientists have ever measured, stretching offshore from the Mississippi River to Galveston Island; fish and shellfish often can swim away from these areas but immobile organisms, such as clams, simply die without access to oxygen

  • Foreign firms have largely escaped the worst of Mexico violence, so far

    Foreign companies have so far escaped the worst of a rising tide of crime in Mexico; if they can be shielded from violence, foreign companies are likely to focus on the virtues of doing business in Mexico, such as low labor costs, proximity to the American consumer, and favorable trade treatment