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Bush administration upholds phone ban in Qualcomm patent dispute
Bush administration upholds import ban on phones which contain Qualcomm chips; DHS review finds no justification to oppose the ban on public safety grounds
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Proxy demonstrates cooperative UAV performance
Maryland UAV specialist, USAF offers the first successful demonstration of multiple UAVs performing fully autonomous cooperative flight
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Metamaterials make levitation thinkable
Purdue University researchers have created a metmaterial that bends infrared light with a wavelength of 813 nm; such metameterials make two things possible: Invisibility cloak and quantum levitation
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Armed robots deployed to Iraq
Three armed robots — called SWORDS — have been deployed to Iraq; Army hopes that safety and control improvements will make the robots an effective urban fighting tool
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Researcher offers new method for analyzing pictures, videos
New error-level analytical techniques allows for detecting authenticity of pictures and videos — for example, those released by al Qaeda; retouched and added images may indicate coded messages to operatives
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New source of energy: People-powered "crowd farms"
These boots are made for walking: Two MIT students propose harvesting the energy of human movement in urban settings
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Versar awarded ISO 9000 certification for its protective suits
The market for personal protective gear is growing, and Versar receives important certification for its PPE products
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Hyderabad University issues certificates with digital chip
Seeking better jobs, thousands of Indians turn to forged school graduation certificate and college degrees; one university makes its certificate tamper-proof
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New fingerprinting technique reveals more
New method offers law enforcement information about the suspect’s gender, dietary habits, and substances he or she were in touch with recently
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Terrorists use online reality games to rehearse attacks
As terrorists find it more difficult to train in camps which can be monitored and attacked, they turn to online games to practice money laundering, identity theft, and attacks
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Senate passes $40.6 billion DHS budget
Ignoring White House veto threat, Senate adds $5.2 billion to DHS budget; House already passed $36.3 billion DHS appropriation
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U.K. unveils broad counterterrorism measures
Prime Minister Gordon Brown unvelis broad counter-terrorism measures, including unified border police, electronic exit controls at U.K. borders, biometric visas, better critical infrastructure protection, and more
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New quantum key system combines speed, distance
Detection stage of the NIST prototype quantum key distribution system: Photons are “up-converted” from 1310 to 710 nm by one of the two NIST-designed converters at right, then sent to one of two commercial silicon avalanche photo diode units to the left. Credit: NIST
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Day of robot cops nears
Robots of various types — think of bomb disposal robots — are already being depolyed by law enforcement; next generation robots will be more versatile and autonomous
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InRob Tech, Frontline Robotics to collaborate
Two robotics specialists — one Canadian, one Israeli — agree to collaborate in marketing and joint bidding on defense-related robotics projects
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The long view
China Will Dominate High-Tech Unless the United States Takes Off the Gloves
The U.S.-China trade war has affected businesses from Apple to American cherry growers and shows no signs of halting, but the profuse debate around Huawei and the Trump administration’s trade war reveals a fundamental weakness in the American economy: its lack of competitiveness. The United States should continue to defend against potential security threats posed by Chinese firms, but it should not rely on these protections only as a strategy to maintain competitiveness. The erosion of U.S. dominance in other key high-tech, high-value sectors – automobiles, consumer electronics, robotics, AI, energy, biotechnology, electric vehicles —suggest that there are more fundamental problems. “If the United States wishes to maintain its high-tech leadership, it must be willing to invest in the industries critical to success in the twenty-first century,” three experts write.
Retreating from Rising Seas Isn’t a Win or a Defeat — It’s Reality
“Managed retreat” is a controversial response to climate change. It’s the idea that communities and governments should be strategic about moving people away from areas that have become too waterlogged to live in safely. Retreating from coastlines and riversides might have once been considered unthinkable. But across the world, it’s already happening — in Australia, Colombia, Vietnam, and here in the United States. And Indonesia just found itself a new capital. The country’s president, Joko Widodo, announced on Monday that the new seat of government will be on the island of Borneo, hundreds of miles to the northeast of the current capital, Jakarta. The Java Sea threatens to swallow 95 percent of the city over the next 30 years.
Coming Soon to a Battlefield: Robots That Can Kill
A Marine Corps program called Sea Mob aims to develop cutting-edge technology which would allow vessels to undertake lethal assaults without a direct human hand at the helm. A handful of such systems have been deployed for decades, though only in limited, defensive roles, such as shooting down missiles hurtling toward ships. But with the development of AI-infused systems, the military is now on the verge of fielding machines capable of going on the offensive, picking out targets and taking lethal action without direct human input.
China May Have Used a Recent Massive iPhone Hack to Target Uighur Muslims
A recent massive iPhone hack discovered by Google researchers may have been a campaign to target Uighur Muslims, an oppressed ethnic minority living in China, TechCrunch and Forbes report. The hack came to light last week, when researchers at Google’s cybersecurity wing Project Zero reported they had found a handful of websites which had been secretly injecting spyware into iPhones over the course of two years.
Even for Non-Believers, These Are the Next Steps on Climate Change
Research indicates that we need to go beyond observing the wreckage of major storms and pondering trillion-dollar plans to attempt to mitigate carbon. Businesses, homeowners, and local governments must focus on what can be done today to address these direct threats to people and property. There are three major tools in the “what to do next” approach: probability, selection, and migration.
Bill Gates Is Funding a Chemical Cloud That Could Put an End to Global Warming
Whether you agree or not, global warming is happening. As reported by the minds at NASA, human activity continues to exacerbate the problem. Currently, there is more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than in all of human history. Two-thirds of extreme weather events from the past 20 years can be tied back to human activity, while both our summers and winters are getting much warmer. Bill Gates is currently backing a potential solution to global warming that centers around the technology of solar geoengineering.