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Consolidation expected among large cybersecurrity contractors
Europe’s largest defense company, BAE Systems, says the number of military contractors selling data protection services to governments will decrease as clients demands for ever-more-sophisticated products increase.
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U.S., South Korea teaming up for bioterrorism exercise
Officials from the United States and South Korea were in Seoul, South Korea last month for the third annual joint anti-bioterrorism exercise in Seoul. Around eighty U.S. officials and between 120 and 130 South Korean military officials participated in the tabletop exercise.
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Houston, Texas boasts world’s best lightning detection system
With thousands of strikes each year, Houston is the lightning center of Texas and one of the world’s most lightning-prone areas. Studies show about 1,800 thunderstorms pound the Earth at any given moment, resulting in about fifty lightning strikes every second. The country’s best system to detect lightning strikes — located in and around the Houston area — just got better, thanks to a complete overhaul and new software.
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Student teams compete in U.S. Navy’s RoboBoat competition
In a race against one another and the clock, robotic boats are battling it out at the 6th International RoboBoat Competition, which began 8 July and ends 14 July. The Office of Naval Research (ONR)-co-sponsored competition takes place on a pond at the Founder’s Inn and Spa in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The event features fifteen student teams racing their custom-designed and built boats.
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DARPA’s disaster robot competition moves to final stage
On Monday, 8 July 2013, the seven teams which progressed from DARPA’s Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) arrived at the headquarters of Boston Dynamics in Waltham, Massachusetts to meet and learn about their new teammate, the ATLAS robot. ATLAS is one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built, but is essentially a physical shell for the software brains and nerves that the teams will continue to develop and refine. The robot will have to perform a series of tasks similar to what might be required in a disaster response scenario.
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Navy drone lands on ship without human assistance
A U.S. Navyexperimental drone has executed several landings on the USS George H.W. Bush, marking an advance in robotic aviation. The drone calculated, without human assistance, how fast to approach the ship, when to put its wheels down, and when to hit the brakes.
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U.S. Emergency Alerting System (EAS) vulnerable to hacking
The U.S. Emergency Alerting System (EAS) is designed to allow for quick alerts during an emergency. Researchers uncovered vulnerabilities in the digital alerting systems, vulnerabilities which allow an attacker remotely to log in over the Internet and manipulate any system function. The attacker could disrupt a TV or radio station’s ability to transmit and could disseminate false emergency information.
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Russia: Syria rebels used sarin gas
Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN ambassador, announced at a UN news conference Tuesday that scientific analysis by Russian labs of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria on 19 March concluded the attack probably had been carried out by rebels using sarin nerve gas of “cottage industry” quality. He said the gas was delivered by a crudely made missile.
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Advancements in technology making it easier to fight wildfires
Following the Arizona wildfire disaster, many have been suggesting that new regulations are needed to control the spread of wildfires. Experts say that advancements in technology may well offer a more effective approach to saving lives and making it easier for firefighters to control wild blazes.
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Firefighting experts calling for easing environmental restrictions on prescribed burns
In the aftermath of the Arizona wildfire which killed nineteen firefighters in Yarnell, Arizona, there are growing calls for easing environmental restrictions which currently limit brush clearing and prescribed burns. It typically costs $5 per acre to conduct a prescribed burn in the wilderness, and about $50 per acre near residential areas. Thinning an area with chain saws and other equipment can cost around $500 per acre. These figures are small when compared to the $1,200 per acre cost of fighting the wildfire in Arizona.
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CBP drones may be armed with non-lethal weapons
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) currently has eight Predator drones used on the northern and southern borders, and two more drones watching the Caribbean. The drones are equipped with high-tech cameras. Critics say drones are not an efficient way to monitor the border, and that they lead to few arrests and seizures. Other critics are worry about something else: a recent CBP report show that the agency is considering arming these drones with “expendables or non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize [targets of interest].”
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Highly portable X-ray imaging system developed
Los Alamos National Laboratory and Tribogenics have developed the MiniMAX (Miniature, Mobile, Agile, X-ray) camera to provide real-time inspection of sealed containers and facilities.MiniMAX is an alternative to the large, expensive, and fixed facilities presently required for security inspections using X-ray imaging. The complete MiniMAX portable radiography system weighs less than five pounds.
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Gauging how residents in storm-prone regions react in the event of an imminent storm
StormView software program gauges how residents of hurricane-prone regions react to warnings and prepare for storms. The program is designed to be as realistic as possible in order accurately to assess how people would react in the event of an imminent storm.
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Obama says Arizona wildfire deaths open up broader questions
President Barack Obama said on Monday that several states need to reassess their wildfire management policies in the aftermath of the death of the nineteen firefighters who died battling an Arizona blaze.
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The differences between impulsive and predatory murderers
A pioneering study finds distinct differences between two types of murderers: impulsive murderers and predatory, or premeditated, murderers. Impulsive murderers were much more mentally impaired, particularly cognitively impaired, while predatory or premeditated murderers exhibit deeper psychiatric disorders.
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
By Trina West
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
By Doug Irving
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
By Matthew Guariglia
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.