Technological innovation

  • Advances in counter-IEDs measures, but work remains

    The Pentagon has spent more than $14 billion so far to find way effectively to counter IEDs; it has even created an agency — the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization — to do the work; still, there are about 1,400 IED attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan every month, and about 350 attacks in other parts of the world; a congressional panel notes progress in countering IEDs but says much works remains

  • Queen's University nets £25 million funds for cybersecurity research

    Belfast’s Queen University receives funding to open the new Center for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) which will do research in areas including data encryption, network security, wireless security, and “intelligent surveillance technology”

  • Encryption breakthrough: new way to generate random numbers

    Encryption depends on random numbers, but generating random numbers is not easy; existing devices, which can typically only produce 10s or 100s of megabits of random numbers per second; researchers show new method that can generate truly random sequences at up to 1.7 gigabits per second

  • Flexible, flapping flying machines may be on the horizon

    Rigid wings and rotors have made aircraft very successful; nature, however, prefers flexible, flapping flying structures — just look at birds; indeed, the most efficient and acrobatic airfoils in nature are the flexible wings of the bat; Brown University researchers want to adopt the bat’s approach to flying for human use

  • Can China's future earthquakes be predicted?

    To predict earthquakes, China relied on GPS data, which showed movements of two millimeters per year in certain areas of Szechwan province where a May 2008 earthquake killed 70,000 people (20,000 are still missing) and destroyed more than eight million homes; scientists examine a better way to predict disasters

  • Thruvision offers T-ray security scanner

    Terahertz radiation offer the promise of effective scanning of passengers without revealing anatomically correct images of their bodies

  • Modern-day piracy poses growing threats, challenges

    Forget Captain Kidd, wooden legs, or treasure maps; modern pirates are equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-caliber weaponry, and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty; on 9/11 we saw what damage a jumbo jet could do when used as a weapon; how about a supertanker as a weapon?

  • Quantum calibration shows way for super-secure communication

    Scientists at Imperial College London have used a new approach to calibrating quantum mechanical measurement directly to calibrate a detector that can sense the presence of multiple individual photons; the ability to sense the presence of individual photons is an important requirement for the development of future long-distance quantum communication devices and networks

  • T-Ray Science licenses MIT's terahertz technology

    There is a growing interest in the detection capabilities of terahertz technology, and a Canadian company licenses an NIT-developed detection system that can be used to detect a continuous-wave (cw) THz signal

  • UAV-based anti-missile defense appears doomed

    DHS’s Project Chloe envisioned a UAV-based system to defend commercial airlines against shoulder-fired missiles; Northrop Grumman tests show the system to be more complex, and costlier, than originally anticipated

  • Fingerprint "developer" can read a letter from its envelope

    U.K. researchers find that disulfur dinitride polymer turned exposed fingerprints brown, as the polymer reaction was initiated from the near-undetectable remaining residues; what is more, traces of inkjet printer ink can also initiate the polymer, allowing detectives to read a letter from the residue it left on the envelope

  • CSIRO wireless sensor commercially available

    Wireless sensor networks are used in more and more homeland security roles such as monitoring water quality at sprawling water facilities and in perimeter defense of critical infrastructure facilities; they can also help keep the environment healthy

  • "Digital DNA" to fight cyber crime

    Scottish researchers develop what they call “digital DNA”: It is based on analyzing the way in which users access data on their computers and then creating a digital fingerprint that is unique to each user

  • The priorities of DHS's Science and Technology Directorate

    DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate is known for its restless, entrepreneurial spirit; it has a $830 million dollar budget, and 250 projects under development at any one time

  • Earthquake's trampoline effect

    During earthquakes the ground not only shakes from side to side, but also bounces up and down; this has important implications for designing quake-proof structures