Technological innovation
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Northrop Grumman delivers first, if under-powered, raygun to U.S. military
The U.S. military wants a beam weapon capable of at least 100 KW to shoot down incoming artillery shells or missiles; Northrop’s Vesta II can offer only 15 KW — capable of disrupting cellphone towers, car engines, and unexploded munitions; it is a start
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DARPA seeks ultrasonic tourniquets
New device, placed on the arm or a leg of an injured soldier or first responder will use ultrasound scanning to pinpoint internal bleeding, before focusing “high-power energy” on the bleed sites
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UCLA group discovers largest Mersenne prime yet
Bruins researchers discover the 46th — and largest yet — Mersenne Prime; the 13 million-digit prime number is a long-sought milestone, and its discovery makes the researchers eligible for a $100,000 prize
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Invisibility cloak as a protection against tsunamis
Rather than fortifying sea platforms and coastal towns to withstand tsunamis, it may be possible to use invisibility cloaks to make off-shore platforms, islands, and even cities “invisible” to waves
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Northrop tests Guardian anti-missile system
On 8-9 September, Northrop Grumman successfully tested the Guardian anti-missile system; from heights exceeding 50,000 feet, the system successfully detected, tracked, and directed a laser to intercept a target missile
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Breakthrough: "Math dyslexia," not intelignece, makes people bad at math
Generations of students who struggled with mathematics in school accepted — and their teachers and parents accepted — that they were just “not good at math”; new research show that the cause was more likely “dyscalculia” — a syndrome which is similar to dyslexia
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More debate about how best to defend Earth against asteroids
U.C. Berkeley expert says protecting Earth against incoming asteroids “is not an astronomy problem. It is a financial problem, an accounting problem, an international problem, an organizational problem, a political problem”
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Seucring airports by reading people's minds (or bodies)
DHS is testing a machine which, from a distance, senses changes in individuals’ perspiration, respiration, and heart rate typically associated with anxiety one feels before committing a terrorist act
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Age-guessing software has security, commercial applications
Fighting Illini researchers develop an age-guessing software which can perform tasks such as security control and surveillance monitoring, and may also be used for electronic customer relationship management
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GPS vulnerable to spoofing
GPS technology is ubiquitous in civilian and military applications; Cornell University researchers raise uncomfortable questions by demonstrating how GPS navigation devices can be readliy duped by transmission of fake GPS signals that receivers accept as authentic ones
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"Thought helmets" for silent, secure communication among soldiers
U.S. Army funds research into helmets with embedded sensors which “read” a soldier’s thoughts (well, brain waves) and transmit them, telepathy-like, to their intended target
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U.S. military to be offered flying hover bike
An innovative Virginia company says its flying — or hovering — bike may be suitable for military missions; the machine offers vertical takeoff, range, and largely hands-off autopiloting
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Terminating the terminators: Anti-robot defense company launched
Dot.com 1.0 wonder boy Ben Way launches a company dedicated to anti-robot defense systems; unmanned systems proliferate on and above the battlefield, and more and more of these systems are endowed with autonomous life-and-death decision making capabilities; Way says he wants to make “sure we have control over our own weaponry”
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Three companies compete for a long-endurance UAV concept
DARPA’s quest for a long-endurance surveillance UAV — “long endurance” means staying in the air for five years — is not yet a reality, but it is no longer regarded as a pipe dream
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IBM shows hardware-based encryption tool
System x Vault protects data when a server’s hard drive is disposed or stolen, without affecting server performance
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