• New U.S. biodedfense R&D network launched

    On Monday, Texas A&M System dedicated a new research center which is part of a national network of centers aiming to develop strategies and products to counter bioterrorism, chemical and radiological attacks on the United States, and better strategies to deal with pandemics; the network will have facilities in Texas, Maryland, and North Carolina; the Texas dedication is the culmination of a Manhattan Project-like program for biological countermeasures, launched in 2004 by the Department of Health and Human Services; the research network aims to develop “rapid, nimble and flexible approaches” to vaccine and therapy development, and train the next generation of professionals to sustain U.S. capabilities in these areas

  • You want to report a pothole? There’s an app for that

    The city of Boston offers residents a new app – Street Bump – which will automatically report potholes they encounter; all the driver has to do is install the app and place the smartphone on the dashboard or in the cup holder; the app uses the phone’s motion detector and GPS locator to report potholes

  • Bill to tighten admission procedures to flight schools

    A bill would require flight schools to check students, including U.S. citizens, against the terrorist watch list before they can be trained to fly aircraft of 12,500 pounds or more

  • Resolving mystery odor alarms

    In the post-9/11, security-conscious era, unidentified odor often cause the precautionary evacuation of buildings, airport terminals, and more; a New Jersey company offers an educational video on the problem of mystery odors – and offers odor identification services to help identify and resolve mystery odor complaints

  • U.S. to send hand-launched UAVs to Kenya to help fight Somali al Shabaab

    The United States will include hand-launched Raven UAV’s in the $41.4 million military aid package to Kenya; the package also includes trucks, communications gear, and rifles for Burundi, Djibouti, and Uganda; the military aid aims to help east African countries cope with the growing menace of al Shabaab, a Somali al Qaeda affiliate

  • New biometrics discipline -- foot biometrics – for security, disease detection

    Identity science takes a giant, well, step forward with a new discipline in biometrics: foot biometrics; researchers at the new $1.5 million per year Pedo-Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab will test insole sensory system prototypes for a variety of identification uses, from security to detecting the onset of such diseases as diabetes and Parkinson’s

  • Milestone for a Raytheon bomb which acquires, tracks, and then hits moving targets

    Raytheon said its Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) program achieved a milestone when it successfully engaged and hit a moving target during a flight test at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; the bomb, released from an F-15E, acquired, tracked, and guided to a moving target using its tri-mode seeker, scoring a direct hit

  • Firms with political ties may be bad investment

    It may pay to invest, but, counter intuitively perhaps, it might be worth more to invest in companies that do not have political ties; politically connected firms typically have greater cash holdings than non-connected firms; the reason: managers of such companies need to have more cash on hand to be used as a resource for the firms’ political friends; this hoarding of excess cash runs contrary to the notion of maximizing profit and value for a company’s shareholders

  • Per capita CO2 emissions in China reach EU levels

    Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)  increased by 3 percent last year; an estimated cumulative global total of 420 billion tons of CO2 has been emitted between 2000 and 2011 due to human activities, including deforestation; scientists suggest that in order to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000–50 cannot do not exceed 1,000 to 1,500 billion tons

  • Cutting massive power use at big data companies in a flash

    Big data needs big power; the server farms that undergird the Internet run on a vast tide of electricity — Google, for example, uses enough electricity in its data centers to power about 200,000 homes; now, a team of engineers has a solution that could radically cut that power use — a new type of memory in companies’ servers that demands far less energy than the current systems

  • ObjectVideo drops Samsung from USITC investigation, but continues action against Bosch

    ObjectVideo drops action against Samsung, continues litigation against Bosch, charging video analytic technologies infringement

  • ElcomSoft, Pico Computing show world's fastest password-cracking solution

    Pico Computing manufactures a range of high-end hardware acceleration platforms, offering a computational equivalent of more than 2,000 dual-core processors in a single 4U chassis; ElcomSoft updates its range of password recovery tools, employing Pico Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based hardware to accelerate the recovery of passwords

  • Kratos receives $10 million contract to secure petrochemical site

    San Diego-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said it has recently received a multi-million dollar contract award to deploy a specialized security system at a petrochemical-related critical infrastructure location

  • Francisco Partners acquires biometrics provider Cross Match Technologies

    Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private equity firm, has acquired Cross Match Technologies, Inc., a provider of interoperable biometric identity management systems, applications, and services

  • Unmanned systems emulate animals’ conditioned fear-response mechanism for self-preservation

    When animals in the wild engage in eating or grazing, their eyes, ears, and sense of smell continuously monitor the environment for any sense of danger; researchers developed a similar conditioned fear-response mechanism for unmanned systems