• Commerce Department seeks comments on cybersecurity and its impact on innovation

    The U.S. Commerce Department seeks comments from all stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on measures to improve cyber security while sustaining innovation; the department says that the Internet has become vitally important to U.S. innovation, prosperity, education, civic activity, and cultural life as well as aspects of America’s national security, and that a top priority of the department is to ensure that the Internet remains an open and trusted infrastructure, both for commercial entities and individuals

  • Largest-ever Gulf dead zone spans from Galveston to Mississippi River

    The dead zone off the Texas coast is larger this year than scientists have ever measured, stretching offshore from the Mississippi River to Galveston Island; fish and shellfish often can swim away from these areas but immobile organisms, such as clams, simply die without access to oxygen

  • Foreign firms have largely escaped the worst of Mexico violence, so far

    Foreign companies have so far escaped the worst of a rising tide of crime in Mexico; if they can be shielded from violence, foreign companies are likely to focus on the virtues of doing business in Mexico, such as low labor costs, proximity to the American consumer, and favorable trade treatment

  • As demand for cybersecurity professionals grows, shortages are felt

    Federal agencies, contractors, and tech companies compete with each other for cyber security work force; measuring the size of the cyber security sector is difficult, but surveys show demand for technical expertise is skyrocketing; the number of jobs posted on ClearanceJobs.com by companies and recruiters looking for professionals with active federal security clearances has jumped 11 percent to 6,100 openings this year from fewer than 5,500 in the same time period last year; Maryland wants to become U.S. cybersecurity capital

  • Airport screening specialist Reveal Imaging acquired by SAIC

    SAIC acquires Reveal Imaging Technologies of Bedford, Massachusetts; Reveal was founded in 2002 in response to the U.S. government’s mandate for aviation security screening after the attacks of 9/11. The company has developed imaging technologies for screening airport baggage and detecting explosives in checked luggage

  • Detroit public schools outsource security

    Detroit Public Schools (DPS) fired all of its 226 security officers Friday and hired a private company to provide in-school security; the move will save the district an estimated $5.5 million through a one-year contract

  • Elephant Talk launches ValidSoft voice-biometric solution for secure authentication

    Dutch company Elephant Talk launches a speaker verification platform to improve secure authentication; Elephant Talk’s CEO Patrick Carrol: “The ongoing maturity of the voice biometric market will result in the greater uptake of solutions that seamlessly integrate voice biometrics for remote verification”

  • BIO-key shows mobile biometric identification and authentication platform

    BIO-key believes that the world now is a place with 24/7 access to information from mobile devices; application providers and enterprise IT professionals have been struggling with how they can quickly, conveniently, and accurately establish the identity of remote users looking to access their sites and applications; the company offers a mobile fingerprint identification solution

  • U.S. Army in $7.9 million contracts for biometrics help

    Virginia-based Stanley has been awarded two contracts worth $7.9 million to support of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center Language Technology Office at Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Stanley will provide expertise for a range of programs related to the development of biometric and forensic-related applications, management, maintenance, and operation of government-owned network equipment

  • U.K. Border Agency approves Pearson's test security methods

    Students who want to study in the United Kingdom must prove their proficiency in English before being granted a student visa; Pearson, the authors of the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), relies on multiple layers of biometrics — palm vein scanning, digital signatures, and test day digital photographs of applicants — to ensure that those who take the test are who they say they are

  • New explosives detection technologies show promise

    An adversary who is willing to die trying to carry out a mission is one of the reasons why more conventional security organizations find it so difficult to pursue their protection mission effectively in an asymmetrical war — the kind of war terrorists engage in; new explosive detection technologies may be of help

  • India may block BlackBerry over security concerns

    India told RIM that BlackBerry services in India would be banned unless the company agreed to set up a proxy server in the country to enable security agencies to monitor e-mail traffic; Pakistan has already banned some BlackBerry services, including blocking Internet browsers on BlackBerry handsets because of concerns over blasphemy, and UAE is considering a similar measure

  • Good business: Developers make buildings more disaster-secure than building code requires

    A Florida developer hopes to get more business by making his building hurricane-proof; with debris-resistant windows on all thirty-five of its stories, the developer says the building would withstand a Category 5 hurricane without significant damage; the extra hurricane proofing built into the Miami building shows that sometimes the private market can overtake the public sector when it comes to building design and safety standards; for example, in New York and Washington, D.C., some developers have put in anti-terrorism safeguards that exceed building codes

  • New cybersecurity threat: smartphone apps that do more than what they say they do

    A large proportion of applications contain third-party code with the capability to interact with sensitive data in a way that may not be apparent to users or developers; Apple reviews its applications before accepting them into its App Store, but even that is not foolproof when it comes to detecting erroneous or malicious components within apps, which might end up collecting or storing information that has nothing to do with the intended usage case of the app

  • X Prize to offer millions for Gulf oil cleanup solution

    The X Prize Foundation will tomorrow launch its Oil Cleanup X Challenge promising millions of dollars for winning ways to clean up crude oil from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico; past X Prize categories include mapping genomes, making an incredibly fuel efficient car, and exploring the moon’s surface with a robotic vehicle