• Killing malaria bugs dead with laser

    Mosquito-killing laser demonstrated; if bed nets are the low-tech solution to combat the deadly malaria — caused by a parasite transmitted when certain mosquitoes bite people — the laser is a high-tech one; the laser detection is so precise, it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted

  • Biometric access control secures U.K. construction sites

    Large, sprawling construction sites need to be secured; two U.K. companies join forces to offer an all-in-one biometric site access system for construction sites; the solution uses hand geometry or iris scanning technology to record access to a construction site

  • New group calls for holding vendors liable for buggy software

    The group released draft language it advises companies to incorporate into procurement contracts between user organizations and software development firms; SANS Institute, Mitre also release 2010 list of Top 25 programming errors

  • How to make an organization more resilient

    Small and mid-sized organizations are especially at risk when disaster strikes, since few have the resources or knowledge to develop full-scale continuity plans; CDW-Government offers seven useful tips on how to make organizations more resilient; CDW-G’s experts argue that the most important thing for an organization during a disaster is to ensure the integrity of its data, communications capabilities, and the information technology infrastructure to support both

  • Northrop Grumman successfully demonstrates VADER dismount detection

    Northrop Grumman’s Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar (VADER) capable of tracking vehicles and foot traffic over a wide area; it is used with medium altitude, long endurance UAVs and smaller manned aircraft; it should help U.S. and Coalition forces better detect militants as they try to plant IEDs

  • IDenta Corp.’s detection kit prove a success in India

    Israeli detection-kit maker Identa sees success in India; last year the company has shipped 20,000 different kinds of kits to India; tests by India’s National Investigative Agency showed Identa’s kits to be more effective than sprays and other means of explosive detection

  • Companies compete for Haiti cleanup contracts

    Cleaning up after the Haiti earthquake, in which some 225,000 homes and at least 25,000 government and office buildings collapsed, is big business; American clean-up companies with political muscle are vying for lucrative contracts

  • Critical infrastructure companies targeted by malware

    Companies in the critical infrastructure sector, such as oil, energy, and chemical industries, experienced a higher percentage of malware in 2009 than organizations in other sectors – much, much higher: more than 350 percent more than other industries

  • McAfee: China leads world in hacked computers

    A new study finds that more personal computers in China — about 1,095,000 computers — than in any other country have been hacked to make them zombies, then grouped into botnets to engage in massive e-mail attacks on Web sites; the prevalence of botnets is a sign of how vulnerable computer networks are to infiltration

  • Flir Systems forecast falls Short; CFO to retire

    The company profit forecast falls short of expectations; profit for the fourth quarter was in line with Wall Street expectations; it earned $60.3 million, or 38 cents per share, in the last three months of the year. That matched the average forecast from analysts, according to a Thomson Reuters poll; profit in the year-ago quarter was $65 million

  • Revolutionary water treatment system may make coping with disaster easier

    Researchers develop a revolutionary waste-water treatment device which uses little energy, is transportable, scalable, simple to set-up, simple to operate, comes on-line in record time, and can be monitored remotely; new system cleans influent wastewater within twenty-four hours after set-up to discharge levels that exceed the standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for municipal wastewater

  • U.S. tech salaries up slightly

    IT workers in the United States will see their pay rise by 1.8 percent in 2010 – but this will not keep up with the expected 2.6 percent inflation for 2010; software developers can expect 2.1 percent increases, operations staff 2.0 percent, server and network staff and system administrators could see 1.9 percent growth, managers 1.7 percent, and executives just 1.3 percent

  • IA certifications improve hiring, promotion, salaries

    It pays to get cybersecurity certification; security skills accounted for 17 percent of base pay in the fourth quarter of 2007, and pay for network security management skills increased by more than 27 percent in 2007; going forward, IT professionals will need to be able to incorporate their security savvy into network, wireless, application, operating system, and other IT areas to best compete

  • Soteria to replace U.K.’s search-and-rescue helicopters

    The U.K. government wants to harmonize search and rescue (SAR) in the United Kingdom and replace current helicopters in operation with a bespoke capability; the government has chosen a helicopter from the Soteria Group which consists of Sikorsky, Thales, CHC Helicopter Corporation, and the Royal Bank of Scotland

  • Group aims to set standard for cloud security

    A new consortium aims to provide a Common Assurance Metric (CAM) that will consist of objective, quantifiable measurements; it will draw from existing standards, which are often industry specific, to provide an international, cross-sector approach