• The day of the "iSniff" nears

    Pocket-size pollution sensors hold promise of big improvement in monitoring personal environment; wearable sensors to be used for identifying air-borne causes of disease

  • Methane mining in Africa could unleash deadly gas cloud

    Lake Kivu, on the Rwanda-Congo border, contains a vast reservoir of dissolved methane; many companies are extracting the gas to burn for electricity production, and both Rwanda and Congo are aggressively courting further investment in extraction plants; scientists say that the rush to extract the methane might trigger an outburst of gas that could wash a deadly, suffocating blanket over the 2 million people

  • Turning water fountains into infection control units

    Toronto’s Farrow Partnership Architects sees future in infection-control units

  • More scandalous revelations about Kabul embassy security

    The State Department outsourced the security of the U.S. embassy in Kabul to a private security company; the company cut costs by extending shifts from 8 to 12 hours; one security contractor had to be forcibly removed from a brothel during working hours

  • Detecting counterfeit pharmaceuticals

    Researchers develop a method which quickly and cheaply identifies counterfeit drugs in the health care industry

  • Most expensive RAF aircraft in history takes to the skies

    More than ten years ago BAE signed a contract to upgrade, by 2000, 21 Nimrod MR2s — the last De Havilland Comet airframes left flying in the world — so that they can perform antisubmarine duties; it is now nine years later, and the number of Nimrods was reduced from 21 to 9; the first of them, now renamed Nimrod MRA4, has just taken to the skies; cost to retrofit one plane: $660 million at current rates (not to mention to price for the original planes); the cost of the 9 Nimrods is equal to the cost of 3½ space shuttles

  • Cyber criminals go after small businesses

    Small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the resources to keep updating their computer security; cybercriminals find it easier to target such businesses

  • Surveillance software solves security snag

    Network security monitoring is currently limited by the inability of operators to recall the relationships between more than about 40 cameras in a network; the new software will automatically integrate data from thousands of security cameras in a video surveillance network into a single sensor, eliminating existing problems with huge information overloads

  • Cocoon Data: Securing Internet communication

    Cocoon Data’s Secure Envelopes is a way of electronically “wrapping” sensitive files, e-mail attachments, and other data to keep them from being seen by unintended eyes

  • Locata Corporation: Location hot spots -- beyond GPS

    A conversation with Locata CEO Nunzio Gambale; “It has been an adventure and we have already come a long way. I hope to live long enough to see positioning technology implemented in a place like New York City to be able to locate the position of someone in an emergency down to a couple of feet. That’s my dream”

  • Catalyst Interactive: Training for the security industry

    A conversation with Catalyst Interactive managing director Ken Kroeger; “What the public sees are the people on the front line, but its important to remember that putting those people on the frontline requires a fair bit of investment to their training. That’s were we come into play — to make sure that those people have the skills and the attitude they need to do their jobs”

  • Australia: Innovation, pragmatism, common sense

    A culture of self reliance and an emphasis on solving problems have combined to create an climate in which innovation thrives; enlightened government policies in supporting education and R&D have also made an important contribution to fostering such a climate

  • Australia's public safety sector

    The Australian public safety industry has 578,614 paid and volunteer personnel; the States/Territories and Commonwealth spend approximately AUS$26.38 billion per annum on the provision of policing, fire, emergency services, and national security; in addition, major natural disasters cost Australia an average of AUS$10.87 billion per annum in property losses to individuals, government, and companies

  • Airborne laser ready for flight tests

    The coming months will be important for the airborne laser — the multibillion-dollar laser built into a customized Boeing 747 will try to shoot a ballistic missile as it rises above the clouds

  • U.K. orders helmet-mounted displays

    BAE’s The Q-Sight display is a key element of the Gunner’s Remote Sighting System (GRSS), a system that will allow the image from a machine-gun-mounted thermal weapon sight to be displayed remotely on a see-through display mounted on the weapon operator’s helmet