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Economic slowdown notwithstanding, new startups are optimistic
Recession or no, Wayne Crosby of Mixin Capital says it is a good time to launch a startup; “I think if you’re an entrepreneur,” he said, “you’re always an entrepreneur, regardless of what the economy is doing”
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Questions raised about private inspections of food companies
What the mortgage meltdown did to the financial services sector, the recent salmonella outbreak has done to to food industry: critics charge that both cases exposed the inherent weaknesses of industries regulating and inspecting themselves
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Aussie students develop new way to visualize fingerprints left on paper
Two University of Technology, Sydney students develop a method which relies on the application of heat to the sample, with the fingerprint development accomplished in a matter of seconds
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Large defense contractors look for cyber-security business
Cyber attacks on U.S. government networks and private companies have grown exponentially; the result is a vast increase in the attention paid to, and money spent on, cyber security; the biggest U.S. military contractors are counting on winning billions of dollars in work to protect the U.S. federal government against cyber attacks
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Air France begins trial of biometric boarding cards
Air France begins trials with biometric cards as a replacement for boarding passes; the RFID-equipped cards store the passenger’s fingerprints and may be re-used up to 500 times
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Critic: U.K. fraud strategy "more worthy of Uzbekistan"
Business fraud costs Britain £14 billion a year; the U.K. government today launched its National Fraud Strategy, but a Cambridge professor harshly criticizes the initiative
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Leading browsers easily felled at hacker contest
Students at a hacker convention easily breach the protections built into Safari, IE 8, and Firefox; contestants do so in front of appreciative spectators and in a matter of hours
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CSC to help combat cyber warfare
Cyberattacks pose a major threat to the welfare and security of developing countries; developing protection against that threat offers business opportunities
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IDO Security shoes-on inspection device adopted by several airports
Taking your shoes off for airport security checks is a hassle; a shoes-on inspection devise is gaining popularity
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U.K. government flags ID cost increase
The U.K. government says that passports will account for a smaller proportion of the cost of the national identity scheme’s overall cost than previously stated; introducing and producing passports containing fingerprints will cost about 70 percent of the £4.785 million budget for the National Identity Scheme for U.K. nationals
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European Commission calls for single EU patent
EC says that the absence of a single Europe-wide patent law is hindering the growth of technology companies in the European Union
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Yoran: Better metrics needed for security
Amit Yoran says that the security industry is awash in bad data, and that companies that attempt to use the metrics could take the wrong actions
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Iris recognition on-the-move tested at Schiphol Airport
Sarnoff Corporation promises to make it faster and easier to verify users through iris scanning technology; Schiphol Airport want to know more about it
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Handling nuclear materials for less
During this century, nuclear plant decommissioning in the United Kingdom will likely produce thousands of waste packages that will be retrieved, conditioned, and stored for no less than £40 billion; BNS develops new way to reduce storage and handling costs of radioactive material
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U.S. searching for a nuclear waste graveyard
Congress has killed the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project, so the United States has no central location for storing nuclear waste; 50,000 metric tons of toxic nuclear waste that has already been produced by the U.S. nuclear plants; 30,000 metric tons more of nuclear waste is expected to be generated in the coming decades
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The long view
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
Trying to “Bring Back” Manufacturing Jobs Is a Fool’s Errand
Advocates of recent populist policies like to focus on the supposed demise of manufacturing that occurred after the 1970s, but that focus is misleading. The populists’ bleak economic narrative ignores the truth that the service sector has always been a major driver of America’s success, for decades, even more so than manufacturing. Trying to “bring back” manufacturing jobs, through harmful tariffs or other industrial policies, is destined to end badly for Americans. It makes about as much sense as trying to “bring back” all those farm jobs we had before the 1870s.
The Potential Impact of Seabed Mining on Critical Mineral Supply Chains and Global Geopolitics
The potential emergence of a seabed mining industry has important ramifications for the diversification of critical mineral supply chains, revenues for developing nations with substantial terrestrial mining sectors, and global geopolitics.
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”