• Pentagon: dogs better than technology at bomb detection

    The most sophisticated detectors the Pentagon came up with tend to locate only 50 percent of IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq; when soldiers are accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs, this number goes up to 80 percent; the Pentagon now spends less money on IED detection and more money on drones to find those planting IEDs, radio jammers to disrupt the frequencies used to detonate the bombs, and lots of aerial sensors to scan bomb-heavy areas

  • Ohio plans statewide camera network for first responders

    Following the example of Alabama and its Virtual Alabama project, Ohio will electronically link thousands of cameras watching over roads, schools, and even employee break rooms, giving emergency personnel in Ohio unprecedented surveillance capacity

  • DARPA-funded new engine brings flying car closer

    DARPA awards Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne a $1 million contract to develop its EnduroCORE engine, which the company says offers “a high power-to-weight ratio comparable to gas turbines”; the engine will bring the Transformer TX flying car closer to reality

  • Canada's search and rescue capabilities in peril

    A report about Canada’s search and rescue capabilities says these capabilities have been weakened because the government cannot recruit and retain staff; private sector is recruiting away flight engineers, and the number of flight engineers will drop to a critical level across the country in less than a year

  • U.S. to sell Saudis $60 billion in arms

    The United States has agreed to sell Saudi Arabia $60 billion of arms, including helicopters and jets; this is the most lucrative single arms deal in U.S. history and could support 75,000 jobs; the Saudis could buy up to 84 new F-15 fighters and upgrade 70 more older models. The F-15s, made by McDonnell Douglas, will not be outfitted with long-range weapons in deference to Israeli concerns. The Saudis would also purchase 70 Boeing-made AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, 72 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters (Sikorsky), 36 AH-6i light attack helicopters (Boeing), and 12 MD-530F light training helicopters (McDonnell Douglas); Israel will not object

  • Maneuverable bullet to enhance sniper accuracy

    Snipers have to contend with disruptions such as changing winds, muzzle velocity dispersions, and round-to-round variations; Teledyne, with funding from DARPA, offers a solution in the form of the first-ever guided small-caliber .50 bullet

  • President Clinton lost nuclear "biscuit" for a couple of months

    The nuclear “football” is a heavy metal briefcase containing the communication information and nuclear release codes which allow the president to launch nuclear weapons against an adversary; the football is carried by a military aide who is never more than a few steps away from the president; before the order can be processed by the military, however, the president must be positively identified by using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the “biscuit”; the biscuit is often carried by the president himself — in his shirt or breast pocket; a new book charges that President Clinton misplaced the nuclear biscuit for a few months — and that the loss was discovered only when he was asked to produce it so it could be updated; President Carter, too, mishandled the biscuit: he left the card with the launch codes in a suit sent to the dry cleaner

  • Revolutionary forensic fingerprinting technique also detects corrosion

    Two years ago, Dr. John Bond at the University of Leicester developed a revolutionary method for identifying fingerprints on brass bullet casings, even after they have been wiped clean; now, Bond has applied the same technique to industry by developing a simple, handheld device which can measure corrosion on machine parts

  • Illegal immigration into U.S. continues to decline

    The Border Patrol made about 463,000 arrests during the federal government’s fiscal year that ended 30 September, down from 556,032 the previous twelve months; this marks the fifth straight year of declines; the Border Patrol arrests are down 72 percent from nearly 1.7 million arrested in 2000; the agency typically makes about 97 percent of its arrests along the 1,952-mile border with Mexico

  • Spray DNA lowers crime

    Several business establishment in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam have been using a new tool to fight robberies: spray DNA; the McDonald’s branch near city hall, for example, has a small orange box near the exit, which, when triggered by an employee (the protocol for secretly activating the system: removing a 10 Euro bill from a special bill clip kept behind the counter), both sprays the culprit with odorless, invisible synthetic DNA and alerts the local police; the company making the spray DNA also makes crayon DNA which companies can use to mark computers and other valuable office equipment

  • Spray-on skin to be commercialized

    Sheffield, U.K.-based Altrika set to produce a spray version of its Cryoskin donor skin cell product that can be applied in hospitals outside of a sterile surgical environment in order to reduce treatment time; the spray would be stored in individual doses so the right number of skin cells can be selected once the wound is assessed; the cells would then be thawed as the patient is being prepared

  • Police can now get information from water-logged phones

    Mobile phones are a vital part of police investigations these days — the second thing a cop checks a body for, after checking for a wallet; if the phone has been dropped into water (or if the dead body with the phone on it is in the water), retrieving phone information is much more difficult; a British company offers law enforcement a solution for water-logged phones

  • App developed to find crooks

    University of Nebraska researchers are developing an app for iPhone and Droid which will allow police to locate sex offenders, parolees, known gang members, and people with arrest warrants; the Nebraska team is planning to combine police GIS and GPS data into a program that would instantly create maps tailored to officers’ specific locations

  • Debate intensifies over warrantless GPS tracking devices

    A-20 year old student took his car for a routine oil change — and the mechanic servicing the car found a GPS device attached to it; the two took the device off; FBI agents visited the student two days later, demanding the return of their property; debate intensifies about whether or not GPS devices can be used to track people with a warrant issued by a court