• Israel to hold “routine” nationwide emergency drill today

    Israel is conducting a nation-wide emergency response drill today; worried about past mishaps and misperceptions, the government went out of its way to reassure jumpy neighbors that this is but a routine emergency drill

  • DHS grants Maine Real ID extension

    Unless a state received a Real ID extension from DHS, then the driver’s licenses it issues to its residents must be Real ID-compliant by 11 May or state residents will not be able to board a plane, open a bank account, or enter a federal building; Maine’s application was not to DHS’s liking, so the state missed the extension application deadline; DHS decided to give the state 48 hours to comply

  • "Intellectual vacuum cleaner": China's industrial espionage campaign, I

    In an effort to accelerate its rise to economic and technological hegemony, China is employing its military, intelligence services, trade missions abroad, students sent to foreign universities — and Chinese-born citizens who are sent to form espionage sleeper cells — in a massive industrial espionage campaign against Western companies

  • U.S. hi-tech companies brace for new squeeze on high-tech visas

    U.S. companies can apply for H1-B visa for a skilled foreign employee beginning 1 April for the fiscal year which begins 1 October; last year, all 65,000 H1-B visas were filled on the first day of application; tomorrow will be no different

  • U.K.'s Future Soldier / Science and Engineering Week a success

    Two events — Future Soldier and National Science and Engineering Week — took place in London, showing how government, industry, and academia can fruitfully cooperate to promote science, engineering, and technology education

  • Meaningful farm bill reform effort fails yet again

    Current law allows subsidies to farmers with annual adjusted gross income of as much as $2.5 million; the administration and many legislators wanted to to end payments to producers with adjusted gross incomes greater than $200,000; agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last year — and defeated the measure

  • Security concerns over U.S. decision to outsource e-passport production

    The U.S. Government Printing Office’s (GPO) decision to outsource the production of the new e-passports to companies in Europe and Thailand makes legislators, security experts worry; Thailand is an unstable country with a tradition of corruption and rising Islamic terrorism problem; the Dutch company which operates the Thai e-passport production facilities filed court papers in October 2007 charging that China had stolen the company’s patented technology for e-passport chips

  • National Infrastructure Bank idea gains momentum

    The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it would take about $1.6 trillion to shore up the deteriorating U.S. infrastructure; against this figure, the $60 billion bond issue proposed by Senators Dodd and Hagel to finance a National Infrastructure Bank may not seem that significant — but still, it is a start (and Senators Obama and Clinton support it, too)

  • Miami police applie for FAA approval for UAV

    Bad guys in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan worry about U.S.-operated UAVs; the Miami Dade police wants to use Honeywell’s “hover and stare” drone to track bad guys in South Florida

  • DOE penalizes Battelle for lax worker safet at national lab

    Department of Energy penalizes Battelle $250,000 for lax worker safety procedure at Idaho National Laboratory; this is the latest in a series of penalties imposed on contractors operating national labs

  • New acoustic system locates snipers with accuracy

    System detects the sound of an initial gunshot then the shockwave from the muzzle of the weapon being fired; since sound travels faster than a shockwave, the system is able to pinpoint the position of the attacker

  • Fingerprint market to reach $2.1 billion by 2013

    The fingerprinting/biometrics segment will reach $940 million in 2008 and $2.1 billion by 2013; next five years will be a boon to forensic technologies

  • Massachusetts not ready for bioterror attack

    State auditor criticizes state’s preparedness for a bioterror attack; the state acquired ten medical trailers to treat victims, but one of them is missing

  • DHS insists on states' complaince with Real ID

    DHS wants all states to incorporate biometric and RFID technologies into the driver licenses they issue — or risk having citizens of states which fail to do so being barred from flights and federal buildings; the states argue that they do not have the funds to implement this mandate; DHS says it may be willing to be flexible, but at the end states would have to comply

  • FIRST robotics competition comes back to UC Davis

    Robotic competition among high-school students aims to promote and reward students’ engagement in innovation and engineering, and encourage youngsters to become curious and interested in science and mathematics