• Small businesses offer real-world environmental technologies

    EPA is one of eleven federal agencies which participate in the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program; a surprising number of small companies offer innovative and effective technologies to deal with environmental problems

  • Orsus Situator to be deployed at water supplier facilities

    The new approach to critical infrastructure security is “holistic”: Planning, training, positioning information gathering equipment, imposing intelligence on video streams and other information coming in, presenting all information in accessible fashion, offering a menu of responses when an incident occurs; Orsus offers a situation management solution to critical infrastructure operators

  • New nerve gas deactivation method offered

    What to do with thousands of tons of chemical weapon stored in rusting drums on military bases in the United States? Bleach reacts indiscriminately — even explosively — with many chemicals such as propellants, and using alkaline hydrolysis has its own drawbacks; researchers develop a deactivation method based on dealkylating agents

  • Preparing for the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat

    One unexpected lesson of the many nuclear tests conducted by the superpowers in the late 1950s and early 1960s was that high-altitude nuclear blasts create far-reaching atmospheric effects that could instantly shut down power grids; as modern life becomes ever-more dependent on electronic gadgets, and as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles continue, fear grows that an adversary will seek to cripple the United States by creating an atmospheric EMP effect

  • Saudis set up special force to protect critical insrastructure

    In February 2006 al Qaeda terrorists tried to blow up the world’s largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq; the Saudi government responded by setting up a 15,000-strong special force to protect oil, gas, and water desalination infrastructure

  • New, more demanding rules for hazmat rail tanker construction

    New safety standard will increase by 500 percent on average the amount of energy the tank car must absorb during a train accident before a catastrophic failure may occur

  • Florida port deploys Coda Octopus's Underwater Inspection System

    Coda Octopus UIS uses Coda Echoscope, a real time 3D sonar technology; port’s public safety and bomb squad divers will be using the system on their small patrol vessels

  • Intelligent wireless networks promoted by European consortium

    The proliferation of wireless communication-enabled embedded systems will have significant effects in areas from emergency management to critical infrastructure protection to healthcare and traffic control; European consortium to promote idea

  • ICx in contract for specialty radar system for robots

    General Dynamics gives ICx Technologies a follow-on contract for the Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System (MDARS) Intruder Detection Radar Sensor

  • Climate change to affect U.S. transportation system

    Flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges will require significant changes in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems

  • EPA to help ports become greener

    Ports are vital to the U.S. economy; port-related activities also pose major environmental challenges, and the EPA wants to help ports and their transportation network in reducing air emissions, improving water quality, and protecting the health of communities near port facilities

  • Fear of dirty bomb threat as U.K. ships plutonium to France

    Sellafield had an ambitious, £473 million plan: Make new nuclear fuel out of mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides recovered from used fuel; the plan flopped, and the company had to turn to its chief competitor, French firm Cogema, to fulfill its orders for the fuel material; trouble is, shipping the material to France on an unarmed ferry is dangerous, as the material could easily be used to make a dirty bomb

  • Vidsys, Objectvideo partner to offer security information solution

    Integration of ObjectVideo’s intelligent analytics with VidSys’ Physical Security Situation Management software would improve response by connecting intelligent monitoring to quick investigation

  • Uniloc offers StrongPoint to protect critical infrastructure

    U.S. critical infrastructure is controlled by Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks; in the innocent pre-9/11 years, emphasis had been placed on performance, reliability, and safety, leaving these networks prone to attack; Uniloc shows physical device “fingerprint”-based solution to make SCADA networks more secure

  • Maryland leaders worry about shift in DHS priorities after elections

    Because of its proximity to the nation’s capital, the Baltimore metro area and Washington suburbs are particularly vulnerable to terrorist activity, Maryland leaders say; they want attention to security increased, not decreased