• 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

  • NRC moves to allow more heavily armed nuclear facility guards

    The U.S. Nuclear regulatory Commission (NRC) has moved to allow guards at U.S. nuclear facilities to be equipped with more “enhanced weapons,” including machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, or short-barreled rifles

  • Threat: short-circuiting the U.S. power grid

    Researchers have worked out how attackers could cause a cascade of network failures in the U.S.’s west-coast electricity grid — cutting power to economic powerhouses Silicon Valley and Hollywood

  • Home power plants project unveiled in Germany

    Two German companies unveil plans for installing gas-fired power plants in people’s basements; in the coming year the program will install 100,000 of the mini plants, producing among them 2,000 megawatts of electricity, the same as two nuclear plants

  • APMR checks stability of dikes

    A Dutch company develops an instrument that can “look” into the ground and measure the amount of water in the soil under a dike, which is important when checking the stability of dams and dikes

  • FCC releases report on agency's preparedness for major emergencies

    The FCC has an important role to play in ensuring that the U.S. communications infrastructure serves the public safety needs; a new report concludes that the agency largely meets this challenge, but that there are a few area where matter can be improved

  • New data protection approach

    New data security system developed by Israeli researchers automatically protects sensitive data because it travels with the data even when it is saved to removable devices like a USB flash drive

  • Using lasers in nuclear decommissioning

    High-power lasers could remove contaminated surfaces of concrete and cut up metal pipework and process vessels inside nuclear reactors, or other contaminated environments

  • Gravity tractor to steer asteroids away from Earth

    There are thousands of asteroids in close proximity to Earth, and scientists believe it is inevitable that sooner or later an asteroid will come close enough to be a real threat; British aerospace company designs a gravity tractor to steer a menacing asteroids away

  • Using waste to recover waste uranium

    Researchers find that a combination of bacteria and inositol phosphate can be used to recover uranium from the polluted waters from uranium mines; method may be used to process nuclear waste

  • Einstein 3 raises privacy concerns

    New cyber security system — Einstein 3 — will be rolled out across all U.S. government agencies; in addition to detecting malicious software, the system can read e-mails and other Internet traffic

  • Code-breaking quantum algorithm runs on a silicon chip

    fifteen years ago, Peter Shor, a computer scientist at MIT, predicted that quantum computers could beat even the most powerful supercomputers and crack the widely used RSA encryption algorithm; he was right: University of Bristol researchers built a silicon chip that can do just that

  • Researchers develop steel Velcro

    Researchers say that their “Metaklett” metallic hook-&-loop material could be used to hold together buildings, or to tape car parts to one another

  • Trojan horse virus allows hackers, law enforcement, to eavesdrops on VoIP

    A Trojan horse virus allows hackers, but also law enforcement, to record VoIP calls; law enforcement in the U.S. would presumably need a court order to surveil someone’s Skype calls, but the barriers to deploying the virus might be lower for intelligence agencies and authorities in other countries

  • National Grid to use Swiss company's solution for SCADA/EMS

    National Grid currently owns more than 4,000MW of contracted electricity generation capacity in the United States, delivering electricity to around 3.3 million customers; the company will use Swiss company ABB’s network management solution in its SCADA/EMS