• Acoustic cloak silences nuisance noise

    Spanish researchers prove metamaterials can be designed to produce an acoustic cloak — a cloak that can make objects impervious to sound waves

  • New CCTV cameras can see and hear

    Researchers teach intelligent CCTV to “hear” as well as see; the CCTV’s artificial intelligence software is being taught to recognize sounds associated with crimes, including breaking glass, shouted obscenities, and car alarms going off

  • Unmanned Ground Systems Summit: Early Bird Special

    Unmanned systems perform more and more missions that used to be performed by humans; the Pentagon plans to spend about $4 billion on robots by 2010; IDGA holds ground robots summit in D.C. this August

  • New satallite images identification technology

    Researchers offer the first computerized method that can analyze a single photograph and determine where in the world the image likely was taken

  • Team developing NGI defines roles and responsibilities

    Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the FBI’s ambitious Next Generation Identification System; team members define their contributions to the project

  • Gates orders more killer UAVs to Iraq, Afghanistan

    The firing of the U.S. Air Force chief of staff and the secretary of the Air Force over the mishandling of nuclear weapons has allowed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to accelerate the pace of deploying armed UAVs to the Central Command theaters

  • OMG helps UAVs see as human pilots do

    Northrop Grumman tests Oxford Metrics Group’s software which make UAVs “see” things the way a human pilot would

  • New compression technique makes VoIP vulnerable to eavesdropping

    New VoIP compression technique, called variable bit rate compression, produces different size packets of data for different sounds; simply measuring the size of packets — without even decoding them — can identify whole words and phrases with a high rate of accuracy

  • Plasma-propelled flying saucer

    University of Florida researcher designs a plasma-propelled flying saucer — the patent application calls it “wingless electromagnetic air vehicle” — which may be used for surveillance purposes; vehicle powered by magnetohydrodynamics — the force created when a current or a magnetic field is passed through a conducting fluid

  • Airlines may be forced to fit antiterror cameras in seats

    The EU moves across a broad front to increase air travel safety; airlines will be forced to install spy-in-the-cabin cameras and increase the use of biometrics technology for passenger identification

  • Worry: VoIP especially suitable for conveying hidden messages

    Steganography involves concealing messages within digitally transmitted images or sound files; VoIP systems tolerate packet loss and have built-in redundancy, and are thus especially suitable for conveying hidden messages; law enforcement officials have expressed frustration about the difficulty of deciphering VoIP messages made by suspected terrorists using Skype

  • Phase II for AV's nano aircraft

    Tiny UAV — 7.5 cm wing span, 10 grams in weight — to be used by military, law enforcement to gather information outdoors and indoors

  • In-flight surveillance could foil terrorists in the sky

    Big Brother comes to the skies: EU-funded aviation security system uses a camera in every passenger’s seat, with six wide-angle cameras to survey the aisles; software on the computer to which the cameras are connected detects suspicious behavior of passengers — from air rage to terrorist intent

  • Surveillance systems for Singapore

    The Port of Singapore is the world’s largest container transshipment hub, handling around 27 million containers last year; U.K. CCTV company wins large contract to secure the port

  • Pentagon wants laser attack warnings for satellites

    The U.S. economy and military capabilities are dependent on satellites for communication and information gathering; growing anti-satellite warfare capabilities — for example, by China — lead Pentagon to seek a measure of protection for space-based assets