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San Francisco aggressively to promote use of electric vehicles
The City on the Bay to help build charging infrastructure throughout the city and the suburbs to make use of electrical vehicles viable
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Past patients to provide fast flu vaccine to new patients
Currently it takes at least six months to produce a flu vaccine after a new strain appears; researchers find that a faster way would be to treat people with antibodies produced by earlier patients
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U.S. wireless landascpe about to change
Clearwire, Sprint Nextel to form $14.55 billion wireless company which will deploy WiMAX networks across the United States; WiMAX’s speed dwarfs current wireless technologies, holding the potential of rendering cable and phone line Internet obsolete
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Plasma-powered flying saucer for surveillance
Passing a current of magnetic field through a conducting fluid generates force; a new patent application shows how this phenomenon — magnetohydridynamics — may be used as a form of propulsion
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Unassuming fungi lock depleted uranium out of harm's way
Common fungi, found in most back gardens, could help clean up battlefields contaminated with depleted uranium
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NTT shows commercial RedTaction security system
NTT shows Firmo, a Human Area Network (HAN)-based system which uses the surface of the human body for communication; the Firmo Kit is used as an alternative to short-range wireless security card entrance/exit systems
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German invents radar-camouflaging paint
A German amateur inventor invents radar-camouflaging paint; planes, vehicles, and buildings may be coated with the paint and made invisible to radar
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Electronic "pets" to tackle identity theft problem
Forget passwords, PINs, or even biometric security measures; a new, if futuristic, solution is offered for the problem of identity theft: Electronic pets; the pets would recognize their owners’ voiceprint, fingerprints, or walking style; researchers say it will be important for owners to bond with and nourish their electronic pets by playing with them
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A shoebox-size chemical sensor to detect toxins, pollution
Quantum cascade lasers were first demonstrated by Harvard’s Federico Capasso and colleagues in 1994; now Capasso is using the technology to develop a portable array of lasers to be used to monitor pollution and detect toxins
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Developing miniature robots to increase situational awareness
The military wants to increase the situational awareness of of its officers and soldiers, and an alliance of industry and academia is set up to develop advanced robotic equipment for use in urban environments and complex terrain, such as mountains and caves
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Existence of new basic element for electronic circuits proven
There are three fundamental elements to electronic circuits: resistor, capacitor, and inductor; nearly forty years ago, Leon Chua of the University of California at Berkeley theorized that there was a fourth element — memristor — which had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements; HP researchers have now proven the existence of memristors; facial recognition biometrics will benefit
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Peace of mind at an affordable price
An HSDW conversation on thermal cameras with Bill Klink, vice president of security business development, FLIR Systems
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UAVs, UGVs operate and communicate with each other
BAE Systems show how several unmanned air and ground vehicles operate simultaneously while communicating with each other and with their controllers
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Europeans conduct final test of Galileo
The EU wants to compete in the lucrative positioning market, and wants its Galileo system to compete with the U.S. GPS system; project has been hobbled by delays and shortfall of funds, but the EU soldiers on
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UAVs on display at the Smithsonian
As the scope and breadth of UAV deployments grow, so is the public interest in them; the Smithsonian put some of them on display; “UAVs are the future of combat air forces,” says the curator, himself a retired Air Force pilot
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The long view
Developing New Vaccine Against Three Biothreat Pathogens
Scientists are seeking to develop a multi-pathogen vaccine that will protect against three bacterial biothreat pathogens.
Preparing National Security Officials for the Challenges of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of several rapidly emerging technologies that promise to disrupt not only multiple sectors of the U.S. economy but also the manner in which the U.S. government carries out its foundational responsibility to protect national security consistent with the rule of law and constitutional values. Steve Bunnell writes that “The United States’ national security apparatus is not known for nimbleness, nor is the law that governs it. When it comes to AI, the risk is not just that our generals will fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s strategy but also that the United States will lack the legal and policy guardrails that are essential to a lawful, accountable, and ethical protection of the nation’s security.”
The Civil-Military Divide over Artificial Intelligence
What factors influence how comfortable and uncomfortable software engineers feel with potential applications of AI for the U.S. military? Is there a correlation between the degree of trust that software engineers have in societal institutions—specifically, in DoD—and their perception of the acceptability of building AI applications for DoD? Do software engineers perceive the countries that DoD has identified as strategic competitors as a meaningful threat to the United States? What types of news media and other sources of information are software engineers relying on to inform them about events related to DoD?
Making hardware and software Quantum-Safe
Quantum computers are thought to have the potential to perform specialized calculations beyond the reach of any supercomputers in existence and will be able to break current public key cryptosystems used today.
New Method Kills Cyberattacks in Less Than a Second
Researchers, using artificial intelligence, new method that could automatically detect and kill cyberattacks on our laptops, computers and smart devices in under a second.
Next-Generation Search & Rescue: Body Cameras, Live Streaming
Typically, search and rescue teams in the wilderness use radio, in-person briefings, text messaging, drones and paper forms to communicate and coordinate their efforts. New digital tools have the potential to revolutionize wilderness search and rescue efforts.
Emerging Hydrogen Storage Technology to Increase Energy Resilience
With the rise in renewable energy as well as increasing uncertainty associated with outages due to power surges and extreme weather events, energy storage plays a key role in ensuring reliable power supply to critical infrastructure such as healthcare facilities, data centers, and telecommunications. New study assesses cost competitiveness of metal-organic framework materials to store hydrogen for large-scale backup power applications.
Boosting Efforts to Predict Harmful Solar Weather Events
When big blasts of energy from the sun envelop the Earth, they can very strong: a 2015 event so weakened Earth’s protective magnetic field that it penetrated to the atmosphere, posing a threat to everything from circling space station astronauts to delicate electronics and communication systems.
Emerging Hydrogen Storage Technology to Increase Energy Resilience
With the rise in renewable energy as well as increasing uncertainty associated with outages due to power surges and extreme weather events, energy storage plays a key role in ensuring reliable power supply to critical infrastructure such as healthcare facilities, data centers, and telecommunications. New study assesses cost competitiveness of metal-organic framework materials to store hydrogen for large-scale backup power applications.
Boosting Efforts to Predict Harmful Solar Weather Events
When big blasts of energy from the sun envelop the Earth, they can very strong: a 2015 event so weakened Earth’s protective magnetic field that it penetrated to the atmosphere, posing a threat to everything from circling space station astronauts to delicate electronics and communication systems.