World's Smallest Microwave Oven Is USB Powered

The Beanzawave is special: It is powered by a laptop computer's USB port. So now you don't have to leave your computer even for a cup of coffee or a delicious bowl of piping hot Top Ramen.

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Think you have better way to get NASA to Moon? Speak up!

NASA is asking the public to give its advice to the future direction of U.S. manned space flight. Use its Web site to make your input while an independent panel is reviewing the manned activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The NASA media brief of June 5, 2009, NASA launches human spaceflight review Web site for public use, states, “NASA is inviting the public to make its voice heard as a panel of experts undertakes an independent review of planned U.S. human space flight activities.”

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ICANN gears up to offer huge range of new top level domains

ICANN CEO, Paul Twomey, told iTWire, "The BBC has used the term 'dot-almost-anything-goes' [to describe ICANN's plan for new generic top level domains] and we are not looking to classify TLDs...We are not putting in boundaries, but we are putting in grounds for objections...Governments have concerns about geopolitical names, intellectual property lawyers have concerns about brands. What happens if a name is confusingly similar to something else?"

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Human Ear Inspires Universal Radio Antenna

TV, radio, GPS, cell phones, wireless Internet, and other electronics all use different radio waves to receive and send information. Now scientists at MIT have created a tiny antenna capable of receiving any radio signal, based on the human ear.

The new universal radio could lead to better reception and a new class of electronics that can pick up any radio frequency.

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Missile Tests Maximize Warfighter Capabilities

Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Port Hueneme successfully conducted Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) engineering tests aboard USS Nimitz (CVN 68) near San Nicholas Island in the Pacific Ocean May 27.

Personnel from NSWC Port Hueneme served as test director and test conductor for the event.

The tests included two single missile scenarios and featured the first fleet firings of the new production configuration of ESSM from the new Open Architecture variant of the Ship Self Defense System (SSDS) on Nimitz.

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SoC promotes WiMAX adoption in mobile devices.

ApaceWave Technologies, a developer of high-performance OFDMA solutions for the global WiMAX industry, announces availability of its APW2050 Mobile Station System-on-a-Chip (SoC).

The APW2050 supports all 802.16e mobile WiMAX Wave 2 features, including MIMO Matrix A & B, and Beam Forming. It also supports advanced release-1.5 DL/UL AMC MIMO capability. Designed using a 65nm process in a 9x9 mm package, the APW2050 is amongst the smallest, most cost-effective, low-power mobile WiMAX baseband SoC available. It contains a high-performance PHY, MAC, embedded CPU, and intelligent power management to achieve very low total system power consumption. Supported by powerful mobile station software, the APW2050 enables high-performance WiMAX solutions for various devices such as laptop computers, mobile Internet devices, and CPEs.

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Water from thin air

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB have discovered a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity.

Working alongside German company Logos Innovationen, the scientists have developed a system that uses a saline solution to absorb moisture from the air.

According to the team, this device could be useful in desert environments where there are significant quantities of water stored in the air.

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Lightwave Logic launches next-gen tech

U.S. company Lightwave Logic Inc. (OTCBB:LWLG) announced the launch of its new electro-optic technology designed to support military and aerospace applications.

Lightwave Logic has launched its next-generation Electro-Optic Material Platform. The telecommunications company announced it has begun the initial prototype of a phase modulator for its new platform as part of an effort to address evolving military and aerospace fiber-optics.

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Raytheon Demonstrates New Submarine Communications Technology for UK Royal Navy

Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) demonstrated the ability to communicate in real time with a submerged submarine at classified speeds and depths.

This capability, which addresses one of the most significant shortfalls in submarine communications, was exhibited for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy during an at-sea trial of Raytheon's Deep Siren Tactical Paging (DSTP) system.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence reported that Deep Siren demonstrated "the first step toward a transformational capability that will change the way we operate submarines in the future."

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Jay Leno’s 3D Printer Replaces Rusty Old Parts

NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer. These incredible devices allow you to make the form you need to create almost any part. The scanner can measure about 50,000 points per second at a density of 160,000 dots per inch (dpi) to create a highly detailed digital model. The 3D printer makes an exact copy of a part in plastic, which we then send out to create a mold. Some machines can even make a replacement part in cobalt-chrome with the direct laser sintering process. Just feed a plastic wire—for a steel part you use metal wire—into the appropriate laser cutter.

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Dread Zeppelin: The Army's New Surveillance Blimp

The Long Endurance Multi-INT Vehicle, or LEMV, is an impressive combination of endurance, carrying capacity, and speed (relatively speaking). The aircraft can be launched easily for missions with up to 3-weeks of continuous airtime carrying a 2,500 lb payload at altitudes of 20,000 ft. Larger payloads will lower the aircraft’s ceiling slightly.

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Moon in HD, Closer Than Ever Before

Japan's Kaguya lunar surveyor craft has sent back fresh HD clips as its orbit slowly degrades, bringing it closer than ever to the surface. In two days it will crash-land, bringing its mission to an end, but until then, it's keeping the ultra-crisp, almost surreal lunar footage coming.

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DARPA's "Programmable Matter" Project Creating Shape-Shifting Materials

"Programmable matter" is such a far-out concept that it’s difficult to imagine it even existing outside the movies. But, thanks to some creative work done by scientists funded by DARPA (who else?), it might actually become a reality, creating materials that can be programmed to alter themselves at the molecular level into various shapes and then disassemble to form entirely new ones.

Imagine universal tools that can morph to perform the specific job needed. Imagine vehicles and clothes that that can automatically change shape--perhaps even at the molecular level--according to terrain or climate.

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Remove Sensitive Data Before You Sell an Old PC

Anyone with a cheap data recovery program can recover your recently deleted files--even if you've emptied the recycle bin. They can also get files off a freshly-formatted hard drive. So if you want to be absolutely certain that your old PC's new owner won't get your private information, you need to wipe the sensitive files by overwriting them with new 1s and 0s.

Before you pick a program, you need to answer two questions: Do you want to wipe the sensitive data or the whole drive? And how paranoid are you?

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Nano zipper cavity, responsive to single photons, promises sensitive force detection, light-tunable communication circuits

A new nanoscale photonics device exploits the mechanical properties of light to create an optomechanical cavity in which interactions between light and motion are greatly strengthened and enhanced. These interactions are the largest demonstrated to date, notes Oskar Painter, associate professor of applied physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech; Pasadena, CA) and the principal investigator on the research.

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Bar codes turn 35, all set to get major makeover

This month marks the 35th anniversary of the Universal Product Code — or UPC, as its friends call it — which was officially swiped for the first time on June 26, 1974, at a supermarket in Ohio and brought to Canada a year later. The decades that followed saw everything from conspiracy theories about the UPC's role in government tracking to a Price Waterhouse study linking it to some $17 billion in retailer savings at the grocery level alone.

But despite being recognized by the Smithsonian as one of the great breakthrough technologies in history, with bar codes scanned more than 10 billion times a day, being of a certain age means cosmetic surgery is on the horizon.

Chief among the planned nips and tucks is the reinvention of UPCs as Electronic Product Codes (EPCs), which experts say are poised to become the new industry standard.

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Manipulating light on a chip for quantum technologies

A team of physicists and engineers at Bristol University has demonstrated exquisite control of single particles of light — photons — on a silicon chip to make a major advance towards long-sought-after quantum technologies, including super-powerful quantum computers and ultra-precise measurements.

The Bristol Centre for Quantum Photonics has demonstrated precise control of four photons using a microscopic metal electrode lithographically patterned onto a silicon chip.
The photons propagate in silica waveguides — much like in optical fibres — patterned on a silicon chip, and are manipulated with the electrode, resulting in a high-performance miniaturized device.

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ACCA first flight breaks new ground

Lockheed Martin will work through November to expand the flight envelope of an experimental aircraft testing new composite materials that could revolutionise aerospace manufacturing.

The Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA), which is likely to receive the X-55 designation, also tests a new collaboration arrangement between Lockheed's Skunk Works division and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) that may spark a wave of new flying technology demonstrators, programme officials say.

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Kinetics Offer a Range of Enhancements for Military Vehicle Suspension

Military vehicles often have to operate for extended periods of time in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet. It is essential for these vehicles to use the highest quality and most hard wearing components. This article explores the range of equipment that Kinetics offer for military vehicle suspension.

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Datalink for Raytheon's GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II Ready to Fly

Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) completed a series of hardware-in-the-loop laboratory tests on the GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II's datalink, a crucial step to clearing the datalink for flight tests later this month.

During the tests, engineers verified the Rockwell Collins (NYSE: COL) datalink worked as anticipated in a variety of demanding circumstances. Because of the GBU-53/B's datalink's performance, engineers will now conduct UHF and Link 16-mode testing of the datalink from a UH-1 helicopter.

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E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Integrated Test Team Wins Award

The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Integrated Test Team (ITT) - composed of military, civil service and industry personnel from Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, prime contractor Northrop Grumman and other aerospace industry contractors - has received the Weapons Systems Award from the Order of Daedalians, an organization that has been dedicated to supporting military services and aerospace activities for more than 75 years.

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Roll-Up Solar Panels

Xunlight, a startup in Toledo, Ohio, has developed a way to make large, flexible solar panels. It has developed a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique that forms thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells on thin sheets of stainless steel. Each solar module is about one meter wide and five and a half meters long.

As opposed to conventional silicon solar panels, which are bulky and rigid, these lightweight, flexible sheets could easily be integrated into roofs and building facades or on vehicles. Such systems could be more attractive than conventional solar panels and be incorporated more easily into irregular roof designs.

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Flash Memory offers up to 40 Mbps read performance

Spansion Inc., the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, today announced a new family of Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) MirrorBit® Multi-I/O Flash Memory devices that deliver breakthrough performance. The family includes devices from 32-megabits (Mb) up to 128-megabits. Each device supports the option for single (one-bit data bus), dual (two-bit data bus) or quad (four-bit data bus) serial I/O data transmission, enabling manufacturers to more easily manage inventory and support multiple product models using a single SPI device. Leading performance of up to 40 Mbps (80 MHz per I/O in quad I/O mode) makes the MirrorBit SPI Multi-I/O family capable of executing code in-place (XIP) for a variety of industrial and consumer electronics applications with performance that matches or exceeds conventional parallel I/O NOR Flash memory.

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Power drill

Thermal energy stored in the Earth's crust could be more easily utilised if it were accessed with a new drilling technique that uses superheated steam.

The technology, being trialled this year by its developer Potter Drilling in the US, could help further exploit geothermal energy, which currently supplies less than one per cent of the world's electricity yet has the potential to provide significantly more.

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Making it with lasers

In Europe, photonics is well on the way to becoming a distinct and strategically important industrial sector with its own aims and objectives. According to the European Photonics Industry Association (EPIC; Paris, France) Europe leads the world in the production of photovoltaics, lasers for manufacturing, and lighting. EPIC’s assessment of the prospects for these industry sectors in light of the current economic downturn is the subject of this year’s European Report.

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General Dynamics, Rafael to Replace the Strykers' SLAT Protection Cages with Reactive Armor

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products (GD-ATP) will provide reactive armor tile sets for the U.S. Army Stryker family of vehicles. The $150 million contract is scheduled for delivery within 10 months, by March 2010. Reactive armor system comprises tiles that fasten to the exterior of the Stryker family of vehicles, allowing it to better withstand hits from a variety of anti-armor munitions, primarily RPGs. The reactive armor kit will replace the Slat armor currently used with Strykers in theater. While providing effective defense against RPGs, Slat offers 'statistical' protection rather than an assured defeat of the projectile. Furthermore, the kit, designed by Rafael, can be tailored to address a wide range of threats, utilizing the 'hybrid protection' approach. The reactive armor solutions currently offered by Rafael are presenting enhanced capabilities over the tiles employed on previous systems, including improved effectiveness, protection against a wider range of threats and increased safety, utilizing insensitive sheet explosives activated only when triggered by shaped charges.

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More than Just a Weather Forecast

Unmanned aircraft are becoming an increasingly important part of defense strategies; helping military personnel respond to a greater demand for improved surveillance and attack operations. These sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer enhanced flexibility, speed, intelligence and a reduced risk of loss of life. The most notorious UAV is the General Atomics Predator, which first was responsible for reconnaissance missions. It later launched missiles at targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and regions of Pakistan. But without a pilot on-board, the success of UAV flights depends heavily on accurate information and reporting.

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UK's first future strategic tanker takes flight

Airbus has performed the maiden flight of the first Trent 700-powered A330-200 being built to deliver the UK's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft capability from 2011.

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Aerial images online endanger national security, critics say

One is a assemblyman in California; the other a piano tuner in Pennsylvania.

But when they independently looked at online aerial imagery of nuclear power plants and other sites, they had the same reaction: They said they feared that terrorists might be doing the same thing.

Now, both have launched efforts to try to get Internet map services to remove or blur images of sensitive sites, saying the same technology that allows people to see a neighbor's swimming pool can be used by terrorists to chose targets and plan attacks.

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$119M to General Dynamics for Army’s WIN-T Satellite Terminals

As the Army’s tactical portion of the USA’s Global Information Grid (GIG) network, WIN-T is designed to help deployed forces tap into that grid and its databases, collectors, and connections to national agencies. At present, this requires multiple private networks, or outright forward deployment of representatives from the agencies in question.

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