‘World’s Fastest Motor’ 10 times Faster than Boeing 747 Aircraft Engine

Sir James Dyson has unveiled a hand-held vacuum cleaner which is run on “the fastest motor in the world”, ten times quicker than the engine of a Boeing 747 aircraft.

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USAF Boosts Space Situational Awareness

U.S. military officials say they expect to have enough personnel and new computing power in place by October to warn U.S. and foreign satellite operators of possible collision hazards to their roughly 800 maneuverable platforms.

An initiative to boost so-called conjunction analysis—prediction that two orbiting objects could collide at high speeds—took center stage for military officials after a defunct Russian communications satellite crashed into an operational Iridium spacecraft on Feb. 10, creating a new debris cloud comprising about 700 objects.

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Underwater Laser Sensing/Robotics Technology

US scientists are developing hi-tech military technology designed to be able to act as an underwater radar, in essence, and detect things like mines. The scientists are working within Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute's Ocean Visibility and Optics Laboratory - sited at Florida Atlantic University - and their technology could surpass existing technologies' abilities to quickly establish and transmit data relating to potential seaborne threats.

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China's Compass to rival GPS

China's global navigation satellite system, Compass, will provide regional service in 2011 with a constellation of 12 satellites, a navigation industry insider was quoted as saying on Thursday.

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F-35 Radar's Electronic Protection Capabilities Validated During Northern Edge 2009

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has announced that it successfully demonstrated key electronic protection capabilities of the F-35 Lightning II's AN/APG-81 radar during the recent Northern Edge 2009 (NE09) joint military exercise.

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Storage Area Networks: The New Challenge After Networking

Storage networks provide information storage over long periods of time. This means storage networks make a large contribution to knowledge management, but the challenges are enormous: the quantities of data increase, as do the threats in cyberspace. Connections between and within storage networks must be protected accordingly.

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Japan upgrades missile-detection system

A new $935 million project called the Japan Aerospace Defense Ground Environment has been initiated to improve the country's automatic air warning and defense control system.

JADGE has replaced the Base Air Defense Ground Environment, said Japan's air arm, the Air Self-Defense Force.

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Underwater Robots Identify Potential Threats In Murky Waters

Novel underwater laser networking and imaging technologies being developed by scientists at the Ocean Visibility and Optics Laboratory at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University may provide significant advantages over existing technologies in rapidly identifying and communicating potential threats in murky coastal waters.

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Lockheed engineer: F-22 Raptor Stealth tech is 'defective'

An engineer formerly employed by Lockheed, maker of the famous F-22 Raptor stealth jet, has mounted a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that Lockheed has supplied the controversial superfighter with "defective" stealth coatings.

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The Secret to Bats' Long Lifespan?

A new study suggests that hardy proteins may be the key.

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Bing Dips Toe Into Real-Time Search With Twitter Tie-In

Search engines generally take their time in getting recently posted content into their search databases. Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, is making a push toward real-time search capabilities by roping in just-tweeted Twitter posts from a smattering of celebrities and well-known techies. The content, of course, will be tied to advertising.

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Apple Files Touchscreen-Related Patent Applications

Apple may be developing technology that would provide non-visual feedback when a person touches the screen of a laptop, smartphone, or other electronic device, according to a patent application filed by the company Thursday.

Such technology could fix one of the biggest complaints of the iPhone's virtual keyboard, which is the lack of any non-visual response. The haptic response could be in the form of a vibration and paired with an audible noise, the document filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office says.

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WiMax Ready To Surge Again

The roaring deployment of WiMax equipment rollout is expected to pause for a few months, then take off again by the end of the year, according to a report from Infonetics Research.

The rapid growth of the wide-area technology has been slowed by the worldwide economic meltdown, but also appears to have been influenced by a simple need to reorganize after its earlier soaring growth, the market research firm said as it released its quarterly report on mobile infrastructure this week.

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Barracuda Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarine (SSN) Program

The cutting of the first plate for Barracuda n°2 in Cherbourg this morning marks the first milestone of the boat's production cycle. The ceremony was attended by principal weapons engineer (IGA) François Pintart, head of the DGA's Naval Management Unit, Jacques Chenais, head of the French Atomic Energy Commission's Nuclear Propulsion department and Pierre Quinchon, SVP of DCNS's Warships Division.

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First Flight of Land-Based MQ-8B Fire Scout

A Northrop Grumman Corporation MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Unmanned Aircraft System (VUAS), designated P7, has successfully completed first flight operations at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz. Unlike current Navy configured Fire Scouts, P7 was built in an operational land-based configuration.

It is the first MQ-8B to fly without flight test instrumentation normally installed for developmental flights, a clear indication of MQ-8B's system maturity. P7 continues Northrop Grumman's commitment to customers around the globe by building upon the rigorous developmental testing being supported by P6, the first company owned Fire Scout.

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Hard disk or solid-state?

Though solid-state drives are in vogue, market forces and technical issues are giving the venerable hard-disk drive new life.

DRAMexchange, a Taipei-based market intelligence firm, said last week that the adoption of solid-state drives by computer vendors has slowed as the price of the NAND chips--the raw material of solid-state drives--has increased. The firm also said that computer makers have been cautious about using solid-state drives because current Windows operating systems are not fully optimized for SSDs.

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Synthetic Fuels Move Toward Acceptance

The possibility of commercially available synthetic jet fuels took a step closer to reality last week when ASTM International’s aviation fuels subcommittee passed a new specification for alternative jet fuel. The new specification details the properties and criteria required to control the production and quality of synthetic fuels for aviation use.

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Boeing Team to Develop Revolutionary Spacecraft Power System

DARPA's FAST program aims to develop a new, ultra-lightweight High Power Generation System (HPGS) that can generate up to 175 kilowatts -- more power than is currently available to the International Space Station. When combined with electric propulsion, FAST will form the foundation for future self-deployed, high-mobility spacecraft to perform ultra-high-power communications, space radar, satellite transfer and servicing missions.

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Alternative armour

A textile-based protection system designed to replace bar and slat armour could provide the UK military with a new level of defence against rocket-propelled grenade attacks.

Resembling a mattress, the lightweight Tarian system is currently being used on a number of Heavy Equipment Transporters in Afghanistan. AmSafe Bridport, the Dorset-based company that designed the system, claimed it is seven times lighter than traditional steel armour and 50 per cent lighter than aluminium.

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Beam shaping improves diode-laser performance

While high-power diode lasers are attractive for applications in which size and efficiency matter, other inherent characteristics have limited their use. Now the European Space Agency has demonstrated that design detail and beam correction can enable these devices to deliver efficient illumination with superior brightness.

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Optical Computer Closer: Optical Transistor Made From Single Molecule

ETH Zurich researchers have successfully created an optical transistor from a single molecule. This has brought them one step closer to an optical computer

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Northrop rolls out first Block 40 Global Hawk, as USAF boosts order

Northrop Grumman received a $75 million contract award on 30 June, with the sum providing long-lead funding to start building two RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 and four Block 40 unmanned air vehicles for the US Air Force.

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Airbus considers flight-data downlink to aid investigations

Airbus is to examine downlink of flight-critical data, and other possible techniques, to explore whether vital information could be more easily retrieved in the event of an accident.
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Airbus launches initiative to reinforce flight data recovery capability

Airbus has launched a study for reinforcing flight data recovery, including, but not limited to, extended data transmission for commercial airliners, so that in the event of accidents, critical flight information can still be recovered and released to the investigating authorities.

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GE To Partner With USM In Composite Engine Project

A $2.4 million state grant will be used by a General Electric Co. subsidiary and the University of Southern Mississippi for research on composite materials for an engine to power the Boeing 787 and 747-8 aircraft.

Gov. Haley Barbour was on the Hattiesburg campus Monday to announce the partnership between USM's School of Polymers and High Performance Materials and GE Aviation, which has a plant in Batesville producing composite-material parts for jet engines.

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BAE to explore new UAV technologies for Australian DoD

a Australia's Department of Defence has contracted BAE Systems to perform a new capability and technology demonstrator programme into unmanned surveillance technologies, with the work to build on recent flight trials conducted for the nation's air force.

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Fleets Turn to Small Ships for New Conflicts

During a speech at the U.S. Naval War College in April, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates cited the value of developing a viable force of small warships that are better suited to face current threats in the littorals than vessels designed for blue-water operations.

“You don’t necessarily need a billion-dollar ship to chase down a bunch of teenaged pirates,” he told a group of Navy officers. “The size of the ship in such cases is less important than having Navy Seals on board. To carry out the missions we may face in the future—whether dealing with non-state actors at sea or near shore, or swarming speedboats—we will need numbers, speed and ability to operate in shallow waters.”

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Lockheed Snags DARPA Anti-Ship Missile

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has won one of two awards from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to study and design a Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

DARPA received nine proposals, and one more award is expected in the next 60 days, according to an agency official. Boeing, Raytheon and ATK also submitted proposals.

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World's Largest Commercial Satellite Launched to Space

erreStar-1 was built by the California-based Space Systems/Loral. It is designed to provide mobile voice and data communications in North America to smartphone-size handsets using the 2-gigahertz, or S-band, portion of the radio spectrum. The system is designed to function with a network of ground-based signal amplifiers to permit service in areas the satellite cannot reach, such as urban canyons and areas outside the line-of-sight view of the spacecraft.

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US sets final emergency responder wireless pilot

Looking to help eliminate the dangerous and inefficient hodgepodge of communication and network technology used by emergency response personnel, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today said it had picked 14 groups from across the country to pilot an ambitious Multi-Band Radio project.

In 2008, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate awarded a $6.2 million contract to Thales Communications to demonstrate the first-ever portable radio prototype that lets emergency responders-police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and others-communicate with partner agencies, regardless of the radio band they operate on. This is the final pilot in a three-part test, DHS said.

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