Phalanx And The Centurion

The U.S. Navy has upgraded the radar and heat sensors on its Phalanx CIWS (Close In Weapons System) so that that the sensors can detect speedboats, small aircraft and naval mines. The upgrades will cost $4.7 million per system. Of the 57 systems being upgraded to this Block B standard, 17 of them are the land based, Centurion, version of Phalanx.

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AT&T says faster wireless coming by year's end

AT&T Inc. plans to upgrade to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 wireless networking technology later this year, offering faster network speeds to new compatible laptop cards and smartphones due to be released at the same time, the company said in a statement today.

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A Widescreen Laser Projector In Your Pocket

Redmond based company Microvision is in the last stages of developing and releasing a portable, laser-based projector, code-named 'Show WV.' The projector has a resolution of 848 by 400 pixels (WVGA) and, since it uses laser-scanning rather than LCD to form the images, it does not require a lens to focus, allowing it to display images virtually in any surface.

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Renewable diesel

Neste Oil has begun building a €670m (£582m) renewable diesel plant in the Port of Rotterdam, which, once completed, will be the largest facility of its kind in Europe.

It will have an annual production capacity of 800,000 metric tonnes of diesel.
The plant will make use of the company's proprietary process that converts vegetable oils and animal fats into its so-called NExBTL renewable diesel.

The properties of the NExBTL diesel are similar to the best existing diesels, such as GTL or Swedish Environmental Class 1 fuels; NExBTL is sulphur-, oxygen-, nitrogen- and aromatic-free and has a very high cetane number.

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