Mining "Ice That Burns"

Newly discovered methane hydrate reserves deep in the ocean show promise for mining.

Trapped in molecular cages resembling ice, at the bottom of the ocean and in terrestrial permafrost all over the world, is a supply of natural gas that, by conservative estimates, is equivalent to twice the amount of energy contained in all other fossil fuels remaining in the earth's crust. The question has been whether or not this enormous reserve of energy, known as methane hydrates, existed in nature in a form that was worth pursuing, and whether or not the technology existed to harvest it.

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A Full-Color Screen That Bends

A new way to mass-produce flexible OLED displays could mean affordable commercial products.

Flexible, full-color video displays could be closer to market because of a new advance by researchers at Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center (FDC) and at Universal Display, in Ewing, NJ. The researchers have made bendy organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays employing processes and tools that are used to make today's flat-panel LCD screens. They demonstrated a new 4.1-inch video-quality display at the 2009 Society for Information Display conference last week.

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For Cheaper Solar, Fix the Inverters

If solar power is ever going to be a major source of electricity, researchers, engineers, installers, and solar panel array owners are going to have to pay closer attention to one essential component of the these systems--the inverter.

According to a study of solar arrays in actual operation, poorly designed or faulty inverters--devices that convert the DC power produced by solar panels to AC power that can be used in buildings or sent over the grid--can dramatically lower net power output. In one case, the inverters consumed hundreds of watts at night, decreasing overall power output by 40 percent. High temperatures caused inverter faults, and because the inverters had to be reset manually, about half the time when the sun was shining the array was producing no power.

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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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