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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Scientist Accelerates Radio Waves Faster than Light

Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That's a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.

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Raytheon $167 M AIM-9X Block I & II Contract Gives Warfighters Edge

The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a $166.9 million contract for Lot 9 production and delivery of the AIM-9X infrared-guided air-to-air missile.

The firm-fixed-price contract will provide the U.S. military and its allies with AIM-9X Block I missiles and introduce into the inventory the new AIM-9X Block II captive air training missile (CATM). The contract will provide more than 250 jobs for Raytheon employees and create work for more than 10 major suppliers in eight states.

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Darpa’s Smart, Flat Camera Is Packed With Beady Eyes

Troops and unmanned aircraft could be the first to benefit from a new smart, ultra-slim camera technology which combines the images from many low-resolution sensors to create a high-resolution picture. Known as Panoptes, it promises lightweight, flat cameras with the power of a big lens in a device just five millimeters thick. It’s being developed by Marc Christensen, a professor at Southern Methodist University, with funding from Darpa. Planned applications include sensors for miniature drones and helmet-cams for soldiers.

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Salamander Discovery Could Lead to Human Limb Regeneration

By tracking individual cells in genetically modified salamanders, researchers have found an unexpected explanation for their seemingly magical ability to regrow lost limbs.

Rather than having their cellular clocks fully reset and reverting to an embryonic state, cells in the salamanders’ stumps became slightly less mature versions of the cells they’d been before. The findings could inspire research into human tissue regeneration.

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Headset optimized for call clarity in noisy environments

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT), the world leader in Bluetooth headsets, today unveils Motorola Endeavor HX1, the first headset to combine Motorola's CrystalTalk(TM) noise cancellation technology with a stealth mode so you can hear and be heard in the fiercest environments. When the stealth mode is activated, true bone conduction technology relays only your voice while knocking out the most extreme noise and wind for a revolutionary premium headset experience. This experience makes Motorola Endeavor the only Bluetooth(1) headset to use true bone conduction technology, all without compromising comfort.

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Hybrid Satellite-Cell Pocket Phone May Arrive This Year

Previous attempts to create a mass-market satellite phone may have failed miserably—just ask the backers of Globalstar, Iridium, and Odyssey—but a Virginia-based satellite firm believes it has a better solution that just may work this time.

TerreStar Networks plans to launch a mobile phone service this year that offers a mix of satellite and cellular service. Unlike the bulky, brick-sized satellite handsets of years past, a TerreStar device will be no larger than a conventional smartphone.

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Transformation optics: from invisibility to visibility

The concept of transformation optics, used in the design of so-called "invisibility cloaks," has now been exploited to make something more visible. A team from the National University of Singapore, Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic), and the University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews, Scotland) came up with a singular solution: the perfect cat's eye.

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Millihertz-linewidth laser could make the best clocks more precise

A theoretical proposal by scientists at JILA (which is jointly operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, both in Boulder, CO) for a millihertz-linewidth laser could one day help improve the stability of the best clocks by two orders of magnitude—which would improve applications such as GPS, synchronization of data networks, and tests of the fundamental laws of physics, among others. The laser would emit light directly from an ultranarrow clock transition—avoiding thermal noise and producing a linewidth smaller even than the clock transition itself—by forcing an ensemble of atoms to emit energy collectively instead of individually.

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Electronic monitors provide care without doctor

A self-service kiosk is already being tried in about 100 Kaiser hospitals in California. It can be programmed to respond in several languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Armenian. Kaiser plans to add other functions, such as a way for patients to check their blood pressure, weight, temperature, oxygen level and pulse.

"The idea is to (have) a line buster," Chai said. "By the time the doctor calls you in, you're ready for that examination, you don't have to go to the nursing station.

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How to secure your PC: Pile on the layers

What you and your PC need is a layered approach. Signature-based detection is merely the first gauntlet that incoming files should have to run. And the trick is to pile on the layers without slowing down your system.

Because of this, an interesting breed of product is starting to mature. These can be loosely termed ‘cloud-based behavioural antimalware’. And you can expect them to proliferate.

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US Air Force to launch massive contest for targeting pods

Industry is anticipating the launch of a massive competition to acquire 275 more advanced targeting pods for US Air Force combat aircraft, with a selection expected from early next year.

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Novel Ion Trap for Sensing Force and Light

A novel ion trap geometry demonstrated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could usher in a new generation of applications because the device holds promise as a stylus for sensing very small forces or as an interface for efficient transfer of individual light particles for quantum communications.

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Single-molecule optical transistor

We demonstrate that a single dye molecule can operate as an optical transistor and coherently attenuate or amplify a tightly focused laser beam, depending on the power of a second 'gating' beam that controls the degree of population inversion.

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Nano-UAV

AeroVironment is designing and building a prototype flapping-wing unmanned aircraft under the second phase of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) program.

The $2.1 million Phase 2 contract was awarded after the company accomplished controlled hovering flight of an air vehicle using a pair of flapping wings for both propulsion and control.

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Airbus could be asked to ground all long-range airliners

Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.

It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people.

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