Nasa explains its Mars voyage strategies

Nasa has detailed how a hypothetical manned mission to Mars would work. But while that’s a dream, the agency is funding attempts to use private firms to cut the costs of space travel.

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Researchers develop 'brain-reading' methods

It is widely known that the brain perceives information before it reaches a person's awareness. But until now, there was little way to determine what specific mental tasks were taking place prior to the point of conscious awareness.

That has changed with the findings of scientists at Rutgers University in Newark and the University of California, Los Angeles who have developed a highly accurate way to peer into the brain to uncover a person's mental state and what sort of information is being processed before it reaches awareness. With this new window into the brain, scientists now also are provided with the means of developing a more accurate model of the inner functions of the brain.

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US Firm Shown Television Running on Wireless Powe

US firm Witricity developed a system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires. He showed off a commercially available television using the system. This system could replace the miles of expensive power cables and billions of disposable batteries.

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Barcode replacement shown off

A replacement for the black and white stripes of the traditional barcode has been outlined by US researchers.

Bokodes, as they are known, can hold thousands of times more information than their striped cousins and can be read by a standard mobile phone camera.

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DOD Completes Large-Scale Tests of Mesh-Networking Tags

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) recently completed large-scale tests of mesh-network location-tracking asset tags from ARINC and Impeva Labs. The tests involved hundreds of battery-powered asset tags that formed secure local mesh networks spanning up to half a mile in length.

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Military spends $155M for the nucleus of future wireless networks

The central component to the military’s bulletproof IP wireless network strategy is now in place. Raytheon this week was awarded $24.4 million of what could end up being a $155 million contract to develop the key technology, known as MAINGATE, that will link disparate military wireless networks.

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U.S. company hopes to make fuel from sunlight, CO2

U.S. start-up Joule Biotechnologies hopes to make commercial amounts of motor fuel by feeding engineered organisms high concentrations of carbon dioxide and sunlight, its top executive said.

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Western Digital Rolls Out First 1TB Laptop HHD

It certainly didn't take long for somebody to roar past Toshiba's short-lived record of 500GB for the largest available laptop storage capacity, announced on May 14.

Western Digital on July 27 introduced two new laptop drives that knocked Toshiba's Portege R600-ST4203 solid-state laptop out of the No. 1 spot: the WD Scorpio Blue drives, available in both 750GB and 1TB capacities.

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New B-2 Radar Meets Mission Requirements

Northrop Grumman Corporation and the U.S. Air Force have successfully demonstrated that the new radar developed for the B-2 stealth bomber can fulfill the performance requirements for its required missions, both conventional and strategic.

Northrop Grumman is the Air Force's prime contractor for the B-2, the flagship of the nation's long range strike arsenal. The bomber is the nation's largest payload, longest range stealth bomber.

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Piezo power on the battlefield

Soldiers could one day power electronic devices such as personal radios using just their own movements on the battlefield.The technology is being developed through a two-year government-sponsored programme that aims to create kinetic-energy harvesting systems that can be worn by army personnel.

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How robot drones revolutionized the face of warfare

Barely an hour's drive from the casinos of Las Vegas, a group of unassuming buildings have become as important as the trenches were to WWI. The big difference? Today's warriors are fighting without getting in harm's way, using drones to attack targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There are now more than 7,000 UAVs ranging from the workhorse, the Predator, and its beefier, deadlier kin the Reaper, to army drones like the tiny hand-launched Raven and the larger Shadow.

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Is the ocean Florida's untapped energy source?

The answer to easing the energy crunch in one of the nation's most populous states could lie underwater.

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University are in the early stages of turning that idea into reality in the powerful Gulf Stream off the state's eastern shore.

"If you can take an engine and put it on the back of a boat or propel a ship through water, why not take a look at the strength of the Gulf Stream and determine if that can actually turn a device and create energy?

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