Riding a Slingshot into Space

Engineers at NASA have created a prototype of an electromagnetic propulsion system that would use a linear motor and ramjet engine--instead of a rocket propulsion system--to fling a vehicle into space. It is the first system that would operate beyond the sound barrier using an air-breathing ramjet engine.

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A Kevlar killer comes to market

Lashmore's company, Nanocomp Technologies, is the first in the world to make sheets of carbon nanotubes -- microscopic tubes stronger than steel but lighter than plastic. The Pentagon has financed much of the Concord, N.H., firm's work; stakes include the $500 million U.S. market for body and vehicle armor, which is currently dominated by DuPont's Kevlar.

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Omni-ID Launches New High-Performance UHF Gen 2 Tags

Passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tag manufacturer Omni-ID has launched a new RFID platform to improve the performance of its EPC Gen 2 tags across a broader spectrum of UHF frequencies, as well as three new tags that use the platform to provide longer read ranges and higher reliability, regardless of where on Earth those tags are read.

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Alien Unveils Dynamic Security App for Higgs 3 Chip

Morgan Hill, Calif. RFID hardware manufacturer Alien Technology has announced a new security application designed to make RFID tags made with its Higgs 3 chip impossible to clone. The feature, known as Dynamic Authentication, relies on a challenge/response algorithm to verify that a tag is authentic, explains Victor Vega, Alien's marketing director.

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Sharp's New Semiconductor Laser for Triple- and Quadruple- Layer Blu-ray Discs

Sharp Corporation has announced the development of a new 500 mW semiconductor laser for triple- and quadruple- layer Blu-ray discs.

The semiconductor laser is blue-violet, producing an optical output up to 500 mW and 405 nm wavelength of oscillation under pulsed operation. The new laser has been proven reliable over 1,000 hours of testing.

The device is designed to be used in Blu-ray Disc recorders, and can write at 8 x speed on both triple- and quadruple- layer discs

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First Test of New X-ray Laser Strips Neon Bare

It takes a lot of energy to strip all ten electrons from an atom of neon. Doing it from the inside out, knocking away the most-closely-held, innermost electrons first, is an even rarer feat. But the brilliant X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source have done just that, in the successful first test of the unprecedented X-ray laser with its first scientific instrument. The result demonstrates the machine's unique capabilities—with the world's brightest and shortest X-ray laser pulses—and marks the first of two milestones in readiness for the launch of LCLS scientific user experiments this October.

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Magnetic drug delivery device

A drug delivery device that uses magnetism and nanotechnology could be used to treat conditions such as chronic pain, cancer and diabetes.

The research team, led by Dr Daniel Kohane, has created a small implantable device, less than 1cm in diameter, that encapsulates a drug in a specially engineered membrane, embedded with nanoparticles composed of magnetite, a mineral with magnetic properties.

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The Flying Future for America's Missile Shield

This week the Obama administration said that it will likely scale back plans to install ground-based missile defense interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the Iranian long-range rocket threat is now downgraded, missile defense interceptors are still part of U.S. military strategy. The move away from ground-based interceptors in Europe could signal a technological shift—to the air. Could air-launched interceptors be the answer for missile defense?

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Flying Bot Swarms You Control With Body Language

Robot swarms could someday hover, spin, and attack in response to a simple gesture or graceful pirouette from a human operator. And yes, Boeing has filed a patent on that future vision.
"The method may involve defining a plurality of body movements of an operator that correspond to a plurality of operating commands for the unmanned object.

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Raytheon, Lockheed May Win in Obama Missile Plan

Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. may be winners in President Barack Obama’s decision to shift a proposed missile-defense network in Europe toward a more flexible system, said Rob Stallard, an analyst at Macquarie Capital Inc. in New York.

Obama’s plan would place anti-missile systems aboard destroyers at sea and include mobile land-based radar. The previous plan by former President George W. Bush would have put land-based missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic to defend against hostile nations, primarily Iran.

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UCSF researchers control cell movement with light

University of California, San Francisco researchers have genetically encoded mouse cells to respond to light, creating cells that can be trained to follow a light beam or stop on command like microscopic robots.

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Air Force officials fund super-fast, secure computing

Air Force Office of Scientific Research-supported physicists at the University of Michigan are developing innovative components for quantum, or super-fast, computers that will improve security for data storage and transmission on Air Force systems

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Computers Meet Cell Biology

The sequencing of the human genome has resulted in the emergence of an enormously important new branch in the biotechnological sciences. The most common terms for this field are bioinformatics or computational biology.

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No More Service Packs for Windows XP

Looks like an era is coming to an end, as Microsoft is now shifting its focus away from supporting old-timer Windows XP on a service pack level, and looking at the hot new chick in town, the sexy Windows 7. According to Softpedia, SP3 was the last service pack for the 32-bit version of Windows XP (x86); SP2 was the last major update for the 64-bit version (x64).

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Aurora Unveils Orion Persistent UAV

Aurora Flight Sciences is waiting to hear whether it has been selected for a U.S. Defense Department joint concept technology demonstration (JCTD) of an affordable, persistent medium-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to begin in fiscal 2010.

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USAF Readies For Multiple Launches

The U.S. Air Force is about to enter the most intense period of fielding new space systems since the height of the Cold War almost 50 years ago, says Space and Missile Systems Center commander, Lt. Gen. John Sheridan.

"We're poised to deliver six brand new space systems in the next 24 months. Nothing as ambitious as this has been attempted since the 1960s.

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New DRASH Command and Control Equipment Hits the Market

DHS Systems LLC recently unveiled several changes to their Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter (DRASH) Deployable Command and Control Equipment (DC2E).

First introduced last November, the DC2E Large Screen Display is a projector system designed for users operating in larger workstations, including the company’s 1,250-square foot J Series Shelters.

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WiMax Is (Still) on Its Way. Maybe

By the end of 2010, users in more than 80 U.S. cities may be able to ditch their cable modems, T1 setups and DSL lines -- and the Wi-Fi routers that go with them -- in favor of WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) broadband wireless technology.

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Boeing Flies Harpoon Missile With Updated Guidance Control

A Boeing Harpoon Block II missile equipped with a redesigned Guidance Control Unit (GCU) flew for the first time in a test conducted on Sept. 10. It was launched from the USS Princeton off the coast of California and scored a direct hit on a land-based target on San Nicolas Island, Calif.

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Japan missile-interception test successful: govt

Japan said it successfully shot down a mock ballistic missile late Wednesday in its second test of a US-developed surface-to-air interception system, the defence ministry said.

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Abercrombie: F135 Mishap Shows Second JSF Engine a Must

Congressional supporters of building a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are seizing upon a faulty test of the fighter's primary power plant to drum up support.

In a Sept. 14 "dear colleague" letter, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, House Armed Services air and land subcommittee chairman, said a mishap during a test of the F-35's main engine, being built by Pratt & Whitney, shows two engines are necessary. The incident took place Sept. 11.

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Obama Sharply Alters U.S. Missile Defense Plans

In a major policy reversal, U.S. President Barack Obama has scuttled plans to build a massive ground-based missile defense system based in the Czech Republic and Poland that the Bush administration intended to counter the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.

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