SpaceX Successfully Completes 1st Stage 9-Engine Rocket Firing

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully conducted two static firings of the first stage, nine engine cluster for its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The firings took place at SpaceX's Texas Test Site, a 300-acre structural and propulsion testing facility just outside of Waco, Texas. With completion of these tests, the first stage has now passed both structural and propulsion acceptance testing and will ship to Cape Canaveral in preparation for the first flight of Falcon 9.

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Laser microscope aims to uncover alien life

The hunt for signs of extraterrestrial life usually focuses on detecting molecules associated with living organisms. Direct observation through optical imaging would be more conclusive, so Hans Kreuzer and Manfred Jericho at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and their colleagues have taken a different approach. They have built a robust microscope that can be dunked into water to detect any microscopic life forms that may be swimming or floating there.

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Army places new orders for standards-based RFID tags

Savi Technology Inc. will provide supply-tracking technology to the Defense Department under new contracts totaling $6.6 million. Savi will deliver standards-based active radio frequency identification tracking technologies and accompanying services under DOD’s RFID III procurement contract, company officials said today.

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Will GE's Handheld Ultrasound Become the Next Stethoscope?

As early as 2010, doctors will likely be able to perform ultrasound scans during a routine office exam or at the scene of an accident or in many other on-the-spot circumstances using a device no larger than a smartphone. The gadget could revolutionize patient care, but its use raises many thorny questions about costs, benefits and unforeseen consequences.

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Sharp Develops Solar Cell with World's Highest Conversion Efficiency of 35.8%

Sharp has now succeeded in forming an InGaAs layer with high crystallinity by using its proprietary technology for forming layers. As a result, the amount of wasted current has been minimized, and the conversion efficiency, which had been 31.5% in Sharp’s previous cells, has been successfully increased to 35.8%.

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"Smart grids are like a hacker's wet dream"

"Smart grids are like a hacker's wet dream," IRA Winkler, president of Internet Security Advisors Group, told a press briefing at RSA Conference Europe in London this week.The essential problem is that smart grid devices like intelligent power meters are PC-based and are thus subject to all the vulnerabilities of any computer system. "Smart grids are essentially computers that have a special purpose," Winkler said.

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World’s Biggest Digital Brains Think in Teraflops, Model the Universe

Blue Brain Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
What it does - Simulates the interactions among neurons in the neocortex — the brain’s reasoning center — to learn how thinking works
Processors 8,192 Peak teraflops 22.4

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Huge CCD Could Give Real-Time View of Dark Energy Hunt

The world’s largest sky-survey telescope may deliver its 3,200-megapixel images of the universe to the public in near–real time.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, scheduled to capture its first light at the end of 2014, might be able to incorporate real-time image processing that would deliver the project’s photos to the web in minutes, not months.

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Why Windows 7's Default UAC Is Insecure

When you run Windows 7 with the default UAC level, a technique using code injection and several components in Windows 7 that can auto-elevate can totally own your system. Microsoft gave several components in Windows 7 special privileges (like notepad.exe and calc.exe) in order to reduce the amount of UAC prompts in Windows. The end result, however, is that these components can be used to bypass UAC completely, and basically get full access to your machine. This works even on the RC.

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REX, an Infantry Friendly Robot

AI has unveiled today a compact unmanned ground robotic vehicle designed to support infantry units in combat. The platform, dubbed REX has a useful payload of 200 kg (450 lb), providing logistical sustainment for an infantry team or squad (3-10 soldiers) over a 72 hours mission.

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NASA Picks Turbojet For TBCC Engine Test

NASA has selected a Williams International high-speed turbojet as the turbine element of its Turbine Based Combined Cycle (TBCC) engine test rig, which will be used to evaluate technologies for potential future two-stage to orbit launcher concepts.

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NASA Should Consider Canceling Ares Rocket, Panel Says

In a 157-page report titled “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation,” most of the options proposed by the 10-member panel turn to private companies to provide astronauts with the ride to low-Earth orbit and replace Moon landings with the “flexible path” approach — flybys of the Moon and Mars and visits to asteroids and deep-space locales that do not require development of complicated landers.

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Northrop Grumman Begins Full Rate Production Of New B-2 Bomber Radar

The nation's fleet of B-2 stealth bombers will all receive a new Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)-developed radar system following the U.S. Air Force's decision to authorize full-rate production of the units by the company's Radar Modernization Program (RMP).

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Israel, U.S. test air defense against Iran

Israel and the United States kicked off Wednesday a major air defense exercise that will simulate a missile attack on Israel.

Code-named Juniper Cobra, the two-week exercise is the largest drill ever between the two countries.

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Next-Generation Land Mine Jammers Will Be Linked to Network

The next-generation devices, whether mounted, dismounted, or fixed, will be linked by wireless communication to ensure that IEDs are detected and disabled wherever they are. Currently, jammers work in either a mounted or dismounted role, which reduces their flexibility and interoperability.

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Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Modifications

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to take research on nitride-based electronic devices and integrated circuits – used in tactical radio systems, phased array radar, and satellite communication – to the next level.

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