The List: 57 Amazing Things You Didn't Know Your Tech Could Do!

Here are all 57 of the tips and tricks we've pulled together for PCs, laptops, smartphones, cameras, the Web and more.

Here's our guide to the many pieces that make up "57 Amazing Things You Didn't Know Your Tech Could Do."
Following are links to all six stories. In them you'll learn how to do astounding things with PCs and networking; smartphones; digital cameras and photos; Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Search; iPods, iTunes, and other digital music players; and TiVo, Wii, and Xbox 360 controllers.

Read More

Sukhoi confirms SU-35 prototype crash

Sukhoi has confirmed the company’s third prototype for the Su-35 programme crashed at Komsomolsk-on-Amur during high-speed ground tests.

Test pilot Yevgeni Frolov escaped uninjured after ejecting, a Sukhoi statement says.
A “commission of inquiry” has been launched to investigate the crash, says the company.
Sukhoi recently added the third test prototype to accelerate the flight test schedule. So far, the first two aircraft have completed more than 100 flights.

Read More

Chinese Navy Requires Supercruising Fighter

A supercruising combat aircraft is a high priority of the Chinese navy, the country’s top admiral says in a revealing official interview that gives strong clues of perceived shortcomings and future directions for the maritime force.

Adm. Wu Shengli also says China must step up work on precision missiles that can overcome enemy defenses, and the nation should move faster in developing large combat surface ships—probably meaning the aircraft carrier program that looks increasingly imminent (AW&ST Jan. 5, p. 22).

Read More

DARPA looking for mind-controlrepair brainplug tech

Famed military maverick mad science outfit DARPA has launched a new bid to keep America's tech edge sufficiently sanguinary. This time the killer boffins want nothing less than an accurate computer simulation of a living humanoid brain - which they may use for purposes benign or sinister.

Read More

Little Black Box Streams HD Content Like a Flash Flood

Practically every device in my house (save for the counter-top fryer) doubles as a media streamer, blasting movies, music or even photos from one side of the house to some screen on the other. The SageTV HD Theater is different, though: It's smaller, cheaper, quieter and in some ways more versatile than most media streaming appliances. At roughly 7 inches wide and 6 inches deep, the HD Theater is smaller than a teacup poodle in a trash compactor. In fact, it's so small that it might even have trouble standing up to its own remote, if the two ever came to blows. Once the HD Theater was patched into my 42-inch plasma, it became clear that it's really two devices in one. Its first function is as an extender for viewing media stored on a computer. Like the HD100 Media Extender reviewed last year, the crux of this function is SageTV's included DVR software. Getting the software installed and converting my favorite home theater PC into a de facto media server was a cinch. Surfing through my networked media was easy enough using SageTV's plain (but customizable) interface, and even full 1080p playback was both brisk and clear. Also, since the HD Theater supports a ton of audio and video formats, it had no problems even when I threw it some tough file formats (MKV anyone?).

Read More

Self-healing concrete

A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan has the ability to heal itself when it cracks. Its developers claim that just a handful of rainy days would be enough to mend a damaged bridge made of the new substance. The new material heals itself because it has been designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide gaps, as traditional concrete does.

Read More

Stronger silk

Spider silk is tougher and lighter than steel - German scientists have added tiny amounts of metal to spider silk to make it even stronger and more elastic.

The technique could lead to the development of super-tough textiles, surgical thread or artificial tissues such as bones or tendons, the researchers claim.

To make the silk, the researchers borrowed a trick from nature with the goal of further enhancing its properties.

Read More

Small Satellites Provide Low-Cost Entree

Satellite reconnaissance that delivers timely intelligence and strategic communications has become an essential part of national security for many nations, providing early warning of hostile attacks and extending command and control throughout areas of operation.

Most nations, particularly small countries, lack the resources, technology and money to create and maintain constellations of orbiting satellites. Smaller, less-costly satellites weighing 500 kg. (1,100 lb.) or less are emerging as practical options. In recent years, large countries, including the U.S. (see p. 36), as well as small ones have recognized the benefits of these platforms.

Read More

Heavy Artillery Testing in The Netherlands

In March, a select group of customers and decision-makers reported to TNO (the Dutch Institute for Applied Scientific Research) in Ypenburg (the Netherlands).

They had taken up the invitation from TenCate Advanced Armour to attend a test of protective solutions, in which the heavy artillery was deployed. The result was impressive and the meeting a success.

Read More

The US Navy’s Dual Band Radars

The US Navy’s newest light cruiser and aircraft carrier designs offer a wide array of new technologies. One is the Dual-Band Radar (DBR) system, which can be scaled up or down for installation in the new DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class “destroyers”, and the CVN-21 Gerald R. Ford Class aircraft carriers.

Read More

Alternatives to a space weapons treaty

Today, no accepted definition of a space weapon exists. Case in point: Recently, Space.com quoted a senior Pentagon official as saying, "There are no space weapons programs being funded by the U.S. Air Force." This statement was immediately criticized by many within the space arms control community as hypocritical and false. They cited the ongoing development of ground-based missile defense assets as evidence, along with dual-use space programs such as XSS-11 and MiTex and doctrinal statements of the importance of "space dominance."

Some experts consider a space weapon to be an object or device in orbit that is used to strike targets on the ground. Others consider a space weapon to be an object or device that can strike other targets in space. Still others consider a space weapon to be anything that can attack, degrade, or destroy satellites--whether from space, the ground, or air. These diverse definitions have frozen the international arms control debate over space weapons for decades.

Read More

Sounding the Nuclear Alarm

The U.S. will not have a credible arsenal unless Washington acts soon to replace aging warheads.

Gen. Chilton pulls out a prop to illustrate his point: a glass bulb about two inches high. "This is a component of a V-61" nuclear warhead, he says. It was in "one of our gravity weapons" -- a weapon from the 1950s and '60s that is still in the U.S. arsenal. He pauses to look around the Journal's conference table. "I remember what these things were for. I bet you don't. It's a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and '60s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them."

Read More

Lockheed Martin Provides U.S. Strategic Command With Enhanced Mission Planning Capability

Collaborative Mission Planning Tool Delivered

Omaha, Neb., April 23rd, 2009 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has enhanced the U.S. Strategic Command’s ability to plan operations that support their critical mission areas, which include strategic deterrence, space and cyberspace. The delivery of the portal-based Integrated Strategic Planning and Analysis Network (ISPAN) Collaborative Information Environment (CIE), gives commanders a faster moving decision environment and an accelerated operations tempo, providing parallel - not sequential - planning and decision making capabilities.

Read More

Boeing Airborne Laser Team Begins Weapon System Flight Tests

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., April 24, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency have begun Airborne Laser (ABL) flight tests with the entire weapon system integrated aboard the ABL aircraft.
ABL, a heavily modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft, completed its functional check flight April 21 from Edwards Air Force Base with the beam control/fire control system and the high-energy laser onboard, confirming the aircraft is airworthy, ready for more airborne tests, and on track for its missile-intercept demonstration this year.

Read More

Fly like a Fly

The common housefly executes exquisitely precise and complex aerobatics with less computational might than an electric toaster.

The common housefly is an extremely maneuverable flyer, the best of any species, insect or otherwise. What's more, its flight control commands originate from only a few hundred neurons in its brain, far less computational might than you'd find in your toaster.

yet the fly can outmaneuver any human-built craft at low speeds. Buzzing annoyingly across a room, a housefly reaches speeds of up to 10 kilometers per hour at twice the acceleration of gravity. When turning, it is even more impressive: the fly can execute six full turns per second, reaching its top angular speed in just two-hundredths of a second. It can fly straight up, down, or backward, and somersault to land upside down on a ceiling. If it hits a window or a wall sideways, which it often does, the fly will lose lift and begin to fall. But its wings keep beating, and within a few microseconds, the fly recovers its lift and can move off in the opposite direction.

Read More

A Match Made in Packets - Coming soon: cellular handsets that can use a Wi-Fi network

Wi-Fi married to a cellphone would surely be a union made in heaven—a wedding of cellular's ubiquity to the high data rates of local-area networking. It would minimize expensive cellular minutes, replacing them with free or cheap Wi-Fi time. Often, too, it would yield a higher-quality call, because cellular coverage is usually weakest where Wi-Fi excels—inside homes, stores, and offices. Walking inside while in the middle of a cellphone conversation, you wouldn't even notice as your handset switched seamlessly to Wi-Fi; and when you went back out, it would revert to the mobile network just as unobtrusively.

Read More

Quirks of RFID Memory Make for Cheap Security Scheme

18 March 2009—Radio frequency identification (RFID) chips are everywhere today: in credit cards, driver’s licenses, and passports, and stuck to pallets of inventory for big retailers like Wal-Mart. Yet some RFID tags—especially the smallest and cheapest—still have no means to prevent them from yielding up their data to any passerby with an RFID reader.

However, a soon-to-be-published report from a team of American computer scientists proposes a new RFID security measure that works by using the memory circuits already in many RFID chips.

Read More

Blades Have The Edge - Superslim machines are fomenting a quiet revolution in the server room

Blades, for most information technology departments, offer huge improvements over conventional, rack-mounted units. This compact, slim computer (hence the name "blade") is typically based on the same Intel or AMD processors and Windows or Linux operating systems as most other servers, but it consumes a lot less power and takes up a lot less room.

Blades fit into enclosures that hold several units, usually vertically and side by side, like books on a shelf. To replace a bad blade, a technician need only pop it out of its enclosure and put in a new one. And blades are equipped with management programs that let staff easily set them up for specific applications or arrange them in special configurations.

Read More

Bright idea for nanosensors

The transmission of light can be affected by the suspension of metal particles in a clear medium, an effect that has been used for centuries in making red stained glass using gold dust. Researchers are now exploiting this property to construct nanosensors that could be used to detect explosives or toxins, or identify infections.

Read More

Chiral palladium

A research team led by Gadi Rothenberg, professor of heterogeneous catalysis and sustainable chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, has made the first ever chiral palladium metal.

Metals are not chiral because they have neither. However, Prof Rothenberg and Dr Laura Duran Pachon managed to imprint palladium metal crystals with a chiral organic template. The entire template was then removed, leaving a chiral cavity in the palladium metal.

Read More

USAF chief says "light strike" fighter could be needed

The US Air Force's top officer said today that a "light strike" platform optimized for the irregular warfare mission could be added to the service's inventory of manned fighters.

Such an aircraft could serve both as a basic trainer for the USAF and "partner" air forces, and as an attack platform in operations against terrorists and insurgents, said Gen Norton Schwartz, USAF chief of staff.

Read More

A Laser Phalanx?

According to Peppe, a Laser Phalanx solution would offer an effective range about 3 times that of the existing M61A1 20mm gun, along with lower life-cycle costs.
A laser-based Phalanx system certainly sounds interesting. Nevertheless, there are a number of hurdles to cross and tests to pass before it can be considered a true advance over the current set of slug-throwing “last chance” systems out there.

Read More

Microwaves could defuse bombs from afar

THE next weapon in the US army's arsenal could be a laser-guided microwave blaster designed to destroy explosives.
The weapon, called the Multimode Directed Energy Armament System, uses a high-power laser to ionise the air, creating a plasma channel that acts as a waveguide for the stream of microwaves. The device could destroy the electronic fuse of an explosive device or missile, such as a roadside bomb, or immobilise a vehicle by disabling its ignition system.

Read More

Pentagon seeks military role for space tourism technology

As commercial spaceflight draws closer to reality, the US Department of Defense is officially interested.

The National Security Space Office (NSSO) has invited companies such as Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and Xcor to a conference from 24-26 February in San Antonio, Texas to discuss how suborbital technology could be applied to military needs.

Read More

Air-Mechanized Fighting Vehicle

An example of how the vehicle will be most commonly be utilized is as follows: one to four vehicles (depending on variant and transport size) will be loaded onto a transport with 0-8 men in each vehicle (depending on variant) and flown into a potential war zone. Once over the battlefield, the vehicles will be ejected from the rear of the transport and will utilize their aerodynamic bodies and a deployable Para foil to precisely land at predetermined landing zones. Or in the case of standoff variants, it will utilize its control surfaces ounce released to silently glide into the war zone and will land softly utilizing retro rockets. If carrying troops, they will then immediately dismount and operate on foot while the vehicle becomes an unmanned ground vehicle and provides supporting fire and long range ground mobility when needed. As the design progresses and lifting and propulsion systems are integrated, the vehicle will fly itself into a war zone. Upon landing wings or rotors would fold towards the body so that they will not be damaged or hinder the movement of the vehicle on the ground. If carrying troops, the troops would dismount and be supported by the vehicle. When redeployment becomes necessary they will board the vehicle and fly to the next landing zone.

Read More

What Weapons Want: Q&A With DARPA's Microsystems Master, Greg Kovacs

In 2008, Tony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), tapped Stanford M.D. and electrical engineer Gregory T.A. Kovacs to lead DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). The MTO funds engineering in five general areas: electronics, photonics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), computer architectures, and algorithms. But as Kovacs has repeatedly said, the role of DARPA is more about integrating these units into interdisciplinary projects. Take, for example, the Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program. Researchers funded under that program are tasked with the creation of moths or other insects that have electronic controls and energy-harvesting devices implanted inside them, making them self-powered remote-controlled spies.

Read More

Portable E-Bomb to Be Tested

15 April 2009—This week at an arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., defense researchers are testing a new high-power microwave (HPM) bomb—one that creates an electromagnetic pulse capable of disabling electronics, vehicles, guided missiles, and communications while leaving people and structures unharmed. The tests mark the first time such a device has been shrunk to dimensions that could make it portable enough to fit in a missile or carried in a Humvee or unmanned aerial vehicle.

Read More

New book teaches U.S. Army how to face 21st century challenges

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Don Vandergriff has published another book, which is good news for all who care about the future of the U.S. Army. "Manning the Future Legions of the United States: Finding and Developing Tomorrow's Centurions" brings together many strands of Army reform to create a comprehensive and intelligent reform program.
The book begins by describing the four generations of modern war, which together establish the context in which we can see both where the U.S. Army is -- in the second generation -- and what it needs to prepare to fight fourth-generation war.

Read More

Flexible, Printable Supercapacitor Built

22 April 2009—The field of printable electronics has taken off in recent years, with researchers touting prototype wearable sensors, smart packaging labels, and even solar cells made with printing technology. However, little advancement has been made in developing printable, flexible energy-storage devices, such as supercapacitors and batteries.
Now researchers from Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, have built a flexible supercapacitor out of printable carbon nanotubes and polymer gel electrolyte. Their results were detailed this month in Nano Letters.

Read More

Bugbots, Pentagon's Hi-Tech Insects

A $37 million U.S. Army research program to develop mechanical crawling, jumping and flying bugs for intelligence gathering, electronic jamming and data manipulation against enemies


More At