IBM Builds 3D World For Business Meetings

Big Blue's new Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Sametime service, launched Wednesday at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, offers a host of tools that allow employees and business partners to interact in 3D spaces without leaving their desks.

Users can select colleagues from their Lotus Sametime contact list and invite them, in avatar form, into the online world, where there's boardrooms, auditoriums, and collaboration spaces. The space supports a number of online chat, voice, and presentation tools to facilitate full communication. IBM worked with VoIP specialist Vivox on the voice component.

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Feather fibers fluff up hydrogen storage capacity

Scientists at the University of Delaware say they have developed a new hydrogen storage method — carbonized chicken feather fibers — that can hold vast amounts of hydrogen, a promising but difficult to corral fuel source, and do it at a far lower cost than other hydrogen storage systems under consideration.

The research, presented Tuesday, June 23, at the 13th annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference being held in College Park, Md., could eventually help overcome some of the hurdles to using hydrogen fuel in cars, trucks and other machinery.

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Weapon Locating Radar Upgrade Project Achieves Key Milestone

"The radar operates by using technology to identify the firing paths of enemy shells and rockets and from this data determine the enemy firing points, with up to ten locations able to be determined simultaneously."

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ZeMapper provides high-resolution precision 3-D surface maps

The ZeMapper interferometric optical profiler provides three-dimensional surface maps with the highest lateral and vertical resolution in a user-friendly automated process. Its 4-megapixel image sensor combines a large field of view with highest resolution available in any commercial profiler

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Dynamic Optical Tags (DOT)

The goal of the DARPA Dynamic Optical Tags (DOTs) program is to develop a small, robust, persistent, 2-way tagging, tracking and locating device that also supports communications at data rates greater than 100 kbps and can be interrogated at significant range. These tags will allow for two-way data exchange and tagging operations in friendly and denied areas. The DOTs will be passive and non-RF

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Researcher Discovers Method to Fully Process Encrypted Data Without Knowing its Content

An IBM Researcher has solved a thorny mathematical problem that has confounded scientists since the invention of public-key encryption several decades ago. The breakthrough, called "privacy homomorphism," or "fully homomorphic encryption," makes possible the deep and unlimited analysis of encrypted information -- data that has been intentionally scrambled -- without sacrificing confidentiality.

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Raytheon And Ultra Electronics Pursue Next-Gen Bomb Rack System

Raytheon and Ultra Electronics Precision Air Systems have teamed to pursue the BRU-69/A Multi-Purpose Bomb Rack (MPBR) program for the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Systems Command.

MPBR is a twin-store, non-pyrotechnic carriage system that will replace several legacy bomb racks currently deployed on the F/A-18 E/F. Advanced on-board avionics will ensure that MPBR is compatible with current and future "smart weapons." Use of a common, non-pyrotechnic bomb rack will provide substantial life-cycle cost savings.

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IBM and ETH Zurich Unveil Plan to Build New Kind of Water-Cooled Supercomputer

To make computing systems and data centers energy-efficient is a staggering undertaking. Up to 50% percent of an average air-cooled data center’s energy consumption today is not caused by computing but by powering the necessary cooling systems to keep the processors from overheating.

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Fujitsu Develops World's First Gallium-Nitride HEMT for Power Supply

Fujitsu Laboratories today announced the development of a new structure for gallium-nitride high electron-mobility transistors (GaN)(HEMT) that can minimize power loss in power supplies, thus enabling reduced power consumption of electronic equipment such as IT hardware and home electronics.

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Kamikaze drone loiters above, waits for target

A new kamikaze drone out of Israel is designed to hang about overhead until it spots a target, then crash into it with "pinpoint accuracy" destroying the target, and itself, with 50 pounds of on-board explosives.

While classified as a Loitering Munition, the HAROP comes equipped with many of the usual UAV capabilities: high-performance FLIR and color CCD camera with 360-degree hemispherical coverage, allowing it to transmit video back to its operators just like a surveillance drone.

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Unmanned Little Bird Helicopter

The US Navy has released photographs of the Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) helicopter, a smaller variant of the larger, manned A/MH-6M, can be controlled by a pilot or piloted remotely. The ULB may be used for multiple missions that may include re-supply and casualty evacuation and is capable of carrying a 300-pound payload.

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Beyond-Line-of-Sight Capability for E-8C Joint STARS Fleet Paying Dividends

Like the advertisement that speaks to the value of a product, Northrop Grumman Corporation's new Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) communications capability is priceless for troops on the ground. That is the sentiment coming from the 116th Air Control Wing, which flies the U.S. Air Force E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS).

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LM Installs Next Evolution Of Aegis BMD System On Cruiser USS Lake Erie

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] installed the latest evolution of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System - which includes a new ballistic missile defense signal processor, Aegis BSP - on the cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG-70). Over the next year, USS Lake Erie will complete a series of tests, leading up to full certification of the system upgrade by the U.S. Navy in early 2011.

The Aegis BMD 4.0.1 system represents the next incremental capability upgrade that has been the hallmark of Aegis and its "build a little, test a little, learn a lot" systems engineering philosophy.

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Your Next House Could Come Out of a Printer

The world's largest 3-D megaprinter to build a 10-meter-tall structure

3-D printing may soon expand beyond the small scale. In 2010, the world's largest 3-D printer will build the Radiolaria Pavilion, a 10-meter-tall structure in Pontedera, Italy. Made out of sandstone, the building will be printed one 5-10mm layered sheet at a time.

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Israel Air Force to Deploy a New Video Recorder & Data Server from RADA

RADA is unveiling the latest mission data recorder model developed by the company and selected to equip the Israel Air Force first line fighters - the Video Recorder & Data Server System (VRDS), introducing cutting edge approach to video and data recording and mass-storage management onboard combat aerial platforms. RADA's VRDS has been accepted as the sole source for flight recorders for the vast majority of the Israel Air Force aircraft.

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New e-APU promises more power

Microturbo is ground testing its e-APU, a new auxiliary power unit designed for new-generation business aircraft that are expected to need more electrical power. The company projects certification and first deliveries in early 2012.

The test program started in Toulouse, France, in December. Trials have focused on control of the APU and its thermal and dynamic performance. According to Microturbo commercial director Jean-Baptiste Jarin, dynamic characteristics are meeting design expectations. The e-APU has already supplied up to 60 kWe (kilowatt-electric) in electrical power on the test bench.

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Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears

New project will tap geothermal energy by fracturing hard rock more than two miles deep to extract its heat. AltaRock, founded by Susan Petty, a veteran geothermal researcher, has secured more than $36 million from the Energy Department, several large venture-capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Google. AltaRock maintains that it will steer clear of large faults and that it can operate safely.

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Blowin' in the Wind

Michael McElroy, a professor of environmental studies at Harvard, did an analysis of wind power with two colleagues, and here's what they report:

A network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms."

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WARMS Project: Swarming Drones to Sting the Enemy?

Like a swarm of angry bees, unmanned aerial, ground, and sea vehicles automonously converge on enemy troops, aircraft and ships, decide what to do, then engage the enemy with surveillance or weapons to help U.S. forces defeat them. All this without direct human intervention. Sounds like science fiction? The American military is one of several working on the technology, called “swarming,” in order to make this scenario a reality.

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Scientists break light modulation record; develop fastest LED

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL) have constructed a light-emitting transistor that has set a new record with a signal-processing modulation speed of 4.3 gigahertz (GHz). By internally connecting the base and collector of this light-emitting transistor, they created a new form of light-emitting diode (LED) that modulates at up to 7 gigahertz, breaking a previously announced record of 3.6 GHz for a plasmonic LED.

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Funding The Machine That "Might Save The World"

General Fusion, the Canadian duo who hope to produce a cold fusion power plant for perhaps a tenth the cost of other such promised projects, just got a $12 million shot in the arm.

According to the Toronto Star, the four-year grant comes from a non-profit called Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). However, SDTC will only provide the grant if General Fusion can match it with $28.7 million in private investment. Considering General Fusion only raised $6 million in its last round of funding, that sounds pretty steep.

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Sparton to deliver sonobuoy tech to Navy

Sparton Corp. has been contracted to support the U.S. Naval Antisubmarine Forces with sonobuoy acoustic signal receive array technologies.

Sparton announced it was selected for a subcontract to supply its sonobuoys for the Navy as part of the company's Erapsco joint venture with Undersea Sensor Systems Inc.

Under the $19.3 million subcontract, Sparton produce subassemblies systems for approximately 7,320 of its AN/SSQ-101A (Q-101A) sonobuoys. Officials say the sonobuoys detect potentially hostile submarines' acoustic emissions.

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Suspect Detection Systems completes R and D

Suspect Detection Systems Inc. announced the successful completion of Israeli-based research and development of its Cogito4M military grade technology.

Suspect Detection Systems has completed a two-year research and development project on its Cogito4M technology. Officials say the Cogito4M is a portable interrogation technology with multilingual tools developed to ensure soldiers in the field get accurate identification of terrorist suspects for detention.

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Radioactive threat detectors fail tests

The U.S. Congress's watchdog agency has recommended further testing of next-generation radiation detectors designed to increase security against radioactive threats at the country's ports of entry after tests produced lackluster results.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had hoped to replace its existing detectors with the new advanced spectroscopic portal radiation detection monitors.

But the U.S. Government Accountability Office was not impressed with the advantages of the new high-tech detectors given their price tag or the rigor of the tests themselves.

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Perfect pitch

Communications company Orange has revealed its vision of what a high-tech tent might look like in the future.

Rather than relying upon solar panels to provide power for the tent, the designers have based their concept around the futuristic idea of using 'solar threads' that would be woven into the fabric of the tent.

The tent’s solar shell uses the idea to full effect with three directional glides which can be moved throughout the day to maximise its solar efficiency, capturing the optimum amount of energy that can be used throughout the tent.

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Ebrake contract

Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems has won its first commercial contract for Ebrake: its advanced electric braking system that was successfully flight tested on a Bombardier demonstrator aircraft last year.

Meggitt’s electric brakes and control system will be installed on the Bombardier CSeries family of 110- to 130-seat aircraft launched in 2008 and due to enter service in 2013.

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Reverse-Engineering the Quantum Compass of Birds

Scientists are coming ever closer to understanding the cellular navigation tools that guide birds in their unerring, globe-spanning migrations.

The latest piece of the puzzle is superoxide, an oxygen molecule that may combine with light-sensitive proteins to form an in-eye compass, allowing birds to see Earth’s magnetic field.

“It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying,” said Michael Edidin, an editor of Biphysical Journal, which published the study last week. “That’s exciting!”

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NGC Submits Proposal to Revolutionize GPS Operations

The Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) Global Positioning System (GPS) Advanced Control Segment (OCX) team on June 20 submitted its proposal to the U.S. Air Force for the OCX Phase B contract.

The Northrop Grumman proposal draws upon the team's decades of navigation experience, years of OCX risk reduction activities and a successful Phase A demonstration performance. The Northrop Grumman team has worked hand-in-hand with the Air Force GPS Wing over the course of the 22-month Phase A contract and has now provided a comprehensive plan, cutting-edge technologies and innovative ideas for the advanced control segment. GPS is fully embedded into U.S. military operations, American commercial practices and civilian uses.

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Toyota plans fuel-cell car by 2015

Toyota Motor, the world’s top automaker, plans to roll out a fuel-cell car by 2015 in its push to stay ahead in the global race for green autos, vice president Masatami Takimoto said.

His comments came at a shareholders’ meeting at Toyota headquarters in Aichi prefecture in response to an investor’s question about the company’s outlook on zero-emissions technology, but he declined to elaborate.

Fuel-cell technology is considered a cutting-edge solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions as it generates electricity by combining a fuel — usually hydrogen — with oxygen, and therefore only emits water.

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IBM supercomputer reuses heat to warm buildings

IBM’s latest green venture is a highly efficient supercomputer that uses water to siphon off waste heat, and then uses the excess energy to warm up a building.

High-tech giants from Microsoft to Google are eager to cut the huge amounts of power used to run their data centers, particularly now that the recession has companies leaving no stone unturned to slash costs and global warming is driving them to think green.

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