Quantum Computers - When?

There are theoretical problems in creating practical quantum computing. Having shown readers the one-dimensional ion trap quantum computing experiment I'll be writing later in this series about the next level theoretical challenge, maintaining webs of computable quantum entities in two dimensions. But even as the theoretical problems are mowed down one at a time, the engineering challenges to building practical devices remain awesome and much less tractable than the theoretical problems.

Read More

Cisco wireless LANs at risk of attack, 'skyjacking'

Cisco Systems wireless local area network equipment used by many corporations around the world is at risk of being used in denial-of-service attacks and data theft, according to a company that offers protection for WLANs.

Researchers at AirMagnet, which makes intrusion-detection systems for WLANs, discovered the vulnerability, which affects all lightweight Cisco wireless access points, as well as the exploit that could be used against networks that have the Over-the-Air-Provisioning (OTAP) feature turned on.

Read More

Biometrics Data Is Vulnerable, Warn Experts

Privacy advocates are growing concerned about biometric "function creep": A company that scans your iris for an ID badge, they say, might also allow government or commercial entities to run this biometric data against their own databases—whether for legitimate or questionable purposes—without your consent. This is why encryption of biometric data is needed, argue Canadian and European biometric experts.

Read More

Lockheed completes mid-air refuelling test on F-35B

Lockheed Martin completed on 14 August the first mid-air refuelling between an F-35B short-takeoff and vertical landing variant and a US Marine Corps KC-130R tanker. The flight test was a critical step as Lockheed continues preparing the first two STOVL prototypes for the first vertical landing test in the fourth quarter.

Read More

Boeing Unveils Mobile GBI

Boeing officials are unveiling a mobile Ground-Based Interceptor design as an option while the White House mulls the future of deploying an additional set of defenses designed to protect the United States and Europe from the threat of an Iranian long-range ballistic missile.

Read More

Land-Based SM-3 Seen as Frontrunner

The likelihood of the U.S. establishing a fixed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) missile interceptor site in Poland appears to be waning as the Pentagon is more sharply focused on the quick fielding of a land-based SM-3 system to protect Europe from an Iranian ballistic missile threat.

Read More

Osprey's Record Stirs Controversy

Approaching two years in Iraq and about to deploy to Afghanistan, the V-22's short-lived engines, poor capability rates and high expense have stirred a new waved of criticism.

Video

Task Force Puts U.S. Airship Program on Fast Track

The U.S. Defense Department's ISR Task Force will huddle early next month with industry officials about forming a consortium to speed development of high-flying, long-duration unmanned airships to gather battlefield intelligence.

Read More

Russia’s Changing Aircraft Industry: Models and Futures

Russia’s aircraft industry remains one of the country’s defense export standbys, and Russian companies are beginning to partner with foreign firms in ways that could increase their reach. In December 2005, Moscow Defense Brief took a look at key trends, especially the consolidation trends as private maneuverings and state ‘encouragement’ to join a “Unified Aircraft-Building Corporation” (UABC) began to consolidate the various players.

Read More

Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind "See" with Their Tongues

Neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita hypothesized in the 1960s that "we see with our brains not our eyes." Now, a new device trades on that thinking and aims to partially restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue's surface to send light signals to the brain.

Read More

Legacy B-52 to launch futuristic WaveRider

The X-51A WaveRider is one step closer to its inaugural test flight later this year, now that airmen at Edwards Air Force Base have successfully "mated" the scramjet-propelled vehicle to a B-52 Stratofortress.

Read More

DARPA 3D reasoning engine to identify urban threats

DARPA is spending millions of dollars to identify trash cans, which may have raised a few eyebrows, except these and other common urban objects could in the course of today's combat missions prove to be tactically significant.

BAE Systems received a $7.1 million contract to work on Phase II of the Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program, which is designed to improve the quality and timeliness of geospatial intelligence U.S. troops receive when facing enemy threats in urban environments.

Read More

Gigantic Lightning Jets Shoot from Clouds to Space

Strokes of lightning flashing down towards the ground are a familiar sight during summer thunderstorms, but scientists have capture an image of a rare lightning bolt shooting out upwards from a cloud, almost to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.

These bolts of upwards lightning, one type among a variety of electrical discharges now known to occur above thunderstaorms, are called gigantic jets, and were only first discovered in 2001.

Read More

Flexible, Stretchable LEDs Promise Better Displays

Bend it, twist it, roll it or stretch it, a new light emitting diode, or LED, created by scientists will still light up.

The new flexible and stretchable LEDs could be used in everything from bumper mounted brake lights to computer and television screens that roll up into a pen.

Read More

Flexible, Stretchable LEDs Promise Better Displays

Bend it, twist it, roll it or stretch it, a new light emitting diode, or LED, created by scientists will still light up.

The new flexible and stretchable LEDs could be used in everything from bumper mounted brake lights to computer and television screens that roll up into a pen.

Read More

$2.5 Billion Order Launches Su-35 Production

The Russian government has finally committed to production of the Sukhoi Su-35 combat aircraft, which features thrust-vectoring and e-scan radar. At the MAKS 2009 airshow at Zhukovsky airbase near Moscow this month, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a contract worth $2.5 billion for 48 Su-35S models.

Read More

EASA Certifies New 'Autopilot/Flight Director' TCAS Mode for A380

Following recent successful development testing, a new Auto-Pilot/Flight-Director (AP/FD) TCAS mode for the Airbus A380 has been approved and certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).The main benefit of the system is that it could further enhance safety during a traffic avoidance situation because the pilot can now fly the aircraft without switching out of one mode and into another. Thus, by simplifying the actions required by the pilot during a TCAS manoeuvre, this enhanced TCAS mode minimises potential overreactions or inverse reactions while preserving his or her concentration at a critical time.

Read More

Needle-free injection

A needle-free injection system that takes its inspiration from the technology used to activate car airbags has been created by pervormanc.The Pyrofast system uses a fine, high-pressure jet stream to penetrate the skin and deliver liquid or solid drugs to the tissue beneath. According to the German company, the entire process takes 40m/s and creates a puncture that is four times smaller than that caused by conventional needle injections.

Read More

National Ignition Facility Prepares for Fusion Test

Federal researchers are slowly testing 192 lasers that they hope will set off the world's first controlled nuclear fusion reaction.

The lasers are housed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a $4 billion complex the size of three football fields that is part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.

Read More

NASA's Greatest Mission? Stardust Finds Amino Acids, Keeps on Giving to Science

Some scientific missions are fonts of information that keep on giving and giving, and Stardust has been one of the most fruitful. Launched in 1999, the unmanned craft made a pass through the tail of comet Wild-2 in 2004, and returned to Earth in 2006 with the first cometary material ever retrieved in space and brought back. What scientists found in that sample has changed their understanding of how these "dirty snowballs" formed and provided clues to what the early history of the solar system was like. Now, a new study confirms the finding that the amino acid glycine, a building block of life, was among the samples brought home. And, Stardust shows, comets have a lot more to tell us.

Read More

NASA Successfully Tests Vacuum-Packed Inflatable Heat Shield

Packed into a 15-inch shroud payload, the shield launched this morning aboard a small sounding rocket from the space agency's Wallops Flight Facility off the coast of Virginia. After reaching an altitude of 124 miles, the shield unpacks and inflates itself into a 10-foot diameter mushroom shape of silicone-coated fabric.

Read More

NASA Successfully Tests Nuclear Reactor to Power Future Moon Bases

The fission reactor uses a sodium-potassium liquid metal mixture to transfer heat to a Stirling engine, which then uses gas pressure for electricity conversion. Testing has been successful so far, as researchers have been able to generate a constant 2.3 kilowatts of power from the engine, using a non-nuclear heat source. With the full nuclear reactor running, their goal is to produce 40 kilowatts of power.

Read More

Satellite-Killer in Infrared

Air Defense System S-400

New generation of anti-aircraft weapon system complex

Russian RSM-56 3M30 Bulava-30 SLBM launch

AN/APG-80 - F-16 AESA Radar

Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA

THAAD, MEADS/Patriot PAC-3, Aegis BMD/SM-3 Missile Defense

High power military robotic exoskeleton