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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Mystery immunity could boost swine flu protection

VACCINATING people against swine flu may be a lot easier than anyone dared hope, as it turns out that people have an unexpected degree of immunity to the pandemic now sweeping the world.

A seasonal flu in the same H1N1 family as the pandemic virus has been circulating since 1977, but until now it was thought that this seasonal virus did not induce immunity to the pandemic strain.

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Secrets of insect flight revealed

Researchers are one step closer to creating a micro-aircraft that flies with the manoeuvrability and energy efficiency of an insect after decoding the aerodynamic secrets of insect flight.

Dr John Young, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, and a team of animal flight researchers from Oxford University's Department of Zoology, used high-speed digital video cameras to film locusts in action in a wind tunnel, capturing how the shape of a locust's wing changes in flight. They used that information to create a computer model which recreates the airflow and thrust generated by the complex flapping movement.

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Taiwan Scientist develops Earthquake Early Warning System

A Taiwan scientist has made an earthquake early warning system, which will allow public a crucial 15-second warning before quake causes destruction.

The system depends on seismic waves, which move horizontally as well as vertically. The device detects and analyses these vertical waves, which travel faster.

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NASA Testing Breakthrough In Water Safety

NASA and University of Utah chemists are developing advanced tech for testing the drinkability of water.

The process just began a six month run aboard the International Space Station. Water will be sampled either from the Space Station's or Shuttle's galley using a syringe. It is then forced through a chemically-imbued membrane which changes color based on toxicity.

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Researchers make progress in optimizing solid oxide fuel cells

While our standard of life increases, so does the worldwide energy demand. In this vein, the application of technologies based on fuel cells is put forward as an alternative to the massive consumption of fossil fuels. One of the fuel cells of greatest current interest is the solid oxide one.

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Capturing tomorrow's satellite data with today's instruments

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) are participating in a project designed to bridge the gap between current satellite capabilities and the advanced technology that will be part of the next generation of geostationary satellites.

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Urban Hopper robot can leap over 25-foot walls

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demoed its Precision Urban Hopper robot, a wheeled ground unit that can leap over 25-foot-tall obstacles and keep on truckin'.

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IAI to Supply Self-Protection System for Military and Civilian Planes

ELTA Systems Ltd., a group and wholly owned subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has been awarded a contract to supply its self-protection systems, Flight Guard, for commercial planes in Israel. Contracts for various customers in Israel and abroad for the self-protection systems are estimated to be valued at tens of millions of dollars, over period of years. This is the only system to be tested and authorized by the Israel Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA).

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Boeing Flies Harpoon Missile With Updated Guidance Control

A Boeing [NYSE: BA] 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.

The new GCU, which controls most of the missile's functions, incorporates a Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to improve GPS security. In addition, the GCU resolves obsolescence issues and can accommodate possible future implementation of a data link for network centric operations.

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Scientists Create First Ever Magnetic Gas

For decades, scientists have debated whether or not gasses could display the same magnetic properties as solids. Now, thanks to some MIT scientists, they know the answer is a freezing cold yes.

MIT researchers have observed magnetism in an atomic gas of lithium cooled down to 150 millionths of a degree above absolute zero.

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Microvision commercially launches the first laser picoprojector

Microvision (Redmond, WA) has commercially introduced the world's first laser-based picoprojector, called SHOW WX, which is based on the company's proprietary PicoP display-engine technology.

The Microvision picoprojector uses the laser-based PicoP display engine that delivers large, colorful, bright, and vivid images that are in focus regardless of projection distance.

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U.S. Air Dominance Eroding

The U.S. military’s historic dominance of the skies, unchallenged since around spring 1943, is increasingly at risk because of the proliferation of advanced technologies and a buildup of potential adversary arsenals.

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CSBA outlines B-3 Next Generation Bomber

Thomas Ehrhard, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has published a fascinating monograph today with a recommended long-haul strategy for the US Air Force. The paper covers a lot of ground, but contains a particular focus on the USAF's deeply classified plans to start fielding a next-generation bomber force within the next 10 years. Ehrhard, who previously helped resuce the US Navy's X-47B program from cancellation, proposes his ideal strategy for a notional B-3 next generation bomber force of 130 aircraft, with a $16 billion development bill and a flyaway cost per aircraft of about $425 million.

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Raytheon Team Demonstrate Underwater Launch

Raytheon marked a developmental milestone when it successfully demonstrated the underwater launch of a Raytheon AIM-9X air-to-air test missile shape from a submerged Tomahawk Capsule Launching System. This successful test is a significant step in demonstrating payload flexibility for submarines.

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Hawker Beechcraft And LM Team For USAF Light Attack And Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft

Hawker Beechcraft and Lockheed Martin have teamed to compete for the opportunity to provide a low-cost, low-risk solution to address U.S. Air Force (USAF) needs for a Light Attack and Armed Reconnaissance (LAAR) aircraft. The USAF is expected to launch an acquisition program in fiscal year 2010.

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Northrop Grumman Wins $12.4M Contract for DARPA High-Power Transistor Research

Northrop Grumman Space & Mission Systems in Redondo Beach, CA won a $12.4 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to conduct research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Nitride Electronic Next Generation Technology Program.

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