Hand Washing Detectors Could Save Lives

New health care technology could sniff out one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

HyGreen hand hygiene sensors, developed at the University of Florida, can detect whether doctors and health care workers have followed hand-washing procedures before making contact with patients.

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Textron XM1100 Scorpion Completes Simulated Urban Environment Tests

Textron Defense Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that its XM1100 Scorpion networked sensor and munitions platform has completed a test series focused on demonstrating the system's capabilities in urban environments.

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Boeing SDB II Successfully Engages Target in Flight Test

The Boeing [NYSE: BA] GBU-40 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) II team successfully concluded a 42-month risk reduction program on Sept. 29 with a flight test in which the weapon impacted its target.

"Our design, development and testing have resulted in a highly capable, robust system that not only meets the needs of today's warfighters, but also has the capacity to adapt to the unknowns of tomorrow's threats and operational conditions," said Debra Rub, Weapons Programs vice president.

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Nissan Scrambles to Create EV Charging Stations

Nissan is planning to roll out thousands of electric vehicles next year and is rushing to establish a network of charging stations where owners can plug in to keep them going.

The Japanese automaker is working with Ecotality to bring 11,210 chargers and 4,700 Nissan Leaf electric cars to five states — Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. Ecotality is getting a big assist from the Department of Energy, which has granted the Arizona company $99.8 million to underwrite The Electric Vehicle Project. Ecotality calls it “the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in history.”

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Digi Launches Industry's First Fleet Management Telematics Device Family Featuring Five Different Wireless Technologies

Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII) today introduced the ConnectPort X5 family of compact, ruggedized telematics devices with optional satellite functionality. The product family is the industry's first family of telematics devices to incorporate cellular, satellite, global positioning system (GPS), Wi-Fi and vehicle area network (VAN) wireless technology in one device.

Ideal for fleet management and asset tracking applications.

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Object recognition system

MIT researchers claim to have developed a computer that can recognise objects using a newly developed algorithmic technique.

Their object recognition system could allow computers in the future to automatically search through hours of video footage for a particular two-minute scene.

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5 Companies Making Fuel From Algae Now

Ubiquitous and easy to grow, algae has long been a promising biomass-to-fuel candidate in the eyes of researchers. Now algae is a burgeoning sector in biofuels with several high-profile start-ups, including Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics, and the interest of big-time investors like Bill Gates and ExxonMobil. Of course, hurdles still exist to make a competitive fuel. Algal biofuels still cost too much to produce—over $8 a gallon (pdf), according to the DOE. Furthermore, most existing strains do not yield oil in the quantities needed to quickly scale up to commercial production of biofuels. Companies also need to worry about contaminating local ecosystems and the amount of water needed to grow cultures in large batches.

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Hydrogen-Powered Navy UAV Shatters Flight Endurance Record

While most research directed at improving UAVs focuses on upgrading their weapons or sensor packages, the Naval Research Laboratory is also working to ensure that the next generation of killer drones are as fuel-efficient as they are deadly. And a recent test of their hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Ion Tiger UAV proves how successful they have been: it staid aloft for just shy of 24 hours on a single fuel load.

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Dyson's Bladeless Airfoil Desk Fan Ends the Menace of Choppy Air

Ever since Schuyler Skaats Wheeler introduced the first axial-bladed electric desk fan in 1882, fan technology has remained remarkably conservative. But that classic bladed design wasn't good enough for the innovative people at Dyson. With their new desk fan, Dyson has thrown out over a hundred years of axial desk fan technology to create the first fan that provides a continuous stream of smooth air.

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Researchers Developing Cockroach-Inspired Robots, Cheetah-Bots

Dynamic locomotion is "really limited still," and the robots that can crawl over rough terrain are small and often go slow. So Kim's aiming for a bigger, legged robot that could run fast, like a cheetah.

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Afghan desert the enemy for US armoured vehicles

These vehicles were not really made for the terrain here. They are more designed for Iraq.

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LockMart Flies First 360-degree Infrared Sensor On Small UAS

Lockheed Martin recently completed a successful test of a new infrared sensor turret aboard its Desert Hawk III Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), marking the first time a small UAS has flown with a 360-degree infrared sensor.

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Disposable chip detects low concentrations of explosives in water

A sensitive disposable chip developed at Stanford University can detect low concentrations of the explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) and a close chemical cousin of the toxic nerve agent sarin, in water samples.

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Desktop Electron Microscope

The new TM-1000 Tabletop Microscope from Hitachi High-Technologies is set to transform the field of basic microscopy.

The TM-1000 utilizes scanning electron microscope (SEM) technology. It is easy to use while retaining powerful imaging capabilities. Surface morphology is shown in stereoscopic detail with images in contrast due to different average atomic number composition within the sample.

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Superconductor World Record Surpasses 250K

Superconductors.ORG herein reports the observation of record high superconductivity near 254 Kelvin (-19C, -2F). This temperature critical (Tc) is believed accurate +/- 2 degrees, making this the first material to enter a superconductive state at temperatures commonly found in household freezers.

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Hackers exploit year's fourth PDF zero-day

For the fourth time this year, Adobe has admitted that hackers were using malicious PDF documents to break into Windows PCs.

The bug in the popular Reader PDF viewer and the Acrobat PDF maker is being exploited in "limited targeted attacks," Adobe said yesterday. That phrasing generally means hackers are sending the rigged PDF documents to a short list of users, oftentimes company executives or others whose PCs contain a treasure trove of confidential information.

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NASA Refines Asteroid Apophis' Path Toward Earth

Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico on Oct. 8.

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Hydrogen Breakthrough for Norwegian company

The Norwegian-British company Gasplas claims to have made a decisive breakthrough in environmentally friendly production of hydrogen.

By using plasma technology that was developed for the management of waste, Gasplas will use a column of natural gas or methane to allow the hydrogen, heat and carbon powder without CO2 emissions.

This could be the start of an environmentally friendly and energy efficient way to present fuel on to tomorrow’s hydrogen cars. Waste gas from the hydrogen cars is pure water vapor and completely CO2-free.

Image: http://www.gasplas.com

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ThalesRaytheonSystems Improved Sentinel Radar Performs Successfully

A ThalesRaytheonSystems (TRS) AN/MPQ-64 Improved Sentinel Multi-Mode radar has performed successfully during recent demonstrations held with the U.S. Army.

"The demonstrations are a positive step toward development of next-generation radar capabilities that are critical for the Army," said Kim Kerry, chief executive officer of ThalesRaytheonSystems, U.S. Operations.

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Russia Starts Ka-28 ASW Deliveries to China

Kumertau Aviation Production Enterprise, JSC, part of the industrial holding managed by Russian Helicopters, has produced the first shipment of the anti-submarine Ka-28 for The Republic of China Navy. The helicopters were ordered by Rosoboronexport. The first three of nine helicopters are completing tests.

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Light detection for medical imaging

A digital light detection technology from Philips Electronics is promising to remove the use of analogue signals from medical imaging entirely.

Philips’ silicon photomultiplier technology digitally detects light and processes the signal all on one chip.

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Research in a Vacuum: DARPA Tries to Tap Elusive Casimir Effect for Breakthrough Technology

Named for a Dutch physicist, the Casimir effect governs interactions of matter with the energy that is present in a vacuum. Success in harnessing this force could someday help researchers develop low-friction ballistics and even levitating objects that defy gravity.

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Raytheon Awarded $5.5 million Contract to Develop HEALICS Technology

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a $5.5 million contract to design, fabricate and test Self-HEALing mixed-signal Integrated Circuits (HEALICS) technology. If all contract phases are completed, the value of the contract could reach $11 million.

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Is it Possible for a Spacecraft to Fly Straight Through Jupiter?

Despite its gusty reputation as a “gas giant,” Jupiter’s blood-red clouds hide a dense, rocky core that’s perhaps 20 times as massive as Earth. That core blocks any spacecraft’s passage through the center of the planet, but even a detour through the clouds would be a disaster.

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Clever new device sees through walls

A new contraption that essentially sees through walls using radio receivers to track moving objects could one day help police and others nab intruders and rescue hostages or fire victims.

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Orbiter beams images of lunar crashes

The orbiting sister spacecraft to two NASA probes that slammed into the moon last week has beamed home images and temperature maps of the two intentional crashes.

The Diviner instrument aboard NASA's powerful Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took infrared observations of the impact, flying over the moon crash site of the agency's LCROSS probe and its Centaur rocket stage about 90 seconds after impact at a height of about 50 miles up.

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U.S. forces in Israel for missile drill

Amid smoldering tension with Iran, U.S. forces are deploying in Israel for a strategically important ballistic missile defense exercise, considered one of the most complex ever conducted by the two allies.

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Iran threatened by U.S. buster bomb

The Pentagon has acknowledged that it is speeding up plans to deploy a massive bomb capable of knocking out deeply buried enemy facilities.

The giant "bunker buster" is believed to add fighting power to the U.S. arsenal against Iran's nuclear program, defense experts argue.

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DSP Satellites: Supporting America’s Early-Warning System

Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites have been monitoring the skies as America’s early-warning system for ballistic missile launches since their first launch in 1970. The current Satellite Early Warning System (SEWS) consists of 5 DSP satellites; 3 provide frontline operational service, with 2 available as backups should problems emerge with the primary satellites.

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US Army Turns to Hollywood to Prepare Soldiers for Deployment

A decade ago, the US Army turned to the University of Southern California, the gaming industry, and Hollywood to develop virtual reality systems to simulate the battlefield situations and cultural interactions that soldiers would face in deploying overseas. The result was the establishment of the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICF).

The institute uses technologies in artificial intelligence, graphics, and immersion to create interactive simulations that help soldiers not only see the training situation but also interact with virtual soldiers, insurgents, and civilians.

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