The Department of Energy is making $100 million in government stimulus money available to researchers with ideas for radically different energy technologies.
The DOE on Monday announced the second portion of the ARPA-E program and said that "concept papers" for three research areas--fuels, capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants, and long-range electric vehicle batteries--are due by the middle of next January
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Google offers search by sight
Google's first search engine let people search by typing text onto a Web page. Next came queries spoken over the phone. On Monday, Google announced the ability to perform an Internet search by submitting a photograph.
The experimental search-by-sight feature, called Google Goggles, has a database of billions of images that informs its analysis of what's been uploaded.
The experimental search-by-sight feature, called Google Goggles, has a database of billions of images that informs its analysis of what's been uploaded.
In the Brain, Seven Is A Magic Number
Countless psychological experiments have shown that, on average, the longest sequence a normal person can recall on the fly contains about seven items. This limit, which psychologists dubbed the "magical number seven" when they discovered it in the 1950s, is the typical capacity of what's called the brain's working memory.
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AIM-9X goes slumming with air-to-surface mode
Raytheon's AIM-9X Sidewinder, the ultimate in high-tech dogfighting weapons, has been adapted to strike moving targets on the ground or water.
Iran builds navy to hold vital strait
As tensions with Iran rise again, the Islamic Republic is reported to be expanding its naval power in the oil-rich Gulf and the Arabian Sea to be able to command the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, the only way in or out of the Gulf.
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Friday, December 4, 2009
NASA Challenges 350 Rocketeers Nationwide to Aim a Mile High
NASA has invited more than 350 student rocketeers from middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities -- 37 teams nationwide -- to take part in the 2009-2010 NASA Student Launch Projects.
Their challenge is to build powerful rockets of their own design, complete with a working science payload, and launch them to an altitude of 1 mile.
Boeing Unveils New Visual Display for Simulation Applications
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] demonstrated its Constant Resolution Visual System (CRVS) for potential customers this week at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando. CRVS, the company's newest visual display, delivers an immersive environment by providing a high-resolution "out-the-window" view for training systems and for general visualization applications.
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Electromagnetic Pulse Cuts Through Steel In 200 Milliseconds
The Fraunhofer institute thinks electromagnetic pulses may work better than the other white heat. Case in point: their new electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device that cuts through steel faster than a laser, and cheaper than a machine tool.
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Swiss Team Achieves First-Ever Manned Solar Plane Flight
Folks over at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, have been working on a solar-powered plane since 2003. Now, after six years of testing, they have finally managed to get the plane off the ground.
Tunable Terahertz Lasers Could Allow Airport Scanners to Chemically Analyze Substances
An MIT electrical engineer and colleagues have managed to tune a small but powerful laser capable of generating terahertz rays. That could someday lead to airport scanners capable of even better snooping than superheroes.
The laser in question is a quantum cascade laser, which came out of Bell Labs in 1994.
Boeing's Laser Avenger destroys 50 IEDs in Army tests
Boeing and the U.S. Army completed tests in which a laser system on an Avenger combat vehicle destroyed 50 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) similar to those used by adversaries in war zones.
A Single Phosphorus Atom in Silicon Used to Build a Transistor
Researchers from Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), University of New South Wales (Australia), and University of Melbourne (Australia) have succeeded in building a working transistor, whose active region composes only of a single phosphorus atom in silicon.
New Study Calls for Cybersecurity Overhaul in U.S.
The U.S. government and private businesses need to overhaul the way they look at cybersecurity, with the government offering businesses new incentives to fix security problems, the Internet Security Alliance said.
The alliance, in a report released Thursday, also called for permanent international cybersecurity collaboration centers, new security standards for VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) communications and programs to educate corporate leaders about the benefits of enhanced cybersecurity efforts.
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The alliance, in a report released Thursday, also called for permanent international cybersecurity collaboration centers, new security standards for VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) communications and programs to educate corporate leaders about the benefits of enhanced cybersecurity efforts.
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Black Knight - Prototype unmanned combat vehicle
The Black Knight prototype combat vehicle was developed by BAE Systems. It is an early prototype, which demonstrates advanced robotic technologies. Vehicle is currently being tested and evaluated by the US Army.
USAF Confirms Stealthy UAV Operations
he U.S. Air Force has confirmed to Aviation Week the existence of the so-called "Beast of Kandahar" UAV, a stealth-like remotely piloted jet seen flying out of Afghanistan in late 2007.
The RQ-170 Sentinel, believed to be a tailless flying wing design with sensor pods faired into the upper surface of each wing, was developed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), better known as Skunk Works.
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The RQ-170 Sentinel, believed to be a tailless flying wing design with sensor pods faired into the upper surface of each wing, was developed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), better known as Skunk Works.
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Not Yet For Unmanned, Autonomous Aircraft
Although the U.S. military has fielded many new unmanned aircraft in recent years, the Pentagon is far from sending the last manned war plane into combat, Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula said Dec. 3.
As the defense community debates the future of combat tactical aviation, Deptula said during the taping that any possible fielding of a fleet of totally unmanned - and even totally autonomous - combat planes is many years away.
Sensors Improving U.S. Army Logistics
The Army is headed toward increased use of sensors on vehicles and aircraft that predict and report impending system failures, said Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, speaking at a conference on military logistics.
Those devices are embedded in vehicles and aircraft with the purpose of alerting operators about the health of the vehicle or when a new part is likely to be needed before a failure happens
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Those devices are embedded in vehicles and aircraft with the purpose of alerting operators about the health of the vehicle or when a new part is likely to be needed before a failure happens
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Comeback of supersonic flight
In the labs and wind tunnels of Cleveland's Glenn Research Center and three other NASA facilities, the prospect of commercial supersonic flight is quietly coming out of mothballs.
Glenn engineers and their counterparts at the Langley, Dryden and Ames research centers are at work devising greener, fuel-efficient and less-polluting supersonic engines.
Glenn engineers and their counterparts at the Langley, Dryden and Ames research centers are at work devising greener, fuel-efficient and less-polluting supersonic engines.
High-Tech, Armored Off-Roader Key to Afghan Surge
Pentagon is in the middle of a crash program to build and ship to Afghanistan a new generation of bomb-resistant off-road vehicle, equipped with everything from composite armor to “electronic keels.”
Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research
Intel showed an 48-core processor nicknamed the “single-chip cloud computer” that consumes about the same power as desktop processors available currently. The fully programmable 48 processing cores are the most Intel has ever had on a single silicon chip, says the company.
World’s Fastest Personal Submarine
The Super Falcon submersible uses its inverted wings to move through water like a plane through air.
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Cheaper, Smaller Network of Spy Satellites Gives Troops on the Ground Their Own Eye in the Sky
With Kestrel Eye satellites, grunts on the ground will be able to check out surrounding terrain from a bird's eye view in near real time.
Dark-field laser mouse works on transparent surfaces
Borrowing dark-field illumination techniques used in microscopy to increase contrast of tiny particulates like dust and surface imperfections such as grease and scratches, Logitech (Fremont, CA) developed a new optical mouse that uses a technique called dark-field laser tracking.
JQI researchers create 'synthetic magnetic fields' for neutral atoms
Achieving an important new capability in ultracold atomic gases, researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute, a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, have created "synthetic" magnetic fields for ultracold gas atoms, in effect "tricking" neutral atoms into acting as if they are electrically charged particles subjected to a real magnetic field.
Practical T-Ray Amplifier
Terahertz sensors can see through clothing and sniff for bombs, but they've had to do so with very weak signals.
Terahertz radiation, which is generated by ultrashort-duration lasers, is often weak, and it is difficult to amplify the terahertz signal without using large, complex, and costly laser systems.
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USAF Growing Cyber Warfare Ops Center
The newly-created 24th U.S. Air Force, the service’s latest numbered force, aims to establish the first elements of a cyberspace command operations center in San Antonio by the end of December.
Desert Prowler Unveiled
A photograph of the Beast of Kandahar, the classified stealth UAV first reported in April, has emerged on a blog linked to left-wing French newspaper Liberation.
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ICBMs Shift to New USAF Command
U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) took a concrete step toward fulfilling its mission of operating two-thirds of the Pentagon's nuclear triad when it took command Dec. 1 of 20th Air Force and its 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.
US Army Wants 120mm GPS-Guided Mortars to Fight Afghan Insurgents
The US Army is pushing to get precision mortars developed and deployed to the field in Afghanistan as soon as possible. The precision mortars are needed to target insurgents who are dug in along mountain ridgelines and other high positions.
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