Next-Gen Ultrasound

Whereas the signal-processing and image-reconstruction techniques used in medical ultrasonography have made huge advances since this type of imaging became commonplace three decades ago, the business end of the apparatus—the transducer, which converts electrical impulses to sound waves and vice versa—has remained largely unchanged. So we found fertile ground when we began digging for ways to improve those transducers using tools from the microelectronics industry. You will soon find the fruits of those efforts at your local hospital. Indeed, this strategy promises to revolutionize ultrasound imaging within the next few years.

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25 Microchips That Shook the World

In microchip design, as in life, small things sometimes add up to big things. Dream up a clever microcircuit, get it sculpted in a sliver of silicon, and your little creation may unleash a technological revolution. It happened with the Intel 8088 microprocessor. And the Mostek MK4096 4-kilobit DRAM. And the Texas Instruments TMS32010 digital signal processor.

Among the many great chips that have emerged from fabs during the half-century reign of the integrated circuit, a small group stands out. Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology clichés to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living.

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U.S. May Monitor Pirates From Space

The U.S. is exploring the use of commercial satellites to enhance ship identification and communication for the battle against piracy.

Long before the U.S.-flagged container ship Maersk Alabama was attacked by Somali pirates this month, a sister vessel, the Maersk Iowa, was plying the sea lanes between the U.S. East Coast and the Indian Ocean, testing a device that combines the information obtained from shipboard radar and identification transponders to give authorities a better overview of who is on the water and what they are up to.

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CCUVS Deploys Robonic Unmanned Air Systems Launcher On First Operational Mission

The Canadian Centre for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (CCUVS) has announced it will be deploying the Robonic MC2555LLR unmanned air systems (UAS) launcher on its first operational mission since acquiring the launcher earlier this year.

The Robonic MC2555LLR launcher will be transported to Victoria, British Columbia, on 28 April and will be used to support the Canadian navy during exercise Trident Fury at the beginning of May. CCUVS is working closely with Meggitt Training Systems Canada (MTSC), the prime for providing the targets and control systems that the navy will use for ship defence training.

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Generating Energy From the Deep

LOCKHEED MARTIN is best known for building stealth fighters, satellites and other military equipment. But since late 2006 the company has taken on a different kind of enterprise — generating renewable power from the ocean.

The technology is still being developed in the laboratory, but if it succeeds on a large scale, it
could eventually become an important tool in the nation’s battle against global warming and dependency on foreign oil.

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Hypersonic ‘WaveRider’ poised for test flight

Hoping to bridge the gap between airplanes and rocketships, the U.S. military is preparing to test an experimental aircraft that can fly more than six times faster than the speed of sound on ordinary jet fuel.

Officially, it's known as the X-51, but folks like to call it the WaveRider because it stays airborne, in part, with lift generated by the shock waves of its own flight. The design stems from the goal of the program — to demonstrate an air-breathing, hypersonic, combustion ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.

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Raytheon affirms plans to launch family of Killer Bee UAVs

Raytheon says today it will continue to develop and sell new versions of the Killer Bee blended wing body unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) even after the design has been acquired and renamed by Northrop Grumman.

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JHMCS: Fighter Pilot “Look & Shoot” Helmets’ Upgrade, Ups & Downs

The Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) projects visual targeting and aircraft performance information on the back of the helmet’s visor, including aircraft altitude, airspeed, gravitational pull, angle of attack, and weapons sighting, enabling the pilot to monitor this information without interrupting the field of view through the cockpit canopy. The system uses a magnetic transmitter unit fixed to the pilot’s seat and a magnetic field probe mounted on the helmet to define helmet pointing positioning. A Helmet Vehicle Interface (HVI) interacts with the aircraft system bus to provide signal generation for the helmet display. This provides significant improvement for close combat targeting and engagement.

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Thales’s Liberty multiband radio receives FCC approval

Thales Communications, Inc., a pioneer and global leader in the development, manufacture, and support of multiband, software-defined radio (SDR) equipment, announces that its Liberty multiband land mobile radio (LMR) has received U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification. Having successfully passed all required tests, the Liberty radio is the first FCC-approved multiband radio covering the entire public safety spectrum.

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NG delivers first operational B-2 bomber with new radar

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has delivered to the U.S. Air Force the first operational B-2 Spirit stealth bomber to be equipped with a newly modernized radar. The aircraft was officially handed off to the Air Force on March 17 at Whiteman Air Force Base, the operational home of the B-2 fleet and the 509th Bomb Wing.

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Fastest Camera Ever Built Uses Lasers

cientists have made the fastest camera ever. It can take 6.1 million pictures in a single second, at a shutter speed of 440 trillionths of a second. Light itself moves just a fraction of a centimeter in that time.

The camera works by illuminating objects with a laser that emits a different infrared frequency for every single pixel, allowing them to custom-amplify a signal that would otherwise be too dim to see.

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G.E.’s Breakthrough Can Put 100 DVDs on a Disc

General Electric says it has achieved a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs.

The storage advance, which G.E. is announcing on Monday, is just a laboratory success at this stage. The new technology must be made to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices.

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U.S. Steps Up Effort on Digital Defenses

When American forces in Iraq wanted to lure members of Al Qaeda into a trap, they hacked into one of the group’s computers and altered information that drove them into American gun sights.

When President George W. Bush ordered new ways to slow Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb last year, he approved a plan for an experimental covert program — its results still unclear — to bore into their computers and undermine the project.

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Canadians demonstrate brownout vision aid

AE and Neptec Design Group have successfully demonstrated a synthetic vision system that fuses real-time landscape captured by a Neptec-built light detection and ranging (Lidar) sensor with a CAE-built terrain database.

According to the companies, pilots flying a UH-1 test helicopter equipped with a prototype system were able to “see through” brownout conditions to “easily differentiate between rocks, bushes, sloping terrain, utility poles, ground vehicles and wires at distances greater than 200m.

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Boeing ponders “variably” manned aircraft

Boeing has filed for a US patent on an aircraft control system that could be configured for two, one or zero pilots. The no-pilot mode would receive input from a remotely located operator by way of wireless signals, patent application 20090105891 states.
The development echoes similar work that Sikorsky has said it is performing. Sikorsky president Jeff Pino has said the company will increasingly turn to fly-by-wire designs in part to allow the military to use helicopters for missions too dangerous for pilots or for situations where pilots are injured. "We envision a switch in the cockpit of all of our helicopters with indicators for 'No pilot', 'One pilot' and 'Two pilots'," Pino stated at the February 2008 Helicopter Association International Expo.

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Photron debuts world's-fastest camera

April 21, 2009--High-speed imaging systems manufacturer Photron (San Diego, CA) will demonstrate the newest member of its high-speed technology, the Fastcam SA5, at the 2009 NAB show (www.nabshow.com) in Las Vegas, April 18-23. This camera achieves an unprecedented 7500 frames per second with its megapixel resolution (1024 x 1000) CMOS sensor, with reduced resolution available at a speed of over 1 million frames per second. See the Laser Focus World VIDEO player or click this link for the latest video from Photron: Popcorn popping at 10,000 frames per second .

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Army ‘Multimode’ Raygun Tech Zaps, Crackles, Pops

The Army’s new ray gun research project combines the zap of a laser with the crackle of an electric shock and the pop of a high-power microwave pulse. Known as the Multimode Directed Energy Armament System, it offers a wide range of different effects against different targets. Defensively, it could knock out everything from improvised explosive devices to incoming rockets. As a weapon, its effects might range from Taser-like effects to a lethal lightning bolt — and it should be able to stop vehicles in their tracks.

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General Atomics unwraps new, Stealth(y) robot war-jet

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI), maker of the famous Predator and Reaper unmanned warplanes, has taken the wraps off a new and still more powerful kill-robot - the "Avenger". The company says that first flights have been conducted successfully this month.

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INTEGRATED SENSOR IS STRUCTURE PROGRAM BEGINS

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, Calif., to develop the Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) phase 3 demonstration system. Raytheon Co., El Segundo, Calif., is a key team member.

DARPA’s ISIS program is developing a sensor of unprecedented proportions that is fully integrated into a stratospheric airship. ISIS will revolutionize theater-wide surveillance, tracking and fire-control, and enable engagement of hundreds of time-critical air and ground targets simultaneously in both urban and rural environments.

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Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS)

The goal of the ISIS program is to develop a stratospheric airship based autonomous unmanned sensor with years of persistence in surveillance and tracking of air and ground targets. It will have the capability to track the most advanced cruise missiles at 600 km and dismounted enemy combatants at 300 km.

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Raven Small UAV Demonstrates Persistent Surveillance Capability on a 30 Hour Mission

Attached to the forward echelons and operated by the troops, Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SUAV) have become a common element of support to the fighting units, providing a broad range of services to the warfighter, from intelligence gathering and target acquisition to battle damage assessment and force protection. Indispensable as they are, SUAV have one clear drawback – short range and mission endurance. System developers are aiming at extending their mission endurance, by energy saving and use of more efficient power sources. A new concept utilizing multiple SUAVs on a single mission enables a unit to maintain persistent monitoring of a mission area over a long time.

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Tracking Internet Chatter Helps Spot Swine Flu Outbreak

Tech tools for tracking disease outbreaks have been useful for following the spread of swine flu and one startup even claims to have recognized the severity of the outbreak in Mexico before government public health officials.

Veratect, a Seattle-based biosurveillance startup, claims they alerted the Centers for Disease Control to the situation in Mexico — where health officials suspect swine flu has killed up to 149 people — on April 16, before even the Mexican health authorities declared a problem.

How’d they get ahead of the outbreak? By monitoring and analyzing the flow of social media traffic along with more official reports, the company’s CEO said.

“We started picking up the early indicators of social disruption, whether it shows up on blogs or Twitter,” said Bob Hart, the CEO of Veratect. “We can pick up the first indicators of behavioral changes.”

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Wave of success

Tests on Aquamarine Power’s Oyster wave energy converter have shown that the device can deliver electricity on a commercial scale after it produced and exported electricity to the grid.


The trials, which began in March and are scheduled to finish by the end of April, took place at the New and Renewable Energy Centre (NaREC), a facility in north-east England that acts as a testing platform for renewable energy technologies.

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The List: 57 Amazing Things You Didn't Know Your Tech Could Do!

Here are all 57 of the tips and tricks we've pulled together for PCs, laptops, smartphones, cameras, the Web and more.

Here's our guide to the many pieces that make up "57 Amazing Things You Didn't Know Your Tech Could Do."
Following are links to all six stories. In them you'll learn how to do astounding things with PCs and networking; smartphones; digital cameras and photos; Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Search; iPods, iTunes, and other digital music players; and TiVo, Wii, and Xbox 360 controllers.

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Sukhoi confirms SU-35 prototype crash

Sukhoi has confirmed the company’s third prototype for the Su-35 programme crashed at Komsomolsk-on-Amur during high-speed ground tests.

Test pilot Yevgeni Frolov escaped uninjured after ejecting, a Sukhoi statement says.
A “commission of inquiry” has been launched to investigate the crash, says the company.
Sukhoi recently added the third test prototype to accelerate the flight test schedule. So far, the first two aircraft have completed more than 100 flights.

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Chinese Navy Requires Supercruising Fighter

A supercruising combat aircraft is a high priority of the Chinese navy, the country’s top admiral says in a revealing official interview that gives strong clues of perceived shortcomings and future directions for the maritime force.

Adm. Wu Shengli also says China must step up work on precision missiles that can overcome enemy defenses, and the nation should move faster in developing large combat surface ships—probably meaning the aircraft carrier program that looks increasingly imminent (AW&ST Jan. 5, p. 22).

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DARPA looking for mind-controlrepair brainplug tech

Famed military maverick mad science outfit DARPA has launched a new bid to keep America's tech edge sufficiently sanguinary. This time the killer boffins want nothing less than an accurate computer simulation of a living humanoid brain - which they may use for purposes benign or sinister.

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Little Black Box Streams HD Content Like a Flash Flood

Practically every device in my house (save for the counter-top fryer) doubles as a media streamer, blasting movies, music or even photos from one side of the house to some screen on the other. The SageTV HD Theater is different, though: It's smaller, cheaper, quieter and in some ways more versatile than most media streaming appliances. At roughly 7 inches wide and 6 inches deep, the HD Theater is smaller than a teacup poodle in a trash compactor. In fact, it's so small that it might even have trouble standing up to its own remote, if the two ever came to blows. Once the HD Theater was patched into my 42-inch plasma, it became clear that it's really two devices in one. Its first function is as an extender for viewing media stored on a computer. Like the HD100 Media Extender reviewed last year, the crux of this function is SageTV's included DVR software. Getting the software installed and converting my favorite home theater PC into a de facto media server was a cinch. Surfing through my networked media was easy enough using SageTV's plain (but customizable) interface, and even full 1080p playback was both brisk and clear. Also, since the HD Theater supports a ton of audio and video formats, it had no problems even when I threw it some tough file formats (MKV anyone?).

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Self-healing concrete

A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan has the ability to heal itself when it cracks. Its developers claim that just a handful of rainy days would be enough to mend a damaged bridge made of the new substance. The new material heals itself because it has been designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide gaps, as traditional concrete does.

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Stronger silk

Spider silk is tougher and lighter than steel - German scientists have added tiny amounts of metal to spider silk to make it even stronger and more elastic.

The technique could lead to the development of super-tough textiles, surgical thread or artificial tissues such as bones or tendons, the researchers claim.

To make the silk, the researchers borrowed a trick from nature with the goal of further enhancing its properties.

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