• UAV updateLaser-powered, ground-charged UAV stays aloft for hours

    A UAV is only as good as its power source: if the drone cannot stay over target for long periods of time and must return to base to refuel, this not only adds to the costs of operating the drone but it also degrade its intelligence gathering capabilities; Seattle-based company demonstrates that it can use a laser beam to charge the UAV's photovoltaic cells, generating enough power to keep the drone in the air for hours; the company has bigger plans for extending flight duration of military craft -- and much more: in the longer term, it envisions lasers powering remote ground-based sensors, delivering power to forward military bases, or supplying emergency power during disasters

  • Search and rescueSelf-learning robots to be used in earthquake, disaster rescue missions

    Rescue robots capable of understanding the changing and unpredictable environment of disaster scenarios may one day be deployed to search for survivors in the aftermath of earthquakes; a robot equipped with a newly developed software, for example, would be able to recognize how something such as a stick could be used as a tool to push an object through an area too small for the robot to go into

  • Secure communicationITU chief supports governments' need to access BlackBerry communications

    In an interview with AP, ITU head Hamadoun Toure said RIM should provide law enforcement access to customer data; Toure characterized the governments' needs as "genuine" concerns that cannot be ignored

  • Biometrics Consortium Conference and Technology Expo – September 21-23 – Tampa C

  • Smart gridCisco buys Arch Rock, beefing up smart-grid business

    Cisco is beefing up its smart-grid and data center businesses by acquiring San Francisco-based Arch Rock, a maker of a system for collecting information from mesh networks of IP-based wireless sensors, routers, and servers; On Wednesday, Cisco announced a deal with meter maker Itron to develop communications products that use the Internet Protocol, rather than proprietary protocols for sending information from meters back to utilities

  • The Arab worldNew portal to serve as a forum for the Arab world's scientific community

    The Arab world has a rich and impressive history of scientific inquiry, and during the Golden Age of science Arab scientists contributed great discoveries and inventions such as algebra, optics, medicine, and many others; indeed, for more than 500 years Arabic was the language of science; for a variety of historical and political reasons, the Arab world lost the position of scientific preeminence it had enjoyed, but the potential of the Arab world's contribution to science has not disappeared, and the prestigious journal Nature has recognized this fact by launching a new portal, Nature Middle East

  • The Arab world Brain study: Reading Arabic is not easy

    Brain researchers find that because of the complexity of Arabic script -- for example, the number and location of dots is critical in order to differentiate between letters -- children face a "high perceptual load" when trying to acquire the language; as a result, the right side of the brain, which is involved in the reading process for other languages -- say, English and Hebrew -- is not involved in reading Arabic; the native Arabic-speaking child is thus faced with more of a challenge, requiring more practice and particular pedagogic effort

  • Is your water system up to standard? ASME/ITI/AWA J100-10: Standard for Risk Res

  • The food we eatSeafood stewardship questionable: experts

    The world's most established fisheries certifier -- the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) -- is failing on its promises as rapidly as it gains prominence, according the world's leading fisheries experts; "The MSC is supposed to be a solution, but a lot of what they do has turned against biology in favor of bureaucracy," says one expert

  • U.K. government looking for identity verification solutions

    The U.K. government is soliciting ideas on potential requirements for the public sector on all aspects of identity verification and authentication; this is particularly relevant to online and telephone channels, and the notice says the services include the provision of related software and computer services

  • ImmigrationIllegal immigration to the U.S. dropped sharply since 2007

    Between March 2000 and March 2005, 850,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States annually; between March 2007 and March 2009, the number dropped to 300,000 annually; the flow of Mexicans, who represent 60 percent of all illegal immigrants in the United States, plummeted to 150,000 annually during the 2007-9 period, compared with the annual average of 500,000 during the 2000-5 period; experts say that the slowing economy and bleak job market for low-skill workers, not tighter border security, have played the biggest role in the drop in illegal entrants

  • Biometrics -- facial recognitionIdentifying faces in a crowd in real-time

    U.K. company develops a face recognition technology that can recognize individual faces in a crowd -- and do so in seconds, even when they are moving, at a wide angle, or in poor light; the system captures and analyzes images and compares them to a database, and alerts security personnel if a match is made

  • Law-enforcement technologyTracking technology may make incarceration a thing of the past

    The United States is facing a prison problem: there are many people in prisons -- more than two million, a population the size of Houston; here is an idea: how about releasing most of them so they can lead productive lives -- but make them wear something like the ExacuTrack from Anderson, Indiana-based BI Incorporated: the combination ankle bracelet and GPS transponder keeps real-time tabs on those who wear the gear, making sure they do what they are supposed to do and stay away from places where the state does not want them

  • DARPA seeking ideas for insider threat detection

    The recent WikiLeaks exposure was a big embarrassment for the U.S. Department of Defense, supposedly one of the more secure organizations in the United States; in response, DFARPA is soliciting ideas for a surveillance system which will "greatly increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected and impede the ability of adversaries to operate undetected within government and military interest networks"

  • U.S. nuclear power plants bolster defenses against cyberattacks

    The threat to digital systems at the U.S. nuclear power plants is considerable -- especially for new nuclear power facilities that would be built in the United States and throughout the world, as control rooms would employ digital systems to operate the plants; these state-of-the-art instruments and systems make them targets for hackers

  • Need for digital security spurs growth of cyber security field

    The growing need for digital security has made the shortage of cyber security professionals in the United States even more apparent, and the U.S. government is now engaged in a campaign to train, hire, and retain thousands of cyber professionals; the private sector is doing its share, too: Raytheon initiated the MathMovesU program in 2005, to inspire middle school students to consider math, science, and engineering education and careers; Raytheon awards more than $2 million annually in scholarships and grants to students, teachers, and schools nationwide

  • Quantum encryptionCommercial quantum cryptography vulnerable to attack

    Quantum cryptography is one of the most secure known means of transmitting data; in fact, it is often described as "unbreakable" because it relies on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle -- observation causes perturbation: if a third party does intercept a quantum signal, this very interception changes the encryption key, making the tampering apparent to parties at both ends; researchers, though, developed and tested a technique exploiting imperfections in quantum cryptography systems to implement an attack

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The Long View

  • Intel-McAfee dealIntel wants security built directly into silicon

    A consensus is emerging that the main reason for Intel's acquisition of McAfee is that Intel wants to build directly into its hardware the kind of security features more traditionally provided by software like McAfee's

  • Cybersecurity businessThe reason for Intel's acquisition of McAfee

    The merger between the two companies takes place ahead of the release in 2011 of new -- and as yet undisclosed -- products developed by a joint venture the two companies have operated in the past eighteen months; those undisclosed products may be part of the reason why Intel decided to purchase McAfee instead of extending or expanding the two companies' joint venture; says one analyst: "If what came out of that joint venture was revolutionary it could be that Intel wanted to lock that [intellectual property] down"

  • Immigration matters // by David B. PalinskyArizona SB 1070: What exactly does the United States object to?

    District Court Judge Susan Bolton's 28 July 2010 decision granting, in part, the Obama administration's motion for preliminary injunction against Arizona's new immigration law, raised two questions: "Isn’t the State of Arizona merely attempting to enforce existing federal immigration law?" and "What exactly does the Obama Administration object to?" The answer to the first question is a resounding "No": SB 1070 goes much further than existing federal immigration law in seeking to regulate the presence of foreign nationals -- primarily Mexican nationals -- on U.S. soil; the answer to the second question is much more complex

  • TrendToward a national strategy for online identification

    President Obama has launched an ambitious project -- National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace -- the primary goal of which is to build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation; offline, there are already dozens of identification technologies in play that go beyond the simplicity of Social Security numbers, birth certificates, drivers licenses, and passports; these include smart cards, mobile phones, biometrics -- but they do not follow a consistent standard; this, too, may soon change

  • Explosives car in Mexican drug war the beginning of a trend

    Security experts fear that last Thursday car bombing in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, is the beginning of deadly trend which will see a weapon used regularly --and effectively -- by insurgents and militants in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere soon making its presence felt on the streets of Mexico

  • Top 10 smart surveillance systems from Israel

    Video surveillance systems have become an important tool in enabling authorities to trace criminals and terrorists; Israel is one of the leading players in the field of intelligent surveillance; here is a list of the Top 10 video security technologies from Israel; these companies offer solutions that range from "seeing" through walls to reducing twenty-four hours of video to a few (indexed) minutes to detecting subtle changes in the landscape to offering high-resolution under-water images, and much more

  • AnalysisCunning Iran wins again // By Ben Frankel

    Last weekend the leaders of Brazil, Turkey, and Iran reached an agreement which is similar to the one the IAEA offered Iran last October; Iran would ship to another country 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium, and in return would receive nuclear fuel for its research reactor; without a complete and verifiable stop to Iran's aggressive enrichment activities, especially a stop to its effort to enrich uranium to 20 percent, the IAEA proposal would have achieved, and last weekend's deal will achieve, only one thing: merely delay the inevitable -- Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons -- and not even delay it by much (months, not years); to suggest otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard