DronesImage by Northrop Grumman/Chad Slattery/Handout via ReutersThe world of drones – military and public – is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes. Here we take a look at some of the most recent advancements, such as getting drones to fly as a group, deliver orders in restaurants and take advanced technology into space. Read on:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
DronesImage by Northrop Grumman/Chad Slattery/Handout via ReutersThe world of drones – military and public – is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes. Here we take a look at some of the most recent advancements, such as getting drones to fly as a group, deliver orders in restaurants and take advanced technology into space. Read on:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bigger wind turbines and towers are just part of what the United States needs to more effectively use wind energy in all 50 states.
That was the basic thrust of a future wind energy call to arms report called “Enabling Wind Power nationwide” issued this week by the Department of Energy which details new technology that can reach higher into the sky to capture more energy and more powerful turbines to generate more gigawatts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some of the “revolutionary concepts” NASA detailed this week in its 2015 Technology Roadmaps sound like they are straight out of James Bond’s Q Branch – the research division that creates all of the super-agent’s really cool technology.Amongst the myriad concepts outlined in the Roadmaps – which lay out the new technologies and directions NASA hopes will steer its aeronautics, science and human exploration missions for the next 20 years -- were six high-risk high-reward technologies the space agency says are so “far out” that exactly how they would be developed is a not clear yet, NASA said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It will be one of the largest gatherings of flying WWII aircraft in history as 56 famous vintage warbirds will fly through restricted airspace over the National Mall Friday in remembrance of the 70th anniversary of VE-Day or Victory in Europe Day.The huge flyover, dubbed the “The Arsenal of Democracy,” of so many different types of aircraft – from seaplanes to fighters and the only flying B-29 Superfortress – was no easy undertaking. Reuters
P-38 Lightning (right); P-51 (left)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NASA this week said it would look to the public for cool ideas on how to build a sustainable environment on Mars with the best plan earning as much as $5,000.With the Journey to Mars Challenge, NASA wants applicants to describe one or more Mars surface systems or capabilities and operations that are needed to set up and establish a technically achievable, economically sustainable human living space on the red planet. Think air, water, food, communications systems and the like.+More on Network World: 15 reasons why Mars is one hot, hot, hot planet+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Around Mars the space traffic really isn’t all that bad – five spacecraft vying for hundreds of miles or open cosmos around the planet – but serious space traffic control is still necessary to prevent a collision.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which controls the airspace around the red planet this week said it implemented formal collision-avoidance technology that will keep the current and future orbiters a safe distance from each other and warn the scientists if two orbiters approach each other too closely.+More on Network World: Graphene is hot, hot, hot+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Pretty cool stuff here. NASA this week said it successfully flew its battery-powered 10 engine drone that can take off like a helicopter and fly like an aircraft.The concept aircraft, known as Greased Lightning or GL-10 could be used for small package delivery, long endurance reconnaissance for agriculture, mapping and other survey applications. A scaled up version could even be used as a four person size personal air vehicle, NASA researchers said.+More on Network World: The most magnificent high-tech flying machines+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Aviation Administration this week said it had completed the momentous replacement of 40-year old main computer systems that control air traffic in the US.Known as En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), the system is expected to increase air traffic flow, improve automated navigation and strengthen aircraft conflict detection services, with the end result being increased safety and less flight congestion.+More on Network World: Graphene is hot, hot, hot+The FAA said the first of 20 installations of the ERAM system went online at Salt Lake City Center in March 2012 and the final installation was completed last month at New York Center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NASA is looking at developing a public competition that would pit competitors in developing fast, powerful computers that would help support advanced applications.According to NASA, despite tremendous progress made in the past few decades, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in particular are too slow for simulation of complex geometry flows, particularly those involving flow separation and combustion applications. To enable high-fidelity CFD for multi-disciplinary analysis and design, the speed of computation must be increased by orders of magnitude, the space agency said.+More on Network World: The zany world of identified flying objects+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By the looks of it creativity in the concept car realm is alive and well. The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) this week announced the winner of its LIghtweighting Technologies Enabling Comprehensive Automotive Redesign (LITECAR) Challenge that featured 250 entries battling it out to develop some very cool fuel-efficient cars.
+More on Network World: What advanced tech will dominate your car by 2025? IBM knows+
ARPA-E teamed with vehicle design firm Local Motors to run the LITECAR Challenge that looked to fast-track ground-breaking auto ideas by using novel materials, structural designs, energy absorbing materials and unique methods of manufacturing like 3D printing to reduce vehicle weight while maintaining current U.S. automotive safety standards.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers behind the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) want to gather computer scientists engineers and physicists to define the challenge of “encoding imperfect physical qubits into a logical qubit that protects against gate errors and damaging environmental influences.”A quantum bit or qubit or quantum bit in the quantum computing realm usesqubitsinstead of the usual bits representing 1s or 0s. Ultimately quantum computing efforts should result in super-fast, super secure computers the experts say. [For a good article on why quantum computing can be so damn confusing and why its development is critical, go here.]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet hasn’t totally invaded the nation’s air traffic control system, but as it does the Federal Aviation Administration faces a growing challenge to make sure the network is locked down secure.The security issues arise as the agency moves from a point-to-point legacy air traffic control structure to a new IP-based system commonly known as NextGen or Next Generation Air Transportation System. NextGen in a nutshell will move the current radar-based air traffic system to one that is based on satellite navigation and automation.+More on Network World: The most magnificent high-tech flying machines+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet hasn’t totally invaded the nation’s air traffic control system, but as it does the Federal Aviation Administration faces a growing challenge to make sure the network is locked down secure.The security issues arise as the agency moves from a point-to-point legacy air traffic control structure to a new IP-based system commonly known as NextGen or Next Generation Air Transportation System. NextGen in a nutshell will move the current radar-based air traffic system to one that is based on satellite navigation and automation.+More on Network World: The most magnificent high-tech flying machines+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Office of Naval Research today said it had successfully demonstrated a system that lets small-unmanned aircraft swarm and act together over a particular target.The system, called Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) features a tube-based launcher that can send multiple drones into the air in rapid succession. The systems then use information sharing between the drones, allowing autonomous collaborative behavior in either defensive or offensive missions, the Navy said.+More on Network World: The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2014+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said announced a new program aimed at building software systems that can adapt and survive more than a century years on the job.The program, called Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems, or BRASS is expected to lead to significant improvements in software resilience, reliability and maintainability by developing the computational and algorithmic requirements necessary for software systems and data to remain robust in excess of 100 years.The program looks to address the issues of high costs and frustration with current software systems which continue to grow in complexity and require users to become accustomed to constant update cycles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Super substanceThe question is becoming what can't graphene do? The material, which is a form of carbon (what’s known as an allotrope of carbon), was recently described by the National Physical Laboratory as having many extraordinary properties including superior mechanical stiffness, strength and elasticity, electrical and thermal conductivity while being optically active, chemically inert and impermeable to gases. The possession of all of these properties in a single material makes graphene a potentially disruptive technology in sectors like optoelectronics, flexible electronics, bioelectric devices, energy storage and ultrafiltration, the lab stated. Indeed, take a look at just some of the recent applications being ascribed to the material.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The IT department at the nation’s Copyright Office needs more than a little work.A report out this week from the watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office points out a number of different technical and management woes that see to start at the top – with the CIO (a position that has a number of problems in its own right) and flows down to the technology, or lack-thereof.As the nation’s copyright center it is imperative that it operate efficiently to effectively protect all manner of written and recorded material but according to the GAO it doesn’t.+More on Network World: CIA: A world without Google Maps or satellites?+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Could updated analog computer technology – popular from about 1940-1970 –be developed to build high-speed CPUs for certain specialized applications?Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are looking to discover -- through a program called Analog and Continuous-variable Co-processors for Efficient Scientific Simulation (ACCESS) -- what advances analog computers might have over today’s supercomputers for a large variety of specialized applications such as fluid dynamics or plasma physics.+More on Network World: Quick look: 10 cool analog computers+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Major weaknesses in mobile application development make enterprise data vulnerable to attack.That was the major conclusion from an IBM/Ponemon study released today which found large companies, including many in the Fortune 500 aren’t properly securing mobile apps they build for customers nor their corporate and BYOD mobile devices. (Read the entire study.)+ More on Network World: The 10 most common mobile security problems and how you can fight them +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Michael Cooney