Category: Defense & Security
February 7th, 2010
Report: Acts of space warfare likely by 2025
It’s no secret that the extension of military weapons beyond the atmosphere is a priority for space-faring nations that need to protect their increasing military and commercial assets in orbit. For instance, in 2001, a commission headed by then US Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld warned about a possible “space Pearl Harbor” which led to the development of the Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) project.
Credit: Enjoyspace.com
But the concern over space supremacy runs deeper than threats of Russian anti-satellite weapons. A forecast published by the Military Space Transparency Project (MSTP) warns of a second arms race that can erupt if the international community doesn’t take steps toward a space treaty program.
“Given how easily information can spread about the globe today, it is inevitable that space warfare technologies will proliferate. Once one country sets its sights on space domination, other countries are sure to follow,” writes Matthew Hoey.
January 12th, 2010
2010 tech predictions: a futurist roundup
Sure, you’ve already read enough tech predictions for 2010 and probably have some of your own. But there’s one subset of the tech community that makes a living prognosticating- futurists. So it’s worth a post to highlight a few thought-provoking and entertaining ideas from a few experts. (Note: I would’ve posted this a lot earlier but was in Brazil on vacation for the last few weeks).
Jump the Curve
#7: An amateur scientist using cheap supercomputers accessed through “the cloud” will make a major scientific discovery. Her discovery will have initially been dismissed by peer-reviewed journals but hailed by the growing number of “open-science” advocates.
#13: Hype surround algae’s promise as the “bio-fuel of the future” will grow hot after a breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology. Environmental advocates, however, will draw parallels between the advent of the “designer bacteria” (which is used to convert algae into fuel) and the creation of genetically modified organisms. The issue of “Frankenbugs” will gain traction in the media.
#19: A conservative state legislator will introduce legislation prohibiting healthy individuals (i.e. non-injured combat veterans) from using implanted brain-neural technology to control objects outside their body. The bill will die in committee but the author and other supporters vow to make it a campaign issue in 2010.
Read all of Jack Uldrich’s 2010 Technology Forecast & Predictions
Ross Dawson
1. Information Intensity
We will soon consume more media than there are waking hours, by virtue of multi-channeling at most times. Billions of people and places will be media producers, including video streaming from most points of view on the world. We are just at the dawn of an incomprehensible daily onslaught of news and information – some valuable, much useless.5. Culture Jamming
Remix culture will surge, with everybody taking and jamming up slices of everything and anything to express themselves, while intellectual property law fails to keep pace. Every culture on the planet will reach everywhere – the only culture we will know is a global mashed-up emergent culture that changes by the minute.9. Augmented Humans
More than ever before, we can transcend our human abilities. Traditional memory aids are supplemented by augmented reality glasses or contact lenses, thought interfaces allow us to control machines, exoskeletons give us superhuman power. Machines will not take over humanity… because they will be us.
Read all of Ross’ Top 10 trends for the 2010s: the most exciting decade in human history
December 1st, 2009
Stanford expert says liability issues puts future of robotics in peril
A residential fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is raising concerns over the potential legal questions facing the emerging field of personal robotics.
M. Ryan Calo (Credit: L.A. Cicero)
M. Ryan Calo, who is currently writing a paper on the subject, is looking at the possible legal ramifications robots and robotics manufacturers might face in the event of claims of personal injury and property damage. He says that the issues touch on criminal and civil rights laws as well.
“I worry that in the absence of some good, up-front thought about the question of liability, we’ll have some high-profile cases that will turn the public against robots or chill innovation and make it less likely for engineers to go into the field and less likely for capital to flow in the area,” said Calo.
The consequence of a flood of lawsuits, he said, is that the United States will fall behind other countries, like Japan and South Korea, that are also at the forefront of personal robot technology. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19th, 2009
7 things you should know about Body Area Networks (BANs)
The budding field of Body Area Networks gives new meaning to the term “personal” in PCs. In a nutshell, the technology leverages wireless communications protocols that allow for low-powered sensors to communicate with one another and transmit data to a local base station and to remote places like hospitals.
For instance, small flat sensors placed on the skin, or even under it, could be used to create a “medical” body area network that provides doctors with real-time data about their patients’ bio-signs. Another key application is short-range person-to-person communications that could help protect front line soldiers in combat.
BAN technology is still in its infancy and mainstream adoption is still over the horizon as engineers and researchers work to overcome challenges involving interoperability, sensor design constraints (i.e. power and complexity), privacy, and security to name a few. Once these issues are overcome, expect BANs to first revolutionize healthcare allowing for concepts like telemedicine and mHealth to become real, and potentially allow for groundbreaking uses in communications, security, and sports.
Below, in no particular order, is a list of facts, news, and generally good things to know about BANs: Read the rest of this entry »
October 28th, 2009
Software that automatically fixes itself, without shutting down
Software vulnerabilities that take days or weeks to fix may one day be a thing of the past. A team of researchers have presented new software, called ClearView, that automatically patches errors in deployed software in a matter of minutes.
As Technology Review reports, ClearView works without assistance from humans and without access to a program’s underlying source code. Instead, it monitors the behavior of a binary: the form the program takes in order to execute instructions on a computer’s hardware.
A paper, Automatically Patching Errors in Deployed Software, published by the Association for Computing Machinery, explains how ClearView works as five sequential steps:
- It observes normal executions to learn invariants that characterize the application’s normal behavior
- Uses error detectors to distinguish normal executions from erroneous executions
- Identifies violations of learned invariants that occur during erroneous executions
- Generates candidate repair patches that enforce selected invariants by changing the state or flow of control to make the invariant true, and;
- Observes the continued execution of patched applications to select the most successful patch
August 13th, 2009
Flapping 'nano' aircraft takes flight
Engineers at Aeronvironment (AV) of Monrovia, California, have demonstrated the world’s first successful flight of the smallest ever self-powered, rudderless, aircraft with flapping wings.
The nano air vehicle (NAV) is modeled after a large insect or small bird, such as a hummingbird. It can hover indoors under radio control and without wires. “It is capable of climbing and descending vertically, flying sideways left and right, as well as forward and backward,” says the company. (See the video at end of the post).
Nano Air Vehicle Concept (Credit: Aeronvironment)
The NAV carries its own power supply and operates by using two flapping wings, which also function as the rudder, elevators, ailerons and engine. “It’s extremely complicated and technically challenging to come up with ways to control an aircraft with two flapping wings,” AV’s Matt Keennon recently told Discovery News. “But this is the closest anyone has come to a rudderless, flapping aircraft.”
August 9th, 2009
Reseachers run one million virtual machines to help flight botnet problem
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) have demonstrated a supercomputer running more than one million virtual computers that will provide insight into the behavior of botnets.
Botnets are networks of infected computers (zombies) that can be remotely controlled, and are difficult to protect against and study since they are geographically spread allover the world.
Sandia National Laboratories computer scientists Ron Minnich (foreground) and Don Rudish (background) have successfully run more than a million Linux kernels as virtual machines. (Credit: Randy Wong)
Now, with a mini model of the Internet, Sandia computer scientist Ron Minnich says that it will allow them to study how a small number of machines can attack and bring down larger networks. They can also study, for example, why some botnets prefer to be small and others large.
Previously, Minnich said, researchers had only been able to run up to 20,000 kernels concurrently (a “kernel” is the central component of most computer operating systems). The more kernels that can be run at once, the more effective cyber security professionals can be in combating the global botnet problem, he said.
June 24th, 2009
Students create portable device to detect suicide bombers
According to latest reports, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapons of suicide bombers, are responsible for about half of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To help contain this urgent threat, specialized contractors are being called in to provide services like counter IED training and technologies like counter-IED jammers. But a group of undergraduate engineering students at the University of Michigan has developed a new way to detect IEDs that appears to be magnitudes cheaper than comparable approaches.
The students invented a wireless network of portable hand-held metal detectors that could be hidden in trash cans, under tables, in flower pots, and, ideally, in inconspicuous roadside objects, for example. The network of palm-sized detectors conveys to a base station where suspicious objects are located and who might be carrying them. Compared with existing technology, the sensors are cheaper, lower-power and longer-range. Each of the sensors weighs only about 2 pounds.
June 12th, 2009
Robotic ferret to detect hidden drugs and weapons
The monumental task of inspecting containers that come in to and out of seaports and airports may get a bit easier with a new type of robot being developed to detect drugs, weapons, explosives and illegal immigrants concealed in cargo containers.
Credit: Hammer411 via Flickr
Dubbed the ‘cargo-screening ferret,’ the device has been in development since early 2008 at the University of Sheffield, and is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
According to a press release, the ferret (sorry no image available as of time of writing) will be the world’s first cargo-screening device able to pinpoint various illicit substances and the first designed to operate inside standard freight containers.
When placed inside a steel freight container, the ferret will attach itself magnetically to the top, and then automatically move around and seek out contraband using a suite of sensors that are more comprehensive and more sensitive than any currently employed in conventional cargo scanners. It will send a steady stream of data back to its controller.
April 13th, 2009
Noise from our ears a basis for biometrics
Imagine being on the phone with a call center rep who instead of asking you for the last four digits of your social security number, authenticates your identity through a system that elicits and listens to specific sounds emitted by your ear. If the groundbreaking work of British scientists proves successful, such a biometric technique may become commonplace according to an article published today in New Scientist.
The concept is based on otoacoustic emissions (OAE), which are sounds emitted by the mammalian inner ear in response to an audio stimulation. Their existence was first demonstrated experimentally by David Kemp in 1978, but since, the noises haven’t found an application beyond testing for hearing defects.
Credit: New Scientist
Thanks to a research grant awarded in 2007, Stephen Beeby, an engineer at the University of Southampton, UK, and his team of investigators have been working to establish OAE as a robust biometric characteristic. According to the New Scientist article, what sparked interest among the researchers was; “The fact that the power and frequency distribution in the OAEs provoked by specific series of clicks seem to be highly distinctive, driven by the internal shape of the person’s ear.”
Christopher Jablonski is a freelance technology writer. Previously, he was the manager of marketing editorial at CBS Interactive, delivering client solutions on BNET, ZDNet, and TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Emerging Tech via Email alerts or RSS.
SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Twelve Ways to Reduce Costs with Microsoft(r) SQL Server(r) 2008 Microsoft Looking to squeeze the best possible value from new and existing systems? Learn 12 proven ways to save time and money using Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Download Now
- Infrastructures for Innovation Qwest Communications "Nearly nine out of ten senior IT and business executives say that data ... Download Now
- Connecting to Better Customer Service Qwest Communications Build a robust voice and data network infrastructure, and transform customer information and feedback into actionable results. Download Now
Recent Entries
- Report: Acts of space warfare likely by 2025
- Japanese machine transforms office paper into toilet paper
- An organic transistor that mimics a brain synapse
- Microsoft’s ‘Pictionaire’ augments surface computing for real world objects
- Researchers virtualize supercomputer
Blogs From Our Sponsors
Most Popular Posts
- An organic transistor that mimics a brain synapse
- Japanese machine transforms office paper into toilet paper
- Microsoft's 'Pictionaire' augments surface computing for real world objects
- Korean robot maid upgraded to do laundry, use microwave
- 2010 tech predictions: a futurist roundup
- Researchers virtualize supercomputer
Top Rated
- An organic transistor that mimics a brain synapse+11 votes
- Microsoft's 'Pictionaire' augments surface computing for real world objects+7 votes
- Japanese machine transforms office paper into toilet paper+7 votes
- Report: Acts of space warfare likely by 2025+2 votes
- Korean robot maid upgraded to do laundry, use microwave+2 votes
- Texas scientists develop 'nanodragster'+2 votes
- A mathematical theory of surprise+1 vote
- Listening to cancer cells+1 vote
Premier Vendor Content Whitepapers, webcasts & resources from our Power Center Sponsors
Archives
Favorite Links
Blogroll
People
ZDNet Blogs
- A Developer's View
- All About Microsoft
- The Apple Core
- Between the Lines
- BriefingsDirect
- Collaboration 2.0
- Dev Connection
- Digital Cameras & Camcorders
- Ed Bott's Microsoft Report
- Emerging Tech
- Enterprise Web 2.0
- Forrester Research
- Googling Google
- GreenTech Pastures
- Hardware 2.0
- Home Theater
- iGeneration
- Irregular Enterprise
- IT Project Failures
- Laptops & Desktops
- Lawgarithms
- Linux and Open Source
- Managing L'unix
- The Mobile Gadgeteer
- On Sustainability
- The Semantic Web
- Service Oriented
- Smartphones and Cell Phones
- Social Business
- Social CRM: The Conversation
- Software & Services Safari
- Software as Services
- Storage Bits
- Team Think
- Tech Broiler
- Technology and the Global Supply Chain
- Tom Foremski: IMHO
- The ToyBox
- Virtually Speaking
- The Web Life
- ZDNet Education
- ZDNet Government
- ZDNet Healthcare
- Zero Day
White Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Total Economic Impact of SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Microsoft See how upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 can provide your company with an anticipated ROI of between 160 and 180 percent. Download Now
- Critical Connections: Leveraging Technology to Improve Healthcare Qwest Communications The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocates more than $20 billion ... Download Now
- Dynamic Virtual Client: What's in store for client technology going forward? Intel Dynamic Virtual Client, thin client advantages with rich client user ... Download Now
SmartPlanet
- Thought-provoking progressive ideas on diverse topics that intersect with technology, business, and life, and matter to the world at large. Visit SmartPlanet
- More from IBM
-
- How to Drive Better Business Outcomes with Exceptional Web Experiences Download the eBook
- Driving Business Agility through SOA Connectivity & Integration Read the White Paper from IBM
- Linking Decisions and Information for Organizational Performance Read the Tom Davenport study
