Army auditor claims he was fired in 2004 because he refused to approve $1 bil in questionable payments to Halliburton. The Pentagon recently gave Halliburton part of a 10-year $150 bil contract for Iraq operations:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080617/news_1n17contract.html
The Navy unveiled their solar power system that can provide the electricity to 10 homes in Navy housing. I didn’t realize that the military was the biggest consumer of power in Hawaii:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/NEWS11/806170350/1021/LOCALNEWSFRONT
iRobot is going to an endurance record-holding undersea robot developed by the University of Washington:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=6327
iRobot also just got a big DARPA contract to build robots that can squeeze through openings that are smaller than the dimensions of the robot:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/17/irobot-takes-up-the-chembot-challenge-no-one-is-safe/
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/drone-maker-wil.html
The Army is sending their Micro Air Vehicles to Iraq, at least partly in response to the criticism of Future Combat Systems and the need to demonstrate some success for FCS to keep the funding going:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/the-defense-sec.html
The Air Force is putting pieces of its new Cyber Command in every state, a strategy that gets Congress behind a plan:
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0608/061608wb.htm
Defense Secretary Gates was able to get rid of the top 2 people at the Air Force, so it looks like there is no resistance to his directive for more armed UAVs to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/usaf_purge_sees_more_predator_orbits/
AT&T is partially subsidizing the 3G iPhone…but in Germany T-Mobile’s subsidy will make the 3G iPhone cost just $1.55 (just 1 euro!) for those who sign up for a qualifying service plan:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208404290
Finland’s phone company is moving people from wired service to wireless-only service:
http://www.telecomdirectnews.com/do.php/100/31183
The WiMAX Forum just announced the first certified 16e products for the 2.5 GHz band:
Press release
PG&E is building a solar-thermal-biofuel hybrid power plant near Coalinga that can generate 700 GWh annually of renewable electricity:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=6326
Intel is spinning off a solar energy technology company, with a $50 mil investment from Intel Capital to help it get going:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20080616corp.htm?cid=rss-90004-c1-206865
Florida hacker got a 41 month sentence for setting up a botnet to install adware on PCs in Europe:
Infoworld article
Article about how high gas prices have airlines headed to a “catastrophe”:
http://www.growingwealthmag.com/?p=1749
Coke has an ambitious recycling plan and their clothing line from recycled bottles has done well with the public:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/packaged-goods/e3i9d8ccb98f5cb575100342b77fd3dc0fc
Coke is reducing its bottle size from 20 ounces to 16 ounces:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/packaging-and-design/e3i5597024fecf11e33874a9452c2f74fd3
Hefty has shrunk its packaging to reduce waste–not only is that environmentally responsible, but it gives them room for more of their product on store shelves which could make them more money:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/packaged-goods/e3i9d8ccb98f5cb5751ede1d88e4ad2f48a
Interesting stats on car sales through the US–sales patterns are changing due to higher gas prices:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/superbrands/cat_autos.html
Some cars that used to be called SUVs are now being called crossovers, as the SUV category is now less popular due to high gas prices:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/current-issue/e3i9ddc10f5e9f2a6aa053a9cf640ee2619
Forclosures are up significantly from last year and even up from the previous month:
http://www.growingwealthmag.com/?p=1750
Most gamers like ads in games and when done well those ads are very effective:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/gaming/e3i8d91a7147083886bfb91a8ee5978c1a7
Yahoo says that its mobile search service now reaches 600 million customers:
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSSIN22357720080617
Google unveiled Android and showed off some applications written for it:
http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=43326&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
