The Army is looking to fund the development of software and hardware to enable robots to hunt “non-cooperative humans”. This sounds like the plot of a lot of science fiction movies and books…and in those movies/books this work normally ends badly for humans!
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/robot-packs-hun.html
DARPA is looking to fund research into a flying submarine:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=7001
The text of the US-Iraq security deal has apparently been leaked to the public:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/text-of-us-iraq.html
Europe’s lawmakers have decided to NOT require the full-body scanners for airport security. The scanners would do a better job in detecting potential hazards…but it also would reveal all details (including the private parts covered by clothes) of the people being scanned. If it is an optional thing and the quality is only that of a negative from a photograph, I’d choose to go in the full-body scan line since that would move much faster than the other line:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3734579,00.html
This company is selling a combo flashlight, pepper spray, and laser zapper:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/pepperball-dazz.html
Looks like the sun is gradually getting hotter and this will eventually result in the end of life on our planet (in 1 billion years or so):
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14983
This article suggests that the problem can be solved by moving the Earth with a solar sail:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14984
Another article about the 1000 mph car project:
http://rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=0810&RELTYPE=SOFT&PRODCODE=00000000&PRODLETT=AJ&CommonCount=0
The government is trying out one way to save money that makes a lot of sense to me–employees with Government-issued cell phones will have their landlines removed. Going wireless-only should save a far amount of money, especially considering 11,623 cell phones have been issued to government employees:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/10/post_24.html
335,000 cellular base stations will use solar energy by 2013:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34303.php
HTC talks about the G1 development and their relationship with Google, plus they mention that they are shipping more G1 phones than they had expected and will ship more than 600,000 G1 phones by the end of the year:
http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_10799172
Members of Congress are getting involved with the white spaces debate:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34293.php
Intel’s PR department worked quickly to try to defuse the criticism of the iPhone that 2 Intel executives gave:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/24/Intel_repudiates_execs_criticism_of_the_iPhone_1.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-10-24
Attack code for Windows has surfaced, so hopefully everyone got the security patch yesterday that prevents that attack:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/23/Attack_code_for_critical_Microsoft_bug_surfaces_1.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-10-24
Vista sales fell well short of Microsoft’s expectations for last quarter, but Office sales are strong:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/24/Forecast_has_Office_Vista_going_in_opposite_directions_1.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-10-24
