Ground-based hypertelecope project has first images from a suspended camera and light from mirrors. They acquired the star Vega in the camera of the nacelle, for about twenty minutes, from one of the two mirrors on the ground. The image shows Vega in the center of the field of 1mn of arc, and part of …
DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program envisions flight operations with reduced onboard aircrew while improving mission performance and flight safety—all through a tailorable, drop-in, removable kit that would provide advanced automation to existing aircraft. In two important steps toward that goal, DARPA has recently completed Phase 2 of this development effort and has …
Devices called ultracapacitors have recently become attractive forms of energy storage: They recharge in seconds, have very long lifespans, work with close to 100 percent efficiency, and are much lighter and less volatile than batteries. But they suffer from low energy-storage capacity and other drawbacks, meaning they mostly serve as backup power sources for things …
A mobile phone that responds to hand signals rather than the touch of a button may soon be possible thanks to technology developed by A*STAR researchers that efficiently detects three-dimensional human hand movements from two-dimensional images in real time1. Combining this technology with devices such as laptops or mobile phones can facilitate robot control and …
Online World population meters indicate that the world population is 7.314 billion people However, the UN reports that their estimate of World population has 1-2% error. An evaluation of a series of United Nations population projections between the 1950s and 1990s found that all but one had a margin of error of less than 4%. …
Moscow’s space officials are talking with their NASA counterparts about building a new space station after the current one has run its course, in 2024 or later. But there’s no indication of a formal agreement, even though some of the comments make it sound that way. The comments came after discussions between NASA Administrator Charles …
Officials from Guinness World Records today recognized DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program for creating the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured. The ten-stage common-source amplifier operates at a speed of one terahertz (10^12 Hz), or one trillion cycles per second—150 billion cycles faster than the existing world record of 850 gigahertz set in 2012. “Terahertz …
US Light vehicles sales for all of 2011 totaled 12.8 million, Autodata said, an increase of 10.3% from 2010. Car sales may rise 12 percent to 14.3 million this year and 3.5 percent to 14.8 million in 2013, Southfield, Michigan-based AlixPartners said. In the three years through 2016, sales may rise 7.4 percent to 15.9 …
Barrels and cones dot an open field in Saline, Mich., forming an obstacle course for a modified vehicle. A driver remotely steers the vehicle through the course from a nearby location as a researcher looks on. Occasionally, the researcher instructs the driver to keep the wheel straight — a trajectory that appears to put the …
Wired – Russian industry and defense leaders announced plans last week to bankroll the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects in the Defense Industry. (RFARPDI) Russia’s newly re-coronated president, Vladimir Putin, has already sent a bill to parliament to authorize the agency, which will be tasked with keeping track of projects that “can ensure Russian …
