Iran said it launched its first domestically produced satellite, an event likely to prompt new Western concerns about its development of technology with possible military applications. Sputnick was launched October 4, 1957 by the Soviet Union. The surprise launch of Sputnik 2, coupled with the spectacular failure of the United States’ first two Project Vanguard …
The last time this site had looked at the work of Reaction Engines, the designers of the Skylon Single-stage to Orbit vehicle proposal, they had designed the Mach 5 – A2 commercial Concorde replacement. Reaction Engines has gotten tens of millions of dollars in funding for various engine and cooler subsystem development and testing. They …
Researchers established that the mutated Indy gene helped fruit flies live longer. They have now explored what mechanisms lead to the longer life of the fruit fly. (Indy flies’ life span increased from an average life span of about 35 days to 70 days.) The researchers decided the best way to try to understand how …
Harvard medical school has a topical treatment (a cream) that is based on RNAi (RNA interference) which can eliminate herpes virus even one week after infection to effectively stop the transmission of herpes. This was proven with mice and will be moving to human trials. A topical treatment disables key proteins necessary for the herpesvirus …
The technological and other developments to watch was expanded to four parts:1. Computers, robots, electronics and communication2. Energy and transportation3. DNA/biotech/synthetic biology, nanotechnology – this section4. Medicine, life extension, space, manufacturing and anything else that was not covered 1. DNA nanotechnology There was a lot of activity with DNA nanotechnology in 2008 with new synthetic …
Previously this site had speculated on using current and in development technology to create a Bolo supertank from science fiction. From Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends : Caterpillar engineers and computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have teamed up to develop an autonomous 700 ton mining truck. The super-large mining truck was a baseline from which …
1. Several startups take Wifi to the next level: Amimon WHDI – Wireless Home Digital Interface provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link which can support delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band. The Quantenna High Speed (QHS) family of chipsets …
1. Mirrored drones can make jet mounted lasers more effective. [H/T alfin and Tom Craver] The flying laser cannon could be accompanied by a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with mirrors. These relay UAVs would be harder to spot and more disposable than a 747, and could bounce the high-energy beam onto targets …
Georgia Tech computer scientists are laying the groundwork for exascale machines that will process more than a million trillion – or 10^18 – calculations per second. Karsten Schwan recently received a 2008 HP Labs Innovation Research Award to work with HP Labs, HP’s central research arm, to help solve some of the key problems in …
Hi-res digital camera can match 35 mm film at a fraction of the price. See the Red digital cinema camera company site for the Red One and other cameras. The new camera has 4,096(h) x 2,304(v) of resolution and will only cost $17,500. A Panavision Millennium XL-2 35 mm video camera costs $25,000 per month …
The Wall Street Journal and other sources have been discussing the threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse attack on the USA. The counter to these claims are that only 1% of the lights in Hawaii were effected by the Starfish Prime test (1.4 megaton thermonuclear weapon detonated 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific in …