3:09 PM
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327267.800-army-heliweeble-hops-to-avoid-rubble-trouble.html
Feature article on the Precision Urban Hopper, the unmanned ground robot (UGR) that can jump 25 feet in the air to get over obstacles:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/precision-hopper-new-urban-commando/
Unmanned boat has been suggested to patrol the waters off eastern Africa to deal with Somali pirates:
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/roboboat/
The Naval Research Lab just gave a $600k contract for fuel cell development for UAVs:
http://www.protonex.com/_assets/pressrelease/5cfb47f6-3877-41af-8717-3190388b65aa.pdf
Article about what the new US missile shield plans might be (it appears that X-Band will be used):
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/what-a-revamped-us-missile-shield-might-look-like/
BAE completed the first real-time mobile tests of technology that allows for multiple transmissions to occur simultaneously on a frequency band, up to 5 at a time in a time slot. This is a great step for warfighter communications...and something I demonstrated to government customers back in 1996 (our demo was at 50 mph, BAE's demo was at 15 mph), though BAE includes interference resistance (and military handsets are quite different than the handsets our grad students made) that we didn't account for back then:
http://www.asd-network.com/press_detail_B.asp?ID=23242&NID=284998
The coldest place in our solar system is actually inside craters in our moon! I'm amazed that a spot in our moon is one degree colder than Pluto!
http://www.rdmag.com/General-Science-Coldest-place-in-the-solar-system-right-nearby/
For the first time, MIT scientists observed magnetism in a gas:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/magnetic-gas-0918.html
Arizona company achieved 15.45% conversion efficiency for their thin film PV, pointing to greater efficiencies for solar energy:
http://www.ecoseed.org/index.php/general-news/greentech-news/product-development/4397
Employers in Hawaii currently pay $90 per employee for unemployment taxes...but that will jump to $1040 next year and a projected $1480 the following year!
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090918/NEWS01/909180371/Hawaii+businesses+to+be+hit+with+soaring+unemployment+tax
We hear a lot about the job losses in manufacturing due to the economy, but this study shows that the job losses in the newspaper industry and by journalists in general mirror the losses in
manufacturing:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/09/the_journalism.html
Sprint said that it is willing to invest more money in Clearwire--this is important because the $14.5 billion Clearwire has gotten so far are not enough to build out its network:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/172179/sprint_willing_to_fill_clearwires_coffers.html
Sprint said that the money they invest in Clearwire is the money they would have spent to upgrade their network--they will offload their data traffic onto Clearwire's network:
http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2009/09/14/daily40.html?ana=yfcpc
Sprint plans to release an Android-based smartphone that can run on their 3G service *and* Clearwire's WiMAX network. The smartphone will first look for a WiMAX connection, then will look for Sprint's 3G network if it cannot connect to a Clearwire base station:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172180/first_4g_androidbased_smartphone_may_arrive_in_2010_from_sprint.html
Google says that Apple rejected their Google Voice application for the iPhone. This contradicts Apple's claim to the FCC that they did not reject the Google Voice application:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/09/our-complete-letter-to-fcc-regarding.html
Ticketmaster is trying to cut out the resale market (unless people resell tickets through them) by going to paperless tickets. They are even able to cut out sites like StubHub with this...they claim it is to limit what scalper's can get to help fans, but it also "coincidentally" increases the fees that Ticketmaster gets:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/sep/18/ticketmaster-limits-resales-paperless-ticket/?uniontrib
Bar refused to serve any more alcohol to an intoxicated man...so he called 911 repeatedly to complain about that and was arrested for misusing the 911 system:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/man-to-911-bar-wont-serve-me/1036718
Burglar checked his Facebook account while he was robbing a home...so police were able to arrest him quickly:
http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/525232.html