3:32 PM
http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/nuclear-security-safety/nss-lanl-20091223.html
Interesting article about the UAV situation, including the information that an Air Force General pressed to add encryption to the data but he said that "the Pentagon" wanted to field the UAVs faster so they chose not to encrypt it. The General pointed out that the Pentagon just assumed that our opposition would never get sophisticated--they are NOT hacking into the UAV feeds, the feeds are just unencrypted. They are waiting until 2014 to fully fix the situation, with our military planning to limit unwanted reception by limited the area where the video feed can be received:
http://technorati.com/technology/article/rush-to-deploy-mdash-not-hack/
US R&D spending is expected to reach $401.9 billion in 2010, up 3.27% from 2009, so R&D spending is increasing faster than inflation:
http://www.rdmag.com/Featured-Articles/2009/12/Policy-and-Industry-Re-Emerging-U-S-R-D/?wnnvz=1737,01272100040
Florida company showed off its "stratellite", basically a cross between a satellite and UAV that will fly between 65k and 70k feet high. This uses similar technology to the Zeppelin in the 1930s:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/tadpole-shaped-dirigible-help-communication-surveillance-missions
The Air Force Research Laboratory wants to purchase 1,700 PS3 units quickly:
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=1c1acc90d5c22832c08e74a7574835fb&tab=core&_cview=1&cck=1&au=&ck=
Instead of having to draw blood throughout the day, a professor in Canada found a way for contact lenses to continuously alert diabetics about their glucose levels by changing colors:
http://communications.uwo.ca/com/media_newsroom/media_newsroom_stories/examining_diabetes_through_a_new_lens_20091216445480/
Study links bigger storms and flooding to places that built large dams. The before and after comparisons of 633 of the world's dams found that the most extremely rainfall events increased by 4%, with greater increases in semi-arid regions:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/large-dams-linked-more-extreme-weather-patterns
No wonder they had to push back the Real ID deadline--46 out of 56 US states and territories were not compliant. 25 states have already passed legislation to *not* comply with Real ID. Given the significant costs for the program and the unknown benefits, I wish they would just scrap this program until biometrics are a lot cheaper and the program can be planned properly;
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/46-out-56-us-states-and-territories-not-compliance-real-id
Federal appeals court ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word on January 11 and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent. Microsoft said that it will have a new version of Word ready by the deadline (the original court ruling was made in August) so that it will still be able to sell Word. The problem is with a little-used feature in Word 2007 for an improved way to edit XML:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/FeedsAP/2009/12/information-tech-court-bans-sale-of-word-microsoft-promises-fix/?wnnvz=1737,01272100040
The CTO of O2 UK recently noted that watching a YouTube video on a smartphone uses the same network capacity as sending 500,000 text messages simultaneously:
http://www.mobilewire.co.uk/23-12-2009-mobile-tv-needs-to-scale-to-meet-audience-peaks.html
The #1 website visited by cell phones in 2009 was Google Search, followed by Yahoo Mail, Gmail, The Weather Channel, and Facebook. YouTube was the top cell phone video site:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/nielsen-names-google-search-most-visited-mobile-site-2009/2009-12-23
BlackBerry users had their second major outage in less than a week:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/rim-suffers-second-blackberry-outage-week/2009-12-23?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
A dog in New York has the first confirmed case of the swine flu in the US:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/pets/2009/12/22/2009-12-22_new_york_dog_is_first_confirmed_us_case_of_canine_swine_flu_.html
Mother in Boston couldn't get her son to stop playing the Grand Theft Auto videogame, so she called 911 and the police came and convinced him to go to sleep:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hchXHIPt42YOS30lsnzwo9FkVlrAD9CO49304
For the first time, Forbes has the Texas Longhorns as the most valuable team in college football. The football team generated an amazing $82 million last season...$63 million for tickets to 7 home games comes out to $9 million per game. They keep expanded the total number of seats and the upgraded seating sections which require hefty minimum donations, so revenue keeps going up each year. After all expenses, Forbes said that the football team made a $59 million profit, which was given to the Athletic Department and to the Academic side at UT:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/22/most-vaulable-college-football-teams-business-sports-college-football.html