Link Collection

Military experts say that Israel is preparing to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, factories, research centers, and university laboratories to destroy their technical capabilities and kill its leading technocrats. A new report says that would almost certainly be the beginning of a long-term airstrike process on Iran and Iran would retaliate with long-range missiles and instructing Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israeli cities...leading to a regional war and global economic crisis over oil prices:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/israeli-strike-iran-would-lead-regional-war-report

A new UK UAV that is planned to be deployed in Afghanistan within 2 years has radar so sensitive that it is supposed to be able to not only see individual people moving on the ground...but it can see the footprints they leave in the dirt!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/20/watchkeeper_farnborough/

Raytheon is adding its own software to Android-based smartphones from Motorola and HTC in order to develop a smartphone for soldiers. The smartphone could enable a soldier to find enemies in his/her surrounding terrain and pick up images from UAVs or satellites and then focus in on details such as license plates on cars or a person's facial features. The touchscreen handsets would cost about $500 and Raytheon would provide the encryption software and communications system so that it could work in remote areas with no cellular service available:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66K1NE20100721

The Pentagon has been spending millions on research designed to ensure that it can trust the microchips in critical systems, especially chips made outside the US. Their worry doesn't seem too paranoid now that Dell has concluded that some of its server motherboards have been delivered to customers carrying computer malware in its *firmware*. These "hardware trojans" cannot be contained by antivirus software and Dell has been sending their engineers to customer sites to remove the malware:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/07/pc-giant-warns-of-hardware-tro.html

China may spend *$738 billion* on projects between 2011 and 2020 to reduce emissions from burning oil and coal with cleaner sources of energy. China put up more wind turbines last year than any other country and may install a record 18 GW of wind-power capacity this year:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-20/china-may-spend-738-billion-on-clean-energy-projects.html

Researchers have discovered that water on the moon is more widespread (on the inside AND outside of the moon) with similarities to water in volcanic systems on Earth. The discovery of abundant water all around the moon could make human settlements there more feasible--with sources of water for plants and humans and water that can be used for rocket fuel:
http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2010/07/21/water-on-moon-is-widespread/

A HUGE ball of brightly burning gas may be the heaviest star every discovered...estimated to weigh up to 320 times the sun, twice as heavy as any star previously discovered! It is burning heat off so intensely that it shines near 10 million times the luminosity of the sun:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2010/07/Astrophysics-Scientists-find-most-massive-star-ever-discovered/

New method uses both GPS and the Internet to set clocks within 10 nanoseconds of a reference clock located anywhere on earth. The method is significant because this type of accuracy can be achieved even when GPS time is not available:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2010/07/Information-Tech-Communications-Synchronize-your-watches-To-the-nanosecond/

Florida and Texas are trying to get Congress to pass rules that would lead to NASA's competitive process to decide where to give the retired space shuttles to go to their states:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.html?pid=31286&goback=.gde_1731397_news_156104850

Oregon State engineers found new coatings for anodes of microbial electrochemical cells that increased the electricity produced from *sewage* by 20x. This research could lead to technology that could turn sewage into electricity--benefiting wastewater treatment while producing renewable energy:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/osu-ncp072110.php

Apple's upbeat revenue forecast was significantly higher than Wall Street's expectations ($18 billion instead of the expectations of $17 billion) and showed that the "Antennagate" controversy isn't hurting their sales. Mac sales were up 33%, with strong sales in Asia, in addition to iPad and iPhone sales being as good as expected:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-forecast-beats-Street-rb-1647430468.html?x=0

Apple's iTunes sales increased 25% over last year, topping $1 billion during the past quarter. iTunes now accounts for 70% of all premium music downloads in the US:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/itunes-sales-top-1-billion-apple-beats-expectations/2010-07-21#ixzz0uLB4yAPc

Rumor is that Verizon will be switching to an AT&T-like limited data plans by July 29. With most of my data usage going over WiFi, I should be able to give up my unlimited plan and save some money...on my BlackBerry I could have easily used just the $15 plan, but I've noticed that I'm using much more data with the X because there are so many more apps. However, people giving up their grandfathered unlimited plans will never get them back:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/verizon-switching-to-atandt-style-limited-data-plans-later-this-mo/

Adobe has demonstrated a peer-to-peer video calling system for Android systems that they call FlashTime (*very* similar in name to the iPhone 4's FaceTime video calling system):
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25606

Microsoft confirmed that Dell, Asus, LG, HTC, and Samsung will release smartphones running Windows Phone 7 later this year. Microsoft says that they will offer the best aspects of Android and the best aspects of the iPhone...consumers will be the judge this Holiday Season:
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/34441/windows-phone-7-launch-partners

A 15-year-old boy somehow was able to trick Apple into letting his $0.99 flashlight application (Handy Light) be sold at Apple's App store. His app was a *full tethering application* that allows people to use their iPhone as a 3G modem to surf the web from their computer connected to their iPhone *without* having to pay AT&T's $20 tethering charge. The news spread online and Apple took the app out of iTunes, but those who downloaded it can use it as a tethering app:
http://gizmodo.com/5592521/how-a-guy-tricked-apple-with-a-disguised-iphone-tethering-app

Note for Eric and Ben: Former Dallas Cowboy coach Jimmy Johnson (67 years old) will be a competitor on the next season of Survivor!
http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=5397434