6:39 PM
Georgia Tech researchers demonstrated to the Army their approach that allows autonomous collaboration between air and ground robots with NO human intervention. This is a really neat autonomous system where the dissimilar robots can collaborate on complex missions:
http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=62112
Emergency services in London after the 7/7 bombings had to use runners to send messages back to the control room because their radios didn't work underground:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8058882/77-inquest-emergency-services-used-runners-because-radios-didnt-work-underground.html
Illegal radio and TV tranmissions has been blinding a major climate satellite, so the European Space Agency is launching a campaign to deal with that interference in what is supposed to be a protected frequency band. They have been tracking down the sources of interference and shutting down those systems:
http://www.asdnews.com/news/30964/European_satellite__blinded__by_radio_interference.htm
Hubble astronomers uncovered an overheated early universe. Ionization has heated the intergalactic helium from 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 40,000 degrees!
http://www.asdnews.com/news/31025/Hubble_Astronomers_Uncover_An_Overheated_Early_Universe___.htm
Raytheon is one of many US defense companies that are pushing for the homeland security market to enable them to grow in a time when defense spending is decreasing. Instead of focusing on expensive military systems with low volumes and high cost per system, now they have to focus on low costs and high volume. They found that Homeland Security systems just need to be "good enough" for the lowest price:
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/raytheon-bankingcost-efficient-security-answers_490103.html
Microbubbles created by Utah researchers may be able to boost a wide range of environmental cleanup efforts by having the microbubbles remove oil and gas from water, remove organics and heavy metals from industrial sites, and remove harmful algae from lakes. They are currently conducting a demonstration project in China and if they are able to clean up that polluted lake as expected, this could be a great way to clean up polluted sites:
http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=101110-1
Florida city found that instead of spending millions of dollars to build a hurricane-proof facility that would keep the water away from their data center (their IT team had to move their data center 3 times to avoid hurricanes) it was cheaper to relocate the data center to an old 770,000-gallon water tank that wasn't being used. Their new infrastructure offers improved uptime and superior disaster recovery capabilities:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/351365/Liquid_Storage
Clearwire is looking to sell some of its spectrum for up to $5 billion to raise money for it to complete its network. They are already in the second phase of the bidding for that spectrum auction:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-12/clearwire-said-to-seek-up-to-5-billion-for-spectrum-at-t-sprint-may-bid.html
Broadcom is buying Beceem (I remember talking with their founder when it was started!) for $316 million, in order to boost their 4G wireless capabilities:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69C34E20101013
Intel is have record highs for revenue and operating income this year and plans to respond to slower PC sales by winning the tablet market:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370669,00.asp
Verizon is actively boosting its network capabilities to enable it to be ready to handle increased mobile data traffic. They say they are doing this (and upgrading their system to enable simultaneous data and voice smartphone usage) whether or not they get the iPhone...but the timing of this (completing their upgrades right before they are rumored to get the iPhone) is a tipoff to me:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-were-ready-increased-traffic-iphone-or-not/2010-10-13
The Droid X is available from Amazon for $99 and the Droid 2 (wasn't that just released last month?) costs just a *penny* from Amazon:
http://www.droid-life.com/2010/10/13/droid-2-only-a-penny-droid-x-only-99-through-amazon/
Article about how Oracle's agreement with IBM on an open source implementation of Java could seriously undermine the Android platform:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/languages-and-standards/oracle-ibm-pact-cuts-android-the-knees-487
Two men broke into the Calgary Zoo Monday night, climbed over one of the safety fences surrounding the tiger cage, and one man apparently reached through the other safety fence to try to touch the tiger...the tiger was apparently spooked and sent the man to the hospital:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/10/05/tiger-attack-at-the-calgary-zoo.aspx
http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=62112
Emergency services in London after the 7/7 bombings had to use runners to send messages back to the control room because their radios didn't work underground:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8058882/77-inquest-emergency-services-used-runners-because-radios-didnt-work-underground.html
Illegal radio and TV tranmissions has been blinding a major climate satellite, so the European Space Agency is launching a campaign to deal with that interference in what is supposed to be a protected frequency band. They have been tracking down the sources of interference and shutting down those systems:
http://www.asdnews.com/news/30964/European_satellite__blinded__by_radio_interference.htm
Hubble astronomers uncovered an overheated early universe. Ionization has heated the intergalactic helium from 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 40,000 degrees!
http://www.asdnews.com/news/31025/Hubble_Astronomers_Uncover_An_Overheated_Early_Universe___.htm
Raytheon is one of many US defense companies that are pushing for the homeland security market to enable them to grow in a time when defense spending is decreasing. Instead of focusing on expensive military systems with low volumes and high cost per system, now they have to focus on low costs and high volume. They found that Homeland Security systems just need to be "good enough" for the lowest price:
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/raytheon-bankingcost-efficient-security-answers_490103.html
Microbubbles created by Utah researchers may be able to boost a wide range of environmental cleanup efforts by having the microbubbles remove oil and gas from water, remove organics and heavy metals from industrial sites, and remove harmful algae from lakes. They are currently conducting a demonstration project in China and if they are able to clean up that polluted lake as expected, this could be a great way to clean up polluted sites:
http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=101110-1
Florida city found that instead of spending millions of dollars to build a hurricane-proof facility that would keep the water away from their data center (their IT team had to move their data center 3 times to avoid hurricanes) it was cheaper to relocate the data center to an old 770,000-gallon water tank that wasn't being used. Their new infrastructure offers improved uptime and superior disaster recovery capabilities:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/351365/Liquid_Storage
Clearwire is looking to sell some of its spectrum for up to $5 billion to raise money for it to complete its network. They are already in the second phase of the bidding for that spectrum auction:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-12/clearwire-said-to-seek-up-to-5-billion-for-spectrum-at-t-sprint-may-bid.html
Broadcom is buying Beceem (I remember talking with their founder when it was started!) for $316 million, in order to boost their 4G wireless capabilities:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69C34E20101013
Intel is have record highs for revenue and operating income this year and plans to respond to slower PC sales by winning the tablet market:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370669,00.asp
Verizon is actively boosting its network capabilities to enable it to be ready to handle increased mobile data traffic. They say they are doing this (and upgrading their system to enable simultaneous data and voice smartphone usage) whether or not they get the iPhone...but the timing of this (completing their upgrades right before they are rumored to get the iPhone) is a tipoff to me:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-were-ready-increased-traffic-iphone-or-not/2010-10-13
The Droid X is available from Amazon for $99 and the Droid 2 (wasn't that just released last month?) costs just a *penny* from Amazon:
http://www.droid-life.com/2010/10/13/droid-2-only-a-penny-droid-x-only-99-through-amazon/
Article about how Oracle's agreement with IBM on an open source implementation of Java could seriously undermine the Android platform:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/languages-and-standards/oracle-ibm-pact-cuts-android-the-knees-487
Two men broke into the Calgary Zoo Monday night, climbed over one of the safety fences surrounding the tiger cage, and one man apparently reached through the other safety fence to try to touch the tiger...the tiger was apparently spooked and sent the man to the hospital:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/10/05/tiger-attack-at-the-calgary-zoo.aspx