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China Test Flies Heavy Air Force Freight Plane
China’s new jumbo air freighter, the Y-20, prepares to take off from an unidentified airport for a test run on Jan. 26. (Photo: People’s Daily)
BEIJING — China said it successfully tested a heavy air force freighter that could be a mostly home-grown substitute for the older Russian planes it now uses while substantially boosting the Chinese military’s global reach.
The Y-20 flew took off from its development base near the northwestern city of Xi’an on Saturday, the China Daily and other newspapers reported on Monday. The plane can fly 44,000 km with 66 tons of freight, and is designed to fill the need for a stronger, long-range heavy lift capacity.
China now uses Russian IL-76 freighters, including for communications roles, but those planes were first built in Read more…
11 Body Parts Defense Researchers Will Use to Track You
Cell phones that can identify you by how you walk. Fingerprint scanners that work from 25 feet away. Radars that pick up your heartbeat from behind concrete walls. Algorithms that can tell identical twins apart. Eyebrows and earlobes that give you away. A new generation of technologies is emerging that can identify you by your physiology. And unlike the old crop of biometric systems, you don’t need to be right up close to the scanner in order to be identified. If they work as advertised, they may be able to identify you without you ever knowing you’ve been spotted.
Biometrics had a boom after 9/11. Gobs of government money poured into face and iris recognition systems; the Pentagon alone spent nearly $3 billion in five years, and the Defense Department was only one of many federal agencies funneling cash in the technologies. Civil libertarians feared the Read more…
Texas Legislature Wants To Reward Companies That Deny Employees Contraception
A bill recently introduced in the Texas state house aims to reward employers who violate Obamacare, offering subsidies to any company that uses religious objection as an excuse for denying its employees copay-free contraception.
House Bill 649, introduced by state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R), was apparently inspired by the controversy over craft chain store Hobby Lobby. That store sued to deny its employees contraception coverage, citing its male president’s religious objections. But since Hobby Lobby, and companies like it, will be forced to pay a fine for violating the law, Strickland wants to compensate them with tax breaks:
The tax credit would be limited to the amount of a federal fine that the company pays or the amount of state tax the company owes.
“When a business is being stressed nearly to the point of bankruptcy by punitive federal taxes, of course the state should give them relief,” Stickland said in the news release.[…]
“The Obama administration’s mandate and their threats to bury Hobby Lobby with $1.3 million per day Read more…
Kansan discovers asteroid that may come near Earth
For the second time in less than four months, amateur astronomer Gary Hug, of Scranton, has discovered an asteroid that could one day pass close to Earth. The asteroid was found on the evening of Jan. 6 as Hug was searching for another object listed on the NEOCP (Near Earth Object Confirmation Page).
The asteroid discovered by Hug was first noticed on the west edge of the field of vision provided by the camera he had attached to his telescope.
“It was traveling too slow for most satellites but moving about 10 times faster than main belt asteroids,” he explained, noting that main belt asteroids were those found between Mars and Jupiter.
After determining that the asteroid he found wasn’t one that had been seen before, he ran a brief analysis of it and then reported his find to the Minor Planet Center.
“Within 15 minutes, this asteroid was listed on the NEOCP at the Minor Planet Center,” Hug said. “A few hours later, another Read more…
If ‘Assault Weapons’ Are Bad…Why Does DHS Want to Buy 7,000 of Them for ‘Personal Defense’?
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians. The solicitation, originally posted on June 7, 2012, comes to light as the Obama administration is calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.
Citing a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP), Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com reports that DHS is asking for the 7,000 “select-fire” firearms because they are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.” The term select-fire means the weapon can be both semi-automatic and automatic. Civilians are prohibited from obtaining these kinds of weapons.
The RFP describes the firearm as “Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) – 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire Read more…
China May Now Have World’s 2nd Largest Gold Reserves
Today acclaimed money manager Stephen Leeb stunned King World News when he said the Chinese may already have the world’s second largest gold reserves, eclipsing Germany to grab the number two spot. Leeb knows China is incredibly secretive about its insatiable accumulation of gold, and believes they are not fully disclosing their entire gold position to the world at this point. Here is what Leeb had to say: “I’m focused on precious metals and this fascinating battle between the East and the West, Eric, especially China and the United States. There is an economic ‘Battle Royale’ going on right now, and I think the Chinese definitely have the upper hand.”
Stephen Leeb continues:
“They have a stronger economy and a clear plan as to what they want to accomplish. They have a much longer-term perspective, and this spells very, very tough times for the United States.
I wish it weren’t true, and I wish this country would wake up. But everywhere I look right now I see limited Read more…
Pilot program explores a ‘cashless society’
This is not good news as there are a lot more cons than pros in this debate
Aaron Rosenblatt, Rapid City Journal
Bernie Keeler, a mechanical engineering student at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, demonstrates how to buy an item using biometric payment Tuesday at the Miner’s Shack snack bar. Nexus USA is piloting the Smart Pay system on the Mines campus.
School of Mines students and all of Rapid City could soon be at the cutting edge of a technology that developers say will eliminate the need for cash, IDs and maybe even car keys.
“We’re hoping that this is the future,” Al Maas, president of Nexus USA, said Tuesday at a news conference at Mines. “The applications for this are beyond your imagination.”
On Tuesday, mechanical engineering student Bernie Keeler showed just how easily the system works. After grabbing a Gatorade and a sandwich at the Miner’s Shack, he paid by swiping his index finger through Read more…
Study: MRI scans of knees can be used for biometric identification
An automated recognition system that scans crowds to identify the people within them using not their faces, or their eyes, but their knees, has been proposed.
Computer scientist Lior Shamir put the idea forward in a study published in the International Journal of Biometrics. It states that an MRI system could be used to scan the legs of people as they walk through an area, mapping the bone structure inside their knees before matching it to a biometric record using software developed by Shamir.
Shamir looked at knee scans from 2,686 people, and found that his software could recognize individuals with 93 percent accuracy. It would Read more…
62 percent of colleges restrict free speech, says new report
More than sixty percent of major American universities and colleges have policies that violate students’ constitutional right to free speech, a study published by a higher education watchdog group has revealed.
More than sixty percent of the 409 colleges FIRE reviewed have policies that hinder a student’s right to free speech.
The report, published by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), revealed that 62 percent of the 409 colleges reviewed have written policies in place to limit a student’s right to free speech.
That number, however, represents a major improvement over the last half-decade. A similar study also conducted by FIRE in 2008 found that seventy-five percent of American colleges had policies that restricted free speech on campus.
According to Read more…
Star Betelgeuse to Crash within 5,000 Years
As per a new image provided by the Herschel Space Observatory, it has been revealed that Betelgeuse, one of the star’s in Orion constellation is going to crash in 5,000 years. The information about the same has been provided by the NASA, which has also unveiled that the star is the going to crash with a cosmic wall.
Experts said that the orange-red star is quite a bright star and its collision will definitely prove costly. It has been said so as the star is already started shedding a large amount of its exterior most layer. The shedding was visible in the Hershel’s picture as well.
The picture has also showed the effect of star’s fierce winds. It has been found that the winds have been causing whipping around the nearby space. It has also been seen that the dusty debris lies around the star.
Experts have predicted that it will take 5,000 years for the outer arc of the star to crash. If to talk about the whole star, then it will take approximately 12,500 years. Astronomers said that the star has swelled up and has been shedding a lot of fraction of its outermost layer. This has made sure that its collision will be a supernova explosion. Read more…
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