Archive
Invisibility cloak closer to reality
 disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only |
Scientists have devised an “invisibility cloak” material that can hide objects from detection using light that is visible to humans, a U.S. journal reports.
Writing in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters, researcher Xiang Zhang and colleagues note invisibility cloaks, which route electromagnetic waves around an object to make it undetectable, “are still in their infancy.”
Cloaking technology so far has used materials that can only hide things using microwave or infrared waves, which are just below the threshold of human vision, they said.
The researchers built a reflective “carpet cloak” out of layers of silicon oxide and silicon nitride etched in a special pattern that works by concealing an object under the layers and bending light waves away from the bump that the object makes, so that the cloak appears flat and smooth, an ACS release said.
Although the new material can only cloak a microscopic object about the size of a red blood cell, the researchers said it demonstrates the concept of a material “capable of cloaking any object underneath a reflective carpet layer.”
“In contrast to the previous demonstrations that were limited to infrared light, this work makes actual invisibility for the light seen by the human eye possible,” the scientists wrote.
Electro-pulse cannon stops cars in their tracks
Today’s cars are so full of computerized electronics, one serious electromagnetic pulse could stop any car built after the mid-’70s in an instant. Canadian company Eureka Aerospace might be able to do that with its High-Powered Electromagnetic System (HPEMS). It’s a suitcase-sized electromagnetic pulse (EMP) cannon that immediately disables a car or truck from 656 feet away without hurting the driver or innocent bystanders.
This EMP cannon is said to be ready for a demo next month. So far, the prototype is too unwieldy to place in a police car, but the idea is to shrink the device to the size of a handgun. That will make it easy to mount in police helicopters, cars, and military vehicles, potentially putting an end to deadly high-speed chases, and Read more…
Supersoldier 2020 will have exoskeleton, robot helpers, pathogen immunity, some doctor assisted regeneration
The new Captain America movie is out this weekend, so we take a look at the actual developments and research for enhancing soldiers in real-life.
Supersoldiers of the 2020s will be a little bit Iron man with HULC and XOS exoskeletons. They will have some wall crawling (Spiderman like) capability from the Z-Man program (attachable pads with magnets and microsplines).
They will be using a lot more ground and flying robot support. They will have flying hummers.
They will have better guns with better range, smart bullets/grenades when needed and computers and sensors to improve the accuracy of soldiers and snipers.
They will have medical enhancement to be resistant to infections and to allow them to be restored from more severe injuries.
There will also be safer SARM steroids and Read more…
NSA Is Building An Artificial Intelligence System That Can Read Minds
The NSA is working on a computer system that can predict what people are thinking.
“Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL. The system can answer the question, ‘What does X think about Y?'”
These are the words of an unnamed researcher who discussed an amazing artificial intelligence system she was building at the NSA.
It sounds like something right out of science fiction — a system that can literally read thoughts like a magician.
It’s called “Aquaint” (Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), and PBS’s James Bamford takes a stab at explaining how it works:
“As more and more data is collected — through phone calls, credit card receipts, Read more…
Russia Launches Long-Delayed Deep Space Radio Telescope
 |
| An artist’s depiction of Russia’s huge Spektr-R radio astronomy satellite in Earth orbit. The satellite launched on July 18, 2011. CREDIT: NPO Lavochkin |
PARIS — Russia’s long-delayed Spektr-R radio telescope successfully launched July 18 aboard a Zenit rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the country’s Federal Space Agency said.
There was no immediate word on the operational status of the new radio observatory beyond the fact that it was placed into the planned elliptical orbit that peaks nearly 207,000 miles (330,000 kilometers) above the Earth, and reaches a low of about 621 miles (1,000 km).
Featuring a giant 30-foot (10-meter) wide antenna, the Spektr-R observatory is Read more…
Cops to Get Facial Recognition Devices; Will They Need Warrants to Use Them?
Police departments in several states are getting new high-tech devices that can scan irises, recognize faces and collect fingerprints.
The devices, made by BI2 Technologies, are attached to an iPhone for immediate searches of criminal databases, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. The development is “raising significant questions about privacy and civil liberties,” the story says.
Currently the technology, called “Moris” for Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, is used by the military to identify insurgents. But B12 has Read more…
Chinese Satellites May Aid Strikes on U.S. Warships: Report
New advanced satellites could enable China to direct its ballistic missiles in striking U.S. naval vessels sailing in the region in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, Reuters reported on Monday (see GSN, Jan. 10).
(Jul. 13) - A U.S. guided missile destroyer fires an artillery round during an exercise last month in the South China Sea. China could train its ballistic missiles on nearby U.S. warships using a new generation of reconnaissance satellites, a report warns (U.S. Navy photo).
A soon-to-be-released analysis in the British Journal of Strategic Studies concludes that the fast pace of work on cutting-edge spy orbiters would give China the ability to monitor up-to-the-minute U.S. military movements and to steer its ballistic missiles in strikes on U.S. warships.
“The most immediate and strategically disquieting application (of reconnaissance satellites) is a targeting and tracking capability in support of the antiship ballistic missile, which could hit U.S. carrier groups,” according to the report.
“But China’s growing capability in space is not designed to support any single weapon; instead it is being developed as a dynamic system, applicable to other long-range platforms,” the analysis continues. “With space as the backbone, China will be Read more…
Biometric access could control South Africa schools
Liam Terblanche, CIO at AccsysMany schools in South Africa may have considered biometric access control as a means of combating truancy and ensuring learner safety and security.
In the UK, an estimated 30% of all schools use biometric access control. Although concerns have been raised over privacy and the collection of fingerprints into national data sets, the Data Protection Act (1998) of that country allows schools to record fingerprint biometrics without the consent of the parents.
In South Africa, however, the almost to be promulgated Protection of Personal Information (POPI) bill prevents the collection of personal information without the written consent of the individual, or that of a legal guardian in the case of minors. (See section 25 – Prohibition on processing of special personal information).
This would imply that, even if a school’s governing body agrees to the implementation of biometric access control at a school, the individual learners would still be able to Read more…
Secret Weapons Now Beaming Into Your Skull
by Zen Gardner
You’ll find it hard to believe how many types of technology are being used on human minds today.
We all know we’re “steered” and “walled off” to some degree by influences around us, not the least of which is the media and the onslaught of its corporofascist disinformation and advertising arm.
Deeper influences include so-called modern education and it’s engineered dumbing-down of society for decades. Just look around you for how “well repeated” everything we’re told has become, with the predominance of shallow Hollywood types and the gutless sing-song intonations and political correctness in society’s language.
But there’s a lot more you need to know about electronic mind control and what it’s doing to you and our world.
1. The Sounds of Silence
Here’s one–subliminal programming carried by UHF or Ultra High Frequency signals. Some say this is the reason the government so enthusiastically pushed everyone to digital broadcasting, to implement this, and free-up the analog bandwidth for even more insidious purposes…the chip.
The Department of Defense calls it Silent Sound Spread Spectrum (SSSS), and it also goes by the name of S-quad or Squad. In the private sector, the technology goes by the name of Silent Subliminal Presentation System and the technology has also been released to certain corporate vendors who have attached catchy brand names like BrainSpeak Silent Subliminals to their own SSSS-based products.
Whatever you call it, SSSS is a technology that uses subliminal programming that is carried over Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) broadcast waves, planting inaudible messages directly into the subconscious human mind.
Perfected more than twenty years ago by Read more…
Barbara Ehrenreich: 12,000 Drones, Lethal Cyborg Insects, See-Shoot Robots — How Machines Are Taking Over War
Last week, William Wan and Peter Finn of the Washington Post reported that at least 50 countries have now purchased or developed pilotless military drones. Recently, the Chinese had more than two dozen models in some stage of development on display at the Zhuhai Air Show, some of which they are evidently eager to sell to other countries.
So three cheers for a thoroughly drone-ified world. In my lifetime, I’ve repeatedly seen advanced weapons systems or mind-boggling technologies of war hailed as near-utopian paths to victory and future peace (just as the atomic bomb was soon after my birth). Include in that the Vietnam-era, “electronic battlefield,” President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “Star Wars”), the “smart bombs” and smart missiles of the first Gulf War, and in the twenty-first century, “netcentric warfare,” that Rumsfeldian high-tech favorite.
You know the results of this sort of magical thinking about wonder weapons (or technologies) just as well as I do. The atomic bomb led to an almost half-century-long nuclear superpower standoff/nightmare, to nuclear proliferation, and so to the possibility that someday even terrorists might possess such weapons. The electronic battlefield was incapable of staving off defeat in Vietnam. Reagan’s “impermeable” anti-missile shield in space never came even faintly close to making it into the heavens. Those “smart Read more…
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
crisisboom
CRISISBOOM 
You must be logged in to post a comment.