• New software to improve explosive detection

    New software developed by Peaklet Analysis with the aid of a Western Kentucky University (WKU) math professor could help existing explosives detectors improve their detection abilities

  • Virginia Tech team dominates robot soccer World Cup competition

    The Virginia Tech team dominated the international robot soccer competition known as RoboCup this past weekend, winning the Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup, the competition’s version of the World Cup; the team also dominated with First Place in both the Adult Size class with the 5-foot humanoid robot CHARLI-2 and the Kid Size class with the miniature humanoid-robot DARwIn-OP

  • APDN helps prevent government use of fake microchips

    Applied DNA Sciences Inc. (APDN) recently announced that it is working with the U.S. government to prevent the use of counterfeit microchips in mission-critical hardware that can lead to potential life-threatening equipment failures; the company is launching a pilot program in conjunction with the government that is designed to ensure that phony microchips do not enter critical supply chains; with the growth of outsourcing and global production chains, pirated microchips have begun appearing in everything from cell phones to fighter jets; the New York based firm specializes in the development of plant based DNA markers that can be safely inserted into any material to ensure its authenticity

  • U.S. Air Force creates powerful supercomputer out of PS3s

    The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has connected 1,760 PlayStation 3 systems together to create the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department; the Condor Cluster, as the group of systems is known, is capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (500 TFLOPS)

    • view counter

  • BAE tests defense software based on ALADDIN project

    Coordinating military attacks, managing aerial drones, and monitoring terrorists online could all become easier with new software under trial by BAE Systems; a team of researchers from BAE and the universities of Southampton, Oxford, Bristol and Imperial College London spent five years developing a series of algorithms that allow different computer systems to co-ordinate their actions without a central authority

  • Best 300 U.S. student hackers compete for cybersecurity scholarships, prizes

    The seventh Annual Cyber Security Awareness Week competition at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University; 120 teams from high schools across the country — consisting of 300 of the U.S. best student hackers — competed under the watchful eyes of representatives from the CIA, NSA, DHS, and NSA; the students compete for scholarships and prizes by solving simulated security crises likely to emerge in an increasingly wired world

    • view counter

  • Raytheon, Cisco support Wounded Warrior Project's IT skills training

    Raytheon provides the WWP’s largest-ever financial grant — $2.5 million over five years; Cisco extends long-standing commitment with technology for new virtual training program; the effort will include the expansion of current, multi-tiered information technology training programs with an added focus on developing new cybersecurity training opportunities

  • Police warm to predictive analysis crime fighting tools

    Memphis made an 863 percent return on its investment in Blue CRUSH — a predictive analysis crime fighting effort; the ROI was calculated using the percentage decline in crime and the number and cost of additional cops that would be needed to match the declining rate; Memphis has paid on average $395,249 a year on the Blue CRUSH initiative, including personnel costs, for a $7.2 million return; MPD operates on a $255.9 million annual budget

  • Need for digital security spurs growth of cyber security field

    The growing need for digital security has made the shortage of cyber security professionals in the United States even more apparent, and the U.S. government is now engaged in a campaign to train, hire, and retain thousands of cyber professionals; the private sector is doing its share, too: Raytheon initiated the MathMovesU program in 2005, to inspire middle school students to consider math, science, and engineering education and careers; Raytheon awards more than $2 million annually in scholarships and grants to students, teachers, and schools nationwide

  • New computer chip computes probabilities, not logic

    A new type of chip has been unveiled that uses probability inputs and outputs instead of the conventional 1’s and 0’s used in logic chips today; crunching probabilities is much more applicable to many computing task performed today rather than binary logic

  • More police departments use predictive analysis to predict where crime will occur

    The Chicago Police Department is teaming with a local university to develop a system that predicts where crime will occur; the policing approach, called predictive analytics, has gained momentum in recent years as law enforcement agencies have recognized that some types of crime follow patterns that can be predicted by software

  • New report: Apple software has the most vulnerabilities

    The usual suspects lead the list of software makers whose software come with most vulnerabilities — Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe; new vulnerabilities report offers support to the notion that a high market share correlates with a high number of vulnerabilities

  • Software to cut millions from nuclear clean-up bill

    New software lets planners work out the best way of breaking up and packing contaminated equipment while minimizing workers’ radiation exposure. It also shows in minute detail how radioactive waste can be stored in the smallest possible space, reducing the number of long-term storage containers needed

  • Web services could work with sensitive data -- without decrypting the data

    A cryptographic method could allow cloud services to work with sensitive data without ever decrypting it; a novel technique could see future Web services work with sensitive data without ever being able to read it; several implementations of a mathematical proof unveiled last year will allow cryptographers to start making the proposal more practical.

  • New automated tool debugs nuclear weapon simulations

    The United States relies on nuclear weapons in its deterrence strategy; international conventions, however, prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons; U.S. leaders , military and civilians, must thus rely on simulations to have confidence in the operational reliability of these untested weapons; Purdue researchers offer a new methods to debug nuclear weapons simulations