DARPA Unveils HELLADS, A Portable Laser Weapons System

DARPA Unveils Drone-Slaying War Laser -- Fast Company

A weapon that used to be the size of a passenger jet now fits on the back of a flatbed truck. (Shark mounting apparatus sold separately.)

DARPA is unveiling a portable laser weapons system, HELLADS, which seems like something out of a sci-fi movie. The new laser application, created by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems with a custom power system from Saft Batteries, will help change the way the American military fights future wars. Current military laser systems are bulky contraptions which are mainly the size of a passenger jet, while the proposed DARPA weapon can fit on the back of a flatbed truck. The 150-kilowatt, solid state laser weapon is strong enough to take down drones or other aerial targets; a prototype is expected to be available by the end of 2012.

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My Comment: I can easily see this tech being applied on naval ships.

Pentagon Unveils Non-Lethal Heat Ray Weapon

US Military Unveils Non-Lethal Heat Ray Weapon -- Sydney Morning Herald/AFP

A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat seems to come out of nowhere - this wave, a strong electromagnetic beam, is the latest non-lethal weapon unveiled by the US military this week.

"You're not gonna see it, you're not gonna hear it, you're not gonna smell it: you're gonna feel it," explained US Marine Colonel Tracy Taffola, director the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, at a demonstration for members of the media.

The effect is so repellant, the immediate instinct is to flee - and quickly, as experienced by AFP at the presentation.

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Update #1: U.S. military unveil latest weapon ... a ray beam that makes the enemy feel 'quite hot' -- Daily Mail
Update #2: $120 million heat ray waiting for first action -- Stars and Stripes
Update #3: New Marine Corps non-lethal weapon heats things up -- Divds
Update #4: Nonlethal ray beam is latest US weapon -- Inquirer News

My Comment: I see this as a very effective weapon in flushing out the enemy from a building or enclosed space.

Fossilized In The Act: Ancient Armored Fish Downs Flying Reptile

A fossilized hunting scene showing an ancient armored fish taking down a pterosaur, likely by snagging the low-flying reptile by the wing and pulling it under water. CREDIT: PLoS ONE

Caught In The Act: Ancient Armored Fish Downs Flying Reptile -- Live Science

An ancient armored fish was fossilized in the act of attacking and drowning a pterosaur in a toxic Jurassic lake, revealing that the winged reptiles were victims of a wide variety of carnivores, scientists find.

Pterosaurs dominated the skies during the Age of Dinosaurs. Still, flight did not always ensure them safety — researchers have recently discovered that Velociraptor dined on the flying reptiles.

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My Comment: One has to be impressed by what must have been happening years ago. Just when you think you have dinner .... you die .... and millions of years later we are able to see the act.

Facebook Geotagging Puts Soldiers At Risk

Photos from smartphones are geotagged even when the user is unaware. Smartphone users can adjust their privacy settings to limit who can view their geotagged locations. www.Army.mil

Military Personnel Warned Against Geotagging Photos -- Red Orbit

American military personnel could find their lives in danger due to an unlikely source — Facebook’s recently adopted Timeline feature — officials from the US Army warned earlier this week.

According to a BBC News report published Friday, the actual culprit is geotagged photographs, or pictures that are marked with the location where they were taken. Geotagging is a popular feature on the Mark Zuckerberg-founded social network and other websites like it, and many smartphones automatically include them, complete with GPS coordinates, when they are uploaded, the British news agency added.

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More News On The Dangers Of Facebook Geotagging

Geotagging poses security risks -- www.Army.mil
US Army: Geotagged Facebook posts put soldiers' lives at risk -- BBC
US Soldiers Are Giving Away Their Positions With Geotagged Photos -- Gizmodo
Army Warns Of Danger Of Geotagging -- Tech Crunch
U.S. army warns soldiers of dangers of Facebook geotagging -- Digital Journal
U.S. Army Warns Soldiers About Geotagging -- Web Pro News
US Soldiers warned over Facebook tagging -- Today Online

After Megaupload Shutdown, Other File Sharing Services Have Picked Up The Slack

After Megaupload Bust, Putlocker and RapidShare Pick Up Slack -- Danger Room

The Feds shut down Megaupload two months ago, but browser-based filesharing hasn’t slowed down. It has just moved to other websites.

Before the takedown, Megaupload was the most popular web-based filesharing service — by far. In a recent study of 1,600 networks, Palo Alto Networks — a company that makes its living scanning corporate networks for unauthorized software — found that it accounted for about a quarter of all filesharing traffic on these networks. That was about 10 percent more than its nearest competitor.

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My Comment: When they first came out I found these file sharing services incredible useful in my business .... but with time (and technology advancements), I found their usefulness limited. There will be other file sharing services .... and technology advances that will make file sharing easy .... but the the golden age of file sharing services such as Megaupload .... those days are over.

Sonar Images Show The Deep Sea Grave Of The Titanic

Deep Sea Grave Of The Titanic: Extraordinary Sonar Images Show Full Map Of Shipwreck On Ocean Floor For First Time -- Daily Mail

* Researchers hope the map will provide new clues about what happened when the famous vessel sank 100 years ago
* Expedition team used sonar imaging and more than 100,000 photos taken from underwater robots to create the detailed map
* It shows where hundreds of objects and pieces of the presumed-unsinkable vessel landed

It is one of the most famous disasters the world has ever known and even inspired an Oscar-winning film.

But never before has the Titanic disaster been seen in such extraordinary detail as these new images show.

Researchers have pieced together what is believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field.

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Moment A Seal Dodges Great White Shark

Incredible: Tourists in False Bay, South Africa, were left amazed when they saw this 12ft shark emerge from the water to catch a seal. But despite being one of the world's most feared predators, it badly misjudged its attack

Perched On The Jaws Of Death: Moment A Seal Dodges Great White Shark... -- Daily Mail

They are known for being one of the world's most feared predators.

But as this picture shows, great white sharks do not always get things right when moving in for the kill.

A shocked group of tourists in False Bay, South Africa, were left amazed when they saw this 12ft shark emerge from the water to catch a seal.

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CSN Editor: Click on the above image to enlarge it.

Printed Book Sales Plummet As The E-Reader Grows In Popularity

A New Chapter In Publishing: Printed Book Sales Plummet As The E-Reader Grows In Popularity -- Daily Mail

* Sales of printed novels fell by a quarter in the first two months of this year

The rise of e-readers - such as Kindle - is thought to be behind a slump in sales of the printed novel in the UK, figures have revealed.

In the first eight weeks of 2012, Britons bought 7.6million printed novels - almost two-and-a-half million fewer than books bought in the same period in 2011.

The slump - which does not include non-fiction and children's books - coincides with a jump in sales of e-readers, which include Kindle and iPads.

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Is Our Galaxy Warped?

ESO 510-13: Warped Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), C. Conselice (U. Wisconsin/STScI) et al., NASA

Hubble Catches a Warped Spiral Galaxy in Profile -- Popular Science

The Hubble Heritage Team captured the warped structure of spiral galaxy ESO 510-13 so beautifully in this pretty space pic. Behold, the product of galactic collisions.

At least, that’s one theory. Most spiral galaxies are flat disks made up of millions of stars and gas and planets and whatnot orbiting a galactic center (which is thought to be, at least in the case of large galaxies, a supermassive black hole). These disks are thought to flatten out the way they do by the nature of the collision of gas clouds early in a galaxy’s lifespan.

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Japan Prepares To Remember The First Year Anniversary Of Last Year's Earthquake/Tsunami

One Year After Japan Tsunami: Roads Repaired, But Lives Still Disrupted -- Christian Science Monitor

One year after the Japan tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster, many roads are rebuilt and debris is cleaned up. But much remains in flux for residents of the hard-hit northeast coastal zone.

When Takako Ouchi's elderly mother died last December, tradition dictated she be laid to rest in a cemetery near her home.

But the cemetery, like her old house, lies in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, rendered unreachable – perhaps forever – because of radiation. Instead, Ms. Ouchi has constructed a shrine to her mother in the bedroom of her new home, 40 miles away.

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More News On The Anniversary Of Last Year's Japanese Earthquake And Tsunami

The world's first YouTube catastrophe: One year on, how the tsunami changed Japan (and the world) forever -- Daily Mail
Japan earthquake and tsunami: 478 bodies remain unidentified one year on -- The Telegraph
Japan earthquake and tsunami anniversary: quarter of a million face five years in shelters -- The Telegraph
Japan Disaster: A Year Later: Without a blueprint -- L.A. Times
VOA Reporter Reflects on Devastation of Japan's Major Earthquake -- Voice of America
Japan’s 3/11 Triple Catastrophe Endures in Broken Families, Divided Towns -- Bloomberg
A year after disastrous earthquake, tsunami, travel to Japan slowly rebounds -- MSNBC
Grief of Japan's tsunami survivors -- BBC
Six videos of the Japanese tsunami [Video] -- L.A. Times
Japan’s disaster (Photo Gallery) -- Washington Post
Japan: Then and Now (Photo Gallery) -- New York Times
Graphic: Aftermath of Japan earthquake and tsunami -- The Telegraph

The One-Trillion-Bits-Per-Second Chip is Here

IBM's Holey Optochip IBM

Holey Optochip! The One-Trillion-Bits-Per-Second Chip Is Here -- Popular Science

The high data loads of the future--and even the present--require that optical communications platforms continue to get faster, leaner, and cheaper. At the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in Los Angeles today, IBM will report on a prototype optical chip it has developed that has hit a significant milestone in optical data transfer: one terabit--that’s one trillion bits--per second.

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The Ultimate Library

Storage: Internet tycoon Brewster Kahle has spent $3million building this repository in San Francisco where he hopes to archive as many books as possible

The Ultimate Library: Online Archive Aims To Collect A Physical Copy Of Every Book In Existence -- Daily Mail

An internet tycoon turned latter-day Noah is trying to collect a physical copy of every single book in existence in case of a cataclysmic internet failure.

Brewster Kahle has spent $3million building a book repository in San Francisco, California, where he hopes to archive as many books as possible.

So far he has managed to accumulate about 500,000 volumes - ranging from American Indian Policy in the 20th Century to Temptation’s Kiss - but one day he hopes to have 10million.

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My Comment: I am sure that such a collection will be very available one day as a collector's item .... in a few centuries.

A Robot Cosmonaut For The International Space Station

The S-400 robot will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) within two years' time. RIA Novosti

Russia Unveils Android for Space Missions -- RIA Novosti

Russia has built a space android to work in orbit, its first space robot in more than two decades, Izvestia daily said on Tuesday.

The robot, S-400, can perform simple tasks such as screwing bolts and searching the spacecraft for damage.

It will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) within two years' time, and will also be joining future missions to the Moon and Mars, the paper said.

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What If Biggest Known Solar Storm Hit Today?

This week's largest solar flare is seen in a still from a NASA satellite video. Image courtesy SDO/NASA

Solar Flare: What If Biggest Known Sun Storm Hit Today? -- National Geographic

Repeat of 1859 space-weather event could paralyze modern life, experts say.

A powerful sun storm—associated with the second biggest solar flare of the current 11-year sun cycle—is now hitting Earth, so far with few consequences. But the potentially "severe geomagnetic storm," in NASA's words, could disrupt power grids, radio communications, and GPS as well as spark dazzling auroras.

The storm expected Thursday, though, won't hold a candle to an 1859 space-weather event, scientists say—and it's a good thing too.

If a similar sun storm were to occur in the current day—as it well could—modern life could come to a standstill, they add.

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My Comment: In short .... it's going to be a mess.

Collusion! Apple, Publisher Partners Accused Of Raising E-Book Prices

Justice Department May Sue Apple, Publishers On E-Books -- Reuters

(Reuters) - The Justice Department has warned Apple (AAPL.O) and five major publishers that it plans to sue them, accusing them of colluding to raise the prices of electronic books, a person familiar with the probe said on Thursday.

Several parties have held talks to settle the potential antitrust case, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The five publishers facing possible Justice Department action are Simon & Schuster Inc, a unit of CBS Corp (CBS.N); Lagardere SCA's (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group; Pearson Plc's (PSON.L) Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc, a unit of News Corp (NWSA.O).

U.S. and European officials have been investigating whether e-book publishers and Apple fixed prices in the growing electronic book industry, blocking rivals and hurting consumers.

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More News On The Justice Department Investigating Apple Over E-Book Pricing

U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers -- Wall Street Journal
Apple, publishers threatened with Justice lawsuits, report says -- Washington Post
Apple, book publishers facing potential US suit: WSJ -- AFP
DOJ targets Apple and publishers for e-book price fixing -- CNN
Publishers could face legal action over ebook prices -- The Guardian
Government Pressuring Publishers to Adjust Pricing Policy on E-Books -- New York Times
Apple, publishers in DOJ crosshairs over e-book prices -- MSNBC
U.S. reportedly warns Apple, e-book publishers about price-fixing -- L.A. Times
Report: U.S. threatens Apple, book publishers with price collusion suit -- Seattle PI
DOJ Threatens Apple, Book Publishers with Lawsuit Regarding E-Book Sales -- Daily Tech

Dust Devils Caught On Camera On The Martian Surface

Pluming hell: The towering dust devil snakes across the Martian surface

Let's Twist Again: Martian Dust Devil 2,600-Feet Tall caught On Camera -- Daily Mail

* Picture was taken from over 160 miles up by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
A towering dust devil reaching half a mile in height has been pictured swirling across the surface of Mars by Nasa.

The Agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the image with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on February 16 this year as it passed over the Amazonis Planitia region of the planet.

Despite the atmosphere on Mars being desperately thin – one per cent of Earth’s pressure – the planet's winds are strong enough to produce dramatic events and in the area observed, paths of many previous whirlwinds, or dust devils, are visible as streaks on the dusty surface.

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Air Force X-37B Hits The One Year Mark In Space

Revealed: How America's Secret Space Plane Has Been In Orbit For Over A Year - And No One Knows What It's Doing -- Daily Mail

* The X-37B has been circling the Earth at 17,000mph and was due to land in California in December

The U.S Air Force’s highly secret unmanned space plane was supposed to stay in space for nine months, but it’s now been there for a year and three days – and no one knows what it’s doing.

The experimental craft has been circling Earth at 17,000 miles per hour and was due to land in California in December.

However the mission of the X-37B orbital test vehicle was extended – for unknown reasons.

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Previous Post: U.S. Air Force's Second X-37B Space Plane Marks One Year In Orbit

More News On The X-37B

Air Force space drone's secret mission hits one-year mark -- L.A. Times
Air Force's mysterious space plane survives one year in orbit -- MSNBC/Space.com
A year later, mysterious space plane is still in orbit -- Wired
The Air Force's Mysterious X-37B Spaceplane Celebrates Its First Full Year in Orbit -- Popular Science
Secret Military Mini-Shuttle Marks One Year in Orbit -- Discovery News
US Air Force’s Mysterious Space Plane Has Been In Orbit For A Whole Year -- Gizmodo
What Next for X-37B -- Space Travel

Preparing To Dive To The Deepest Part Of The Ocean

The sub is designed for one person and is fitted with 3D cameras

James Cameron Close To Diving To Deepest Ocean -- BBC

Director James Cameron has said that he is close to diving 11km (seven miles) down to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.

He has just successfully completed a test-dive 8km (five miles) down off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

He now hopes to reach the world's deepest point in his one-man submersible in the coming weeks.

Only two people have been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, back in 1960.

Mr Cameron said: "The deep trenches are the last unexplored frontier on our planet, with scientific riches enough to fill 100 years of exploration."

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My Comment: I wish Cameron the best.

Infinite Storage In The Cloud

Infinite Storage In The Cloud -- Kurzweil

Bitcasa has created a new cloud service that promises “infinite storage” in the cloud for Windows and Mac.

Once you install Bitcasa it prompts you to choose which of your folders to “cloudify.” Cloudified folders are uploaded to Bitcasa’s cloud right away and get a Bitcasa logo added to the system tray or Finder.

Any time you save, copy, or paste new files into a cloudified folder they also uploaded. You’ll also be able to access your files from any device, wherever you are, the company says.

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How Western Tech Firms Are Helping Arab Dictators

A computer systems coordinator at Tunisia Television in Tunis / Reuters

Surveillance Inc: How Western Tech Firms Are Helping Arab Dictators -- The Atlantic

As democratic movements spread in the Middle East, governments are cracking down, and that means big business for the companies who help them do it.

Reliance means vulnerability, and the activists and citizen journalists of the Arab uprisings rely heavily on the Internet and mobile technology. They use text messaging to coordinate protests, for example, or social media sites to upload the photos and videos that then make it into mainstream global media. In the first protests in Tunisia, because traditional journalists could not get access, citizen journalists filled in, using YouTube and the live-streaming platform UStream to give the world -- including, for example, the Egyptians and Syrians who later began revolts of their own -- a window into the events there.

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My Comment: Helping governments to bring misery to their people for a few dollars .... there has to be an accounting for this in addition to exposing the companies and the people who are involved in this trade.