IBM is a full participant, and had donated some Lotus Notes code to the effort.
Then again, I currently use Lotus Notes at work, I’m not sure if that’s a help.
Category: technology
RFID chip implants linked to cancer in animals
Here.
Think twice before implanting the chips in your kids. For that matter, absent a life threatening situation that needs round the clock tracking, like severe drug abuse, it’s just plain wrong even if there is not a cancer risk.
Kids sometimes have to be left to their own devices.
Improved Gripen to Fly Next Year
It will have a higher gross weight, more fuel, and an upgraded engine (an F-414 replacing the F-404), and the demonstrator flying in late 2008.
It should be an impressive aircraft.
Swedish navy’s stealth corvette HMS Nykoping (K 34)
The Swedish Visby class corvette showed up at the DSEi defense systems and equipment international London. It looks cool:
That being said, I’m rather dubious of the merits of full on stealth for surface combatants.
Given the harsh environment (spray, etc.) and the fact that some inexpensive radars can find the wake of ships, I’m not sure that it means a whole lot.
Of course, the real stealth ships, submarines, have been around for nearly 100 years now.
Who Has Back Door Access?
No, this is not about soon to be former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, it’s about Seagate’s new encrypted hard drives.
They have encryption built into the drives, but I can’t hope but wonder who has been given the back door keys.
Stealth Technology Spreads
The significance to this article on Pakistan’s development efforts on a stealthy cruise missile is fairly straightforward, this stuff is not rocket science.
The basic physics of stealth have been known for 40 years, and the technology to cluster inexpensive computers to do the calculations is also well known.
The implementation is not a natural monopoly of the USA…It isn’t rocket science*.
*I spent much of the late 1990s as a rocket scientist, or at least a rocket engineer. These days, rocket science is not rocket science.
Interesting Developments for the SU-35 Family
First, there is a new variant of the SU-27, the Su-35-1, which is supposed to supercruise.
The strakes on the nose of earlier models, and the canards of the later models, both of which increase high AoA agility at the cost of additional supersonic drag have been deleted, but the agility is retained because of the new thrust vectoring engines (NPO Saturn Item 117S). (see vectoring nozzles below)
Additionally, airframe has been lightened, which would increase cruise speed, and about 2000 pounds (about 300 Gallons) of internal fuel.
Also, it looks like the Russians are fitting the SU-27 class fighters with an
AESA radar with mechanical scanning.
This provides something like 2x the area that can be scanned by the radar, and better off sight performance.
One disadvantage is weight, which is why the helmet cued volume is less, because the antenna cannot slew quickly, but there are a number of significant advantages.
Chinese Working on Carrier Killer Technology
There are currently very non-military applications for the scramjet propulsion that the Chinese are working on.
The only one that comes to mind would be an “Orient Experss” type high speed transport, is a very long way away, if ever.
This is about creating a credible threat to a CVBG that might interfere in an invasion of Taiwan.
And In The Realm of the Truly Silly
It seems that the wizards at the Pentagon have come up with a concept called Heavy Air Lift Seabasing Ship (HALSS). It’s basically a ship, with a trimaran hull form and built to commercial ship standards, that would carry 6 C-130s, and then use these aircraft to ferry cargo to shore.
The idea is to use this to fill in the “last mile” gap of some of the newer basing schemes for American forces associated with the “systems of systems” concept and equipment by flying it all in on a C-130.
It won’t work.
A C-130 can take off and land from a carrier deck, this was shown in the 1960s, and the ship is technically possible, though the one concept has it using nuclear power (!).
The concept is flawed.
What is suggested here is that a unit of action (the new name that they have for a brigade) would be flown to an airfield in that last mile.
As strange as this might sound, will be many times slower than using a port or landing craft to deliver the men and materiel: the manned ground vehicles in the FCS family will have to be stripped down to fly on a C-130 (normal max payload is about 19 tons). You will basically have to make 3 C-130 flights to deliver two vehicles, and they will have to be basically reassembled on the other side, with the armor and other systems removed to make transport weight.
Additionally, this does not really allow for significant inland transport, as the C-130 is at maximum weight, and so it’s range is rather short, particularly to locations where it might be “hot”, and so it would have to carry fuel for a return trip.
Additionally, someone had to be smoking something special if they think that the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command would ever allow the Navy to get any sort of authority over their aircraft, which would be required for such a scheme.
Scat Stealth Drone
The Russians have unveiled a new stealthy combat UAV at the Moscow air show.
As I’ve said a number of times, the building blocks of stealth are publicly available, the equations were originally published in a Soviet scientific journal and are publicly available, so this is no surprise.
This appears to be mockups of various wind tunnel studies, and it also appears that the first prototype will be manned with a v tail.
This is Hell, and I don’t Even Do Yoga
I’m sorry, but using a hi-tech Yoga rug where its primary application is going to be teleconference meetings while staying in shape, sounds an awful lot like hell.
Call me a Luddite, but some things should be done while not connected to the world at large.
Then again, I stationary bike watching a bank of TVs.
Gambling Dispute With a Tiny Country Puts U.S. in a Bind – New York Times
The US-Antigua dispute over Net gambling is escalating, and it’s hit the NY Times, which means that it’s really hit the mainstream, but before I get into that, I have to acknowledge Dean Bakers incisive analaysis, and the magnificent snark therein, where he says “Antigua Threatens the United States with Free Trade“, which is absolutely true. IP restrictions are restrictions on trade through exclusive licensing.
A brief recap on the whole Internet gambling business, the US implemented an internet casino gambling ban. It still allows for other internet gambling, “including the online purchase of lottery tickets*, participation in Web-based pro sports fantasy leagues and off-track wagering on horse racing.”
Online casinos are a big part of the Antiguan economy. It’s the 2nd largest employer on the Island.
So Antigua takes it to the WTO, Antigua wins. Big whoop. Really….Who cares. If they are allowed to place tarrifs on US cars, or toothpaste, what difference does it make? Their population is around 70,000, so it’s a negligible impact, right?
Wrong
What the Antigua asked for, and received as a sanction was the right to ignore US IP restrictions, and to distribute US IP protected products without restriction.
While the drug manufacturers have nothing to fear, it’s not like they are going to become a Viagra® manufacturing powerhouse, the makers of non-tangible items, like movies, music, software, etc. are in the process of freaking out, which looks something like this: 
, because the island is well wired (from the online Casinos), and can set up an operation that would make AllofMP3.com look like a Sunday social.
Truth be told, the consequences will not be as dire as IP companies will make out. I expect that very few people who would otherwise pay for these products will download them, and my guess is that these companies know that.
The reason that they are concerned is that if I am right, and the consequences will be minor, then you will see another argument against draconian IP restrictions, because the sky did not fall.
This may be of particular interest to the Chinese too, as this ruling could be extended to the “Great Firewall of China.
*On the matter of state lottery tickets, I believe that they should be treated differently, being a state run activity and a revenue generator, but when we signed onto the WTO, it specifically forbade this.
Neat Movie Web Site
Mr. Movie Times, it allows you to get the schedule for movie theaters in your area.
My wife called me to look for a movie for her and the kids to see, and I found this on Google.
Seriously, is there any reason left to go dead tree except for the comics? (Yes, I know that you can get them on line, but the paper just works better)
More on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Fight
It appears that Paramount and Dreamworks are going HD DVD.
This is a switch for Paramount, which had supported both.
There are really two reasons for this, HD-DVD is a lot cheaper, $299 vs $499, and there are more HD-DVD players in the US (not counting the Blu-Ray drives on the Sony PS3, but who wants to play a DVD on a game system that doesn’t even have a remote>).
Expanded Surveillance Will Make Our Infrastructure More Vulnerable to Spying and Attacks
Here is a very interesting article by Susan Landau.
Her thesis is that the actions taken by the Bush administration and our state security apparatus have the effect of making us more vulnerable to spying and cyberterrorism.
Her very valid point is that the surveillance society envisioned by Bush and His Evil Minions™ will require a back door on every phone switch in the country, and once there, it will be significantly easier for state and non state actors to hack into the switches and listen to our communications.
Supercavitating Special Forces Transport
It appears that Special forces command has got DARPA looking at very high speed insertion of special forces personnel.
By fast, we mean more than 100 knots, using a supercavitating technology.
I see two problems:
- This would necessarily be VERY noisy.
- “Center Punching a Whale at 100 kts” as the author of this post put it.
Actually, at those speeds, I’d be worried about a halibut. 
Asimov did it first.
This story about South Korea draws up code of ethics for robots is interesting.
Given that they already have autonomous robots patrolling the DMZ, and they are looking at the robotic equivalent of watch dogs, this makes sense.
The author however, is wrong when he states, “South Korea is writing a code of ethics for robots for the first time in the world as part of efforts to lift the robot industry.“
Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the seminal work in this area, is well over 50 years old.
Still a Few Bugs in Consumer GPS Systems
The directions they give may be no better than those of Cletus B. Hounddog, so take their advice with a grain of salt. Case in point, a woman, and her £96,000 Mercedes River Sence in Sheepy Magna*, Leicestershire.
Of course, someone who is willing to pay £96K ($US 195K) for a car, probably has more money than brains.
*Sheepy Magna????? Now that is a screwy name. A quick Google finds this:
Sheepy, (from the old english sceap + eg meaning ‘island or dry ground in the marsh where the sheep graze’), straddles the River Sence from Fieldon Bridge, the boundary with Atherstone and also the county boundary with Warwickshire. Sheepy is divided into two parts Great Sheepy or Sheepy Magna and Little Sheepy or Sheepy Parva, each with it’s own ancient manor. Sheepy Magna also includes the Hamlets of The Mythe and Pinwall, The Mythe may well have had it’s own manor but Pinwall was a Grange of Merevale Abbey. Newhouse Grange was also part of the Merevale estate and remained annexed to the parish of Merevale until 1885.
…..
Finally, A Use for RFID Technology
It appears that there has been a spate of fraudulently labeled whiskey in Korea. The solution is to place RFID on premium bottles of booze that can be quizzed by mobile phone handsets.
Neat trick, but considering the fact that RFID chips cost about $0.15, with prices dropping, it should not be too tough for the bootleggers to copy them too.
Blu-Ray May Have a Chance in the Format Wars
History has shown that the adult entertainment industry leads the consumer electronics field in adopting new technologies.
It led the adoption of VCRs, it was probably the deciding factor in the VHS/Betamax format war, and popularized DVDs.
Well, it appears that, Blu-Ray is the format of choice for Japanese porn (HD-DVD is the format of choice in the US).
This is significant change of direction for Sony, who created Blu-Ray, as they have typically been very aggressively using licenses to keep erotica out of their formats.
They still don’t “get” it. The disks have to be produced in Taiwan, and reimported, but they appear to be having at least a bit of a clue now.
Still, despite the head start, HD DVD isn’t exactly taking the porn industry by storm. Several U.S. companies interviewed earlier this year have not made good on their plans to release titles in HD DVD, while Blu-ray Disc appears to be gaining ground with its new initiative to work with Japanese adult film makers. The result could be a shift in Blu-ray’s favor. U.S. adult film makers said they would use whatever makes sense, and only favored HD DVD early on because the format is less expensive to make movies with and they received extensive help from HD DVD backers.
A friendlier face from the Blu-ray Disc camp appears to be working with Japan’s porn industry. Perhaps it could work in the U.S. as well.