Copper thefts measured in miles around Seattle

A couple of interesting developments in the Seattle are this week must have been keeping law enforcement busy.

First, a number of outlets are reporting that prosecutors have charged two men with what is being called the largest metal theft in state history - 4.3 miles of copper wire from the underside of an elevated train line over an eight month period spanning 1010-2011.

Read more

NASA issues Grand Challenge, calls for public, scientific help in tracking threatening asteroids

NASA again stepped up its plan to mitigate the asteroid threat to Earth by announcing two significant new programs that call on a multitude of scientists and organizations to help spot, track and possibly alter the direction of killer space rocks.

Read more

FBI “Most Wanted” list names its 500th fugitive

It's a list one would never aspire to be on. The FBI today said it named the 500^th criminal to its iconic "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives,"  program - a list that has been kept since 1950.

Read more

To friend or not to friend: What if William Shakespeare had been a power Facebook user?

Carnegie Mellon researchers call the project Six Degrees of Francis Bacon (SDFB).  But what it is is an great big data mining project that tries to trace the influence and ideas of Bacon, William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton and more than 6,000 others from the 16th-17th centuries to let scholars and students reassemble and discuss or debate the era's networked culture.

Read more

Carnegie Mellon video net brings Harry Potter Marauder's Map to life

A network of video cameras melded a unique algorithm let scientists with the Carnegie Mellon University track the locations of multiple individuals in complex, indoor setting - just like Harry Potter's Marauder's Map.

Read more

FAA wants all aircraft flying on unleaded fuel by 2018

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week put out a call to fuel producers to offer options that would safely let general aviation aircraft stop using leaded fuel by 2018.

Read more

After firestorm, TSA nixes notion to allow pocket knives in passenger carry-ons

Read more

NASA teams with Lego to offer coolest, most realistic model competition

Seems like a natural fit: NASA today said it would team up with Lego to offer a competition to see who can build the coolest models of future airplanes and spacecraft.

The "NASA's Missions: Imagine and Build" competition is open now with an entry deadline of July 31. Winners in each category will be selected by a panel of NASA and LEGO officials and announced Sept. 1.

Read more

IBM shows off nickel-sized chip that backs Gb/sec wireless data-rates, cutting edge radar images

IBM says it has packed an integrated circuit about the size of a nickel with technology that can enable gigabit/sec mobile data-rate and clutter-cutting radar image applications.

Read more

Malicious power-charger can infect Apple iOS devices

IoS devices are vulnerable to malware coming from a malicious charger according to researchers from Georgia Tech.

Read more

NASA taps 3-D printer company to build space parts in orbit

NASA wants to test out the 3-D printing technology onboard the International Space Station to find out if the technology could be used to manufacture parts in space.

Read more

FBI: Cyber criminals hitting photo-sharing apps to spread malware, access information

The FBI today issued a warning that online criminals are using online photo-sharing programs like Instagram to initiate scams and dump malware on victims' computers.

The FBI said offenders typically advertise vehicles online but will not provide pictures in the advertisement, rather they will send photos on request. Sometimes the photo is a single file sent as an e-mail attachment, and sometimes the victim receives a link to an online photo gallery.

Read more

NASA: Asteroid-based manufacturing not science-fiction

The idea of building a robotic manufacturing facility in space might have been in the realm of a Star Wars, Star Trek or other science fiction story, but like some of the technologies in those tales, reality may soon imitate art.

First off, you may recall that NASA is looking for an asteroid weighing about 500 tons that could be moved into within the moon's orbit so astronauts can examine it as early as 2021.

Read more

Asteroid mining co. launches $1M Kickstarter drive for public space telescope

One of the companies that plans to mine asteroids in the future set a course for more immediate space exploration today by announcing a $1 million Kickstarter campaign to build a new space telescope.

Read more

US Department of Justice lays out cybersecurity basics every company should practice

The mantra is old, grant you, but worth repeating since its obvious from the amount of cybersecurity breaches that not everyone is listening. 

Speaking at the Georgetown Cybersecurity Law Institute this week,  Deputy Attorney General of the United States James Cole said there are a ton of things companies can do to help government and vice-versa, combat cyber threats through better prevention, preparedness, and incidence response.  

Read more

Scientists growing new crystals to make LED lights useful for office, home

When to comes to offering warm yet visually efficient lighting, LEDs have a long way to go.  But scientists with the University of Georgia and Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories are looking at  new family of crystals they say  glow different colors and hold the key for letting white LED light shine in homes and offices as well as natural sunlight.

Read more

NASA pondering bleak future of exoplanet-hunter

NASA and a team of other experts will in the next few weeks evaluate options for recovering the crippled space telescope Kepler.

Read more

Google, NASA step into quantum computing

Google, NASA and Universities Space Research Association this week invested roughly $15 million in a 512-qubit quantum computer their researchers will use to develop myriad applications from machine learning, web search and speech recognition to searching for exoplanets.

The machine known as D-Wave Two and built by D-Wave Systems will be installed at the new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, a collaboration among NASA, Google and USRA.

Read more

NASA: Mars hit by some 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year

You'd need an umbrella made of kryptonite if you were to go walking on Mars apparently.

NASA scientists using images from the space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have estimated that the planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year forming craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) across.

Read more

DHS wants iOS or Windows-based biometric devices for rapid, remote identification of bad guys

The Department of Homeland Security recently put out a call to the wireless industry looking for information on the best biometric technology available for mobile devices that could help it quickly identify suspects in the field.

The DHS said it is the devices need to be capable of obtaining biometric (fingerprints and facial recognition) and biographic information and communicating wirelessly through a virtual private network (VPN).

Read more