Turning cars into wireless network nodes

Taking It to the Streets: UCLA Scientists Seek to Turn Cars Into a Mobile Communications Network

It's no secret Americans love their cars, and modern computer systems have enhanced vehicle performance and safety. For computer science professor Mario Gerla and researcher Giovanni Pau at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the next step is to take that digital processing power and push it outward even further — by using cars as computer nodes in a mobile network on wheels.

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TV Screen: Thin as Paper

In the race for ever-thinner displays for TVs, cell phones and other gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all - a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video. Sony Corp. released video of the new 2.5-inch display.

In it, a hand squeezes a display that is 0.3 millimeters, or 0.01 inch, thick. The display shows color images of a bicyclist stuntman and a picturesque lake. Although flat-panel TVs are getting slimmer, a display that's so thin it bends in a human hand marks a breakthrough. Sony said it has yet to decide on commercial products using the technology.

"In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper."

Can cyborg moths bring down terrorists?

A moth which has a computer chip implanted in it while in the cocoon will enable soldiers to spy on insurgents.

At some point in the not too distant future, a moth will take flight in the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist training camp.

But this will be no ordinary moth.

Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth’s entire nervous system can be controlled remotely.

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A Big Ball of Connectivity

An antenna that blows up like a balloon brings satellite communications anywhere, anytime.

No, it's not a giant beach ball. It's an ultralight, ultraportable antenna tucked inside an inflatable shell that can pull down a superfast broadband satellite connection at any location. The GATR-Com is designed for disaster-relief responders, far-flung video producers and front-line troops—anyone whose job (or life) depends on getting digital information—video, Internet, calls—in and out of remote places.

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Australia’s net-centric vision

Never underestimate the zeal of the newly converted. The U.S. and Western Europe may have embraced the idea of net-centric warfare, in which information systems and network links become more important than individual weapons and platforms, but we hardly have a monopoly on the concept. Other nations, principally the richer ones in the Asia-Pacific region, are playing catch-up with a vengeance. Some even have the potential to leave us in the dust.

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House of Commons Debate on Progress of Combat Identification

Read the full PDF report here.

Internet Routing to Branch Into Space

April 24, 2007 — The Internet, which has done well to connect distant places and people, is now branching out even further — into space.

This month, the U.S. military announced a project to test Internet routing on orbiting satellites.

IRIS (for "Internet Routing in Space") will allow different branches of the military, such as the Army, Navy and Air Force, to communicate with each other instantly and spontaneously. It could also spread to the civilian market to give users in remote locations broadband service where no other electronic communication exists.

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Australia Updates NCW Roadmap

The Australian Department of Defence has released the first update of its Network Centric Warfare (NCW) Roadmap, a blueprint for achieving a fully network-enabled defense force by 2020.