Archive for 'Military News'

For the last 18 months Google has been working to develop their personal health records solution. So far we haven’t been given much insight into what the product will be like, however there is promise that it will be comprehensive and user-friendly.

As of last month Google received a large endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic to help in the development of the technology.

The big medical center has now started a pilot project to begin linking the health information for some of its patients with Google’s personal health records.

Cleveland Clinic currently employs a sophisticated IT system to store their 100,000+ patient’s personal health records.

But a sizeable portion of those patients are retirees that may spend four or more months elsewhere, typically in Florida or Arizona. When these patients travel, their electronic health records don’t follow them explains Dr. C. Martin Harris, the clinic’s chief information officer.

“It forces the patient to become his or her own medical historian,

“Google personal health record is a solution to that problem”

Using Google’s technology, a person can approve the transfer of their medical records from the clinics computers to series of secure Web pages.

The pilot project is scheduled to last six to eight weeks, and will involve approx 10,000 patients.

Marissa Mayer, a vice president, who took over management of the health team six months ago said, “The project with Cleveland Clinic is “a milestone” for Google”.

Google’s personal health records is still in development, and it will be introduced publicly and made widely available, after the pilot project is concluded, Ms. Mayer said.

With Cleveland Clinic being at the forefront of health information technology, the recent endorsement is more promise that Google’s Personal Health Records will provide a one-stop solution for all health records.

Although we may not know much until the release of the product, what we do know is that Google will offer a fresh new user-interface as well as automated data links, so the patient does not have to type in personal data, as is required with some personal health records.

The recent endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic has also prompted other medical centers to sign up.

“This is truly a patient-controlled health record, and that’s a very significant step in the drive toward a more consumer-oriented system of health care,” said Dr. John D. Halamka, chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Halamka is also chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which plans to link its electronic patient records with Google personal health pages.

The revolutionary F-117 Night Hawk, the worlds first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology, is scheduled to be retired at the end of this month.

‘The Black Jet’ with its futurist angular design has spent a wholesome 27 years serving as part of the airforce’s arsenal, secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq. This will all come to an end on April 22nd when the last F-117’s are scheduled to arrive at their final destination, Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, the site where the jet made its first flight in 1981.

Last month the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which previously managed the F-117 program, had an informal private retirement ceremony with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The last of the F-117’s will now fly to Palmdale, California, for one more retirement ceremony on April 21st, before making their final flight to Holloman.

Fifty-nine F-117s were made; 10 were retired in December 2006 and 27 since then, the Air Force said. Seven of the planes have crashed, one in Serbia in 1999.The technology which led to the development of the F-117 was designed back in the 1970’s and although it was not invisible to radar, the shape and coating of the F-117’s design greatly reduced its detection.

The single-seat aircraft was designed to fly into heavily defended areas undetected to drop its payloads with surgical precision.

Since the F-117 went operational a total of 558 pilots have flown the jet. Each pilot is then dubbed a ‘bandit’ each with their own bandit number. Feest, ‘Bandit 261′, was the first to lead the stealth fighter on missions into Iraq during Desert Storm in 1991.

He said the fire from surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns was so intense that he stopped looking at it to try to ease his fears,

“We knew stealth worked and it would take a lucky shot to hit us, but we knew a lucky shot could hit us at any time,”

Incredibly, not one stealth was hit during those missions,

The Air Force decided to accelerate the retirement of the F-117s to free up money to modernize the rest of the fleet. The F-117 is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor, which also has stealth technology.

There is no doubt about it, guided ammunitions are changing the way we fight wars. In the days of the Vietnam War, guided ammunitions had already been developed however dumb or iron bombs were still largely in use. These days many munitions have guidance systems ranging from lasers to GPS, some of these systems are even being fitted to unmanned vehicles to enable a totally autonomous attack.

Dumb bombs are what most people imagine when they think of a bomb. There is no way to control the bomb once it has been deployed, they simply fall to the ground and explode, hence the name. Needless to say hitting a target with a dumb bomb is an extremely difficult task and innocent bystanders are often caught up in the carpet bombing technique which is employed.Smart bombs are designed to guide themselves to the target. The concept of this smart weapon is certainly not new. First developed back in 1943 by the Germans, the technology would go through stages of radio-controlled and laser-guided developments before being used on a large scale. The first large-scale use of smart weapons came in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm when they were used by coalition forces against Iraq.

More Information On The Air Force’s Newest Smart bomb Plus Two Videos After The Jump.

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Pioneers in military technology DARPA - The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - have just unveiled a six-wheeled autonomous robot that is capable of maneuvering through ditches, walls, streams and even other vehicles whilst raining down a hail of bullets against its enemies.

The Crusher - developed at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute - weighs nearly 7 tons, has a top speed of about 25 mph and is designed to be totally autonomous; it doesn’t even require a remote driver to control the robot, although this is an option if necessary.

Check out this first video of the Crusher Climbing a 4 foot wall.

The robot is armed with a large caliber gun, long range cameras that can spot enemy targets up to two and half miles away, as well as GPS sensors and internal maps to plot out its route. The Crusher can roll through just about anything that gets in its way, deviating from the most direct route only when faced with obstacles over six feet tall or deep.

Another two videos and more info after the jump

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The Pain Ray or Active Denial System (ADS) is a long standing joint project between the Air Force and the Pentagons Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. The ABS non-lethal weapon consists of a real life ray gun which shoots 95 GHz millimeter waves that penetrate the skin at a 64th of an inch beneath the skin. This causes the water molecules to boil where the nerve receptors are most concentrated and of course, this hurts like hell.

A press release by Sandia National Laboratories explains that when the waves hit,

“[They produce an] intense heating sensation [which] stops only if the individual moves out of the beam’s path or the beam is turned off……..
“The sensation caused by the system has been described by test subjects as feeling like touching a hot frying pan.”

Another Demonstration Video And More Info After The Jump >>>

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Iraq is a country that has been subjected to an ongoing battle for dominance for over 4500 years. Nestled between the Tigiris and Euphrates Rivers, Mesoptamia or modern day Iraq lies in the heart of the fabled “Fertile Crescent.” From the earliest times, the struggles for the region have often been dictated by the need for natural resources.
Currently the United States and its “coalition of the willing” occupies the country, however the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and British - not to mention the indigenous peoples - have all buried their dead in this land.

Here are 10 key battles from the violent history of Iraq

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This newly redesigned Russian military uniform was unveiled last months at Russia’s Defense Ministry. The new uniform was designed by a famous Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin and although the picture doesn’t seem to focus too much on the uniform, it does say a thousand words about the good looking chick wearing it!

There are many weird and wonderful abandoned structures throughout the world, being based in Bangkok, a city of unfinished projects; I certainly see my fair share everyday. But no where has quite as many amazing abandonment’s as the former Soviet Union. The complex political, military and social history has lead to everything from buildings to entire cities being left uncared for, still standing to weather the elements until the end.

More Pictures After The Jump!

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Battlefield robots have been in use for a while now proving their worth in many situations. But no matter how good they may perform it will never stop researchers looking for new ways to improve the robots for optimal use on the battlefield.

The HARV - Head-Aimed Remote Viewer - is a new development by Chatten Associates which promises to do just that, claiming to improve mission performance by 300% to 400%.Check Out The Video After The Jump

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The Pentagon announced last Thursday that a Navy warship has been tasked with shooting down a failing United States spy satellite that is expected to hit Earth within weeks.

In a joint news conference, NASA administrator Michael Griffin and Gen. James Cartwright, the No. 2 officer at the Defense Department, told reporters that an SM-3 missile – originally designed to inbound ballistic missiles - will be fired from a Navy cruiser during the next month to obliterate the inbound spacecraft.

The idea is to break apart the satellite to rid it of toxic fuels which are stored in its tank.The USS Shiloh will be one of three warships that will use the system to target the defunct satellite. Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, did not say when the attempted interception would be conducted, but the satellite is expected to hit Earth somewhere in the Pacific Ocean during the first week of March.

Although Cartwright would not comment on the odds of success it is true that several successful anti-ballistic mile tests have been already conducted from the cruisers, most frequently from the USS Shiloh, but no test has the urgency or high profile as the impending satellite shoot-down.

The Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) can target an object as high as 310 miles when fired vertically. After the third stage of the rocket is spent, the kill vehicle finds the satellite with infrared sensors and then steers towards the target.

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Corner shot is a high-tech weapon support system that provides the ability to observe, acquire and engage targets from “around the corner”.

Designed to enable military, law enforcement and security operators to effectively observe and engage targets without being exposed, Corner Shot consists of a segmented, assault rifle-type folding stock - complete with a high-resolution video camera and color display - onto which a pistol of choice can be attached. A lateral left and right swinging hinge mechanism and a remote trigger control allow the user to squeeze the trigger from behind the safety and comfort of any suitable structure

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The Navy is hoping that their latest project, a 10 megajoule railgun, will replace the standard 5-inch guns on most of their ships. Currently in testing phase, this awesome weapon uses a magnetic field to fire projectiles at a speed of approx 5,600 mph. But the Navy is not stopping there; they hope to create a 64 megajoule system capable of shooting at over 13,000 mph and hitting 5 meter targets from 200 nautical miles.

Check out two videos of the Railgun in action after the jump>>

“If you’ve got a little over 10 megajoules as with this demonstration model, you’re looking at 5,600 mph. When the system is completed, it’ll be firing shells with over six times that energy (well over 13,000 mph) using 64 megajoules of energy”

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Lobster Vision is the forefront of a new technology being developed for Home Security by Physical Optics Corporation of Torrance, California.

The handheld device prototype called the LEXID (Lobster Eye X-ray Imaging Device) is based on the lobster’s ability to see through the dark murky waters of the deep sea and may help security officers see through wood, concrete and steal.

Rick Shie, senior vice president at Physical Optics Corporation said that the patented device, which radiates objects with tiny amounts of X-ray energy,

“Is modeled exactly after the lobster living in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean,”

A lobster’s eyes are made up of thousands of tiny square channels that focus by reflection, rather than by refraction (or the bending of light) as human eyes do.

This unique optical geometric design, which allows lobsters to see in the dimmest light, is being adapted into a “lobster-eye lens” that focuses the X-ray images so that the device can actually see through solid objects.

The Californian Company are still in the early stages of development however She says his company hopes to have the device perfected within a year so that Homeland Security agents can test it on the job.

I am sure everyone has heard about it, but what exactly does it meant to have your identity stolen and how much of a threat is it actually.

What is Identity Theft

Identity theft is a catch-all term for crimes involving illegal usage of another individual’s identity. The most common form of identity theft is credit card fraud. While the term is relatively new, the practice of stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be a different person is thousands of years old.

According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center, identity theft is sub-divided into four categories:

* Financial Identity Theft (using another’s identity to obtain goods and services)
* Criminal Identity Theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime)
* Identity Cloning (using another’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life)
* Business/Commercial Identity Theft (using another’s business name to obtain credit)

Identity theft may be used to facilitate crimes including illegal immigration, terrorism and espionage. Identity theft may also be a means of blackmail. There are also cases of identity cloning to attack payment systems, including medical insurance.

How Much of a Threat is Identity Theft to Me?

Surveys in the USA from 2003 to 2006 showed a decrease in the total number of victims but an increase in the total value of identity fraud to US$56.6 billion in 2006. The average fraud per person rose from $5,249 in 2003 to $6,383 in 2006.

Defense Link Article About Military Member Identity Theft Battle

The 2003 survey from the Identity Theft Resource Center found that :

* Only 15% of victims find out about the theft through proactive action taken by a business
* The average time spent by victims resolving the problem is about 40 hours
* 73% of respondents indicated the crime involved the thief acquiring a credit card
* The emotional impact is similar to that of victims of violent crimes

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