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written by Caladus | 451 Views | Rating: (0 rates)

From: FoxNews.com

    In BAE Systems

In BAE Systems "eCamouflage" concept, images are projected on the hull of a combat vehicle that change in concert with the environment -- making the vehicle invisible.

Invisible tanks -- and maybe invisible soldiers -- may soon be charging onto battlefields.

A British weapons manufacturer is making good on the promise of Wonder Woman's invisible jet, describing an "eCamouflage" system that uses electronic ink to disguise combat vehicles by projecting videos of the countryside onto them -- electronic squid ink of a sort.

Using highly sophisticated electronic sensors attached to a vehicle's hull,BAE Systems plans to project images of the surrounding environment back onto the outside of the vehicle -- enabling it to merge into the landscape and evade attack, explained London paper The Telegraph.

Unlike conventional forms of camouflage, the images on the hull would change in concert with the changing environment, always insuring that the vehicle remains disguised.

BAE Systems is working with an unnamed Swedish company that makes a technology similar to the e-ink screens in digital book readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, explainedMike Sweeney, head of external communications for the company.

E-ink screens, as any e-book reader can attest, are both slow to refresh and black and white -- two clear obstacles to this technology. BAE has solved those problems, Sweeney told FoxNews.com.

"The guys in Sweden, together with some other companies we've been looking at, have the answer to that question," he said. BAE is starting with tanks, such as the CV90 (or Combat Vehicle 90, the Swedish equivalent of the Bradley tank) on which the first tests will be conducted. But the technology won't be limited to them, Sweeney said.

"We're also working on it for aircraft," he told FoxNews.com. 

This isn't the first time the technology has been discussed. FoxNews.com wrote about invisible tanks in 2007, when they were merely a concept. And BAE isn't alone in its quest to make things vanish. Several companies have been working on similar technologies, all based on the same approach, as Sweeney was quick to note: They all use "a camera to capture the scene on the other side of the vehicle, then project that image on the other side of the vehicle so that it blends into the environment."

But BAE plans to make it happen, intending to test in Sweden at the end of the month a technology it calls "adaptive signature." And the next stage, Sweeney explained, will be transparent battle armor for soldiers.

The concept was developed as part of the Future Protected Vehicle program, which BAE's scientists believe will transform the way in which future conflicts will be fought.

A spokesman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- the U.S. Department of Defense's research and development wing -- told FoxNews.com on Tuesday that a similar program that utilized "negative index materials" was scuttled in 2009 due to unviable research.

For more information, see the Telegraph.


written by Caladus | 428 Views | Rating: (0 rates)

From : FoxNews.com

Lawmakers are on high alert as the Federal Communications Commission prepares to vote on a plan to regulate the Internet despite warnings that it could choke industry investment and hurt the economy as a whole. 

The five-member commission plans to unveil, and vote on, the so-called "net neutrality" proposal on Tuesday. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been saying for months that Congress, not the Obama administration, should take the lead role in deciding whether and how much to police the web. But despite a brief backing-off earlier in the year, the FCC has pushed ahead with its new regulatory plan. 

The move raises concern that the FCC could soon have its regulatory foot in the door of the wild West of the Internet -- with an eye toward eventually exerting tighter control over content at a time when sites like WikiLeaks openly snub the government. 

The FCC proposal is viewed as a major breakthrough, for better or worse, for Internet oversight. And if the plan passes, it could trigger a nasty showdown with Congress next year. 

"Congress has not given us the authority to do this," Robert McDowell, one of two Republican commissioners on the FCC, told FoxNews.com. McDowell, who plans to dissent, said that if the FCC follows through on Tuesday, "there really are no bounds to what the FCC could do, so long as it's done in the name of promoting the Internet in their view." That potential ranges from price control to content control, he said. 

The net-neutrality plan itself is far more limited, despite concerns about where it could lead. The proposal aims to prevent service providers from discriminating against websites and companies using their networks. In other words, it is meant to ensure companies like Verizon or Comcast can't block or slow access to certain websites while giving favorable treatment to others. 

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who has the support of the White House, reportedly has secured the backing of the commission's two other Democratic members. He said earlier this month that the proposal "would ensure that the Internet remains a powerful platform for innovation and job creation." He said it would "empower" consumers and entrepreneurs alike while increasing market "certainty" and spurring investment. 

Critics say it would do just the opposite. 

Full Article:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/20/fcc-vote-internet-regulation-plan-despite-economic-warnings/


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