radar
Gadgets
Mini Radar Will Give Soldiers Eyes In The Back Of Their Helmets
11:20AM Sean Fallon | The military is developing a miniature helmet-mounted radar system (HMRS) that will alert soldiers to any threats that might be sneaking up on them within a 25-metre radius. Although, brain tumours are sneakier than ninjas flying in stealth bombers. More »
Gadgets
How Does ESPN’s Magic Baseball Ball Tracking Work?
9:20AM Jesus Diaz | Holy balls! Did you watch the Home Run derby the other night? I didn’t. But if I did, I would have wondered about the same thing: How did they manage to show those cool balls’ trails in real time? More »
Gadgets
12:30PM Nick Broughall | Back in the 70s, amateur radio enthusiasts around the world began hearing a sharp, repetitive tapping noise at the 10Hz frequency, which disrupted communications and could occasionally be heard over telephone circuits. It was dubbed the “woodpecker” signal, and this was the cause of it: a Russian over-the-horizon anti-ballistic missile system called Duga-3, which could give early warning of missile launches. More »
Abandoned Duga-3 ‘Woodpecker’ Radio Antenna Looks Menacing
12:30PM Nick Broughall | Back in the 70s, amateur radio enthusiasts around the world began hearing a sharp, repetitive tapping noise at the 10Hz frequency, which disrupted communications and could occasionally be heard over telephone circuits. It was dubbed the “woodpecker” signal, and this was the cause of it: a Russian over-the-horizon anti-ballistic missile system called Duga-3, which could give early warning of missile launches. More »
Gadgets
Seattle-Tacoma Airport Using Radar and Pyrotechnics to Keep Birds off the Runway
10:00AM Adrian Covert | In the wake of the aeroplane crash landing in NYC’s Hudson River, CNN has an interesting article about the Seattle-Tacoma Airport spending $US250,000 yearly to prevent the same bird strikes that caused last month’s incident. More »
Weapons
Rocket Grenade Smashed to Bits In Flight By Quick Kill Defence System
9:37PM Kit Eaton | We’ve written about the sci-fi sounding Army’s Future Combat System before, but the Army’s just demonstrated a successful test of one of its components: the Quick Kill vehicle defence system. Check it out: the Raytheon system uses an electronically-scanned radar array to detect an incoming anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade, then vertically launches a countermeasure missile that blows the round to smithereens in mid-flight, saving the RPG’s intended target. It’s a very simple test setup, and, of course the real system will have to deal with complications like vehicles in motion, but it’s an important first step. And it goes boom. [Danger Room] More »
Vehicles
EA-18G Growls Enemy Networks Into Oblivion
9:30AM Jesus Diaz | When I first came across this photo I thought it was a new classified starfighter being tested by the Navy and Boeing Phantom Works in a secret underground anechoic chamber in the Moon. Then I realised it had the shape of something closer to Earth: It looked like an F-18 but it is not. It’s an EA-18G Growler, a variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet Block II that is not designed to kill kill faster faster, but for airborne electronic attacks. More »
Gadgets
Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $US10 Billion a Year
5:10AM Sean Fallon | Technically speaking, you have better navigational capability in your car than the entire airline industry. Why? Because they are still relying on an antiquated WWII era traffic network that often takes aircraft on zigzagging routes towards radar beacons—costing carriers billions of dollars in wasted fuel each year. To make matters worse, the plan to upgrade the system has been stuck in the planning stages for more than a decade thanks to funding issues an the complexity of such a switchover. More »
Gadgets
Gaydar Keychain Answers That Question Once And For All
7:30AM Jason Chen | You know how you have that friend–for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call him Aaron Froucho–that you’re never quite sure is gay or straight? What better way to answer the question for all eternity than with a US$14 keychain? The thing has three readouts, “gay,” “straight” and “maybe,” so if you get “maybe,” keep asking until it decides one way or the other. Or, if you’re feeling lonely, just go with it. Aaron will. [Play via Nerd Approved] More »
Gadgets
Laser Star Allegedly Turns Your Clunker Into Invisible Asphalt Phantom
7:00AM Jack Loftus | The Laser Star is new to the States, but it’s already made a name for itself in Europe as a cheap, effective way to jam police speed trap lasers. These demonstrations from Laser Jammer Tests show why. No fewer than four police-issue laser detectors were foiled by the Laser Star without so much as a hiccup. Regardless of your views on this kind of tech, it’s still amazingly cool how the Audi S4 in the videos is effectively invisible to the laser detectors. And when you aren’t fighting the man, Laser Star’s sensors help park the car too. Personally, I can’t wait to get one and recreate my favourite Vin Diesel scenes from The Fast and the Furious. More »
Gadgets
