Hasta La Gadget!

In spite of an era that is dominated by iPhone 5s, Galaxy smartphones, and Nexus devices, Research In Motion continues to prove its reliability in terms of security, at least to the Pentagon. The Pentagon, the heart of America’s security and defense, said today that it will continue to use and support BlackBerry phones. This is definitely a good news for the struggling BlackBerry maker, considering that the U.S. military has plans of using other devices such as the iPhone from Apple.

Last week, the U.S. Defense Department asked a couple of companies to submit their own bids for software applications that can monitor and manage security on devices made by Apple and Google. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has previously announced that it will end its contract with Research In Motion to make way for the iPhone.

Fortunately for RIM, the Pentagon made it clear today by announcing that it will continue to use BlackBerry phones since it has so far met its tough security requirements. For now, RIM can breathe in relief that it still has the favor of the Pentagon. This also means that RIM has to seriously step up in order to keep up with the competition.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: South Africa wants to access BBM too, India may ban Blackberry devices if they don’t conform to security demands,

The Pentagon has just updated their latest set of rules for service members when it comes to using popular social media outlets, and of course, you would expect the big guns such as Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest to rank amongst the list. This new directive on social media is meant to replace the old rules (issued in 2010) that expired on July 15th, where the expiration date was extended last month when the leadership failed to arrive on a new set of guidance. In a space of less than two full years, certainly the social media landscape has changed a fair bit, but the Pentagon did not really catch up with the times, diminishing it to a two-pager on general use of “Internet based capabilities.”

Perhaps the new set of social media rules will arrive in the form of a manual? Will there be a dedicated team of social media enthusiasts who will monitor every Facebook post and Twitter feed before approval? Do our readers have any tips to share with the Pentagon, and make it feel far less formal?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Insects could help Pentagon in surveillance, Dell Streak 5 cleared by Pentagon,

You might pride yourself on your poker face, but there would be no way to hide from a skull-probing EEG helmet being developed by Veritas Scientific. The device takes advantage of a well-known medical response called P300, which causes your brain‘s voltage to drop a split-second after you put a name to a face or object. Simply by showing you a slideshow of different images, interrogators could tell whether or not you recognize a particular individual — or maybe that LTE-connected railgun hidden in your trunk. The company is pursuing military contracts and hopes to have a prototype ready in time for this year’s war game exercises, but meanwhile you might want to start thinking of a way to install that tinfoil hat inside your skull.

Filed under: Science

EEG headware probes your neurons, shows interrogators your cranial contact list originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Phoenix Frankenprogram to harvest the corpses of expired satellites and cobble together new ones seemed like one of DARPA’s more daft ideas, but this one has actually kicked off its first phase of development. The plan is to first launch a service craft — replete with robotic arms and enough processing horsepower to work independently if needed — followed by the tiny base-unit skeleton satlets. The service mothership would dip into an orbital area called the “graveyard”, grabbing pre-chosen cadavers and picking off usable parts, especially valuable antenna arrays, with its robo-limbs. Those parts would be jury-rigged to the bare-bones units, creating usable Pentagon satellites and saving the $10,000 per pound launch cost. So far, a $2.5 million contract to develop the needed technology has been put in place, and bids for the no-frills satlets went out last week. Plenty of dirty work is still needed, so check the video after the break to see if the overly-elaborate plan can un-moot $300 billion of orbiting cold metal.

Continue reading Pentagon starts Phoenix trial to harvest defunct satellites, MacGyver new ones from orbit

Pentagon starts Phoenix trial to harvest defunct satellites, MacGyver new ones from orbit originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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