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Military Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "DefenseLINK News is reporting that 'troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.' By simply holding the portable, handheld device named a "Radar Scope" up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing. The Radar Scope hopes to eventually give troops the ability to see up to 50 feet beyond a concrete wall to decrease losses in urban combat."
For anyone interested, do a google on Terahertz Imaging.
Once the transmission technology comes down in price it's going to be great for the 'metal detecting' hobbyists. No more digging up rubbish. You'll be able to see the object. This is one technology that I cant wait for!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
UWB radar. Ultra-Wideband Radar. Uses ultra short pulses. Go here: http://www.uwb.org/
This is an ultrawideband through-wall imaging system, and is an old technology that has been around for many years. Two of the many manufacturers are Time Domain [Flash!] and Camero.
Note that, while military radio emissions are regulated in the U.S. by the NTIA, U.S. civilian use of ultrawideband through-wall imaging systems is controlled by the FCC (by regulations established in April 2002 [pdf!]). 47 U.S.C. 15.510(5)(e) [pdf!] states that
Basically, and as defined by rules elsewhere, it's illegal even to possess one in the U.S. if you're not a first-responder type.More old news. CES is happening and the best we can do is recycled news stories?
Eh, that pretty much sums up CES though too. MS has a big exhibit featuring Windows Vista, their MythTV clone, their online version of Office and a bunch of 360 games. Of course, every TV manufacture is there showing flat-panels --most of them are garbage, my favorite is the 26" LCD Poloroid FLM-2600 complete with lousy 7.5 watt speakers (why did they bother?) and 600:1 contrast. The biggest Plasma I saw this year was a 102" 1080p. Every MP3-manufacturer that doesn't know how to make cell phones and was burned by the iPod takeover last year is back again this year with tiny tiny video-players that cost way too much. The cell phone manufacturers are there hoping (against hope) that the largest US cell phone networks shift to EVDO (wireless broadband) will help keep their sales up for at least another year. Daryl McBride's SCO is there hawking some online service for sending multi-media messages from Treo650 phones (NOTE: do not abuse the sale reps, those kids do not work for SCO --they are subcontracted and don't know anything about the lawsuits --offer them a new job or a candy bar or something). Add to this an unbelievable number of USB/SD flash and DVD-burners, plus the obligatory XXX Adult Expo (with 2 hour line) and, well you have CES2006.
It doesn't rely on light and doesn't require you to bore a hole through the wall. It also gives you a very quick read on if the room is occupied/not-occupied without having to pan the scope around.
"If we fought in Iraq like we did in WWII when we occupied Germany we wouldn't have these problems of insurgency. Back then if someone exploded a car bomb or shot our soldiers, we just pulled out of the city, shelled it for 24 hours(all of it).... By making it a living hell for everyone, if the enemy attacks our soldiers, then the people stop hiding these insurgents or supporting them."
Oh dear.
I guess we have to blame your teachers for this, "Sir Foxx".
In WWII, we Americans didn't destroy whole villages during occupation: the Germans did that.
German civilians put up very little resistance prior to Germany's surrender, and no real resistance after surrender. No car bombs (indeed, car bombs are really a more recent invention), little or no shooting of American occupiers.
Now, the Nazi Germans did carry out reprisals against civilians in occupied countries. Don't believe me: look up Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glane and educate yourself.
When I was growing up (I'm guessing I'm a bit older than you), Americans took some pride in being the "good guys", pride in not being like the Nazis or the Soviets. We used to be proud that the rest of the world looked to America as an example of a free democracy. That was before we decided to export "democracy" by means of torture and secret prisons and Big Brother-ish spying.
That was before we became mirror images of the totalitarian regimes we had been so proud to fight against.
Like I said, I'm probably bit older than you, "Sir Foxx", and in some way, I guess, luckier, even though I didn't grow up with a computer in the house, much less a PSP or an iPod in my pocket. But I did grow up in an America that had principles. In an America that stood against torture and secret prisons and warrantless searches and unchecked government power. In an America that really was, in some true way, "the land of the free and the home of the brave".
America is no longer the "land of the free" and it's certainly not the "home of the brave". Again, I don't blame you "Sir Foxx", anymore than a Roman of the Republic would have blamed a child who grew up under Caesars for thinking Augustus really was a god.
But trust me, Americans used to be brave. Not your sort of brave, which is just the bravado of the scared bully, of the totalitarian state: "we can bomb you, we can make your life a living hell, unless you do what we say".
Americans used to be brave in that we were willing to die for the liberties our Founding Fathers risked their lives to give us. We were willing to fight and die to protect the right of any knucklehead to criticise the President, because we knew that sometimes the President is a knucklehead.
We used to be brave enough to risk getting on a train or plane without being treated like convicts or slaves or cattle, without being searched by blandly rude security guards.
We used to be brave enough to "Live Free or Die", to say "Give me Liberty or give me Death". Now we Americans piss our pants and beg to put up with any indignity, and loss of freedom, for a little security.
Nineteen hijackers didn't do this to us. Saddam didn't do this to us. Osama didn't do this to us. Yes, one terrible day Osama and his hijackers killed a bunch of Americans and shocked us all.
But it wasn't Osama who surrendered our liberty and our principles and our decency. We've done that all on our own.
Again, it's not your fault, "Sir Foxx". I blame your teachers. They never taught you what it really means to be an American.
Yeah, we can make Iraq, in your words "a living hell for everyone". And we're busy doing it right here at home too.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
then you can't make babies anymore.
His father certainly did. Here's a quote George H. W. Bush, from back in 1991:
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. [...] Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.