Electricity almost everywhere, thanks to a hook

The cables that carry electricity reach almost everywhere, to bring power in our homes and our offices. But for those who are engaged in war zones, having access to power lines can often be life saving.

For example, American soldiers deployed in mountainous or desert areas, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, may face serious problems if their supply of electronic devices (laptops, navigation systems and various sensors) should end up with dead batteries and no chance to attach them to an electrical outlet for recharging.

To provide power in such situations, an engineer from an USAF research laboratory in Dayton, Ohio has created RAPS (Remote Auxiliary Power System), a device consisting essentially of a hook, a small blade and a cable.

When you are near a power line that carries electricity from one town to another, or from the power line to a home, those who use the RAPS will only have to place the hook on the cable. The small blade contained in it makes a small cut in the sheath that covers the cable, and a conductive surface on the inside of the hook comes in contact with the bare cable, thus harnessing electricity.

The energy is then sent through another shielded cable, directly to a transformer that converts AC power into DC, using it to recharge the batteries of any device that is connected to it.

The RAPS was also tested for use in bad weather, when rain makes the cables wet, and hooking to a high voltage cable may not sound like a great idea after all. Even in such occasions, the soldiers will be able to supply energy to their tools, to stay in communication with fellow soldiers and to help protect themselves from the dangers of war.

A Bluetooth headset or a bug?

When, some years ago, the first Bluetooth headsets were starting to be used to talk through our mobile phone without removing it from our pocket, those who used them were often looked at in a strange or suspicious way, because they seemed to be talking to themselves in the middle of the road.

Nowadays, the use of this accessory for our phones is so widespread that a person who seemingly talks to no one in the street is no longer a surprise, nor does the headset raise any suspicion, even when it is worn without using to talk on the phone.

By exploiting this attitude towards our mobile phones’ accessories, audio surveillance industry has seen fit to use the Bluetooth headset as an ideal vehicle for discreet collection of confidential information and police intelligence.

In fact, no one would suspect that what looks like a normal headset conceals a bug, which in turn contains a tiny radio transmitter. Thanks to these features, the headset is used as a sort of radio antenna to pick up the conversations around it and transmit them to a listener stationed at a safe distance.
In addition, the Bluetooth bug intercepts transmissions that take place in the same way, so if someone uses the same type of headset to talk on the phone, you can secretly listen to conversations and transmit them remotely.
In this way, the information discussed during an important business meeting may be sent to the outside world, and using the headset in a hidden way (for example by keeping it in the pocket of your jacket, where it will seem to be switched off), no one will realize that they are being intercepted.

For more information on how to use the Bluetooth headset and other devices for audio surveillance, you can visit the Endoacustica website to find the right item that suits your needs in this particular field.

A memory 100,000 times faster than any hard disk

If when you turn on your computer, the waiting time for it to boot seems longer every day, just wait a bit more: only 5 or 7 years, and your patience may be rewarded with computers that will be ready in literally an instant.

In fact, at IBM, in cooperation with the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, researchers are working to develop the so-called Racetrack Memory, a revolutionary data storage system that, in addition to being resistant to shock, will be up to 100,000 times faster than current hard disks, while consuming 300 times less energy.

This is achieved thanks to nanotechnology. The Racetrack Memory stores data in magnetic form, in a manner similar to that of old video cassettes, but instead of a moving magnetic tape, data is saved on the very small, and immovable, nanowires. The information is saved on these wires using the electrons’ spin instead of an electronic charge, and can travel up to several hundreds of meters per second.

According to EPFL, in one of these nanowires it will be possible to save the entire contents of a videotape and read it in less than a second. If you think that on a single chip you can place millions or billions of thin wires, you have an idea of how much data we’re talking about, and of the speed of access to that data.

Thanks to this technology it will be possible (at last!) to turn on your computer instantly, and access data contained in it in an infinitely faster way than with current hard drives. Also, because unlike conventional hard disks, the Racetrack Memory does not have moving parts, you can rewrite it endless times, all with an energy consumption which is several hundred times lower.

There are still many obstacles to overcome before commercialization, but for those used to waiting for their computers to boot, a few years are nothing…

Marital infidelity? The solution is a spy phone

Many of us, at least once in their life, happened to have doubts about the loyalty of their partner, due to strange behavior, suspicious absences, unexpected delays and the like. In many cases, fortunately, a simple talk with your husband or wife may easily chase away these doubts and make you realize that there is nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, this is not always possible, and in many cases, to make sure whether the person you live with has something to hide or not, you have to resort to other methods, less direct, more subtly invasive but certainly able to provide unequivocal results.

For example you can hire a private detective, but this option, apart from being expensive, may not always bring good results, especially if the person being monitored uses a certain level of caution when moving. To achieve rapid and undeniable results and expose infidelity, you should always be next to your spouse, in an invisible way. Impossible… or not?

If you are equipped with the right technology, you can follow a person anywhere, anytime, simply and effectively. For example, by using a spy phone you can monitor their calls, listen to them in real time or recorded, read all SMS messages both incoming and outgoing, collect real-time geographic coordinates, and also listen to the conversations taking place around the phone, while it is not engaged in a phone call or even while it is switched off!

All this thanks to a completely invisible software that, once installed on the phone of your subject, will allow you to take control remotely, without the user being aware of what is going on. You can also set the operating parameters from a distance, through a simple SMS which will be intercepted by the spy software and processed as an instruction operation without being displayed on screen.

To find out how to do all this and more with your Spy Phone, you can visit the Endoacustica website and consult our experts.

A sensor can sniff explosives better than any dog

The recent discovery of explosives on board cargo planes, hidden in shipments originating from Yemen, has once again stressed the need to find a fast and accurate method to detect the presence of professional or homemade bombs on planes and not only.

Currently, this task is entrusted to the highly sensitive sense of smell of dogs, which can detect the presence of drugs or explosives, even if hidden or masked by other odors in the environment. Unfortunately, finding the right dog is not always easy, and the training program can be very expensive.

To provide a reliable and accurate alternative to the nose of a dog, a team of scientists from Tel Aviv University has developed an anti explosive sensor, according to its creators, is more sensitive and more reliable than any sniffer dog.

This sensor is able to detect the presence of several types of explosives, not least TNT, which is currently being searched by using expensive equipment, bulky and which requires a long time and the presence of an expert to provide the results of its job.
With the creation of such a handy tool, with a limited cost and that provides reliable and immediate results, the process of security checks at airports, ports and shipping hubs, for passengers, luggage and goods, would greatly speed up and achieve an improved efficiency, with obvious benefits for safety of flights and of air, land and naval transport.

The device consists of silicon nanowires which are grouped together to form a nanotransistor. Bringing together more than 200 of these sensors, it is therefore possible to analyze and detect the presence of a wide range of explosives and chemicals, even at a distance of several meters, which allows the sensor to be used to analyze multiple elements at the same time, with a zero error margin.