The Advantages Of Utilizing Magnecraft Socket Relays

The point when working with electric associations, you might as well just utilize legitimate mark wiring and peripherals on the grounds that it should meet a certain quality and wellbeing measure that typical sub standard ones can't. There is a considerable measure of capital cost when you are arranging the electronic circuiting of a spot, be it a totally new station or another extension that you are arranging. Attachment transfers are significant in this respect and have far reaching utilization. Not just do they serve the motivation behind upholding numerous associations at the same time, yet it is normally the most strong and viable in this respect. So it is extremely paramount that you put resources into something like the Magnecraft attachment transfers which will give you best worth for cash.

All the attachment transfers of this mark are precisely planned by experts to verify that the execution is dependably beat class. The following best thing is presumably the sort of tender loving care that goes into making of a standard Magnecraft attachment hand-off. Flawlessness in each perspective is the last word. Co-identified attachments intended to give the best association with your electrical circuiting these transfer style attachments is best for your foundation. Stacked with characteristics that makes establishment and utilize to a great degree simple, Magnecraft transfers are effectively the best pick that you can make.

Google Cloud Storage gives clients server-side encryption

Google Cloud Storage now immediately encrypts all information before it is composed to plate, at no extra charge. There is no setup or arrangement needed, no compelling reason to change the way you gain entrance to the administration and no noticeable execution affect.

The information is immediately and transparently decrypted when perused by an approved client.
"Assuming that you require encryption for your information, this purpose liberates you from the bug and danger of administering your own particular encryption and decryption keys," composed Dave Barth, item director in a blog entry. "We supervise the cryptographic keys for your benefit utilizing the same solidified key administration frameworks that Google utilizes for our own particular encrypted information, incorporating strict key access controls and reviewing."

Every Cloud Storage object's information and metadata is encrypted with an interesting key under the 128-cycle Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128), and the for every item key itself is encrypted with an exceptional key connected with the article holder. These keys are moreover encrypted by one of a consistently pivoted set of expert keys. However, if clients want to supervise their own particular keys then they can even now encrypt information preceding thinking of it to Cloud Storage.

Server-side encryption is as of now dynamic for all new information kept in touch with Cloud Storage, if for making new objects or overwriting existing questions. More advanced in years items will be moved and encrypted in the nearing months.

This characteristic adds to the default encryption usefulness recently gave by Persistent Disks and Scratch Disks that accompany Google Compute Engine. Together, this implies that all information kept in touch with unstructured space on the Google Cloud Platform is currently encrypted immediately, with no extra exertion needed by visionaries.

"We're upbeat to be taking this venture in our dedication to develop the security abilities of our stage," Barth commercial

There Are Quite A Few Choices Of Music Formats

Provided that scanning for the best organization to listen to your music, it is all about singular inclination to the extent that what is well-known. While it appeared for a spell that vinyl was dead and gone, there was a fragment of the listening populace that determined it in no way truly went away. Also now at generally music store and numerous puts on the web, you can find vinyl collections, even new launches.

However for the lion's share of individuals, computerized is the way they have decided to go. Computerized music holds leeway over each other arrangement and will constantly have this point of interest. The point of interest is comfort. There is simply nothing else as compact and helpful as advanced music. No other organization gives you a chance to actually store the sum of your music on one mechanism that fits in your pocket. Also it is significantly more helpful when you need to obtain the music.

It just takes a couple of seconds to download a melody over Wi-Fi or on your desktop, and with the velocities of 3g and 4g; you can even download them with your telephone assuming that you need. Nonetheless that technique does take a spot more drawn out and utilizes bunches of your information. In any case the music sounds incredible and you can play your computerized music through your workstation, keen cell or Mp3 mechanism and even connect it to your auto or at home. Numerous new autos gave you a chance to listen to your music through the autos stereo utilizing Bluetooth which is about the most advantageous way you can consider.

New Soul Machine Neuroporphic Computing

ANALOGIES change. When, it was elegant to portray the cerebrum as being like the water driven frameworks utilized to make satisfying wellsprings for seventeenth century blue-bloods' enclosures. As innovation proceeded onward, first the broadcast system then after that the phone trade turned into the similitude of decision. Right away it is the turn of the machine. Be that as it may however the cerebrum as workstation may be, without a doubt, just an allegory, one gathering of researchers might want to stand that analogy on its head. Rather than considering brains being like Pcs, they wish to make workstations increasingly like brains. Along these lines, they accept, mankind will wind up not just with an improved comprehension of how the mind lives up to expectations, additionally with better, more intelligent workstations.

These visionaries depict themselves as neuromorphic designers. Their objective, as per Karlheinz Meier, a physicist at the University of Heidelberg who is one of their pioneers, is to plan a PC that has some—and ideally the sum of three aspects that brains have and Pcs don't. These are: low force utilization (human brains use around the range of 20 watts, although the supercomputers presently used to attempt to mimic them require megawatts); deficiency tolerance (losing only one transistor can wreck a microchip, yet brains lose neurons constantly); and an absence of need to be customized (brains study and change spontaneously as they connect with the planet, rather than accompanying the settled ways and extensions of a decided beforehand calculation).

The New Intel's 'Bay Trail' Atom chip could smudge the line between Pcs, tablets

Desktops, note pads, tablets: Just five years prior, those three expressions described three unique classes of items. However now purchasers tend to be asked to pick around holding nothing back-ones, two-in-ones, convertibles, smaller than expected tablets, ultraportables, and phablets. With Intel's new "Bay Trail" Atom chip, due this fall, you can anticipate that the business will expand considerably more.

Furthermore that is a wonderful thing.

For the greater part of the different sorts of processing mechanisms we may buy, every is described by its working framework. We purchase a Windows machine, an Android unit, or an ipad.

Anyhow that may soon change. Intel's Bay Trail helps both Windows and Android, and equipment makers can incorporate machines that boot with either OS—or both. Their OS executions regardless, framework costs could drop as low as $150, Intel executives have asserted.

How to Encrypt Your Files

Investigative American presents Tech Talker by Quick & Dirty Tips. Deductive American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan associations.
In a week ago scene, I headed over how to send and get vast documents over the web. When its all said and done of the scene, I specified that there are dependably some security concerns when sending particular records over the web that you don't need made accessible for the general open. Restricted to defend against this security concern is to enable encryption.
What Is Encryption?
Be that as it may before we lose trace of what's most important, wouldn't it be great if we could investigate what encryption is and how it lives up to expectations. Envision you are set to send a postcard via the post office. You head off to your closest post box and drop the postcard into the opening. What large portions of us disregard is that any individual who handles the postcard on the best approach to its terminus can read precisely what you composed. This is comparable to what happens when your information is sent over an unsecure association any individual who captures the message can read it.
This likely wouldn't be perfect assuming that you were sending something of a particular nature, right? That is the place encryption steps in! Encryption fundamentally scrambles your information, or thus your postcard, to make it mixed up to any other individual unless they know the uncommon nexus or secret key to open it up.
Encryption is utilized everywhere on the web for things, for example web saving money, secure index imparting, and virtually any site that requires a secret key.

SMB Data Centers: Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over!

"Manufacture lights, the gathering's over. They say that all exceptional things must close." Lyrics from Willie Nelson's melody may be a suitable tune to sing when portraying what's to come for the server farm in minor and medium organizations.
Mist processing offers the minor and medium-estimated business client an approach to turn on requisitions for their staff and clients rapidly and proficiently. No more drawn out do more diminutive conglomerations need to use quite required capital to give planet class IT benefits. What's more, clients now have brilliant associations to browse when obtaining their mist processing administrations.

Aberdeen's later report "IBM Buys Softlayer: Cloud Computing Now Mainstream" surveys IBM's later securing of Softlayer, a fog processing association. The report additionally uncovers fog utilization patterns, top mist results , profits and the forces driving conglomerations to the fog.
Aberdeen's March 2013 review, Usage of the Public Cloud, discovered that 85% of all respondents utilization or want to utilize the people fog. Programming as an administration (Saas) is the heading fog engineering empowered by finish clients. Provisions, for example CRM, web and ecommerce are a regular fit for Saas innovation. Base as an administration (Iaas) is an additional mist engineering that is picking up force and is one of the administrations that Softlayer offers. Iaas permits conglomerations to lease register force and space, in place of acquiring equipment and programming. This gives the client more stupendous adaptability and fundamentally diminishes the time to convey new provisions to clients at less take. Lessened capital and overhead expenses were refered to as top profits from fog drives.
While the greater part of these profits are incredible for the IT client, by what means will this impact customary heading, on-reason, IT foundation conglomerations like IBM, HP, Dell and Cisco. Decreased expenses for the close client methods diminished income for these associations. What will these conglomerations look like in 10 years is difficult to envision, however it is ensured they will be much distinctive.
Assuming that you are a minor or medium-measured business and are considering overhauling or opening another server farm, don't trouble. Only close out the lights, unwind and arrive at for the mists!

Distinctions on Cybertheft Complicate China Talks

WASHINGTON —Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. opened twelve-month key chats with senior Chinese guides here on Wednesday by rehashing the United States' charge that the electronic robbery of American scholarly property could undermine the relationship between the planet's two biggest economies.
Furthermore to not a single person shock, the Chinese had a response primed: that the distribution of mystery reports indicating the degree of American observation of Chinese colleges and different organizations undercuts the Obama management's case.
That grating, American authorities surrendered in private, underscores how challenging it will be for the United States to make advance on what President Obama and his top associates have said is currently a focal issue between two nations whose economies are interlaced and whose militaries are in rivalry.

Google's Penguin 2.0 Algorithm

In April 2012, Google discharged one of its most amazing calculation updates to date. Penguin 1.0 focused on locales that offered flawed connection profiles, level quality backlinks, and grapple message that was too essential word rich or overly improved for a solitary term. As an aftereffect of the clearing and noteworthy effects of Penguin 1.0, expectation encompassed the arrival of Penguin 2.0, which formally took off May 22.

While a considerable measure of the specifics of the upgrade are even now shaking out, there's an extraordinary arrangement of qualified information as of recently rising. Here's a more intensive take a gander at what we know, how Penguin 2.0 is influencing locales, and what to do if your site has been swayed.

Instructions to Get Backlinks with Hubpages

We continue being advised that we have to get however many backlinks from the same number sources as would be prudent. The issue is that its exceptionally simple to spread ourselves too flimsy and we miss an astounding few vital items.
A great deal of individuals utilize Hubpages as a variety on Ezinearticles.com the issue is that its NOT. You can't essentially compose an article, include a couple of connections and anticipate that will be OK. Hubpages is a social site yet unlike Squidoo, if your profile score dips beneath a certain number, all cordial connections have the "no take after" tag joined to it.

Customer Mastercard information may be emitted

The Investment examination supplier said the break occurred around April 3.

The interruption influenced in the ballpark of 2,300 clients whose Visa informative content was saved in the various Document Research framework, once in the past regarded as 10-K Wizard. An extra 182,000 customers who had message addresses and client produced passwords in the framework may have been influenced, the association said in an indexing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Researches said it close down old servers and moved information to a more secure framework prior not long from now in a move random to the occurrence. It keeps up it has taken supplemental steps to forestall unapproved access to its frameworks to secure customer qualified data. The association said it is additionally working with law implementation authorities and Mastercard associations, and examining the occurrence on its own.

It is putting forth 12 months of free personality security to customers whose charge cards might have been bargained.

"As of right now, we don't have any proof to recommend that any of the informative content that was bargained has been abused," the association said in the recording. It doesn't accept any possible items were influenced.

Super-itemized Cgi human skin could at long last cross the uncanny valley, carry reasonable faces to recreations and films

Workstation engineering has become always propelled in later decades, however we arrived at an impasse a while back where innovation impacted science in a sudden way. Attempting to make computerized forms of human faces ordinarily brought about something strange or absolute bothering. The sensation, regarded as the uncanny valley, is even now vexing for the film and diversion commercial ventures. Nonetheless, a group headed by Abhijeet Ghosh and Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California (Usc) has advanced a strategy to make manufactured appearances considerably more true, maybe intersection the uncanny valley. It creates responses were just shallow.


The human mind is decisively tuned to comprehend what a face should look like. These unobtrusive signals are profoundly instilled and when we find them missing, the reaction is frequently instinctively negative. It might be as basic as muscles around the eyes getting strangely, or the way lips part throughout discourse. Science is getting closer to nailing down the mechanical methods, however the Usc group is handling the most testing perspective skin.

Toyota and Tesla Join Forces to Build Electric Cars Read more: Toyota and Tesla Electric Cars - Partnership Between Toyota and Tesla - Popular Mechanics

Yesterday, Tesla and Toyota announced a partnership to build electric cars. At a press conference attended by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Toyota president Akio Toyoda and Tesla chief Elon Musk, Toyota announced that it had invested $50 million in Tesla in return for common stock. Also, the two companies plan to share technology, EV research and production techniques.
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Tesla, which received a nearly half-billion-dollar loan from the federal government last year, revealed that it had purchased the Nummi assembly plant in Fremont, Calif. Nummi http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/industry/4350856?click=main_sr is where Toyota and General Motors collaborated to build the Toyota Corolla and the Pontiac Vibe, among other vehicles. The plant recently closed.

Tesla has sold about 1000 of its $100,000-plus electric Roadster. The company expects to produce its next car, the electric model S, in Nummi next year. The Model S is an electric sedan, with a base price closer to around $50,000. It remains to be seen if Tesla can actually deliver the new car at that price, but access to Toyota’s lean production methods will certainly help.

Read more: Toyota and Tesla Electric Cars - Partnership Between Toyota and Tesla - Popular Mechanics

The Ultrahot Torch That Slices Through Steel

The Metal Vapor Torch might be the next best thing to a lightsaber: a belt tool that can generate a blade of flame that slices through a half-inch steel bar in less than a second.

Energetic Materials & Products, Inc. of Round Rock, Texas designed the MVT as a tactical breaching tool for police and others who need to cut through bolts, chains, and padlocks quickly. By using reactive material technology with solid fuel and an oxidizer, the MVT is cheaper, lighter, and more compact than a traditional oxy–acetylene torch.
Download Movies
At the heart of the MVT is a reaction between copper oxide and precisely graded particles of magnesium and aluminum; consistent particle size is crucial to ensure that the torch burns at the desired temperature. The result is a jet of flame with a temperature over 2700 C (nearly 5000 F) and a speed of over 2000 meters (more than a mile) per second. A rectangular carbon fiber nozzle shapes the jet into a flat blade for cutting. The jet has higher energy density than a gas flame; the cutting action is produced by a combination of heat and abrasion by particles of metal oxide.

The MVT is the size of a tactical flashlight and is quiet in operation. The fuel comes in small cartridges which burn for a couple of seconds; a fresh cartridge can be loaded rapidly so the operator can cut through several obstacles in quick succession, and the torch handle can be reloaded and used as many times as needed. The solid fuel is highly resistant to shock and is safe at temperatures up to 550 C (1022 F).



Dennis Wilson, the CEO of EMPI, says that the torch will be priced at around $135, with the intent that it be affordable enough to be supplied to every member of a police team. Cartridges will be about $35 each. The first preproduction version of the MVT will ship later this year, and feedback from users will help shape the final production model, Wilson says.

EMPI has also developed other versions of the MVT. For instance, the design can be scaled up, and Wilson has tested larger versions capable of cutting through inch-thick steel. The MVT could be equipped with fuel cartridges that incorporate abrasive additives for cutting through fiberglass. An alternative round nozzle could punch holes rather than cutting straight lines.

The MVT—which is a spinoff from work done by the U.S. Air Force—would be useful for first responders who need to cut through rebar to rescue accident victims. It works as well underwater as it does in air, making it suitable for divers, and it can be triggered remotely, or used by a robot, to swiftly disarm IEDs without setting them off.

Criminals could also easily misuse it—which is why Wilson says the MVT will be supplied to approved customers only.

Iran’s Naval Mines: The IED of the Seas Read more: Iran’s Naval Mines: The IED of the Seas - Popular Mechanics

Any ship can be a minesweeper—once. So goes the gallows humor referring to the threat that naval mines pose to ships.

But that sardonic phrase underlies a more pressing reality: In recent months, the United States and other countries have grown increasingly concerned about Iran’s ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, essentially cutting off a critical international waterway. Iran’s leadership has already threatened to shut down the international shipping route, while also crowing about its growing fleet of mini submarines that are difficult to detect and can be used to lay mines.
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The problem with mines at sea, as with roadside bombs on land, is that they can be fairly easy to build but difficult to detect and clear. "You take an existing bomb and fit it with target detection, and voila! your bomb is now a mine," says Scott Truver, a naval consultant who has written extensively on mine warfare.

Like their land-based counterparts, even crude mines can be costly and deadly. Mine warfare experts like to cite the case of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a frigate that struck an Iranian-laid mine in 1988. The warship didn’t sink, but the mine, based on a Russian model from 1908, caused nearly $100 million in damage.

In fact, some naval officials are already talking about mines as the next improvised explosive device threat. "We’ve been there before, we just called it an IED," Rear Adm. Frank Morneau, deputy director for Expeditionary Warfare Division, told an audience at a naval conference earlier this year.

The Navy maintains a "triad" of capabilities to battle mines, which includes ships, aircraft, and divers. It also employs dolphins, whose echolation—the biological equivalent of sonar—is still one the most effective ways for finding and clearing certain mines. Like bomb dogs on land, the dolphins are actually sent to locate the mines (the marine mammals can also place a charge on the mines to destroy it). The push now, though, is to develop unmanned systems—drones in the sea—that can hunt down and neutralize the mines while keeping humans away from the threat.

The Navy recently unveiled a model of Knifefish, an unmanned submarine that would be used to hunt mines, but it won’t be ready for use until at least 2015. The Navy has reportedly purchased dozens of SeaFox drones to target Iran’s underwater mines. In another effort, AAI, a business unit of Textron, is hoping to sell the U.S. Navy its own unmanned surface ship that uses a command and control system based on the Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle, which has been used extensively by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company says it’s already demonstrated mine detection capabilities and is hoping to win U.S. navy business.

But for any immediate threat, the Navy will have to rely on its existing technology to clear mines, and that’s probably why it’s hoping that politics—rather than technology—will ultimately stave off the mine threat. Truver says that Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz would be regarded as act of war and would likely cause immediate retaliation. "They would not put many weapons in the water," he says—maybe a handful before the United States and other countries would likely intervene.

Perhaps to emphasize that point the U.S. Navy last month took part in a military exercise in the Persian Gulf that involved over 30 other nations’ naval forces. Though officially the mine clearing exercise was not aimed at Iran, it was intended to send a strong signal to the country’s leadership.

Retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, who was involved for many years in mine warfare, says that the exercise clearly sent a signal to Iran that the international community was ready to act together but added that he still hopes the next exercise will focus more on the actual clearing of mines. "The emphasis [this time] was not on hunting or clearing mines," says O’Donnell, who attended the exercise. "The emphasis was on resolve and communication."

Read more: Iran’s Naval Mines: The IED of the Seas - Popular Mechanics

Aircraft Navigation Technology

Early pilots looked out of their open cockpits for roads, rail lines, and airports to find their way in daytime flight. Pilots watched the horizon to make sure they were flying with the aircraft's nose and wings in the proper position relative to the ground, called attitude. As airmail pilots began flying at night and in all kinds of weather in the early 1920s, new equipment helped pilots navigate and maintain aircraft attitude when they could not see the ground. Navigation aids were developed for use inside the aircraft and also to guide the pilots from the ground.
Simple equipment to help pilots maintain attitude was introduced during the 1920s. These devices included such ideas as a bubble of liquid to help keep wings level and a device that measured pressure at different heights, called an altimeter, that told a pilot his altitude above ground level. A simple magnetic compass for direction was installed either in the cockpit panel or held in the pilot's hand.

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  In 1929, Lawrence Sperry and his Gyroscope Company introduced important new technology—the Artificial Horizon—that operated on gyroscopic principles. With its sensitive attachments, Sperry's device could detect forces that upset the gyroscope's stable spin, then would activate the aircraft controls to maintain proper attitude while flying when visible flight was not possible.
In the 1930s, new mechanical aids emerged, some based on Sperry's gyroscope and others based on the rush of air through intakes under the wing or the aircraft belly to measure speed and altitude. Equipment outside the aircraft measured the velocity of the air as it entered one intake and exited another. The results were fed to the pilot to help him determine the aircraft's attitude and position.
Navigation information was displayed on a group of instruments called the basic or primary six, which included the attitude indicator, a vertical speed indicator showing the rate of climb and descent, airspeed indicator, turn-and-bank coordinator, a heading indicator showing the magnetic compass course, and the altimeter. These instruments are still used.
Refined versions of Sperry's invention appear in 2001 as the Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the Inertial Guidance System (IGS). These systems measure changes in the aircraft's location and attitude that have taken place since the aircraft left the ground. These new devices include an accelerometer to detect changes in airspeed as well as attitude. By determining the precise latitude and longitude before flight, then tracking every change in location, the INS or IGS tells the pilot where he has flown.
Radio navigation aids were developed around the same time as mechanical aids. In 1926, successful two-way radio air-to-ground communication began, and the first transmitter/receiver went into mass production in 1928. Teletype machines were installed so that all stations along an air route could transmit weather conditions to the pilot. Eventually the pilot used these stations to indicate the plane's location.
The earliest radio navigation aid was the four-course radio range, which began in 1929. Four towers set in a square transmitted the letters A and N in Morse code. A pilot flying along one of the four beams toward the square would hear only an A or N in the dashes and dots of the code. The dashes and dots grew louder or more faint as he flew, depending if he was flying toward or away from one of the corners. Turning right or left, he would soon hear a different letter being transmitted, telling him which quadrant he had entered.
The beams flared out, so that at certain points they overlapped. Where the A or N signals meshed, the Morse code dashes and dots sounded a steady hum, painting an audio roadway for the pilot. At least 90 such stations were in place by 1933, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) apart along the 18,000-mile (28,968-kilometer) system of lighted towers and rotating beacons. Unfortunately, mountains, mineral deposits, railroad tracks, and even the atmospheric disturbance of the setting sun could distort the signals.
The first radio-equipped airport control tower was built in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1930, with a range of 15 miles (24 kilometers). By 1935, about 20 more towers had been erected. Based on pilot radio reports, a controller would follow each plane with written notes on a position map. The controller would clear an aircraft for takeoff or landing, but the pilot still could decide on the best path for himself.
Until World War II, radio navigation relied on low frequencies similar to those of an AM radio. Devices such as the automatic direction finder and the non-directional beacon, like the 1920s system before them, used Morse code, and the detection of weaker to stronger volume let a pilot know if he was on course. After the war, higher frequency transmitters, called the very high frequency omni-directional radio range or VOR, further refined the early concept of allowing pilots to fly inbound or outbound along a certain quadrant on a line called a radial. These transmitter locations, their frequencies and identifying Morse codes are all printed on navigation charts. The various radio-based systems are sufficient for navigating between airports but are called non-precision aids because they are not accurate enough and do not provide enough information to allow a pilot to land.
Before World War II, the Civil Aeronautics Administration relied on pilots to radio their position relative to known navigation landmarks to keep the aircraft safely separated. During the war, radio detection and ranging (RADAR) was tested. Radar's primary intent was, and still is, to keep airplanes separated, not to guide them to a specific point.
In 1956, a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation with 64 passengers and six crew and a United Airlines DC-7 with 53 passengers and five crew collided over the Grand Canyon, killing all 128 people. The incident led to new federal funding for rapid development of radar, air traffic control procedures, and technologies for more precise navigation. The crash also led to an aviation agency reorganization that included creation of the Federal Aviation Agency.
Today's aircraft are tracked as computer-generated icons wandering across radar display screens, with their positions, altitude, and airspeed updated every few seconds. Pilots and controllers communicate using both voice and data transmitting radios, with controllers relying on radar tracking to keep aircraft on course. Today, cockpit navigation information is increasingly displayed on a monitor, but the position of information and its format are nearly identical to the basic six instruments of early and simpler aircraft.
New technologies, though, have led to a debate as to whether the federal government, using fixed electronic stations, or the pilots should control navigation like in the earliest days. The global positioning system (GPS) is one technology that allows pilots to accurately determine their position anywhere on the Earth within seconds, raising the question whether they need any help from the ground.
GPS is becoming the primary means of navigation worldwide. The system is based on satellites in a continuous grid surrounding the Earth, each equipped with an atomic clock set to Greenwich, England, called ZULU time. The GPS units in the aircraft, or even in a pilot's hand, find the nearest two satellite signals in a process called acquisition. The time it takes for the signals to travel creates a precise triangle between the two satellites and the aircraft, telling the pilot his latitude and longitude to within one meter or a little more than one yard. In coming years, this system will be made even more precise using a GPS ground unit at runway ends.
Despite these advances, pilots can still crash because they get lost or lose track of hazards at night or in bad weather. On December 29, 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act came into effect. It requires most civilian aircraft to carry an emergency locater transmitter (ELT). The ELT becomes active when a pilot tunes to an emergency radio frequency or activates automatically when the aircraft exceeds a certain force in landing, called the g-force, during a crash. This form of navigation aid, which transmits signals to satellites overhead, saves lives of injured pilots and crew who are unable to call for help themselves.
--Roger Mola
Selected Bibliography and Further Reading


Clausing, Donald J. Aviator's Guide to Navigation. Blue Ridge Summit, Penn.: Tab Books, 1992.
Illman, Paul E. The Pilot's Air Traffic Control Handbook. Blue Ridge Summit, Penn.: Tab Books, 1993.
Kershner, William K. The Student Pilot's Flight Manual. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1993.
Spence, Charles F. Aeronautical Information Manual/Federal Aviation Regulations. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.
U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration. Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. AC 61-23C. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997.
On-Line References:
Airports Council International. http://www.airports.org

Educational Organization	Standard Designation (where applicable)	Content of Standard
International Technology Education Association	Standard 4	Students will develop an understanding of the social and economic effects of society.
International Technology Education Association	Standard 10	Students will develop an understanding of the role of experimentation and research and development in problem solving.

Turn Your Tablet Into a Microscope

Microscope photography used to be a high-priced craft—and for high magnifications it still is. Hall Davidson, a former math teacher who works for Discovery Education, has come up with an easy project that uses an iPad or mobile-phone camera to create a 45x- or 60x-magnification device. That's ideal for looking at details of plant and insect anatomies or at the surface of anything from rocks to computer chips. "I went to the hardware store and bought every possible thing to attach it," Davidson says. Eventually, he settled on a rubber grommet and a jeweler's mini microscope glued to an iPad. We've modified the plan so that the hardware attaches to a case instead—because not everyone wants to mess with a $500 device. Commercial versions of this project are coming on the market, but ours is less expensive and more versatile.

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SUPPLIES

A. Case: Look for a thin, hard case for your device. IPad cases are available online for as little as $5.

B. Half-inch rubber grommet: available in hardware stores for under $1.

C. Jeweler's mini microscope: Also known as a currency microscope, this tool is commonly used to detect imperfections in jewelry. Look for a unit that incorporates an LED; the cheapest ones cost around $4.

D. Superglue

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Before gluing, center the grommet on the case over the camera lens opening.

2. Got the position right? Apply glue to half the grommet and attach it. Assuming you're using an iPad, the glued part of the grommet should be opposite the curved edge of the device. (The grommet will not be completely flush.)

3. Once the glue dries, insert the eyepiece into the grommet.

4. Open the camera app and turn on the scope's LED to start exploring the microverse.

Read more: Turn Your Tablet Into a Microscope - Popular Mechanics

The Ultrahot Torch That Slices Through Steel

The Metal Vapor Torch might be the next best thing to a lightsaber: a belt tool that can generate a blade of flame that slices through a half-inch steel bar in less than a second.

Energetic Materials & Products, Inc. of Round Rock, Texas designed the MVT as a tactical breaching tool for police and others who need to cut through bolts, chains, and padlocks quickly. By using reactive material technology with solid fuel and an oxidizer, the MVT is cheaper, lighter, and more compact than a traditional oxy–acetylene torch.
Download LINKS
At the heart of the MVT is a reaction between copper oxide and precisely graded particles of magnesium and aluminum; consistent particle size is crucial to ensure that the torch burns at the desired temperature. The result is a jet of flame with a temperature over 2700 C (nearly 5000 F) and a speed of over 2000 meters (more than a mile) per second. A rectangular carbon fiber nozzle shapes the jet into a flat blade for cutting. The jet has higher energy density than a gas flame; the cutting action is produced by a combination of heat and abrasion by particles of metal oxide.

The MVT is the size of a tactical flashlight and is quiet in operation. The fuel comes in small cartridges which burn for a couple of seconds; a fresh cartridge can be loaded rapidly so the operator can cut through several obstacles in quick succession, and the torch handle can be reloaded and used as many times as needed. The solid fuel is highly resistant to shock and is safe at temperatures up to 550 C (1022 F).



Dennis Wilson, the CEO of EMPI, says that the torch will be priced at around $135, with the intent that it be affordable enough to be supplied to every member of a police team. Cartridges will be about $35 each. The first preproduction version of the MVT will ship later this year, and feedback from users will help shape the final production model, Wilson says.

EMPI has also developed other versions of the MVT. For instance, the design can be scaled up, and Wilson has tested larger versions capable of cutting through inch-thick steel. The MVT could be equipped with fuel cartridges that incorporate abrasive additives for cutting through fiberglass. An alternative round nozzle could punch holes rather than cutting straight lines.

The MVT—which is a spinoff from work done by the U.S. Air Force—would be useful for first responders who need to cut through rebar to rescue accident victims. It works as well underwater as it does in air, making it suitable for divers, and it can be triggered remotely, or used by a robot, to swiftly disarm IEDs without setting them off.

Criminals could also easily misuse it—which is why Wilson says the MVT will be supplied to approved customers only.

4 New 'Blimp' Designs Bring Return of the Airship Read more: 4 New 'Blimp' Designs Bring Return of the Airship - Popular Mechanics

Always on the verge of a seeming comeback, airships are back in the spotlight, touting new technologies. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency recently announced funding for an innovative, ballast-free airship technology created by Aeros Aeronautical Systems, based outside Los Angeles. The Aeroscraft ML866's potentially revolutionary Control of Static Heaviness system compresses and decompresses helium in the 210-ft.-long envelope, changing this proposed sky yacht's buoyancy during takeoff and landings, Aeros says. It hopes to end the program with a test flight demonstrating the system. Other companies are planning their own first flights within the next few years. Each has a design that it promises will launch a new era of lighter-than-air transportation.

HAA

Description: To blanket hundreds of miles with high-resolution radar, the 450-ft.-long, unmanned High Altitude Airship will use old-fashioned lifting gas to ascend. A top-mounted solar array may enable this massive radar platform to stay aloft for up to a month.
Designer: Lockheed Martin
Operational Alt.: Up to 60,000 ft.
Speed: 28 mph (cruising)
Progress: The airship's radar system is still being developed, but Lockheed is scheduled to fly a full-size prototype of the ship by the end of 2009. The Missile Defense Agency is a potential user.
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SA-60

Description: This unmanned, 62-ft.-dia. diesel/electric hybrid broke the world airship altitude record in 2003, reaching 20,000 ft. Designed for scouting and surveillance, the SA-60 can fly autonomously. Its round design gives it more low-speed maneuverability.
Designer: Techsphere Systems International
Operational Alt.: Up to 10,000 ft.
Speed: 35 mph (cruising)
Progress: With no major deals announced, Techsphere is putting its best blimp forward, with a higher-altitude followup to the SA-60--the SA-68--scheduled to fly this year.

Skycat-20

Description: The cargo-hauling SkyCat-20 features retractable hover-cushion engines that allow for vertical takeoffs and landings and can also be reversed, eliminating the need for a ground crew or handling equipment. Variants could include firefighting blimps.
Designer: World Skycat
Operational Alt.: Up to 10,000 ft.
Speed: 97 mph (maximum)
Progress: World SkyCat originally planned a first flight for 2002. The updated schedule calls for a SkyCat-20 world tour by the end of this year, and production models in early 2009

Are Backyard Hot-Air Blimps the Future of Low-and-Slow Aviation?

A heap of ripstop nylon, damp with dew, stretches 132 ft. across a farmer's hayfield near Amherst in western Massachusetts. The predawn air is humid, still and cool--"Perfect weather for this kind of thing," says one of the volunteers bustling around the lumpy shape. A large fan rips to life, drowning out the twittering of the birds and frogs, and the nylon gradually leavens, growing into a blob 70 ft. high. Experimental blimp builder and pilot Mike Kuehlmuss, standing in a makeshift cockpit of welded steel tubing, steps on a switch that shoots a jet of burning gas upward with a roar. 

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With aching slowness, the watermelon-shaped envelope lifts off the ground, its jaunty black and yellow stripes and red tail fins bringing to mind a carnival jester. Nearby, a bearded, heavyset man in sunglasses and a polo shirt looks on anxiously. Dan Nachbar, owner of the blimp, splits piloting duties with Kuehlmuss; today, he's overseeing the ground crew and fielding questions from the growing crowd of onlookers. 

Crew members hold the cockpit steady as Kuehlmuss straps himself into a bucket seat, salvaged from an old Toyota Corolla. He checks the instruments fastened to the frame in front of him: envelope temperature, fuel levels, compass heading, engine rpm. He triggers a blast of hot gas with the flick of a switch, then checks the view of the rear-mounted propeller, provided by a video camera designed for the back bumper of an RV. The burners ignite, and the cockpit levitates off the ground. At this point the craft is behaving like a conventional--if oddly proportioned--hot-air balloon. But then the 24-hp engine sputters into action and, with all the stateliness and grace of a passing cloud, the huge ship slowly rises and slides away into the sky. The Skyacht--the first of what its builders hope could be an entire fleet of recreational blimps--is on the prowl. 

The Skyacht's steerable 24-hp engine gives the blimp precise maneuverability. Designers hope to swap in a larger engine that could propel the airship as fast as 20 mph.

There is a new breed of recreational airship taking flight on the fringes of aviation. These blimps are intended for fun, not transport. The key innovation: substituting hot air for helium or hydrogen as a lifting gas. Hydrogen, the lightest element, is dangerously combustible. Helium, though inert, is expensive. If an airship uses hot air, as balloons do, you can just let the air escape at the end of each flight, fold up the envelope and store it. "I want to fix the world of the blimp," Nachbar says. "Here you have a corner of aviation that has been dormant for decades, for generations. What we've come up with is a disruptive technology." 

One hundred miles north up the Connecticut River Valley, one of the airship's earliest and most creative proponents takes a decidedly different--and more laid-back--approach to blimp making than Nachbar and Kuehlmuss. In the 1970s, Brian Boland, 59, a lanky, bearded tinkerer, became one of the first in a new generation of hot-air-balloon enthusiasts and since then has racked up nearly 9000 hours in airships and balloons. Boland has made a hobby of designing hot-air blimps, and over the years he has created seven different models. 

On an early summer morning, Boland inflates his latest version at the edge of the public-use grass airstrip he owns and operates in the sleepy village of Post Mills, Vt. As the dawning sun touches the tops of the surrounding trees, a lumpy mass of fabric the size of a school bus trembles on the grass.

First, a fan blows cold air into the unfurled ripstop nylon, causing it to rise like a vast, throbbing amoeba. Then a propane-fueled burner shoots flames into the quivering cavern of fabric, heating the air within. Over the next few minutes, the 76-ft.-long, bright-orange envelope gradually inflates. Because the weight of the basket pulls down the middle of the blimp, it takes on a double-lobed shape. With poetic simplicity, Boland's wife, Louise, has dubbed the craft Lips. Its main virtue is not aesthetic, but practical. The envelope can be rolled up and stored in a bag small enough to load into the back of a compact car.

Boland gives a yank on a 6.5-hp Briggs & Stratton four-stroke engine, and the 36-in. wooden propeller buzzes to life. The noise of the motor does not diminish Boland's experience. "Perceiving the world from above is a quieting sensation. Normally, quiet has to do with hearing," he says. "The other kind of quieting comes from a change in perspective."

With a blast of propane, Lips lifts off the grass and sweeps into the blue sky. When Boland pulls on the inflated rudder, it mushes into a curlicue. This softness is a major shortcoming. Because the burner needs fresh air, the envelope can't be closed and pressurized like a helium blimp. Without this overpressure to give the envelope its shape, Boland's blimp has a baggy, down-on-its-luck appearance. The nose tends to dent at any speed higher than a few miles per hour. The highest wind speed he can operate in, Boland says, is "dead calm." Otherwise, operators risk losing control, possibly crashing into trees, power lines or bodies of water.

Boland enjoys taking his homemade blimps on tours over nearby Lake Fairlee, cruising the shoreline for the smoke of campfires. People are compelled to wave at the low-flying aircraft, and on occasion he sets it down to meet them. "We kind of invited ourselves," he says of one such party-seeking excursion. "The campers wined and dined us. We didn't fly home that time." Boland disavows any hope that hot-air blimping might be the recreational pastime of the future. In fact, in the past 33 years, he's sold only one blimp. "People call up from time to time and ask about buying one, but I end up talking them out of it, because of how poor the performance is," he says. "It would be disastrous to get into it without having a lot of hot-air-balloon-flying experience."

When Nachbar, a former Bell Labs engineer, began his quest to build a quiet, easy-to-fly blimp in 2001, he turned to inventor John Fabel, a neighbor near the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. A specialist in efficient fabric-tension structures, Fabel quickly sketched out a design concept. Next, Nachbar called in Kuehlmuss, who was working at a nearby airfield as a mechanic. The craft made its maiden flight in October 2006. "You feel a connectedness with things when you get above the ground," Nachbar says. "People fly without a destination or purpose, just going for a ride to soothe their souls. Pilots call it air therapy. And this is the ultimate air-therapy machine."

In the course of pursuing his aeronautical ambitions, Nachbar became acquainted with Boland. For years, Boland hosted an annual gathering of the Experimental Balloon and Airship Association. Each May, a small group of inventor-aeronauts from all over the United States converged on Boland's airstrip for a weekend of drinking, barbecuing and airborne carousing. Boland no longer heads the association, and Nachbar says he regrets never having attended one of these events. Though Nachbar credits Boland for teaching him how to sew, he believes his fellow blimp designer isn't seeing the craft's full potential. "He's an artist," he says. "I'm an engineer. That makes a difference in how we approach problems." The two rarely speak, and in private each refers to the other in politely skeptical terms.

In order to overcome hot-air blimps' inherent bagginess issue, Nachbar and his team have devised a system of seven aluminum stiffening ribs that run from the Skyacht's nose to its tail, with a steel cable running along the central axis of the ship. Spreading out the fabric like the ribs of an umbrella, the system adds substantial rigidity without adding much weight. It also allows the blimp to carry a large engine in its tail instead of hanging one inefficiently off the back of the basket, as in Lips.

Mechanic and designer Dan Nachbar takes the Skyacht for a spin. Pinpoint altitude control allows the pilot of a hot-air balloon to skim the grass. (Photograph by Chion Wolf)

As the Skyacht takes its predawn spin over Amherst, its 24-hp utility engine seems inadequate. Where the Skyacht clearly excels is in maneuverability. Thanks to steerable thrust, it can virtually hover in place and rotate on its own axis. The ribs and cables, however, make the Skyacht bulkier and more labor-intensive to assemble than Lips. Nachbar insists that once the design and engine are perfected, the team will move on to refinements such as an easier-to-assemble rigging. Ideally, he says, it should take a crew of three as little as 2 hours to assemble and inflate a Skyacht from a package that can fit in a 20-ft. trailer. After more improvements, he hopes to obtain approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to sell models for about $150,000. 

Boland has no such ambitions. It would be hard to imagine the FAA's reaction to his ballast system. After setting Lips down on newly mown turf, Boland calls over to Louise to add ballast to the nylon bag hanging from the nose of the airship. "Four more beers," he yells. "No, make that six." She runs inside to the fridge and comes out with the requested cold ones. "They're just the right weight," he says. "Plus, you never know when you'll need a beer." With a roar of propane flame and a twist of the throttle, he putters off again into the cool morning air.

Read more: Are Backyard Hot-Air Blimps the Future of Low-and-Slow Aviation? - Popular Mechanics