Dragon's Eye News

Northwestern University and BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Mass have demonstrated a technique for encrypting data with a little help from lasers.

The volume and type of sensitive information being transmitted over data networks continues to grow at a remarkable pace," said Prem Kumar, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and co-principal investigator on the project.

Continuity Central reports:

The combined QKD/AlphaEta system has been demonstrated in a nine km link between BBN headquarters and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. The AlphaEta encrypted signal carried OC-3 (155Mb/s) SONET data between the two nodes. A fresh encryption key of about 1 kilobit was repetitively loaded every three seconds. In a separate test, the AlphaEta encrypted signal was looped back multiple times to create an effective 36 km link where more than 300 consecutive key exchanges were demonstrated.

Not only do you have to worry about getting tagged with a laser while speeding but now you might just get a ticket for following too closely if you're using someone in front of you as a shield.

The Oregon Mail Tribune reports that they're testing a new system that will report the speed of a car as well as the distance between it any any car following it.

Dace Cochran, a patrol sergeant with the Jackson County Sheriff's office writes:

Here's what the updated lasers will be able to tell us:

• The speed of the first car.
• The distance from the laser operator to the first car.
• The speed of the second car.
• The distance from the laser operator to the second car.
• The distance between the two cars (front bumper to front bumper).
• The time difference between the two cars.

Once this comes to your state, assuming you aren't in Oregon now, be careful about using other people as ticket shields. Of course, you could always just slow down.

Electronics Weekly reports that Cascade Technologies, based in Stirling Scotland has developed a system capable of detecting explosives in tightly sealed packages, without opening them.

At the lab, we were sent a sample of explosives in a glass phial in an aluminium package, and that package had been through the post, company CEO John Fuller told Electronics Weekly. We could detect the explosives without opening it.

From the company's web site:

One such technique, known as Intra pulse spectroscopy, uses the laser in pulsed mode to facilitate its use over the wide range of environmental conditions typically associated with industrial monitoring. Pulsing the laser for up to a microsecond at a time causes instantaneous localised heating within the device, which results in a large frequency chirp. This chirp is harnessed to provide a near instantaneous frequency sweep through many spectroscopic features of interest.

It will be held October 27-29, 2006 in Midlothian, Texas, just 30 minutes south of Dallas, at a comfortable camp and conference center there.

There will be classes in fiddle, flute, harp, uilleann pipes, tinwhistle, bodhran, guitar, piano accordion, button accordion, piano, concertina, harp, mandolin, tenor banjo, bouzouki, singing (English and Gaelic), dancing and our staff includes some of the best players in the Irish tradition, including John Carty, Daithi Sproule, Jerry O’Sullivan, Randal Bays, Shannon Heaton, Roger Landes and others. Online registration in now underway.

For more info, please visit the retreat website at http://www.irishtradmusic.org/oflaherty.htm.

Not literally, but budget cuts are taking it out of action.

Why do you care? Because it achieved a few firsts using lasers!

Less than a year after completing a $50 million project to repair and upgrade the San Diego-based research vessel, the Navy will decommission it Sept. 22. It is the country's last diesel-electric sub... The Dolphin had other notable firsts: sending the first successful submarine-to-aircraft laser communication and the first sub-to-surface e-mail.

There will be a fund raiser for the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat at Trinity Hall Pub starting at 6pm and going until the pub closes.

Please mark your calendars and plan to be there to support the retreat!

Bands that have confirmed include Irish Rogues, Spriggin, Jigsaw, Beyond the Pale, and the Trinity Hall Session Players.

Should be wonderful night of Irish music and dancing.