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Elon Musk's 'Hyperloop' was dismissed as a pipe dream that would never get off the ground. But now the billionaire's plans to shoot capsules of passengers along a tube at around the speed of sound may launch as soon as next year. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has secured land for the first full-scale Hyperloop with a 2016 launch in the California town of Quay Valley.

At this stage, companies are building programs internally to address how they will adopt Internet of Things technologies and how to get the most benefits in terms of managing risks, reducing costs and bringing in new revenues, said Serhii Konovalov, who leads Cisco’s O&G Global Industry Solutions Practice and O&G Innovations, in an interview with Rigzone. Officials with Software AG are also seeing oil and gas companies starting to lay the framework and mapping their business processes to prepare their organizations for Internet of Things monitoring solutions. Software AG, which focuses on helping companies, including oil and gas companies, become...

A US federal grand jury has indicted two men, one from Iran and the other from China, on charges of conspiring to send materials from the United States to Iran for the purpose of enriching uranium, the US Justice Department said on Friday. Using a Chinese company as a go-between to avoid trade sanctions, the men tried for three years to obtain US materials, such as high-strength steel, that could be used in an Iranian nuclear program, the department said. Iranian citizen Parviz Khaki was arrested in May in the Philippines, while the other man, Zongcheng Yi of China, remains...

The State Department in 2009 sought the Chinese government's help in blocking a sale to Iran of 25 tons of specialty steel for Tehran's defense industry to be used in building nuclear-related centrifuges, according to a classified department cable. "Post is instructed to inform appropriate-level Chinese officials of this transaction, and request that they investigate the entity and individuals involved," according to the cable, which is labeled "secret." It noted that the Chinese were to be told that the company faces sanctions for the proposed sale under U.S. law. (Snip) An earlier State Department cable revealed that China helped North

Thirty-five weeks pregnant, Robin Rodgers was vomiting and losing weight, so her doctor hospitalized her and ordered that she be fed through a tube until the birth of her daughter. But in a mistake that stemmed from years of lax federal oversight of medical devices, the hospital mixed up the tubes. Instead of snaking a tube through Ms. Rodgers’s nose and into her stomach, the nurse instead coupled the liquid-food bag to a tube that entered a vein. “And she said, ‘Oh, Mom, she’s dead.’ And I said, ‘I know, but now we have to take care of you,’ ”...

WILLOW — Daniel Russell calls himself the country physicist, and if what he’s invented gets noticed by someone with the ability to mass produce it, he could help revolutionize the building industry. Russell, a German immigrant living in Willow, holds three U.S. patents and has two pending. Two of those patents could impact the building world by providing a process and product to construct super-strong, nearly indestructible buildings without killing a single tree. Daniel Russell holds the patent on fractal tubes, which are hollow fibers formed into tubes that are then formed into hollow cylinders. These fractal tubes, which can...

A ship bound for Syria from North Korea and detained in Cyprus on an Interpol alert for suspected arms smuggling was carrying an air defense system, Cypriot authorities said. The shipment was billed as weather-observation equipment on the freight manifest of the Panamanian-flagged Grigorio 1. The ship was carrying 18 truck-mounted mobile radar systems and three command vehicles. "The radars on the 18 trucks appear to be part of an air defense system," a police spokeswoman said.

U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang's denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources. The United States has long pointed to North Korea's acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the outer casing for centrifuges needed to spin hot uranium gas into the fuel for nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied that contention and, as part of a declaration on its nuclear programs due by the end of the...

North Korea recently turned over to the United States equipment found to be contaminated with traces of highly enriched uranium — HEU — apparently contradicting the country's stance that it never had such a program, FOX News has confirmed. ... "They got some 'splainin' to do," one U.S. arms control official said when first told of the discovery about a month ago, he recalled to FOX. However, North Korea claims the tubes were intended for use in the development of a conventional "artillery" weapon, sources told FOX News. ... Green told FOX News he believes the data supporting the existence...

January 03, 2008 (Computerworld) Three days ago, Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) campaign launched a new application on the Facebook social network that directs supporters to a page listing members with a connection to Iowa. The application directs Facebook users to urge those friends to the caucus tonight in Iowa, noting that "If they don't come out and support Barack, there's no guarantee he'll be the Democratic nominee." With tonight's Iowa caucus officially kicking off the election year, Obama and other candidates who have been using new Web 2.0 tools to raise money and galvanize support are kicking their efforts into...

Excerpt from Alex Epstein's excellent article "Reject the Latest Push for 'Net Neutrality'" The Internet is not a collectivist commune; it is a free, voluntary, and private association of individuals and corporations harmoniously pursuing their individual goals. (While it began as a government-funded project, the Internet's ultra-advanced state today is the achievement of private network builders, hardware companies, content providers, and customers.) Because the Internet is based on voluntary association, no one can properly compel others for their ad space, bandwidth, publicity--or network priority. Those who create these values have the right to use and profit from them as they...

At least three tubes that are used to launch military-grade missiles were found Tuesday at a moving company on Interstate 65 Service Road West in Mobile, authorities said. No missiles were found, police said, and no one was injured. Members of the Mobile Police Department's bomb squad were called to Paulk's Moving at 2051 I-65 Service Road West on Tuesday afternoon after employees found a "suspicious package," police spokesman Officer Eric Gallichant said. At least three tubes used to launch missiles were uncovered in a shipping container at the business, Gallichant said. Authorities were still trying to determine who shipped...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens is enduring no end of ridicule in the blogosphere for his recent explanation, in a Commerce Committee debate, of how the Internet works. "The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes," he said during a June 28 committee session. "And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled. And if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of...

Growing up during the Depression, Ray Bintliff still remembers listening to the adventures of The Shadow and Little Orphan Annie on his parents’ Philco console radio. The 83-year-old Acton resident comes from a generation of Americans who heard history coming into their living rooms. On radios made by Zenith, RCA and Sparton, they heard Orson Welles announce a Martian invasion and FDR pronounce a "Day of Infamy." They heard about the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the antics of Fibber McGee and Molly. Many, like Thomas Romano of Grafton and John V. Terrey of Carlisle, followed a boyhood passion for...

LONDON (AP) - Foreigners who preach hatred, sponsor violence or belong to extremist groups could be deported from Britain under strict new measures that Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Friday, nearly a month after suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transit system. Membership in extremist Islamic groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir would become a crime under the new measures. The group, which advocates the creation of an Islamic state in Central Asia, already is outlawed in several countries. Blair said the government also would compile a list of Web sites, bookshops and centers that incite hatred and violence. British nationals...

Pittsburgh man at helm in London Gazing at scenes of carnage on his television screen yesterday morning, Brother Gerald Molyneaux said his first chill of fear was for his friend and former student, Tim O'Toole. Molyneaux knew that O'Toole, a Pittsburgh native who now heads London's Underground subway, rides his system's trains to work each day. "I was scared, really scared,'' he said. But after a relative alerted him that O'Toole had appeared unharmed in news reports from London, Molyneaux said the relief that swept through him was not just for O'Toole, but for millions of Londoners who rely on...

The whole world watched as 41-year-old Terri Schiavo was slowly starved and dehydrated to death by order of a judicial system that defied Congress, the president and – many believe – the law itself. But the Terri Schiavo story was not unique, as a stunning new edition of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine – titled "WHO LIVES, WHO DIES?" – makes frighteningly clear. In fact, Terri's case is only the tip of the iceberg. http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=108 Take the case of Marjorie Nighbert, for example. Although she had asked for nothing more than a "little something to eat" and a drink of water,...

You are Terri Schiavo. You are lying in a bed, with your brain reduced to performing the most rudimentary functions. You wake up. You sleep. Sometimes you respond to basic stimuli. You make noises open to interpretation by the hopeful. You are awake but not awake. You died but are still alive. It is a cruel hoax played on those who love you. There are thousands of people who have been in a similar situation. They have had their feeding tubes pulled with no fanfare. But they did not have a husband who wanted to pull the tube and parents...

Bush Aides Gave One-Sided View of Iraqi Data -- NYT October 2, 2004 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, gave a one-sided view of the case for believing Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arms program that ignored the doubts of their own experts, the New York Times said on Saturday. The newspaper made the charge in an article about thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes ordered by Iraq that leading administration officials said were intended for use in uranium centrifuges. "As the only physical evidence the United States could brandish of (Saddam's) revived...

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