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Raspberry Pi is the name given to an ultra-low-cost computer that went on sale recently for just $35. The bare-bones PC, which is built to run a few different flavors of Linux, is capable of hooking up to a mouse, keyboard, HDTV and Ethernet. Initial interest has been strong -- the first batch quickly sold out. Frantic buyers cleaned out the shelves of two UK retailers offering a small US$35 Linux computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

A lot of virtual training happens in video game-like environments, where soldiers see combat through the eyes of a superhero character. But if the Army is going to train its troops through gaming, officials say the characters in the virtual world should perform more like actual soldiers. That is one part of the reasoning behind a new idea the Army has to create avatars for every soldier. These digital representations would accompany service members throughout their training and allow them to see, through simulation, how their skills, or lack thereof, would play in life and death situations. The influence of...

Eric Shields, an engineer with the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Carderock Division, never thought he would have to monitor the use of a microwave oven in Afghanistan. But that is exactly what he and his colleagues have been doing to gauge how much power Marines are using in theater. “If the microwaves and coffee pots are turned on at the same time, it could trip your generator,” Shields told a recent Institute for Defense and Government Advancement symposium. Sometimes a generator is left on too long, and the temperature inside the tent drops so much that Marines are forced to...

Get ready for some retro entertainment because the drive-in theater is returning to Cowtown. The Tarrant Regional Water District gave Coyote Theaters the go ahead Tuesday to develop a drive-in theater along the Trinity River just south of La Grave Field. "We are producing the first urban drive-in right now in the U.S.," said J.D. Granger Trinity River Development Director. It’ll have digital projectors and ways to listen through your car or smart phones. The tech will allow it to be the first drive-in in the country to offer first run movies simultaneously in both English and Spanish. There will...

We made two stops for this Cool Schools report: Leesburg, Va. and the White House. A team of fifth graders came up with an invention so impressive, the President of the United States even noticed! Learning about the war in Afghanistan could be pretty daunting and the graphic scenes can be scary, but for these 11 year olds, it was a motivation to do something positive. Jack Dudley, a student at Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn, Va. told us, "Our inspiration for the project...Specialist Robert Warren lost part of his skull in an IED blast in Afghanistan." Virginia 5th...

YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS VIDEO. I wonder when Obama will say we are not allowed to use it.

When the Air Force Special Operations Command decided to buy 2,861 made-in-China Apple iPad tablet computers in January to provide flight crews with electronic navigation charts and technical manuals, it specified mission security software developed, maintained and updated in Russia. The command followed in the path of Alaska Airlines, which in May 2011 became the first domestic carrier to drop paper charts and manuals in exchange for electronic flight bags. Alaska chose the same software, GoodReader, developed by Moscow-based Good.iware, to display charts in a PDF format on iPads. Delta Air Lines kicked off a test in August for electronic...

Summary: There are lots of reasons why I think Windows 8 will having trouble finding acceptance. A major one is that Windows 8 will face more competition than ever before. Here are Windows 8’s biggest rivals. Windows 8 biggest rivals are already hitting it. We’re finding out more and more about Windows 8 as its beta release approaches. And, you know what? The more I find out, the more I feel secure about saying Windows 8 will be a flop.I’ve already explained in general terms I think Windows 8 will follow in Vista’s footprints as a strategic failure. Here’s specifically,...

So I'm on the phone with Samsung Tech support in SOUTH CAROLINA - not Bombay or Sri Lanka, (thank you very much Samsung) to troubleshoot the connection problems with the other half's inability to print wirelessly from across the room to our recently acquired Samsung Color Laser Printer CLP-325W. (The HP 6300 was a gross waste of time, talent, and energy, NEVER AGAIN as they say in Tel Aviv)) And I'm musing that the process is not much different than when I would accompany my long past Dad with a paper bag full of Philco TV tubes to the local...

Home > News Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor cooled by sodium. Reactors cooled by liquid metals such as sodium or lead have a unique set of abilities that may again make them significant players in the nuclear industry. At the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, a team led by senior nuclear engineer James Sienicki has designed a new small reactor cooled by lead—the Sustainable Proliferation-resistance Enhanced Refined Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor, or...

Congress is demanding drones in the air over the United States - without considering the civil liberties issues. Within the span of three days last week, the House and then the Senate passed a law - H.R. 658 - requiring the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to speed up, within 90 days, its current licensing process for government use of drones domestically and to open the national airspace to drone aircraft for commercial and private use by October 2015. While the law requires the FAA to develop guidance on drone safety, the law says absolutely nothing about the privacy or transparency...

The United States has long been seen as a nation in its twilight as an oil producer, facing a relentless decline that began when President Richard Nixon was in the White House. He and every president since pledged to halt the U.S. slide into greater dependence on foreign oil, but the trend seemed irreversible—until now. Forty-one years later, U.S. oil production is on the rise. U.S. oil fields yielded an estimated 5.68 million barrels per day in 2011—their highest output since 2003, thanks largely to a surge of new production from shale oil that lies beneath the Great Plains. The...

POLITICO's Robin Bravender reports from Tallahassee, Fla.: Santorum was asked at Florida State University about whether he'd expand NASA programs after Newt Gingrich's pledge for a new moon base. "I go back to trying to be very up front and honest with the people of Florida, the people of the country," he said. But given a potential explosion of inflation, he said, "the idea that anybody's going out and talking about grand, new, very expensive schemes to spend more money at a time when we do not have our fiscal house in order, in my opinion, is plain, crass politics."

Suttons Bay School district is small in size — but big on innovation. This school district in northwest Michigan probably doesn't get much attention outside of Traverse City. That's unfortunate, because it is blazing a trail in education innovation through digital learning. Superintendent Michael Murray says the district aims to shape school to fit the student, not the other way around — which, unfortunately, is how many schools have operated for decades. With digital learning, Suttons Bay is personalizing the learning experience for each student and in the process providing a wide variety of choices for all. See the video...

If you paid any attention to the rumblings in the technology industry this week, you would know that Apple released a piece of software that will supposedly revolutionize the educational industry. iBooks Author is the culmination of many years of internal developments at Apple. Modernizing education was, of course, the passion of Apple's late legendary leader, Steve Jobs, and was the project he most wanted to see come to light. Let me be clear, what Apple released Thursday, Jan. 19., is revolutionary. It will change many aspects of education within the United States and potentially worldwide. However, it will not...

Alex Daley is the editor of CaseyResearch.com's Casey Extraordinary Technology Newsletter. Alex isn't into technology, just for technology's sake, but also to achieve extraordinary returns. His record is the stuff of legends. He has an uncanny ability to identify emerging technological trends and then find the companies which are most likely to prosper greatly. All it takes is a disciplined approach and ability to see the world as it might when new tech takes hold. And Alex as an industry insider of the highest order,has been involved in numerous startups as an advisor to venture capital companies. He’s also a...

China REQUIRES all foreign investors to give up their technology to them for the "right" to build goods there. Obama-seized GM can deny it till the cows come home, but it's still a lie. Dismantling America, chunk by chunk, piece by piece. Anybody see the tyrant-in-chief's body language, facial expressions and hand gestures, not to mention his words, at his Ohio press conference today? He simply can't hide his hatred for America. The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America -- read it. GM deal moves electric car development to China -- a 'shakedown'? USA Today (hat tip Van)...

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that President Barack Obama has indicated he is prepared to convey information about secret American missile defense technology to Russia: In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority. As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could...

Twenty years ago, Gingrich’s appreciation of technology was more novel among Republicans, showing that there was a conservative libertarian interest in preserving the burgeoning Internet from efforts to regulate it. At the time, Gingrich talked up the transformative power of the Internet and a world where schools and hospitals would be wired. In 1996, Gingrich — then the speaker of the House — resisted an attempt to fight porn on the Internet. When the Senate began to push for the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Gingrich put up a roadblock that helped undermine the act, which was later struck down...

Are you fed up with the near complete failure of the American educational system? We may finally be at the cusp of a solution. The combination of technology and the current system’s un-sustainability, could lead to sweeping change and improvement of education at every level. The wealthy always had access to the best tutors to make their children literate. Public education was created to allow the non-wealthy to do the same. Unfortunately the system become classroom/lecture based, rather than student centered, thus the personal intimacy of tutorial education was lost. The advent of the Kindle/Nook/iPad could be an important part...