Chinese Anti-Stealth Radar

Odd piece I have not yet interpreted,  but intriguing.   Below is incomplete, looking for detail links. 

Chinese scientists develop anti-stealth radar so small it could be mistaken for rooftop clothes rack, research paper says

South China Morning Post

China's Mysterious Spaceplane Still Hasn't Landed Yet

The U.S. accused a Chinese MIT professor of spying. Now cleared, he’s helped discover what may be the ‘best semiconductor material ever found’

A team of researchers has discovered what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calls the “best semiconductor material ever found," even better than silicon, the material used in just about every computer chip on earth.

In July, scientists from MIT, the University of Houston, and other institutions announced they had proved that cubic boron arsenide performs better than silicon at conducting heat and electricity, opening up new possibilities for smaller and faster chips. The team includes China-born Professor Gang Chen, the former head of MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, who was the subject of a year-long investigation by the Department of Justice before the agency dropped espionage charges due to lack of evidence.

It could be decades before cubic boron arsenide-based semiconductors are used in commercially-available chips—if they prove viable at all. But ultimately, the new material may help designers overcome the natural limits of current models to make better, faster, and smaller chips, and its discovery is the kind of research the U.S. risked missing out on with a now-disbanded crackdown on experts like Chen.  ... '

Radar Trends for August

As usual, well done look at look and links for trends to watch.

Radar trends to watch: August 2021

Trends in Programming, Robotics, Security, and More  By Mike Loukides

Learn more

Security continues to be in the news: most notably the Kaseya ransomware attack, which was the first case of a supply chain ransomware attack that we’re aware of. That’s new and very dangerous territory. However, the biggest problem in security remains simple: take care of the basics. Good practices for authentication, backups, and software updates are the best defense against ransomware and many other attacks.

Facebook has said that it is now focusing on building the virtual reality Metaverse, which will be the successor to the web. To succeed, VR will have to get beyond ultra geeky goggles. But Google Glass showed the way, and that path is being followed by Apple and Facebook in their product development. ... ' 

UK Plans a Pandemic Radar

 With plans for testing in a future pandemic.

via ACM NEWS

U.K. Has a Plan for a New 'Pandemic Radar' System   By Wired

About four years ago, seven infants and toddlers and a 37-year-old woman were admitted to a hospital in Sibu, a coastal town on the island of Borneo in Malaysia. Records don't show how many of them arrived together; they came from villages in different parts of the province, lived in different types of housing, and were of at least four different ethnicities. They all were experiencing something like pneumonia, a normal winter respiratory infection. But their symptoms—caused by an array of viruses—concealed a secret. They were also carrying a coronavirus that held a genetic signature indicating it had previously infected cats and dogs.

We know this because swabs of pulmonary secretions taken from the eight Malaysians during their illness were stored as part of a screening project, and then analyzed last year by a Duke University team seeking to validate a new test. What they found, and described two weeks ago in Clinical Infectious Diseases, may show a novel coronavirus in the process of leaping from the animal world into people, as the virus that causes Covid probably did in 2019.

That new virus might have been an accidental bystander in the airways of those Malaysian patients, whose swabs variously also turned up evidence of adenoviruses, rhinoviruses or flu. Or it might have been a cause of their disease. It's too soon to know. (To be clear: It wasn't Covid. Canine coronaviruses and the viral cause of Covid belong to separate genera of the coronavirus family.)

Nevertheless, researchers in the world of emerging infections are absolutely sure about this: It should have been found much sooner. Covid is supposed to have demonstrated that we need faster detection. That a possible novel pathogen could lie concealed in a lab freezer since as early as 2017 shows how much work we still have to do.

In Wired

Ring Door Bell Goes Radar

Like some of the directions the doorbell tech is going,  getting to be quite common. 

Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 uses radar for bird’s-eye view of front door activity  By Patrick Hearn

 Ring’s latest addition to its lineup of smart home security devices demonstrates exactly where the company is headed. The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 is a new, premium video doorbell with a host of next-generation technology to help keep your home safer than ever. The camera features 3D motion detection, 1,536p video, a Bird’s Eye View feature, and customizable privacy.

Through the use of a radar sensor, the 3D motion detection technology provides more accurate and precise identification of when a motion event begins. The sensors measure an object’s distance from the camera, which makes it easier to exclude certain high-traffic areas. For example, if your doorbell faces a sidewalk, you can set it so that only motion closer to your home triggers an alert.

This feature works in conjunction with the Bird’s Eye View feature. By measuring the exact distance a person is from the camera, the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 gives users an aerial view of the exact path someone took on their approach. If you’re watching an event happen through Live View or even viewing it in your Event History, you will see a picture-in-picture display that shows the movement path in addition to the actual event....  '