27 Feb 12. Opgal Optronic Industries, a leading global provider of innovative thermal imaging and near infrared illumination solutions for security and safety applications, has added long-range fire detection and fire risk assessment capabilities to certain models of its EyeSec™ line of high-performance, uncooled thermal cameras. With this integrated option, Opgal is the only camera manufacturer that delivers an application-specific embedded fire detection video algorithm that can sense a fire and provide an automatic safety and security notification of the event. Available with a wide variety of lens options and an easy to integrate interface, the EyeSec fire detection and fire risk assessment solutions offer unique value to customers. Facilities with flammable materials, transportation tunnels, combustible storage areas, and perimeter sites located near flammable forests and greenery are all sensitive to fire danger. These sites can now deploy an economical automated fire detection and alert tool that provides an additional layer of site safety integrated into a security and surveillance system. With its flame detection capability enabled, the camera can detect a 75 cm x 75 cm fire as far away as 840 meters within 5 seconds, with detection ranges increasing for larger-sized fires. (Source: Yahoo!/PRNewswire)

01 Mar 12. Logos Technologies has delivered its first two day/night Kestrel wide-area persistent surveillance systems to the U.S. Army for
deployment on aerostats, or tethered blimps, in Afghanistan. “These new Kestrel units provide our warfighters true wide-area persistent surveillance at night.”Replacing current technologies that are only able to operate during daylight hours, the new electro-optical/infrared Kestrel units will be mounted on Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) aerostats, offering sensor operators round-the-clock coverage of a forward operating base and its environs. The result is an extra layer of protection for troops in the field. “Before, if you wanted night vision, you had to rely on cameras with a very narrow field of view,” said Greg Poe, CEO of Logos Technologies. “These new Kestrel units provide our warfighters true wide-area persistent surveillance at night.”
Kestrel is the only 360-degree persistent surveillance system for aerostats capable of scanning a city-sized area at once, making it virtually impossible to sneak up to, or through, a protected area.
When the system detects a target within its field of view, it cues a high-powered, full motion video camera that can focus on the suspicious activity. Unlike other systems, Kestrel can also record every event that happens in a monitored area for up to 30 days. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)

28 Feb 12. The first of two new prototype railguns is now firing bullets, moving the U.S. Navy’s long-held dream of fielding an electromagnetic weapon a step closer to reality. A 32 megajoule “prototype demonstrator” made by BAE has already been fired six times in a week, officials told reporters during a Feb. 28 teleconference. The rounds fired by the gun are only test shots, “non-aerodynamic slugs intended to slow down quickly,” said Tom Boucher, the Navy’s railgun test director at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, Va. “But eventually the program intends to fire a very low-drag, high-speed projectile.” The Navy wants the railgun to be able to fire that projectile at ranges of 50 to 100 nautical miles, with an eventual range up to 220 nautical miles. The new gun, delivered to Dahlgren on Feb. 6, will be followed in April by another prototype from General Atomics. Unlike an earlier version of the railgun assembled and fired at Dahlgren, the new prototypes “look like a real gun,” according to Roger Ellis, railgun program manager at the Office of Naval Research. “The new guns are a significant step beyond the laboratory-style launchers, which are big, bulky, not anything you would put on a Navy ship,” Ellis said. “The new industry prototypes