Day: October 9, 2015

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Making History inside the Doughnut

E&T magazine

Making History inside the Doughnut by Vitali Vitaliev I am happy to report that yesterday, on the 8th of October 2015, a bit of history was made inside the legendary Doughnut building in Cheltenham – the HQ of GCHQ –forgive my unintended pun. For those who do not know, I have to explain that GCHQ stands for Government Communications Headquarters (hence the pun) and that it is, alongside MI5 and MI6, one of the three UK Intelligence and Security Agencies. Due to its nature, this serious organisation is bound to be secretive and not easily accessible. Nevertheless, yesterday – for … Continue reading Making History inside the Doughnut

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NATO shows off new steerable nuclear bomb – Russia not happy about it – an annotated infographic

E&T magazine

The United States plans to deploy 180 precision-guided thermonuclear bombs to five European countries between 2020-24. The B61-12 has a “dial-a-yield” feature and is able to strike within 30 metres of its target. Russia has threatened to take countermeasures over reports that the U.S. is to upgrade nuclear weapons in Europe. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said plans for the U.S. to station up to 180 modified B61–12 guided nuclear bombs in five NATO countries “would lead to a violation of the strategic balance in Europe.” Under a $10.4 billion “Life Extension Programme” (LEP) the new munitions will be converted from … Continue reading NATO shows off new steerable nuclear bomb – Russia not happy about it – an annotated infographic

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E&T news weekly #65 – we choose our favourite engineering and technology news stories from the week

E&T magazine

Friday October 9 2015  Jack Loughran, news reporter Microsoft reveals new phones, laptops and wearables Microsoft announced a bunch of new devices this week, a couple of nice looking (but expensive laptops), a wearable band for jogging (which I don’t do) and two phones which on the face of it look like yet another incremental spec upgrade from last year’s flagship Windows phones. However, the most interesting feature of the new Lumia phones, which was probably not given enough publicity, is called Continuum. This allows them to plug into a dock which is in turn plugged into a full-size screen, … Continue reading E&T news weekly #65 – we choose our favourite engineering and technology news stories from the week