Monday, February 6, 2012

Congress Calls for Accelerated Use of UAV/UAS in U.S.

The pending authorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration directs the Secretary of Transportation to develop within nine months “a comprehensive plan to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”

“The plan… shall provide for the safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.”  READ MORE

HOUSE Conference Report 

SYMPHORA will be publishing more on this issue in the near future ...

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

2011 Disaster Costs, Most Ever

According to preliminary estimates from the annual Swiss Re’s sigma team, total insured losses for the global insurance industry from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters reached USD 108 billion in 2011. This is more than double the figure of USD 48 billion in 2010. Claims from natural catastrophes alone reached USD 103 billion in 2011, compared to only USD 43 billion last year. MORE INFO

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare

Joel Brenner, a former Director of Counterintelligence in the office of the Director of National Intelligence. goes behind the headlines to explore America's next great battleground: digital security. An urgent wake-up call that identifies our foes; unveils their methods; and charts the dire consequences for government, business, and individuals.  MORE at Amazon.com ...

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

WPS failed during recent East coast earthquake

The Wireless Priority Service (WPS) that is intended to provide priority to emergency government and public safety cell calls failed during East Coast earthquake. WPS compliments GETS the priority system for land lines.

Sounds like the failure might have been in part due to "all of the texting and short messaging occurred on the signal channel,"

MORE INFO

NCS WPS...       NCS GETS...

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Monday, November 28, 2011

The Regional Disaster Resilience Guide 2011 Edition

The 2011 Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR) Guide for Developing an Action Plan (Guide) released in October 2011 is an updated and expanded version of the original guide published in June, 2006 by The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP). The updated guide is a beneficial and usable tool that enables practitioners and experts from government, the private sector, and other interested organizations to develop an actionable strategy and ongoing process to collectively improve capabilities to withstand major events and disasters in today’s complex and interdependent world.  MORE INFO

Document (.pdf)

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Open Source Geospatial Foundation...

OSGeo was created to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promote its widespread use, MORE INFO...

Monday, November 14, 2011