On Wednesday, a $3 million research contract by the Department of the Defense with a California-based company was announced that will ultimately to leverage technology that could turn ordinary smartphones into biometric scanners.

The company AOptix announced in a press release that the DoD would use its Smart Mobile Identity platform, tailored to the requirements needed of the agency for identity verification purposes in the field.

Wired's Danger Room was alerted to more ins and outs of the DoD's potential uses for the technology. The eye-scanning, finger-print taking and voice recognition-type features would not be embedded in the phone but, as Wired put it, "it's a peripheral that wraps around the phone."

This addition is reported to weigh less than a pound with the phone, won't interfere with typical phone functions and is operational with one hand, which Wired pointed out is an improvement upon the current Handheld Interagency Identity Detection System (HIIDE). Smart Mobile Identity has limited ability to record biometric data at a distance, but its specs outperform the HIIDE camera. It scans faces at up to two meters away, irises from one meter, and voice from within the typical distance from a phone.

The University of Missouri is making it easy for students to celebrate Wiccan or pagan holidays, as they've been included in the university's Guide to Religions.

There are 42 holidays listed in the university's calendar, with Jewish holidays counting for eleven, Wiccan and pagan holidays for eight and Christian holidays for seven. The other holidays include Hindu, Muslim, Baha'i, Shinto, Buddhist and Sikh holidays.

"The holidays and accommodations section of this guide is provided to faculty, staff and student leaders as an educational resource for the myriad of religious holy days celebrated at Mizzou," the guide reads. "Not only does this section offer crucial information about dates and practices, we also hope that the information about recommended academic and food accommodations will be valuable to those planning classroom activities and other academic and co-curricular events."

Among the holidays listed for Wiccan followers is Beltane, an event in May to celebrate the arrival of summer and wishing for fertility in the coming year, The Daily Mail reports. Another summer festival, Litha, is marked by lighting bonfires and staying up all night to watch the sun rise.

Campaigners today warned of a 'seismic shift' in privacy invasion after it emerged that Intel was the latest company set to market a television set-top box equipped with a camera that stares back at viewers.

The company, which makes the microchips found inside most personal computers, has launched an entirely new division, Intel Media, to make and market the Orwellian streaming-television product.

Erik Huggers, vice-president of Intel Media, said the new service would offer users a TV 'that is much more personal, that learns about you, that actually cares about who you are.'

The camera, Intel claims, will enable them to personalise the interactive features of their product, so that different members of the same household can be served programming and advertising specific to them. Intel is only the latest company to develop a television product that contains a camera and sensors designed to watch what viewers are up to.

Scientists meeting at this week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston have warned that extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy and the Texas drought are here to stay.

At this week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) researchers served notice that episodes of extreme weather like Superstorm Sandy and the extended severe drought in Texas are the new normal as human-driven climate change makes such events more intense and more frequent.
 
Donald Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Illinois, commented, "The scientific analyses are now indicating a strong link between changing trends in severe weather events and the changing climate. Every weather event that happens nowadays takes place in the context of a changed background climate."

The Air Vehicles Directorate, a research arm of the Air Force, has released a computer-animated video outlining the the future capabilities of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The project promises to revolutionize war by down-sizing the combatants. 'MAVs will become a vital element in the ever-changing war-fighting environment and will help ensure success on the battlefield of the future,' the narrator intones. 'Unobtrusive, pervasive, lethal - Micro Air Vehicles, enhancing the capabilities of the future war fighter.'

Commanding machines using the brain is no longer the stuff of science fiction. In recent years, brain implants have enabled people to control robotics using only their minds, raising the prospect that one day patients could overcome disabilities using bionic limbs or mechanical exoskeletons.