Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 16 August 2013

Will the blackout be back? Experts in the USA and Canada are concerned that huge cascading blackouts that hit in 2003 (when seven US states plus Ontario were blacked out) and 2011 could happen again. Similar cascading outages occurred in Europe in 2006, Brazil in 2009 and in India in 2012. They say the increasing incidence of storms and blizzards, predicted by climate models, could produce more frequent blackouts - perhaps even a 1-in-100-year failure that could affect 25% of all electrical supply in the USA.

Deep space open days. NASA's tracking station at Tidbinbilla, just outside Canberra, is throwing open its doors to the public on Sunday, 18 August 2013. Known as the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, the facility is one of three NASA uses to communicate with space probes throughout the Solar System. The open day will include tours, talks, film viewings and more. Note: Len Ricardo, CDSCC Operations Manager, will be a keynote speaker at this year's Comms Connect conference and exhibition in Melbourne.

The CSIRO will hold an open day, on 1 September 2013, at its Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) site near Narrabri in northern NSW, to mark the facility's 25th anniversary. The six-dish array was opened on 2 September 1988 by the then prime minister, Bob Hawke. The ATCA is one of the most important telescopes of its kind in the world and is used to study black holes, regions where stars are forming and dying, and gas and magnetic fields in our galaxy and other, far-off galaxies. Each year the telescope is used by more than 400 astronomers, from around Australia and from all over the world.

Smile for the camera. A ruling by a New York judge could soon see NYPD officers wearing small surveillance video cameras to produce an “objective record" of interactions with members of the public and suspects. The ruling comes as a reaction to contentious 'stop-and-frisk' practices currently in use by the NYPD. Mini-cameras such as these are already used by many other police departments.

Movie star. Finally, radio industry professionals who are also fans of the Fast & Furious movie franchise might have spotted some familiar devices in the hands of some of the actors - Hytera X1p portable radios