When I first joined the Fool, I noticed one thing right away -- Motley Fool writers read The Wall Street Journal daily. And they regularly write about stories reported in WSJ.
And so I realized that, in subscribing to The Motley Fool's discussion boards for $30 a year, in addition to all the other benefits of belonging to this wonder-Fool community, I was also getting the equivalent of a $150 subscription to a WSJ digest service. Dozens of Fool writer/analysts were digesting the Journal's most important news and putting it into context for me -- for free.
I thought that was a great deal then, and now that I'm doing a bit of writing myself, I'm continuing the tradition. Last week, WSJ reported on two little-noticed stories from the worlds of technology and defense -- stories that investors might want to keep an eye on.
First up is "millimeter-wave technology" (MW). In essence, this is a novel, noninvasive means of detecting concealed weapons. While analogous to taking an X-ray of a person to identify hidden metal objects, MW operates a bit differently. Rather than zap a subject with active radiation, MW passively monitors waves that are naturally emitted from physical objects and looks for "holes" -- places where waves are not being emitted. The absence of waves suggests the presence of the metal objects that don't emit them. Lockheed Martin
Next up is Raytheon
Although neither technology looks fully ready for prime time, they both do bear watching, as do the potential rule-breaking companies that may begin to commercialize them.
Fool contributor Rich Smith owns no shares in any company mentioned in this article.