Articles
What role will sensors and controls play in emerging solid state lighting applications?
February 15, 2013 2:38 pm | CommentsQ: What role will sensors and controls play in emerging solid state lighting applications? Where will the Internet of Things make its big commercial debut? Probably a few feet above your head. Intelligent sensing systems — installed and configured in overhead lighting systems and combining motion, temperature and light sensors with microprocessors, imagers and LEDs
What is the Real Smart Home?
February 15, 2013 12:17 pm | by Elly Schietse, General Manager, GreenPeak Belgium | CommentsYou are ready and packed to leave on a holiday trip and for the first time, you agreed that your teenage son can stay home alone. The control freak in you is already making long lists of daily and weekly tasks and to-do’s to keep the pets and plants alive, and the calamity predictor in you wants to anticipate for flooded bathrooms and burning fryers.
Large-scale free WiFi is still a dream worth pursuing
February 13, 2013 3:34 pm | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | CommentsSometimes, it seems our nation no longer aspires to great things. These days our astronauts hitch rides to the International Space Station on Soviet spacecraft, and just recently, the U.S. Postal Service — once the envy of the world — announced its intention to eliminate Saturday mail service.
Rise of the machines
February 13, 2013 11:39 am | by Meaghan Ziemba, Editor, WDD | CommentsRobots are becoming more powerful and useful by the minute. On a daily basis, design engineers struggle to make each new design more autonomous, fluid, independent, and lifelike. Some are designed for manufacturing purposes, while others are designed to help the disabled (the applications are many).
Automobile EDR data collection by the Government must include safeguards
February 6, 2013 10:34 am | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | CommentsIn December, The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced a proposal that would require automakers to equip all light vehicles with event data recorders (EDRs) that capture information in the moments before and after a wreck similar to the way they are used to study airline crash.
Connected devices keep the heart of industrial automation beating
February 4, 2013 9:02 am | by Srik Gurrapu, Business Manager for Industrial Automation, Texas Instruments | Texas Instruments | CommentsDuring an era when the population is increasing and there always seems to be a race against time, efficient industrial production is becoming more vital than ever. Manufacturers feel the pressure of producing an increased number of products while still maintaining a high level of quality.
Did the Justice Department cause Aaron Swartz’s suicide?
January 31, 2013 9:00 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsAaron Swartz was a 26-year-old computer programmer and online activist who died of apparent suicide on January 11, ahead of a scheduled trial where he was charged with 13 felonies. Swartz, founder of Demand Progress, an online group actively working against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)...
The changing face of distribution: 3D isn’t just for the TV ... or the printer
January 29, 2013 4:49 pm | by Chris Sullivan, Technical Marketing, Newark element14 | Newark | CommentsDistributors distribute, right? Common sense dictates this to be, well obvious and true. But the past 5 years has seen a transformation of the high-service electronics distribution industry where business models and service levels have been redrawn to become more relevant, more competitive and more attractive.
Obsolete industries won’t drive economic growth
January 24, 2013 12:09 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | CommentsAn article in the Associated Press, "Big Data and cloud computing empower smart machines to do human work, take human jobs," bemoans the loss of jobs to technology – a highly dubious assertion that crops up every generation like a broken record. And like the damaged piece of vinyl, this argument is immune to logic and reason.
CES 2013 a meager showcase for consumer electronics
January 17, 2013 2:20 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Microsoft Corp. | CommentsCES has never been more irrelevant. I wrote those words last year when Microsoft pulled out of CES and the industry was in the thralls of its 3D hysteria, pushing a technological gimmick that no one wanted. Since then, the industry has found a new rallying cry – 4K (or Ultra-HD) – and largely abandoned hopes of shoving stereoscopy down our throats, but the pizzazz is still missing.
The truth about relative vs. absolute motion control systems
January 16, 2013 12:39 pm | by Chad Lucien, Hillcrest Labs, www.hillcrestlabs.com | Hillcrest Labs | CommentsSmart TV features are beginning to transform the TV into an entertainment hub. Whether functionality is native to the TV or via a connected set-top box, many Smart TV systems utilize motion and pointing to control myriad features and functions. Motion control provides cursor, point-and-click, and tilt-based controls, mimicking the control system of a computer mouse or smartphone touchscreen.
New Jersey’s power and fuel infrastructure was no match for Sandy
January 16, 2013 12:14 pm | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | CommentsThe love-hate relationship we have with "the grid" was inescapable during Superstorm Sandy. We don’t think about it much when our homes are lit and appliances are humming – we have the freedom to do anything we want. But when there’s an interruption, there’s that nagging wish to be free from the grip of our local utility....
Resolution rises to become banner spec for oscilloscopes
January 16, 2013 11:03 am | by David Maliniak, Technical Marketing Communications Specialist, Teledyne LeCroy | CommentsSince its invention in the 1980s, the digital oscilloscope represented a more modern approach to the visualization of waveforms compared with the analog instruments it replaced. Analog oscilloscopes displayed waveforms directly, but digital oscilloscopes use high-speed analog-to-digital converters....
How to get more than 8 bits from your 8-bit scope
January 16, 2013 10:54 am | by Joel Woodward, Agilent Technologies | Agilent Technologies | CommentsMeasurements are key to all scientific and engineering disciplines. For the electronics industry, oscilloscopes provide a number of critical measurements required by engineers to conduct real-world testing and gain needed insight. The majority of today’s oscilloscopes are designed with 8-bit ADCs (analog-to-digital converters).
DC/DC converter design principles for wireless sensor node applications
January 15, 2013 4:55 pm | by Yogesh Ramadass, Design Engineer and Tony Antonacci, Systems Engineer, Texas Instruments | Texas Instruments | CommentsWith the advancement of energy harvesting elements, energy can be found and captured in almost any application, allowing for a wide variety of systems to be powered remotely. Applications such as “smart homes” and “mesh sensor networks” take advantage of the harvesting elements in order to power back-end electronics....
