Blogs
A new U.S. war: Restoring our competitiveness
February 6, 2013 3:26 pm | by Gordon Zuckerman | Blogs | CommentsIf the United States economy is to restore itself to earlier levels of full employment, prosperity and financial soundness, the American manufacturing community must engage in a national effort to resurrect its global competitiveness.
FTC wanders down the wrong path
February 6, 2013 3:01 pm | by Andrew Berg, Senior Editor, Wireless Week | Blogs | CommentsFriday’s announcement of Path's settlement is illustrative of the way regulation works when you're trying to safeguard consumers from technology that the regulators themselves don't understand. It's also the way regulation works when you're trying to drum up press that illustrates how you catch the bad guys and make them pay.
SSLs see bright future in automotive platforms
February 6, 2013 2:43 pm | by Chris A. Ciufo, Mouser Electronics | Mouser Electronics | Blogs | CommentsThe world is positively aglow with rapidly changing technology trends in solid state lighting (SSL) LEDs. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), costs dropped by a third in 2011 to about $12 per thousand lumens and will be on their way down to $2 per thousand lumens by 2015 (Strategies Unlimited, August 2012).
Automobile EDR data collection by the Government must include safeguards
February 6, 2013 10:34 am | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | Articles | 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.
Telepresence robots: Always on call
February 6, 2013 9:26 am | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | Articles | CommentsThese words from a medical-alert pendant commercial became a humorous catchphrase in pop culture during the 1990s, but Mrs. Fletcher’s plea carries a lot of weight to those who are worried about the elderly or others in need of medical care but without a means of communicating to medical professionals or caregivers.
Will 12V solar disappear in 2013?
February 5, 2013 3:08 pm | by Jon Gabay, Mouser Electronics | Mouser Electronics | Blogs | CommentsThe established solar architecture based on 12V photovoltaic panels, batteries, charge controllers, and inverters will continue to give way to grid-tied inverter architectures. This approach to harvesting solar energy brings with it a lot of key benefits.
Online sales tax is immoral, runs contrary to the free markets
February 5, 2013 2:54 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Blogs | CommentsThe central fallacy with crony capitalism is that it ignores the invisible hand of the free marketplace. This is precisely what the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) is doing with their support for "e-fairness" legislation (i.e., an Internet sales tax).
Mars or bust
February 5, 2013 9:10 am | by David Mantey, Executive Editor, PD&D | Blogs | CommentsCould you go to Mars? Sacrifice everything; friends, family, and (possibly) future in order to be one of the first colonists on the red planet? Maybe if you were the first to plant a boot print in the dusty red sand, you would have some sort of historical notoriety....
Wireless networking in 2013
February 4, 2013 4:57 pm | by Jack Shandle, Mouser Electronics | Mouser Electronics | Blogs | CommentsThe outlook for wireless networking keeps getting brighter as more devices — some as large as automobiles — become connected. Megatrends also drive wireless growth with the single most important being the conversion of electricity grids into Smart Grids, which in turn creates markets for smart meters and smart homes.
Top 10 posts for January
February 1, 2013 12:41 pm | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Blogs | CommentsWe had a record-breaking January here at ECN online with our most trafficked month in the history of the website. So, without further delay, here’s a rundown of the most read, most popular, most awesome articles on the web. Take a look at what you missed the first time around or check up on an old favorite to see the conversation in the comments.
Enfeebled F-35 could impede military readiness
January 31, 2013 3:15 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Blogs | CommentsPicture a Swiss Army Knife with a blunted knife, rusty screwdriver, and a broken can opener. That’s what the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has become — a jack of all trades and master of none. The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has — over the course of a highly tumultuous development period that personifies the phrase "requirements creep" — become the poster child for bloated government programs.
Boeing’s 787 battery eggs: All in one lithium basket
January 31, 2013 11:13 am | by Karl Stephan, Consulting Engineer, Texas State University, San Marcos | Blogs | CommentsExcuse the tortured metaphor, but the old advice about not putting all your eggs in one basket applies to engineering as well as to other fields. The implication is that if the basket with all your eggs slips and falls, you’ve lost everything. Boeing hasn’t lost everything, but the battery troubles besetting its new 787 Dreamliner could not have come at a worse time.
Not so very cool
January 31, 2013 10:31 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsA recent press release at ECN, NTU research embraces laser and sparks cool affair, prompted me to go looking for the source of the report, which was an article in Nature Magazine. The article explains a lot of things. One of those things is that the cooler is not the panacea described in the press release.
Did the Justice Department cause Aaron Swartz’s suicide?
January 31, 2013 9:00 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Articles | 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)...
A disturbance in the Force: The smartphone market is changing
January 30, 2013 2:45 pm | by Andrew Berg, Senior Editor, Wireless Week | Blogs | CommentsCan you hear it? That's the sound of the device market changing. It sounds a little like the whispers that RIM just might have something with BlackBerry 10. It also sounds a little like rumors that Amazon has the right kind of content ecosystem to launch a smartphone of its own.
Sensor pad analyzes impacts in football helmets
January 29, 2013 4:27 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Texas Instruments | Articles | CommentsOne of the highlights of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was a low-power wireless system that could revolutionize the game of pigskin. The Riddell InSite Impact Response System utilizes a five-point sensor pad lined in the player’s helmet to quantify an impact and, if it passes a predetermined threshold, notifies the sideline.
Engineers and analysts are paid to think
January 29, 2013 10:04 am | by Alan Nicol, Executive Member, AlanNicolSolutions | Blogs | CommentsThere is a message that I have tried many times to convey to colleagues, associates, peers, friends, and employers. It’s challenging because it is such a large and broad idea that it’s difficult to simplify into a platitude or simple fable. I’ll start by explaining that one of the greatest failures of many improvement efforts is also the greatest failure of many failed product designs and struggling or failed businesses.
These shoes will tell you when it’s time for a new pair
January 28, 2013 3:14 pm | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Blogs | CommentsApple has a lot of great products: iPhones, iPads, computers, laptops, Apple TV and the potential for many more. (Note the lack of iPad mini on this list because it is a dumb product, but I digress.) It seems the company might be expanding into shoe wear with a sensor that will track your steps and tell you when it’s time for a new pair of kicks.
What’s mine should be mine: Ruling makes it illegal to unlock your phone
January 25, 2013 2:29 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Blogs | CommentsThink you own your wireless handset, inside and out? Think you can do whatever you wish with your own property? Think again. Beginning Saturday, it will become illegal to unlock a phone without the express permission of the carrier who locked it.
Speaking of speakers
January 25, 2013 9:14 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsThe Consumer Electronic Show (CES) has been in the news at ECN, but boy was I surprised when my home town paper featured a CES story on its front page this past week. The story was mainly about Prescient Audio, a local company that has designed a new type of bass driver that will reduce the volume such drivers take up in cars.
Will a high-velocity, DNA-tagging police pellet gun deter protesters?
January 24, 2013 3:43 pm | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Blogs | CommentsGun control is a hot button issue, so it makes sense that police and security firms would look towards expanding effective methods of nonviolent interaction. This becomes particularly important during riot situations with a lot of people and confusion, where police are often outnumbered and overwhelmed.
Obsolete industries won’t drive economic growth
January 24, 2013 12:09 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | Articles | 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.
"Bring your own device" trend gaining speed -- benefits, risks and solutions
January 23, 2013 9:28 am | by Dean Wiech, Managing Director, Tools4ever | Blogs | CommentsA new trend gaining speed in many industries is the concept of “bring your own device” (BYOD). Plainly put, BYOD is when employees have the ability to bring their own technical devices—like smart phones, tablets and laptops -- and use the company’s network instead of a company-provided device. BYOD has many benefits and risks, though....
Vibrating steering wheel might prevent car accidents
January 23, 2013 9:12 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Blogs | CommentsI’ve talked a lot about intelligent systems in cars that are steering the industry towards a safer overall product by allow computers to take over where human error would mean an accident.There has been talk of new seatbelts, new braking system, and sensors that communicate with traffic lights and other cars,
“Smart pills” could save firefighters from injury or death
January 22, 2013 11:27 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | Blogs | CommentsWhile the idea of “Smart Medication” didn’t go over very well with the ECN crowd, there is a group to which it could be the difference between life and death.Firefighters often battle in extreme environmental conditions that can be pretty tough on the body’s vitals.
