Nanotubes about ready for Prime Time
Transparent conductive and semiconductive films is what makes LCD and touchscreens work nanotubes hold promice to be transparent but stronger and flexible than current technologies. It looks like touchscreens and LCDs just may be the first
widespread commercial product for carbon nanotubes.
"With our combined facilities in Houston and Menlo Park [Calif.], we are developing a variety of carbon nanotube-based films for the electronics industry," said Jon Miller, vice president of business development at Unidym.
The company's first product is a transparent film produced at room temperature using inexpensive roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques to replace the vacuum chamber sputtering process required for the transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes used today in flat-panel displays, touch screens, solar cells, and solid-state lighting.
Unidym recently announced a joint-development agreement with Touch Panel Laboratories (Tokyo), under which the two companies will perfect tough carbon-nanotube-based films that can function as well as the ITO-based panels made today, but be much more durable. Nanotubes are stronger than steel and yet extremely lightweight, making their films an almost ideal combination of strength and light weight.
"We are working toward a more durable touch panel for Nintendo with Touch Panel Laboratories," said Miller.
Yup, thats right the first widespread product just might be the Gameboy
Samsung's Bi-DVD
The DVD wars hae been on ongoing. Japanese consumer electronic giants Sony and Toshiba have taken their stands, Blue Ray in one Corner and HD DVD in the other. Korea's Samsung has taken the technological lead and introduced the HD DVD and Blue Ray hybrid.
Initial reports look good!
... the BD-UP5000 is fully HD DVD compliant, able to play back all the interactive menus and features that are the hallmark of the format. I tested it with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and things came out flawless. Even though this was a prototype drive. Also, the drive has local storage and Ethernet, which are part of the HD DVD spec. The UP5000 also features an HQV Reon processor, the same video scaler and deinterlacer that made the current gen Toshiba HD DVD player's images so good.
Blu-ray discs played fine, and I wish I'd brought along the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to see if the Blu-ray Java problems persisted. But I doubt that is an issue, given the fact that the bug is well known and was patched across the board last month.
Its a beginning. Perhaps this product and others like it will open the hi def video market a little more. The new player will be an obvious choice for many. Congratulations to Samsung not only for a promising product, but for jumping on and taking the technical lead!
Labels: Electronics
USB-503 from Measurement Computing
Things always seem to happen when we are away or not looking. A circuit trips a fault condition or a stall. If the equipment involves a modern DCS system we might be able to figure out what happened if we can trend some monitored points.
Measurement Computing has some
kewl new devices that might prove interesting. They are USB remote data loggers. The idea is to plug the devices into a USB port. Set it up where you need it and log away. To view the data all one has to do is connect back up to the USB port download and view. They come in a couple different flavors. Temperature Current (4-20) and Voltage (0-30V) Sounds to good to be true. I had to have one if these!! I opted for the Voltage unit, the
USB-503. It could i could stick a resister in series to do some current monitoring if I needed to.
I receive a unit about 2 weeks ago, and although the logger checked the voltages correctly. the clock logged the time in to quickly. It was as though the the clock was about 10 times to fast. I called Measurement Computing and they exchanged a new one right to me. As always their service is excellent and flawless.
The Unit consist of a CD with the Data logging Software, instruction pamphlet, a 3.6V 1/2AA lithium battery and the unit itself. The software is pretty self explanatory. There are 3 functions:
- Setup Data logger. One can set up the logger to take measurements from avery 10 seconds to every 12 hours. At every 10 seconds will log up to 3 days 16 hours. One of the neat features is that the logger can be set up to to do linear unit conversions.
- Download data. This creates a CSV data file suitable for a spreadsheet program or supplied Viewer.
- View Data: Data is presented via a configurable and self-scaling trend graph suitable for presentation.
The Temperature models could be very handy for those who need to monitor food storage. The USB-502 does temperature and relative humidity and could be real handy in monitoring environmental control such as in the textile or farming industry. Its pretty hard to beat the prices on these things at under $100.
I do have a couple of nitpicks though. The 10 second maximum scan rate isn't really fast enough for the voltage logger. I would like to see a 1 second or at least a 2 second scan rate it would be more likely to catch momentary surges and dips on an overnight run. The alligator clips and leads are too big. The tinning on the leads make it impossible to insert into the unit without trimming them back.
All in all I rate my USB-503 as pretty useful though, and I'm finding more uses for it all the time. Measure Computing Corporation has some pretty neat USB devices that fit in real well with real world needs. We also also own a a couple of their PMD devices which we have used to perform some automated experimentation and proof of concept demonstrations. It is just further proof that one doesn't need a $100k DCS system to monitor and trend a point or to control a tiny process for a bit.
Labels: Electronics, Industry
Flexible Fiber
Fiberoptic cable is a great way to move a large bandwidth. Verizon has been working to connect up to 18 million homes into its fiber network. Te catch is that fiber isn't all that flexible. Bending and flexing can completely kill the signals as
Fortune explains This intolerance for bending can make fiber optics a nightmare to install in someone's home. Snaking the wiring along the floorboards is out of the question - just one tight turn around the bookcase, and the signal is kaput. So Verizon's installers have been forced to come up with alternate routes, such as drilling holes in walls to get the cabling from one room to another. The process is time-consuming, expensive, and potentially destructive. The problem is particularly acute in apartment buildings - and there are a lot of those in Verizon's East Coast territory - which are full of conduits, shafts, and corners that must be navigated in order to hook up each customer. (In most single-family homes Verizon just needs to connect the fiber to a special box on the outside of the customer's house.) Fun fact: To get a fiber connection to a typical basement apartment, installers encounter an average of 12 right-angle turns.
But Corning seems to have some answers.
Corning's researchers figured out a way to keep the light going as it turns corners - lots and lots of corners. We can't go too deep into the technical details - the company exhibits CIA-levels of paranoia about its inventions. But essentially Corning's technology infuses the cladding that surrounds the fiber's narrow core with microscopic guardrails called nanostructures. They help keep the light from seeping out of the fiber, even when it is wound around a pencil - treatment that normally would render it completely useless.
Like many innovations at Corning, the discovery of "bend insensitive" fiber was a combination of serendipity and determination. A group of scientists from different disciplines - chemist Dana Bookbinder, chemical engineer Pushkar Tandon, and optical scientist Ming-Jun Li - had been thinking independently about nanostructures in their fields. Bookbinder, a sociable chap who says he spends a lot of his time "b.s.-ing" with other scientists, realized they needed to collaborate. They began brainstorming on Friday afternoons, and by the summer of 2004 they had started experimenting with nanostructures in fiber.
At first they conducted experiments on their own initiative, with Bookbinder rewarding his colleagues with homemade chocolates for coming in on weekends to help cook up early versions of the fiber. He also encountered skeptics. "We had several physicists who rolled their eyes and said, 'This will never work,'?" Bookbinder recalls.
Corning's business executives were less disbelieving, and as soon as they got wind of the project in early 2006, they put it on the fast track for development. They even shared early findings with Verizon, which loves the idea.
"When you see somebody tie a fiber cable in a knot and it is still able to transmit a signal, you initially think, 'There's something not right with that,'?" says Paul Lacouture, the Verizon executive who has led its FiOS buildout. Lacouture (who announced his retirement in late June) says the company also is considering wireless technologies that could help it deliver broadband in apartments, but for now Verizon's money is on Corning and its bendable fiber.
I hope us industrial guys don't have to wait too far behind the home applications. Our applications typically aren't as bandwidth hungry, but we sure could use some of that less delicate fiber!
Labels: Electronics, Networking
Leave No Ladder Unclimbed
Talk about climbing the corporate ladder. Enrique Santacana has been named Region Manager of ABB North America and President & CEO of ABB, Inc. This promotion to some may not seem surprising, considering Santacana’s history. Let’s begin with his humble beginnings: a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, a Master of Engineering Degree in Electric Power Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Business Administration Degree from Duke University. Since his start at ABB in 1977 he has been on his way to the top. He has held several positions throughout his career: head of ABB’s Power Technology Division, Vice President and General Manager of Medium Voltage Products, Vice President and Director of ABB Power T&D Company’s Electric Systems Technology Institute, and Vice President and General Manager of the ABB T&D Company’s Electric Metering and Control Business. As you can see he has been busy over the last three decades. He aided in the turnaround of ABB’s performance and culture change. The last ABB company he was in charge of, ABB’s Power Products, grossed $2 Billion. So it is more than evident that Santacana knows how to get things done. Mr. Santacana I think you can use the elevator now.
Labels: Industry
What’s Estonia?
Whether Al Gore made it or not, the internet maybe one of the only unadulterated pinnacles in America, right? Well according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the US ranks 24th worldwide in “broadband penetration”. Right behind Estonia, the country to the west of Russia, yeah that’s the one. The OECD describes “broadband penetration” as the percentage of homes connected. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) measures this problem in a very peculiar way: as long as a single building in the ZIP code- a school, church, private business- has a broadband connection, then everyone in the area gets counted as having access. The FCC’s definition of “broadband” is a little iffy as well. Anything over 200 Kbps is considered to be “broadband”. Other parts of the world blaze through the web at speeds up to 10 times faster. Some say that the lack of competition is the real problem. With only two real companies offering cable and broadband connections: AT&T and Verizon, it’s no wonder Americans have grown complacent to paying $40/month for 4Mbps while in Japan they $30/month for 50Mbps. Yeah that’s right 50Mbps. Despite all of this overwhelming evidence that the US is lagging in the broadband area FCC chairman Kevin Martin stated, “I think our polices are a success”. So hats off to Estonia.
Labels: Computing, Networking
Consumer Privacy Rights? Not in This Search Engine.
What would you do if you knew that a company had compiled a profile of your web browsing by using cookies, logging search terms, and monitoring which ads you click on? Google already does the first two and is now trying to seal the deal with the third. It’s reported that Google has been trying to acquire DoubleClick, Inc. A New York based company that helps customers create and track on-line advertising. The takeover will come with a price of $3.1 billion, not so bad considering that Google would then be able to monopolize on online advertising, as it is on the verge of doing with keywords. Consumer privacy advocacy groups in the US requested that the FTC look at how the takeover will give Google unprecedented access to consumer web browsing habits. Fears have also been raised that this takeover will hurt the diversity of content due to the fact that in order for a company to be credible it would have to be part of the Google network. As it is in the US, Google’s market share is roughly 47%. However, in Germany and Spain it already controls 90% of the market. Europe’s main consumer group BEUC has also voiced their concerns to the EU; saying that the takeover may damage the EU’s privacy rights. Google has yet to get approval from the EU for the takeover. Google’s response to all of the concerns over the pending takeover was that it “poses no risk to competition and should be approved”. So that friendly little search engine that we all rely on so heavily failed to mention anything about the possibility that consumers rights could possibly be infringed upon. So to you my friends watch your clicks because if Big Brother isn’t watching, you can count on Google.
Labels: Consumers Rights
Invensys Aquires Cimnet
Last week
Invensys announced completing the acquisition of
Cimnet.
Invensys today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Cimnet, Inc (OTC BB: CIMK), a Manufacturing Execution System ("MES") software company based in Pennsylvania, USA, and this acquisition is now being fully integrated into the Wonderware software business unit of Invensys. This acquisition has closed under the terms of the original agreement that was announced on May 3, 2007.
Existing Cimnet offerings will continue to be made available and enhanced for customers under the Wonderware Factelligence and the Wonderware DNC Professional brands. In addition, the acquired MES technology offerings are being integrated with Invensys' open industry standard based, ArchestrA technology, to ensure rapid deployment and ease of use by the large Invensys and Wonderware installed base of over 100,000 plants around the world.
Wonderware is one aquistion of Invensys that has enjoyed dramatic growth after being aquired by Invensys. If there is any such thing in this industry its become the defacto standard.
Labels: Computing, Industry
Iphones pricey
Perhaps they will make it up in volume but one company is claiming the the Bill of Materials for the new Apple
IPhone is running about $220 even though it is selling for less than other phones that have cheaper parts.
EEtimes explains:
Apple's iPhone could be one of the most expensive and densely packed smart phones on the market. The iPhone's hardware components alone are estimated to cost the company $220, about $40 more than the next most costly smart phone, according to analysts at Portelligent (Austin) who tore apart a system over the weekend. "It's a pricey piece of hardware. The $220 bill of materials is definitely at the high end of smart phones today," said David Carey, president of Portelligent, a teardown service focused on mobile phones and other consumer products.
While the iPhone's costs are high, its profits will apparently not be as great as those of some of its competitors. Portelligent estimates typical smart phones component costs range from $130-180 and some of the handsets sell at or even above the iPhone's $500-600 price tags.
The article further explains how the
Iphone components are not only
expensive but the unit is expensive to build. Repair of these things could be expensive also, the batteries are not consumer replaceable. Like any system the complete cost isn't just in the parts, but the total coast over its expected lifetime.
Update: Even
changing the batteries can be
expensive on these things
