August 21, 2008

Turbochargers are notorious for turbo lag, the delay between hitting the throttle and when power finally gets to the wheels.

Honeycomb structures are the basis of a buzz that’s building around a new tire being tested for Humvees and other Army vehicles.

As an independent design firm working for medical and electronics companies, we develop all kinds of products.

Internet bad guys might be able to use industrial networks as remote terminals to send unsolicited e-mails known as spam and launch attacks against other computer systems.

Say goodbye to the old high-school shop class.

A fleet of specially designed robots called SnoMotes traverse potentially dangerous and icy environments gathering meteorological data on temperatures, wind speed, humidity, and radiation.

A company making metal fasteners added an electrostatic paint line that gave managers grief almost as soon as it began operating.

2010 is shaping up to be a hot year for energy efficiency.

Move over silicon. A new gallium-nitride (GaN) transistor offers the promise of low-power consumption and high efficiency in high-power, high-temperature electronics such as motor drives for hybrid vehicles, appliances, and defense equipment.

The same fungus that plagued soldiers in World War II as it ate their tents and uniforms is now leading engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory to a new method for turning plants into ethanol.

A hand-operated press uses an electronic monitor to press-fit intricate assemblies as though it were a servo-operated press.

Important …Affluent …Impractical.

In the recent issue (June 5) Leland Teschler leads off with an editorial about the scarcity of high-mileage cars in the 1970s and the scarcity of them today.

The metalcasting industry handed out top honors in its 2008 Engineered Casting Solutions and American Foundry Society Casting Competition.

The cohost of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters talks about being a human guinea pig, filming a TV show, and making your own luck.

Purdue University recently installed a new supercomputer made up of 812 Dell servers and capable of 60 trillion operations/sec.

Engineers at Custom Machine & Tool Co., E. Weymouth, Mass. (cmtco.com), found that fasteners used to connect components to high-speed shafts had to have low inertia and create few vibrations.

10 YEARS AGO — AUGUST 20, 1998

Delphi Corp., Troy Mich., is one of the first companies to use next-generation segmented display cells from E Inc. Corp., Cambridge, Mass., for wireless, bidirectional key fobs with long-range car-to-user communication.

Security forces and law enforcement agencies depend as much on wireless communications as teenagers and plugged-in executives.

Have you every wondered what causes the Northern LIghts (also known as aurora borealis) to dance?

Manufacturing remains a robust contributor to the U.S. economy despite a general perception that global competition and outsourcing have U.S. OEMs on the run.

Designers at SVSi, Madison, Ala. (www.southernvisionsystems.com), have made it easier for companies to send audio and video signals to digital signs or HDTVs.