The creator if the first MEMS device, Harvey Nathanson, has died. He built a resonant horizontal wand-like structure while working for Westinghouse in the 1960s. “Working out of the Westinghouse Research Labs in 1965 he conceived of a microscopic device used as a tuner for microelectronic radios,” according to this obituary by Ralph Schugar Chapel in Pittsburgh. “The invention, known as ...

Is the purpose of a business just to make money? Some people would say Yes but, 33 years ago in his book The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt suggested that the purpose of a business was more than that. Levitt summed up the purpose of a business  in five propositions. They are: The purpose of a business is to create and ...

NASA has confirmed its intention to buy seats on possible private space missions, to support its “low-Earth orbit commercialisation goals”. Specifically, it would be for short duration (taking up to 30 days) trips to the International Space Station. “The purchase of a private astronaut mission seat will directly support NASA’s low-Earth orbit commercialisation goals by helping to lay the foundation ...

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned the decisions of a major radiocommunication conference may be too lenient to avoid an adverse impact on Earth observation satellite systems. The World Radiocommunication Conference 2019, organized by the International Telecommunications Union and attended by more than 160 nations, agreed on the allocation of bandwidths of the world’s radio spectrum. The WMO has ...

5G handsets will account for 15% of the smartphone market next year with Chinese brands supplying 60% of them, reports TrendForce. Total production volume for smartphones in 3Q19 is estimated at 375 million units, a 9.2% growth QoQ.  The top six positions are Samsung, Huawei, Apple, OPPO, Xiaomi, and Vivo, which accounted for 78% of global market share in Q3. The ...

RISC-V will see 146.2% CAGR 2018-2025, forecasts Semico Research. Semico reckons that 62.4 billion RISC-V CPU cores will be shipped by 2025 of which the largest segment is industrial which is forecast to use 16.7 billion cores. Semico analysed data for 25 applications within five major end markets – computer, consumer, communications, transportation and industrial – to develop a forecast ...

Daicel of Osaka is offering free samples of nanodiamonds in return for reports on how they work in the field. Nanodiamonds (NDs) are a nano-carbon material consisting of a diamond core and sp2 carbon layers like graphene and graphite with various oxygenic functional groups. Daicel sells nano-diamonds under the brand name  DINNOVARE. The DINNOVARE range has cluster NDs and seven different ...

The best place to be a pensioner is Holland, says the OECD. Across OECD countries 13.5% of over-65s live in relative income poverty defined as an income below half the national median household income. It is most prevalent in South Korea where almost 45%  of retirees are living in poverty. The report cites a pension system that has not fully matured ...

RS Components has announced availability of the DRM40/B series of DIN rail mounted redundancy power modules from TDK-Lambda. Designed for automation and general-purpose industrial applications, the DRM40 and DRM40B power modules offer 20 to 40A current handling capability and can be used in N+1 redundancy systems and applications; alternatively, two supplies can be placed in parallel for additional power. One ...

Ranplan Wireless has been selected as a contributor to a €1.4m EU Horizon project, taking place over a four-year period starting 1 December 2019. Focused on realising the concept of network slicing in preparation for mass-market deployment of programmable 5G networks, this EU initiative brings Ranplan Wireless in partnership with CNR of Italy, Orange Labs of France and the University of ...