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Monthly Archives: May 2017

The Value Of Celebrity

Loads of stuff about poor old Tiger. Except that he’s not really poor at all – he made $45.5 million last year. A bit less than his peak $100 million a year, but not too shabby. What’s surprising is that Tiger hasn’t won a major for nine years or any tournament for four years. Yet he still makes $45.5 million ...

ams uses closed-loop sensing for tight LED light control

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ams has introduced a power management IC for LED-based lamps and luminaires which uses closed-loop sensing to maintain more accurate correlated colour temperature (CCT) and lumen output. Following the AS7221 smart lighting manager introduced earlier this year, this new device, the AS7220, combines a precise calibrated-for-life colour sensor with an intelligent Cognitive Lighting Engine for standalone closed-loop maintenance of  the output ...

Estonian firm uses graphene for high reliability energy storage

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Skeleton Technologies, the Estonian ultracapacitor manufacturer, has developed an energy storage system for adding power reliability in manufacturing plants, data centres, and covering starting and bridging power for diesel generators. Called SkelGrid, the system is based on the firm’s curved graphene ultracapacitor technology, which is designed to provide high power and energy density. Taavi Madiberk, CEO of Skeleton Technologies, writes: “In ...

Infineon future-proofs cryptography

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Infineon claims it has produced an IC which can prevent the hacking of encryption algorithms by quantum computers.  Infineon calls it  ‘post-quantum cryptography’ technology. “The phantom of the quantum computer is keeping academia and the IT industry on high alert,” says Infineon’s  Thomas Pöppelmann (pictured). Quantum computer attacks on today’s cryptography are expected to become reality within the next 15 ...

Micron to invest $2bn in Hiroshima fab

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Micron is to spend $2 billion over the next two to three years equipping its Hiroshima fab, according to the Nikkei. The upgrade is to install Micron’s 13nm DRAM process. The Hiroshima fab used to be owned by Elpida which Micron bought for $2.5 billion in 2013. The Elpida acquisition gave Micron a stronger position in mobile DRAM. Elpida had ...

Imec software models daily energy yield of solar cells

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Imec and EnergyVille have developed simulation software that accurately predicts the daily energy yield of solar cells and solar modules under varying meteorological and irradiation conditions. “This record accuracy was obtained thanks to validation tests under controlled circumstances, such as wind tunnels, as well as from detailed data series with fine time granularity from PV modules in the field,” says ...

T.J. fights for control of Cypress board

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Next week the battle for control of the Cypress board comes to a head at the AGM on June 8th, At the heart of it is an attempt by founding CEO T.J. Rodgers (pictured)  to oust Ray Bingham from his position as Executive Chairman and member of the board of directors. Bingham is a former CEO of Cadence and member ...

Ten Best Countries

Thanks to US News and World Report for this one – the top ten countries based on 65 metrics delivering nine sub-rankings: Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power and Quality of Life.   Switzerland Canada Uk Germany Japan Sweden USA Australia France Norway

Driverless guru jobless

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The Catch-22 situation in which Unber’s driverless guru found himself has been resolved. He’s been sacked. Levandowski apparently preferred his Fifth Amendment protection to his continued employment at Uber. Levandowski pleaded the Fifth to accusations that he had stolen 14,000 files on driverless car technology from his previous employer Waymo, Google’s driverless car unit. Judge William Alsup, the judge in ...

Switch bounce, and the lack of it

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A reward for much remedial gardening activity was an hour or two of workshop time, attempting to work out personal ‘short push’ and ‘long push’ timings. The push button selected was a waterproof one from MEC in Denmark- as far as I can make out it is part of MEC’s multimec 3C series (see photo of rear, below) – obtained ...