Technical Headline News Archive - September 2012

9/30/2012

OMB Implores Defense Contractors Not to Issue Layoff Notice While Sequestration is Uncertain (there's an election coming)

Telecom New Zealand Reiterates Tepid Fiscal 2013 Outlook

College Students Defaulting at Record Rate

Etching of Semiconductor Can Now Be Monitored in Real Time

9/28/2012

NFC Enabled Business Cards Being Tested (great idea for those who don't do phone bump NFC)

Japanese Banks Stake $6 Billion on Electronics Bailouts

'Melt in the Body' Electronics Devised

University of Utah Awarded Cosmic Rays Study Contract

GaAs Device Revenue to Grow from Record $5.2B in 2011 to $6.1B in 2016

Wi-Fi chip Maker Celeno Attracts More Investors

Is AM Revitalization Possible? (it's already thriving with talk, but not with music)

T-Mobile USA to Sell Tower Rights to Crown Castle for $2.4B

RIM Shows off BlackBerry 10

RIM Developer Faithful Find Hope in BlackBerry 10 Revival

Novel Materials Become Multifunctional at Ultimate Quantum Limit

The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life

Bioengineers Introduce 'Bi-Fi' - The Biological 'Internet'

Apple is 'Extremely Sorry' for Its Much-Maligned Maps

Gates: New Windows 8 is 'Very Exciting' (whoa, time really is a cruel master - see Bill pic)

9/27/2012

What if Google Were Run by Replacement Engineers? (frustrated gridiron fans will appreciate this)

ARRL HQ Seeks Applicants for the Position of QST Technical Editor

The Crisis in Higher Education

FCC Kicks off $300M Mobility Fund Auction for Rural Mobile Broadband

Global Competitors Threaten U.S. Lead in Mobile Broadband

Optical Waveguide Connects Semiconductor Chips

USAF to Base First 'Space Fence' Facility in Pacific

Beyond Wall St., Curbs on High-Speed Trades Proceed (see my article Arbitrage via Microwaves)

How Your Job Is Like a Marriage

Chinese Internet Users to Overtake English Language Users by 2015

TI Gives up on Smartphone and Tablet Markets

LG Accuses Samsung of Infringing Patents

Morse Code on Earth (see Morse Code on Mars)

D/A Converter Module for Radar and Beamformed Communications Introduced by Pentek

Durable Goods Drop Worst Since Recession (flash - we never got out of the recession)

Q2 GDP Slashed to 1.3% (typical - release good numbers then revise down to reality after news cycle ends)

9/26/2012

Man Arrested for Holding iPhone Hostage for $40

Microfabrication Methods to Help Navigate a Day Without GPS

Engineers Change Jobs Often to Fast-Track Career Progress

Magician to Risk Electrocution in Truly Shocking New Stunt

Search for Element 113 Concluded at Last (I suggest rfcafenium for a name)

New Limits Considered in Airwaves

RIM Expects to Add 2 Million New BlackBerry Subscribers

RIM Stands a Chance at Comeback If It Targets Microsoft, Not Apple

Nokia and Samsung Step up Handset Recycling Efforts in Kenya (I initially thought, "who cares," but it is to stop counterfeits)

TI Intros World's First Programmable Differential Amplifiers

Piezo Wireless Switch: No Battery, No Cable, No Wear

How the Chinese Smartphone Market Shapes the Battle for Global Dominance

Self-Driving Cars Now Legal in California (which cannot be said of the "undocumented" human drivers)

Italy's Slow Internet Set for Reboot

Tesla's Big Gamble: Can the Electric Car Go Mainstream?

China Spacesat Gets $18 Million from U.S. Government (why???)

9/25/2012

iPhone, iPad Theft up 70% y/y in NYC (11,447 thefts of Apple products - amazing)

Tape Recorders and Fax Machines Top LinkedIn's List of Office Endangered Species (some people are still using those???)

Foxconn Factory Reopens after Brawl

Riot at Foxconn Factory Underscores Rift in China

Army MARS Adopts New Leadership System

Kemet Tackles Arcing in High Voltage Chip Capacitors

Novel Materials Become Multifunctional at Ultimate Quantum Limit

Tesla's Big Gamble: Can the Electric Car Go Mainstream?

A Clock That Will Last Forever: The First Space-Time Crystal

Toys-R-Us Sued over Android Tablet Copies

Wirelessly Charged, All-Electric Bus Route is First for UK

Northrop Wins Air Force Contract for Airborne Comms Node

Lawmakers Grill FCC Officials on LightSquared's Fate

Nokia Excels Where Apple Blundered

Vietnam Delays 4G Licenses Until 2015

Russia's First Private Satellite to Be Launched in 2013

Government Spending Can Save UK Manufacturing (same idiotic thinking everywhere - tax workers to death, distribute to your cronies)

9/24/2012

Apple Sells 5 Million iPhones in Opening Weekend

Riots Break Out at Foxconn Factory in China (iPhones made there)

Teardown: Inside the Apple iPhone 5 (Skyworks has 2 PAMs inside)

Employee Shopping: 'Acqui-Hire' is the New Normal in Silicon Valley

Chip Firm Sets Up RFIC Design Centre in UK

USPTO Encourages Third Parties to Participate in Review of Pending Patent Applications

NAB's FM Chip Push is Disturbing and Wrong

Will Mobile Kill Digital Advertising?

Chinese to Overtake English As Largest Single Internet Userbase by 2015

Nanotubes Used to Create Smallest Ever Hologram Pixels

Erbium on Silicon Chip Speeds Up Light

Proposed Bill Could Change Royalty Rates for Internet Radio

Google Search and Gmail Censored in Iran

World's First Spaceport Nearly Ready in New Mexico

GM Offers Big Discounts to Boost Volt Sales ($10k from Gov't Motors + $7k refund from IRS = $17k per car from taxpayers: costs GM $75k to build)

Siemens to Lay Off 400+ Iowa Wind Turbine Plant (million$ more ha$tily-i$$ued tax dollar$ down the crapper)

9/23/2012

Hilarious Examples of How Awful Apple's New Maps App Is

How to Instantly Get Google Maps Back on Your iPhone

Apple Loses Latest Patent Round Against Samsung

Radar Measurements of Highest Precision

The Plan to Message Aliens with Twitter (could help protect planet since no perceived threat from being conquered... or signal an easy meal)

9/21/2012

Why You Should Care About the FM Chip in Cellphones

Intel's Tiny Wi-Fi Chip Could Have a Big Impact

Physicists Squeeze Light on Quantum Scale

M2M Connections Lags Behind Industry Expectations

Arsenide Nanowires on Graphite and Graphene

High Durability of Nanotube Transistors in Harsh Space Environment Demonstrated

Experiment Corrects Prediction in Quantum Theory

Researchers Devise New Subtractive Type of Nanoscale Printing

How the Chinese Smartphone Market Shapes the Battle for Global Dominance

USA Environment Agency to Promote Recycling of Consumer Electronics

RIM Restores Service After BlackBerry Outage in Europe

Cubic Global Tracking Gets Approval for RF Sensors on Planes

Navy Asks Industry About Link 11 and Link 22 Radio Data Links for Shipboard Communications

LCD Maker Hit with $500 Million Antitrust Fine

iPhone 5 Draws Big Crowds as Sales Begin in Asia-Pacific

9/20/2012

Engineers Seek to Extract Rare Earth Metals from Scrap

Blackberry Inventor Re-Creates Bell Labs

Optical Waveguide Connects Semiconductor Chips

Massive Demand Awaits Friday's iPhone 5 Sale

Army Sees Smart Phone Strategy As "Continuing Process"

Samsung Fails to Overturn Sales Ban on Galaxy Tablet in the USA

Thailand to Offer Free Wi-Fi in Tourist Destinations

Find Out What’s In Store at the 2012 ARRL National Convention

Single-Atom Writer a Landmark for Quantum Computing

"Brain Circulation" Replacing "Brain Drain" in Global Research (text shifts down page)

Researchers Develop Printable Lasers

Making the Most of Today's Spectrum Resources

Viewing Hydrogen Atoms with Neutron Protein Crystallography

UK Cities Divide Up Fast Broadband Cash

New Material Could Make Thermoelectric Power Practical

AT&T Chief Speaks Out on Texting at the Wheel

9/19/2012

Rohm Develops Hydrogen Cells for Smartphones (cool!, now we need a nuke supply)

Water Doped Graphite Flakes Exhibit Superconductive Properties at High Temperature (300K - true RT)

Radio Meets in Secret to Discuss Future of Digital

Mobile Phone Interference with Plane Instruments: Myth or Reality?

ZTE to Launch Mozilla Based Smartphone by End of the Year

Sprint, Dish Clash over 5 MHz Satellite Spectrum Shift

IAU Votes to Redefine the Astronomical Unit – Giving It a Constant Value (same folks who say Pluto isn't a planet)

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Method Could Lead to Plastic Electronics

Looking Ahead to WRC-15

RIM Takes NFC to Film Festival

Fab Lite, Fewer Startups Could Fuel IC Growth Rate

Apple's iPhone 5 Hardware Components Costs Less Than $200

Turning Waste Heat into Electrical Energy

Lockheed Martin to Solidify Long Range Radar Requirement for 3DELRR

Microsoft Warns on Previously Unseen IE Bug

Building Cheap Batteries to Circumvent the Grid

Median Income Worse Now Than It Was During Great Recession (we could be booming if Gov't would get out of the way)

9/18/2012

Apple Stock Hits $700 in Wake of iPhone 5 Debut

Singapore's Rising Tech Industry Draws Expat Innovators And Investors

Commercial Mobile Advancing for Secure Use

CERN's Higgs Boson Discovery Needed Fast Electronics (Higgs has not been positively ID'ed yet, BTW)

Motorola's First Intel-Powered Handset Launches in UK

'Warp Drive' May Be More Feasible Than Thought

'Memristors' Based on Transparent Electronics Offer Technology of the Future

Freestanding Carbon Nanotubes May Be Thinner Than Previously Thought Possible

Renesas Launches NFC and Wireless Charging Combo

Sean Smith, KG4WSS, Killed in Consulate Attack (don't buy the crap about it being due to a video)

House to Hold Hearing on FCC's Role in Granting LightSquared Waiver

Job Losses, Reduced Government Incomes Loom as Primary Threats of Defense Sequestration

Enormous Roman Mosaic Found Under Farmer's Field (amazing)

Uncertainty Not So Certain After All

Compound Semiconductor Component Sales to Grow at 11.9%

GM Wants to Get the "Government" out of Government Motors - Government Says No (it has hurt the brand significantly)

9/17/2012

Will Next 'Solar Max' Fry Electronics?

High-Temperature Superconductivity Induced in a Semiconductor with Scotch Tape (maybe Scotch tape itself is the magic elixir - it gave us graphene in production quantities)

What Technologies Will Crowdfunding Create?

Mobile Phones and Wireless Networks: No Evidence of Health Risk Found

Federal Employees Can Help Support ARRL Through the 2012 Combined Federal Campaign

HP's Whitman Vows to Get Back into Smartphone Business

USAF to Establish Center of Excellence for Laser Remote Sensing and Communications

Vodafone Considers $2.2 Billion Accounting Provision Due to Indian Tax Demand

Memory vs. Math: Same Brain Areas Show Inverse Responses to Recall and Arithmetic

Startup Samples 60 GHz Transceiver

Smartphones Let Work Win Out

China Protests: Japanese Firms Suspend Some Operations

Rohde & Schwarz Intros World's Fastest EMI Test Receiver

Golden Goose Awards Honor 'Silly' Science

Satellite Operators Stand Ready to Assist DOD

Android Reaping Significant Gain in Canadian Marketplace

9/16/2012

Canada Competition Watchdog Sues Bell, Rogers, Telus

USPTO Connects Innovators to Key Patent and Trademark Resources

Motorola Loses German Patent Battle Against Apple

NASA Offers Opportunity to Use Communications Testbed on Space Station

Chinese Vendors Face Skeptical U.S. Lawmakers

9/14/2012

Microchip's Nixie Tubes Light up DESIGN East

BAE, EADS Would Create European Defense Giant

Vanadium Oxide Bronze: A Replacement for Silicon in Microchips?

How Your Wireless Carrier Overcharges You

Radio Q2 Revenue Sputters

Becky Schoenfeld, W1BXY, is New QST Managing Editor

Radio-Over-Fiber Promises to Spread the Web

Hitachi Chemical Markets Tiny UHF Tag

T-Mobile: Broadcast Spectrum Isn't Enough

Compound Semiconductor Component Sales to Grow at 11.9% from $27B in 2012 to $47.5B in 2017

Can Crowdsourcing Bring Unused Patents Back from the Dead?

President May Issue Executive Order on Cybersecurity (one branch of government is enough anymore - don't need no stinking congress anymore)

iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4S

Acer Cancels Chinese Smartphone Launch Following Pressure from Google

Google Motorola Faces German Ban After Apple Victory

Apple Snubs Emerging Mobile Payment Standard

Google Blocks Access to Inflammatory Video (aka censorship - would they block access to an anti-Semitic video?)

9/13/2012

LHC Collides Protons with Lead Ions for First Time

4G iPhone 5 Sounds Death Knell for 3G

iPhone 5 Bill of Materials Estimate is $167.50

No More Bubbles When Boiling Water (interesting!)

Hard Coating Extends the Life of New Ultrahigh-Density Storage Device

USPTO to Implement New Patent Quality Process

Laser Nanofabrication for Mass Production at the Nanoscale

Japan to Establish Cyber Defense Force in 2013

Pocket Radar: Thumbtack-Sized Distance and Motion Sensor Developed

First Ammonia MBE Nitride Semi HEMTs on Silicon (wonder if it smells like a Queens subway station when it overheats?)

HYLAS 2 Communications Satellite Completes In-Orbit Testing

Number of Commercial LTE Networks Reaches 96

Ingenico Enables NFC Mobile Payment Pilot in the Czech Republic

Asteroid to Fly by Earth Thursday

Mammoth Fragments from Siberia Raise Cloning Hopes (that would be cool)

9/12/2012

Physicists Devise Means for Observing Single Atom Interference over Coherence Length

Where RF Meets Analog and Digital—the New Embedded Reality

Intel Research Team Develops Electronic Probe Storage Device (this is amazing)

Huawei Commits to $2 Billion Investment in the UK

Trading in Your Old iPhone? Here's What It's Worth

The Computer That Beat 2 Million Humans at Fantasy Football

British Motorists are Using Their Mobile Phones in Cars for More Than Talking

Wireless Charging—Has Its Time Finally Arrived? (not green though - lower efficiency than the best wall warts)

Chip and PIN 'Weakness' Exposed by Cambridge Researchers

Tech Firms Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property

X-Fab MEMS Foundry Goes 3-D

Three Hams Return to Earth This Weekend

Amazon, Forced to Collect a Tax, Is Adding Roots

Sheryl Crow Blames Her Brain Tumor on Her Cellphone

Using iPads Before Bed Can Lead to a Poor Night's Sleep

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed (so This is what democracy looks like?!?!)

9/11/2012

9/11 Lawsuit "Bigger Than Your Wildest Imagination" (endless cost to U.S. citizens from the terrorist attack)

Satellites and Secure Wireless Evolve to Meet New Demands

The World's Most Stable Laser Also Promises Heightened Test Precision

LTE Based 4G Services Coming to the UK by This Christmas

Euro Consortium Rolls Auto Radar Sensor

Surge in UK High-Tech Investment

Electron Magnetic Moment Calculated Precisely

Norway Researchers Grow Semiconductors on Graphene

South Korean Networks Warned They Could Be Barred from Signing Up New Customers

China Contractor Again Faces Labor Issue on iPhones

Northrop Grumman to Help Develop RF Seeker for Future Rocket-Propelled Bunker-Busting Bomb

Moneto to Bring NFC Payments to Europe

Hacker Claims Responsibility for GoDaddy Outage

Researchers Study Best Use of Whitespace Spectrum

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile Execs Rally Behind Microsoft's Windows Phone 8

With Smartphone Sales, Samsung is Already Pulling Ahead of Apple

9/10/2012

GM Losing $49k per Volt Sold (GM still owes taxpayers $50B, pays $0 in federal taxes)

UK Laptop Designer Bill Moggridge Dies

Tech Companies Rank High in Work-Life Balance

ARRL Plans Centennial Celebration in Hartford in 2014

Researchers Make First All-Optical Nanowire Switch

TSMC to Expand 2013 Capex to $10 Billion

Fury 1500 Tactical Unmanned Aerial System Achieves SATCOM Video Downlink

First Africa-Designed Smartphone Unveiled in Republic of Congo

The Tech Buyer's Dilemma: Timing the Plunge

World Record Set for Highest Surface Area Material

Vodafone Australia Suffers Major Network Failure

Kodak to Chop Another 1,000 Jobs

UK Skills Initiative Goes to Scotland

FCC to Set Rules for Spectrum Auctions That Could Occur in 2014

Physicist Derives Laws of Thermodynamics for Life Itself

9/9/2012

Towards Computing with Water Droplets: Superhydrophobic Droplet Logic

USPTO Seeks Comment on Proposed Fee Schedule as Mandated by America Invents Act

Scientists uncertain About Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

Mobile Subs Reach 1 Billion in the Americas, Broadband Up

Astronaut 'Touches' the Sun in Spacewalk Photo

9/7/2012

Air Force Kicks off ACE Project to Build Advanced Components for Tomorrow's Electronic Warfare

UK Broadband Aided by Planning Permission Rule Changes

Crews Complete First Block of North America's Most Advanced Neutrino Experiment

Nokia to Start Selling Make-or-Break Smartphone in November

Why Your Cellphone Could Be Called a 'Tracker'

Mathematicians Offer Unified Theory of Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Altering Einstein Field Equations (here we go again - stay tuned for retraction)

High-Performance Gyros to Reach $1.66B in 2017

Needle Beam Could Eliminate Signal Loss in On-Chip Optics

Quantum World Only Partially Melts: Ultracold Atoms Reveal Surprising New Quantum Effects

2013 to Be Golden Year for Fab Capex, Says SEMI

Moody's Outlook for U.S. Wireless Industry Now Positive as Cash Flow Grows

Intel Slashes Outlook as PC Demand Weakens

Semiconductor R&D Spend to Grow 10% This Year

Apple Plans Web Radio Challenge to Pandora

Motorola Goes for Bleeding Edge with New RAZR Line

Here Is a Video Showing What the U.S. Taxpayer Bought with GM

9/6/2012

143 km: Physicists Break Quantum Teleportation Distance

Nokia Apologizes for 'Faked' Lumia Smartphone Advert (stupid)

Distributors Advisory Group Addresses Counterfeit Electronics

Unified Theory of Dark Matter and Dark Energy Proposed

FCC to Measure Mobile Broadband Performance

Motorola Shows off First Smartphones Under Google

Next-Gen GPS III Satellites Undergo First Readiness Test

South Korea Probes Samsung over Apple Antitrust Complaints

MacGyveresque Toothbrush Improvisation Used to Fix Space Station

Samsung's Galaxy S3 Retains Top Spot in UK Handset Charts

In Quest of the Cosmic Origins of Silver

iPhone 5 Sales Could Hit 10M Within Days of Launch

Microsoft to Hire 1,000 in China over Next Year

Navy Surveys Industry for High-Power Energy Storage Called Hybrid Energy Storage Module (HESM)

IEEE 2011 Annnual Report Now Available

The Sad Truth About the American Dream (this is the biggest load of crap I've seen on a "science" site in a long time - it belongs on a haters of American history political website. Update: Fabian Pfeffer, German immigrant or on visa-to U.S., Ph.D. at U. of Mich. where average full prof salary is $148.8k)

9/5/2012

TV Makers Join Forces Against Smartphone Giants

Sweden Tops Tim Berners-Lee's Web Index

Carriers Get Green Light to Launch NFC in the UK

Median Income of Electrotechnology Professionals Rises to Nearly $120k IEEE-USA Salary Survey Reveals

IBM, ST Go Back to the Future with Nanorelay Logic

Smartphone Makers Risking Customer Satisfaction Through Poor Reporting of Battery Performance

How RIM Will Win Back Developers for BlackBerry 10

Interfaces are Key in Metal Oxide Superlattices

Pulse NFC Antenna Has 4cm Range

Russia Delays 2012 Military Launches After Satellite Failure

FBI Denies Collecting iPhone Tracking IDs

Waste Silicon Gets New Life in Lithium-Ion Batteries

67-Attosecond Extreme Ultraviolet Laser Pulse is the World's Shortest

'Virtually All' New Mobile Malware Directed at Android

U.S. Slips Down the Ranks of Global Competitiveness

Food-Stamp Use Climbs to Record

9/4/2012

Cellphone Malware Attacks on the Rise

Multinationals Stake a Claim in Venture Capital

Researchers Find Ordinary Pen Ink Useful for Building a Supercapacitor

LTE Will Be Launched by 60% of Operators in Latin America by 2013

China, Due to Cheap Androids, Will Be Largest Smartphone Market

Defense Budget Sequestration Creates Friction Between Congress and OMB (Senate hasn't passed a budget in 3 years)

Samsung Dominates Western European Phone Market, Apple Hurt by New iPhone Rumors

When a Kickstarter Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get the Money Back?

Nano Tech Mission to Germany and Austria

Researchers Move Quantum Computing to Silicon

Hackers Leak 1 Million Apple Device IDs

Hitachi Cable Demos First GaN Vertical Diode with 3000V Breakdown

Cheaper Nanolithography Technique Developed

Unmanned Sub Hunter to Quell a Silent Threat

Effect of Gravitational Waves Finally Detected

9/3/2012

India Limits Foreign Visitors Using SIM Cards to Just 3 Months

Wireless Internet Successes Due to Entrepreneurs, Not Government

Is Mil-Aero Industry Under Attack?

The Counterintuitive Physics of Tarzan Swings

We Never Talk Any More: The Problem with Text Messaging

Online Universities Blossom in Asia

U.S. Regulator to Review Radio Spectrum Holdings Rules

5 Easy Tricks to Boost Your Home Wi-Fi (#1: stop stealing it from your neighbor)

Multilayer Organic RF Inductors for RF Power Amplifiers Introduced by AVX

Rivals Jostle Before Apple Announces New iPhone

Samsung Announces WP8 Phone, Win8 Tablet and Galaxy Note II with NFC

Russia Unveils Own 'Almost Android' System

Devices Could Help Improve Mobile Phone Performance

30,000 Dead North Carolinians Registered to Vote (nothing to see here folks, just move along)

9/2/2012

Smartphone Storm May Climax with iPhone 5

Chinese Counterfeiters Get the Jump on iPhone 5

Young Scientists Make the Cut

Microsemi Launches GaN-on-SiC RF Transistor for Secondary Surveillance Radar Aviation Applications

Los Alamos Provides Hope for Radiation Belt Storm Probes