Technical Headline News Archive - September 2014

9/30/2014

• CubeSat Proliferation Highlights Space Debris Problem

• Smartphone Shifts Automotive Processor Demand

• U.S. Man Charged for Selling Spyware Phone App

• Future Smartphones Won’t Need Cell Towers to Connect

• Conference Supports & Highlights Women in Engineering

• Apple Hit by Brussels over Illegal Irish Tax Deals

• Old School Cost-Cutting: When Reused Components Work Just Fine

• Leidos to Help DARPA Jam-Proof Communications

• E.U. Inquiry into Tax Deals for Multinationals Like Apple Pushes Ahead

• Russian Soyuz Capsule Reaches Space Station Despite Stuck Solar Array

• Arduino Wi-Fi Shield 101 Targets IoT via Secured Wi-Fi

• Cable, the FCC and Streaming Killed Saturday Morning Cartoons (my favorite part of the weekend as a kid in the '60s & '70s)

• Circuit Discriminates & Recovers Noisy Pulses

• Illegals Overwhelming Schools

• 'Anti-Facebook' Social Network Gets Viral Surge

9/29/2014

• Woman Beheaded in Oklahoma by Radical Muslim (More Terrorism Labeled 'Workplace Violence')

• Radios Tune up for 5G

• Air Force Awards $40M for Electromagnetic Research

• FBI boss 'Concerned' by Smartphone Encryption Plans (they want to be able to snoop)

• Signaling Post-Snowden Era, New iPhone Locks out NSA

• Shellshock Bug's Impact Could Be Huge, but It's Unclear for Now

• Fairchild Reinvents Itself

• Inventor of WWW Warns of Threat to Internet

• ARRL Education & Technology Program Grant Application Deadline is November 1

• Russia Asks Facebook, Gmail, Twitter to Register as Information Distributors

9/28/2014

• Pulsed RF Power Semiconductor Device Markets to Exceed $300M by 2019

• Constant Phone Calls Allowed on European Flights

• Why Major Airlines Will Never Care If You're Happy (like gov't - too big to care)

• Live Long and Phosphor: Blue LED Breakthrough for Efficient Electronics (funny line)

• Longstanding Bottleneck in Crystal Structure Prediction Solved

9/26/2014

• FBI: Disgruntled Employees Are Increasingly e-Sabotaging Businesses

• Log Out of LinkedIn NOW

• Novel Oxide-Based Magnetism Follows Electrical Commands•

• Miss a Payment? Good Luck Moving That Car (mean people expect to be paid as promised)

• Top 5 Things to Know About Wireless Power Design

• Teaching Electrical Engineering Concepts with Squishy Circuits

• IBM Water Cooling Enables a Super Solar Dish

• Drone Exemptions for Hollywood Pave the Way for Widespread Use (yeah, if you donate to the right people)

• Blackberry Passport Introduces Dual-Control Keyboard

• Interface Surprises May Motivate Novel Oxide Electronic Devices

• New Laws Could Give ASIO a Warrant for Entire Internet

• Spectrum Fuels Speed and Prosperity

• A Mason Jar Radio with One Station (Kicksarter project)

• Stressing out Copper TSVs with Temperature

9/25/2014

• Apple Pulls iOS Update after Issues Reported

• More Faux Cell Towers Discovered in D.C. (..and another misuse of 'begs the question')

• Some iPhone 6 Plus Users Find an Unwanted Feature: It Bends

• A Prison for Photons in a Diamond-Like Photonic Crystal

• Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio Payload Launched to ISS

• Future Flexible Electronics Based on Carbon Nanotubes

• UK Researchers Claim to Develop 'Super' Graphene

• Mark Zuckerberg's Neighbors Have Had Enough (how many Illegals will he let live there - other than servants?)

• USAF Awards $3.2M to Boeing to Build 512 CSEL Pilot Emergency Radios

• Teacher Talked of Killer Robot in Class

• Exposing Hidden Bias at Google (cry me a river)

• Robotic Fabric Acts Like a Muscle

• 3D-Printed Filament Is Wood-Reinforced Bioplastic (interesting mix)

• Dealers' Advice for Radio on the Connected Car

• Are Weak Values Quantum? Don't Bet on It

9/24/2014

• $15M Global Learning XPRIZE Announced

• Voltage-Controlled Shape-Shifting Metal

• Securing Trustworthy & Resilient Chips

• Using only 'Made in Russia' Parts for GLONASS Problematic

• What Can Engineers Learn from 4 Year Olds? (if prior learning is an obstacle, then this conclusion is in and of itself reductio ad absurdum?)

• Museum Reunion for Colossus Computer Veterans

• Amateur Radio is 'Communications Superpower'

• Obayashi Plans Space Elevator by 2050

• Topological Insulator Could Lead to Superfast Computers

• 6 Reasons Not to Buy Smartphone

• Heated Freestanding Graphene Control Curvature of Ripples

• Stratcom Signs Space Data Agreement with U.K., Canada, Australia

• Iranians Arrested for Texting Khomeini Insults

• 20 Things That Science Fiction Writers Predicted

• Uncovering the Forbidden Side of Molecules

9/23/2014

• Make Your Own Bluetooth Smart Beacons with Estimote Stickers (this is neat-o)

• Where's the Silicon in Silicon Valley?

• Quick-Change Materials Break Silicon Speed Limit

• Testing an Aircraft High-Power Laser Tail Gun

• Waiver That Would Have Eased Barriers for FM Translators Denied

• iPhone 6 Sales Top 10 Million in 1st Weekend

• Half the World Will Be Online by 2017

• U.S. Leads M2M Market

• Sony to Lose $2.35b Despite Massive PS4 Sales

• eBay Under Pressure as Hacks Continue

• Apple Just Lost the Global Smartphone War to Google

• Light Can Play Seesaw at the Nanoscale

• Moving Silicon Atoms in Graphene with Atomic Precision

• GaAs Device Market Posts Record Revenues in 2013

• Here's Why Ice Cream Gives Us Brain Freeze

9/22/2014

• RFMD and TriQuint Unveil New Company Name Qorvo (huh?)

• Oracle's Larry Ellison Steps Down

• Gesture-Controlled Smartpones

• Mechanical Watch Oscillator to Replace Escapement

• More Time Spent on Pandora Than Facebook (tip: rdio is better and free)

• Mechanism Behind Solid-Solid Phase Transitions Uncovered

• A Bootcamp for Data Junkies

• Pass the Word: The Phone Call Is Back

• iPhone 6 Teardown Shows NFC Chips from NXP, AMS

• Cornell Theorists Continue Search for Supersymmetry

9/21/2014

• Technology Stalled in 1970

• Apple's iPhone 6 Goes on Sale to Long Lines as Chinese Gray Market Seeks $3k

• Accelleran, Cavium team for Urban Small-Cells

• Get the Fix on Common EMC Problems

• Wisconsin Ham Dies in Fall from Tower

9/19/2014

• Apple to No Longer Unlock Most iPhones, iPads for Police

• Asia-Pacific IC Usage Domination Growing

• Science Fiction Writers Take a Rosier View

• Microsoft Announces Windows 9 Event on Sept. 30

• 'Interceptor' Cellphone Towers Found Near White House, Senate

• FCC Turns Down Petition to Create a 4 Meter Band in the U.S.

• Mg Box Phone Battery Runs on Water, Magnesium

• U.S. Military Contractors 'Hit by Chinese Hackers'

• After Hacks, Transcom to Require Contractors to Report Data Breaches

• Study: Cities with Super Fast Internet Are More Productive

• Peregrine Launches 18 GHz UltraCMOS SP4T RF Switches

• Companies' Stock Buybacks at Biggest Pace Since 2007

• Number of Billionaires Hits Record High in 2014 (while my saving account gets 0.6%)

• Semi Equipment Spending Shows Strong Growth for 2014, 2015

• Scottish Scientists Make Breakthrough in Water-to-Hydrogen Production

9/18/2014

• Scientists Twist Radio Beams to Send Data

• First Formula E Race Shockingly Electrifying

• New Device to Catch Texting Drivers

• 1,000,000,000 Websites and Growing

• Wirelessly Rouing Drivers Around Congested Roadways

• Twisted Graphene Chills Out

• Are Cell Phones Really Giving Us Cancer?

• Consumers Expect Full in-Car Connectivity

• Ultrafast Charge Separation in Metal Dichalcogenide Heterostructure  • Sony Increases Loss Forecast to $2.14B

• AMSAT-NA Announces Board of Directors Election Results

• A Zero-Friction Quantum Engine

• DARPA and Lockheed Testing Laser Turrets on Planes

• Drivers Warned over Smartwatch Use in Cars

• Hackers Lock up Thousands of Australian Computers, Demand Ransom

9/17/2014

• Venture Capitalist Sounds Alarm on Startup Investing

• Engineers Make Great Comedians

• Non-citizen Income in U.S. Increased 6% YoY While Legal Citizens' Increase = 0% (see p5 Highlights of Census report)

• The Future Face of Molecular Electronics

• Phase-Adjustable Connectors for up to 18 GHz

• Elusive Quantum Transformations Found Near Absolute Zero

• Study Sheds New Light on Why Batteries Go Bad

• Smartphone Printing Gets Boost from Wi-Fi Alliance

• NIST Detectors Reveal Entangled Photon Triplets

• Electronics Beyond Silicon: Correlated Oxide

• iPhone 6 'Scalpers' Flood eBay

• The Demise of HD Radio?

• Smartphones Used to Stalk, Control Domestic Abuse Victims

• Welsh Wafer Maker Reports Loss But Sees Wireless Recovery

• NYT: ISIS on Mexico-USA Border Now (while 3,000 U.S. troops get exposed to Ebola)

9/16/2014

• Trying to Hit the Brake on Texting While Driving

• 20 Top Employers for Engineers

• DARPA to Test Satellite Repair Droids in Orbit

• 5G Rise Slowed by Cost, Regulation

• Moto 360 Review

• Phoneless Billions Lure Google to India

• Government Gives Industry a Voice in Regulation

• 3/4 of Mobile Applications Will Fail Basic Security Tests Through 2015

• Fixed-Mobile Convergence Competition Heats up in Europe

• Moon-Bound Ham Radio Payload Will Transmit Your Message from Space

• FCC Revisits Net Neutrality Exemption for Mobile Broadband

• Smartphone Movements Could Reveal Empty Parking Spots

• U.S. Fines over Data Requests Would Have Destroyed Yahoo in a Year

• Android One smartphones released in India

• Scottish Vote – Has Anyone Considered the Internet Angle?

9/15/2014

• Chinese City Adds Phone Addict Sidewalk Lane

• How and Why to Take a Tech Sabbath •

• Engineers Prove a Magnetic Field for Light

• Amateur Radio Society of India Wants Less-Burdensome Amateur Radio Licensing Rules

• Moore's Law Has No End in Sight

• Back to the Drawing Board on Copyright Law Proposal

• Disappearing Facebook Posts Coming (they will still be in database, though)

• A New Species of Electrons

• SanDisk SD Memory Card Largest Ever

9/14/2014

• 2 Years of Plenty Coming for Chip Industry

• Microsoft Rumored to Finally Drop Nokia Name

• No More Cracked Smartphone Glass

• The Sound of an Atom Has Been Captured

• Is Amazon's Failed Phone a Cautionary Tale?

9/12/2014

• Researchers 'Grow' Lasers in Chip Breakthrough

• Nanotechnology Helps Cool Electrons with No External Sources

• Onshoring Continues to Gain Ground

• Radio Scouting Webinar Set

• FCC May Expand Net Neutrality to Cell Phones

• 5G Research Rides mm Waves

• Radio Is on Uncertain Terrain

• Launching Satellites from Business Jets

• Super-Strong and Lightweight New Material

• Rice Wireless Experts Tap Unused TV Spectrum

• Twitter to Raise $1.3B Through Debt Offerings (it's 1984 every day)

• RadioShack's Slow, Downward Slide

• Yahoo 'Threatened' by U.S. Government with $250,00-a-Day Fine

• T-Mobile Pushes Wi-Fi-Calling, texting, 'Cellspot' Personal Cell Tower

• Rapid City, SD, Gets Earliest Snowfall Since 1888

9/11/2014

• Strong Solar Storm Heading to Earth

• 'Solid' Light Could Compute Previously Unsolvable Problems

• Canadian Regulator Accepts Radio Amateurs of Canada's International 60 Meter Allocation Proposal

• 2D electron Liquids: Novel Form of Superconductivity

• Researchers Achieve Highest Resolution Ever with X-Ray Microscopy

• Australian Telcos to Starve Piracy Sites of Ad Money

• India Shows Record Growth in Mobile Advertising

• Army Eyes Small, Light SATCOM Terminals for Special Ops

• Game-Changing Breakthrough at IEEE S3S 2014

• Smart Headlights Spare the Eyes of Oncoming Drivers

• World's First 500 GHz Photon Switch

• FCC Chairman Says Wireless Broadband Could Get Stricter Oversight

• Radio Has Got to Tell a Better Story

• Skills Crisis? What Skills Crisis?

• Buckyballs and Diamondoids Join Forces in Tiny Electronic Gadget

• Squeezed Quantum Communication

9/10/2014

• Engineer Aims to Connect World with Ant-Sized Radios

• Your Favorite Sites Will 'Slow Down' Today, for a Cause

• Graphene Gets a 'Cousin' in the Shape of Germanene

• New Particle Detector Could Reveal Universe's Missing Antimatter

• New CEOs of Wireless Poised to Take the Gloves Off

• European IC Manufacturing Increase Scuppered (scuppered - good word)

• 5 More Tips for Engineering Students

• Morse Learning Machine Challenge Catching on with Hams

• Memory of "Memory Effect" Provides Cautionary Lesson (the old NiCad plague)

• Apple Watch Unveiled Alongside New Larger iPhones

• Tesla Gigafactory Will Create a Giga-Glut

• 5 Reasons Cable Operators are Building Public Wi-Fi Networks

• Semi Growth Nearly 11% This Year

• Team Traces Ecological Collapse over 6,000 Years of Egyptian History (dang those 3,000 BC model year SUVs)

• 23 Apple Patents Related to NFC and Mobile Payments

9/9/2014

• FCC Enforcement Bureau Warns 2 Hams for Failing to Identify Properly (illegally crossing into U.S. is OK, but don't dare forget to identify!)

• Army Looks to Harness LTE for Battlefield ISR

• Canadian Retailers Bet on Technology in Fight with U.S. Giants

• iPhone 6 Could Cost $1000 (the kPhone?)

• LTE's Boost to Carrier Revenues Will Be Short-Lived

• NFC: Locking iPhone Users In

• Expectations High for Upcoming AWS-3 Spectrum Auction

• Google Is Target of European Backlash on U.S. Tech Dominance

• Doped Graphene Nanoribbons with Potential

• Layered Graphene Sandwich for Next-Gen Electronics

• HealthCare.gov Breached, Injected with Malware

• Is Too Much Advertising Killing Talk Radio?

• Toshiba Develops World's Fastest Quantum Encryption System

• Stephen Hawking: 'God Particle' Could Destroy the Universe (or not)

• China's Alibaba Could See $155B Valuation in U.S. IPO

9/8/2014

• Super-Speedy Light Detector Rivals X-ray Machines

• Amid shrinking budgets, DISA turns to the commercial cloud (try Apple iCloud - very secure)

• TV Everywhere Expected to Dominate IBC 2014

• $1T Treasure Trove of Rare Minerals Under Afghanistan (I reported on Afghanistan's rare earth stash in 2011)

• DARPA Eyes Precision Navigation Without GPS

• Intel Launches First 14-nm Processor for Thin Fanless PCs

• Engineers Advance Understanding of Graphene's Friction Properties

• Samsung, Infineon and Philips Fined for Chip Cartel

• Broadcom Upgrades WiFi, BT Combo

• Team USA Competing in Amateur Radio Direction Finding World Championships in Kazakhstan (ISIS territory)

• High-Performance Electrics Hit the Blacktop

• Coffee Genome Sheds Light on Evolution of Caffeine (coffee news always reported on RF Cafe)

• Designing Testability into a PCB

• Magnetic Nanocubes Self-Assemble into Helical Superstructures

• 24,639,000: Record Number of Foreign-Born Hold Jobs in U.S. (nearly 17% of work force)

9/7/2014

• GaAs Device Market Posts Record Revenues in 2013

• Rethinking the Basic Science of Graphene Synthesis

• Tesla CEO: "Nevada Is It;" $1.3B Package Offered (creates 22,000 new jobs? we'll see...)

• GM to Offer Connected Car, Automated Driving Technology in 2016

• Ultra-Thin, High-Speed Detector Captures Unprecedented Range of Light Waves

• Atomically Thin Material Opens Door for Integrated Nanophotonic Circuits

• China Launches 2 Satellites via 1 Rocket

• Nickel-78 is a 'Doubly Magic' Isotope

• Is Radio a College Student's Friend?

• New Slant on Field Plates for Gallium Nitride HEMTs

9/7/2014

• Report Shows U.S. Widening Lead in Mobile Broadband

• Google Wraps Underwater Cables in Kevlar-Like Vests

• FCC Chairman Calls for Broadband Competition Boost

• Google Ratchets up Quantum Computing Efforts

• NASA Invents Multi-Metals 3D Printing

9/5/2014

• EU Proposal Would Free up 700 MHz Band for Mobile by 2020

• Rogue 'Cell Towers' Can Intercept Your Data

• A Fix to Our Cell-Phone Waste Problem?

• Ultracold Atoms Juggle Spins with Exceptional Symmetry

• FCC to Promote Choices for High-Speed Broadband

• Delaware Passes Law to Give Others Access to Our e-Lives When We Die

• Photodevice Detects Color with Metal Grating

• McDonald's to Launch NFC Payments in U.S. This Month

• Hacker Breached HealthCare.gov Insurance Site (anyone surprised?)

• Small Cell Security Functions Extend to Wi-Fi

• Breakthrough for Carbon Nanotube Solar Cells

• Single Laser Stops Molecular Tumbling Motion Instantly (really? in t=0?)

• 'Concrete Step' Toward Robotic Satellite Repairs to Involve Industry

• Pesky Parasitics

• Sound, via Bluetooth, Straight to Speakers

9/4/2014

• A Single Molecule Device for Mobile Phones

• New Amateur Radio Vanity Call Sign Fee Set at $21.40

• Presto Expands Capacity for RF Test

• Engineers Pioneer Future at Freescale Discovery Lab

• New Theory of Universal 3-Body Encounters (atomic ménage à trois?)

• Tesla Motors to Announce Location for Its Battery 'Gigafactory' in Nevada

• Electric Vehicle Sales Running out of Gas

• AM Radio Fights for Survival

• BlackBerry Announces September 24 Passport Phone Launch Event

• Nokia Upgrades LTE-A Systems

• Apple iCloud Security Exploit a Real Concern

• Navy Tests Its Ships in This Indoor Ocean

• Bluetooth Beacons to Be Installed at 240 Malls, Outlets

• Magnetic Substorms May Have Newly Discovered Cause

• Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11

9/3/2014

• Army to Put High-Quality Radar into Smaller Drones

• European July Semi Sales up 14.9% YoY

• Vacation's Over; Time to Get Back to Work

• Amateur Radio Transponder to Accompany Japanese Asteroid Mission into Deep Space

• Strontium Ruthenate Crystals for Electrochemical Applications

• Norway Delays 1800 MHz Spectrum Auction

• Tehran Unfetters Cellphones, and Pictures Start Flowing

• GSMA Calls for Reduction of Mobile-Specific Taxation

• Scientists Create Renewable Fossil Fuel Alternative Using Bacteria (but it still gives of GH gasses)

• NASA Explains Why You Won't Get a Drone Delivery Anytime Soon

• IoT Gives Old Technology New Life

• Intel Not Giving up on Desktop PC Processor

• China Gives Microsoft 20 Days to Explain in Anti-Trust Probe

• SK Telecom, Ericsson-LG to Collaborate on '5G'-Related Cloud, NFV

• 400-Mile Range for the Tesla Roadster?

9/2/2014

• Copper Shines as Flexible Conductor

• Freescale Goes Mobile with Wireless Charging

• Published Null Result Papers Skews Reliability of Those That Are Published

• Galileo Satellites Incident Likely Result of Software Errors

• First Images From World's Most Powerful Commercial Satellite

• Radar and Alarm System for Construction Vehicles

• Sensor Developed to Detect Tiny Individual Nanoparticles

• NASA Probes Studying Earth's Radiation Belts to Celebrate 2 Year Anniversary

• Watching the Structure of Glass Under Pressure

• Broadcom Offers IoT Developer Kit

• Apple Reveals the Most Common Reasons It Rejects Apps

• Telstra Testing LTE Using 700 MHz Bands

• Microchip in Pursuit of CSR

• Here Is What Happens to Your Brain When You Drink Coffee (I can - and do - live with that)

• Efficiently Finding Quantum Wave Functions

9/1/2014

• Worst of the Week: Has the Whole World Gone Mad?

• IBM Touts Watson Supercomputer to Speed up Scientific Breakthroughs

• Argonne Scientists Pioneer Strategy for Creating New Materials

• FCC Ups the Ante in Proposing Huge Fine on CB Operator

• All-Optical Transistor Triggered by Single Photon

• NAB to FCC: Go Slow with Radio

• Is There a Microchip Implant in Your Future?

• Multiband Automotive Tuner ICs Deliver Best-in-Class Radio Performance

• European Power Electronics Research Initiative Adds Mentor

• Finalists Named for $10M Star Trek 'Tricorder' X Prize