Lenovo, best known for its PCs, plans to get into mobile in a big way with an $800 million base in Wuhan, China, dedicated to developing mobile Internet products.
The facility, set to open in October 2013 and house thousands of employees, is charged with developing and delivering “new mobile internet products and bring(ing) them to its customers even faster,” according to a company statement. Such products include smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.
Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
AT A factory in Lincolnshire, Illinois, of Honeywell International, an electronics giant, even the clock on the factory wall is not just on time but on message. At quarter past the hour, which is when all meetings begin, the big hand enters a green-shaded segment that turns red at half past. It is a small hint to keep meetings under 15 minutes. This is typical of the attention to detail apparent at the factory, where Honeywell makes systems for detecting toxic gas. On the floor of the main meeting room a dozen or so job titles are painted—thus to indicate at a glance where their holders should stand and which reckless employee has failed to show up.
Honeywell likes its meetings short but plentiful. Every production cell, as the smallest shop-floor unit is called, starts the day with one. The aim is to try to identify problems and ideas for improvements, which are then pushed up to senior managers. Even the lowliest worker is expected each month to come up with two implementable ideas for doing things better. As an illustration of the firm’s devotion to “continuous improvement”, this is one of the pillars of what has become known as the “Honeywell operating system” (HOS).
Flexible electronics promise some very cool products in the not so distant future. They include smart bandages that monitor the vital signs of a wounded soldier. Sensors that can detect where the weakest part of an airplane. Flexible glass that can display digital imagery. And smart trading cards that can transmit information to a digital display.
Flexible electronics combine graphics arts printing and microelectronics, enabling machines to literally print circuits on top of plastic materials in the same way that an inkjet printer sprays ink on paper.
Printed-on-demand robots might be a reality before the end of the decade if a US-based project achieves its goals.
Reblogged from co1orblind|11,987 notes
(Source: heccas)
Scientists from Tel Aviv university have managed to make a transistor out of some of the same building blocks that we are made from: proteins. After gathering proteins from blood, mucus and breast milk, the researchers went about trying to make a silicon-free circuit that performs the same tasks as it’s metallic brethren. And they succeeded.
Biological circuits could well be the next major step forward for technology. Basing circuits off of biology means that they should be cheaper, as the parts can be farmed, rather than mined. It also means that the circuits are biodegradable, so leftover parts will just melt back into the ground when we recycle them. Also, being able to base circuits off of biology means that biocompatibility will be improved.
When we eventually start having electronics embedded into our body they could be made from ourselves, so our bodies won’t react like the circuits are foreign intruders. That means that the circuits can be far more stable and, in the far, far future, repaired by our own bodies when damaged.
Right now, the researchers have only managed to make transistors. They are hoping that they can use their transistors to power a display, but complete circuits are still quite a ways off.
Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, an Israel-based company called Snapkeys invited showgoers into a booth to test its new keyboard technology. Within a few minutes of using it, the company said, people were already getting the hang of Snapkeys, which consolidates the letters of the alphabet into just four keys.
Reblogged from good|2,907 notes
good:
Botanicalls: Plants are now part of the social media universe. They tweet when they’re thirsty. Ridiculous, awesome, a little weird—or all of the above?
This DIY kit lets you program your plants to tweet whenever they need water. Check it out and discover other nifty tech products in our latest edition of Tuesday’s Tech of the Week.
(via brit)
I’m sorry but this is plain silly.
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