Electro-ramblings

Happy New Year, and best wishes for 2008!

Here we are, opening shop again, at Electronics Weekly.com, with just a quick word to say the Products index - www.electronicsweekly.com/products - is ticking over once more.

Updated daily, it features the latest product release announcements straight from vendors, letting you keep an eye on the latest technology developments, from software kits and microcontrollers to power supplies and ceramic capacitors...

Keep an eye on the News Index for the latest on CES 2008 (7-10 Jan, in Las Vegas) - manufacturers, developers and suppliers of consumer electronics hardware are queuing up to showcase the latest in technology.

Take Motorola, for instance. It is using CES 2008 to showcase its first MPEG-4 set-top boxes for the cable industry. The DCX series enables on-demand and interactive digital programming for the home, and is aimed at growing consumer demand for HD programming.

All your CES 2008 informational needs catered for in one sensibly ordered web page - that's the goal of our CES roundup, presenting the latest CES-originating news on a day-by-day basis. We've even created a nice and memorable URL: www.electronicsweekkly.com/ces2008

Although the event begins on Monday 7 January, the stories are already beginning to mount up. The one that caught my eye today, in particular, was the Westinghouse Wireless HDTV, integrating Pulse~LINK's CWave UWB Wireless HDMI technology, for lossless wireless streaming of HD content.

Would you be interested in getting the latest news form the electronics industry direct to your mobile phone, for free? Specifically, news headlines from Electronics Weekly, as they are published, along with a URL to follow to get the full spiel on stories of interest.

I'm currently investigating Twitter - see http://twitter.com/ for more details of this mobile networking site - and would like to gauge interest. Please leave a comment if you are interested in EW in mobile form, and twitter in particular.

Don't forget to keep an eye on the UK Technology Startups blog - UK Technology Startups.

In two new posts today, Electronics Weekly's News Editor, Alex Mayhew-Smith, considers the difficulty of encouraging VCs to invest in greener technologies, and whether the Chinese start-up bubble is about to burst...

Check out our look ahead to hot technologies in 2008 - how WiMAX, Mobile TV and 45nm are set to go big this year.

The editor of Electronics Weekly, Richard Wilson, considers the important technology drivers for 2008.

WiMAX, for example. According to one supplier, Motorola, it is now "set to become a mainstream broadband wireless technology at least two years ahead of other alternative technologies".

Just been updating the Company Directory, and adding new categories for Inductors, Surge Protection and Transformers... Have you seen this resource, which lists the firms that provide particular electronics services?

Just click on a product category name to see the companies with products and services in that sector.

Don't forget to check out the Events section of ElectornicsWeekly.com. The Elektra 2007 awards may be over, but Nepcon 2008 is now on the horizon...

I've just updated the site with a piece about the annual showcase for electronics production - Nepcon UK invites exhibitors to step on board Technology Highway

The show runs 29 April - 1 May and the organisers have announced a new feature - a "Technology Highway" that puts the spotlight on AOI & X-Ray inspection, giving an opportunity to view a whole range of equipment used across the production line.

Warren Savage On: Collaboration Needed for Success

In his latest column on semiconductor IP, Warren Savage considers the factors behind products that only get the chip designer to about 80% of where they want to go. Following on from his last column - Warren Savage On: Swiss Cheese Solutions - he believes these systems hold back the entire semiconductor industry from running at maximum efficiency.

He also considers some good examples from Intel, leading the PCI Special Interest Group and USB Implementers Forum, and Freescale Semiconductor, driving next generation automotive networking through its contributions to the FlexRay Consortium.

Analysis - Satellite-rich GPS sets mobile agenda

GPS navigation has been one of the success stories of recent years, writes David Manners in the latest Electronics Weekly Analysis piece, with the number of bright screens visible in cars on the road continuing to increase.

The question he asks, however, is: with so many out there working already on the US' GPS, then what is the point of the European Galileo system or the Russian's Glonass system?

Check out the latest Q5 interview, with Hans Peter Kuhnert, EMEA v-p of sales at Tektronix, the electronic test and measurement specialist. He reveals his thoughts on the proposed acquisition by Danaher, real-time oscilloscopes and the biggest challenge facing the test instrument industry in 2008.

The five short sharp questions this week are:

* Will your customers see a change in style or approach from Tektronix as a result of its proposed acquisition by Danaher?

* Is the test market entering a period of change with further business consolidation and competition from non-traditional suppliers, in particular software vendors?

* What is the biggest challenge facing the test instrument industry in 2008?

See Sir Robin Saxby, chairman emeritus at ARM, recognised for his contribution to the UK's electronics industry, at the recent Elektra 2007 awards.

We previously produced a short general video, giving a flavour of the Elektra event as a whole, but thought it would be good to bring together all the footage around the Lifetime Achievement Award.

It means you can watch Sir Trevor McDonald, host of the ceremony, outline Sir Robin's career highlights, before an acceptance speech from the man himself, which is followed by a 'backstage interview', putting the award in context. (Running length: 4:54)

Video: Sir Robin Saxby accepts his Elektra Lifetime Achievement Award

Robin Saxby

Check out the latest Valley View: Do IPO numbers hint at recession?

The monthly Valley View column is now hosted online within the UK Tech Startup blog and the latest thoughts of Richard Irving, a partner at venture capital firm Pond Venture Partners, concerns IPOs and their indication of economic health.

Specifically, Silicon Valley chip investors are asking whether this is the beginning of a downturn or not...

Check out the latest Q5 interview, with Anne Miller is an engineer, inventor and director of The Creativity Partnership. Her book, The Myth of the Mousetrap, is about how to get your ideas adopted. In a slightly different Q5, she gives her thoughts on hard-wired creativity, inspiration and morphing ideas.

The five short sharp questions this week are:

* What is the myth of the mousetrap?

A recent blog post on Mannerisms caught my eye (it's been highlighted in the recent Electronics Weekly email newsletter): The Ten Key Steps To Wireless Communications

It begins: "Sometime this year, the number of active mobile phones in the world will reach three billion out of a world population of six and a half billion people..."

So far so good, but it is the historical reach that tickled my interest. The post continues:

"The wireless industry has been built on a series of key steps of which the first took place in London, one year after the death of George IV."

And indeed the first step is identified as occurring in 1831, with the inventions of Michael Faraday. That's one distant first step. And it goes on, with the next step being just one year later:

* 1831 Michael Faraday’s discovery that the motion of a magnet could induce the flow of electric current in a conductor in the vicinity of the moving magnet.

Check out the updated Electronics Weekly focus on MEMS, micro-electromechanical systems - MEMS mix up the silicon - there's a new added (RSS) ingredient to ensure freshness of content!

As well as an introduction and overview of the topic, a listing of important news stories involving MEMS, and an index of other MEMS-related online resources, we have added a dynamic news feed.