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ie8 fix

Materials

An afternoon with Honda's Asimo robot

On Thursday afternoon I was back at the Computer History Museum. The Honda Research Institute was hosting its tenth Technical Horizon Symposium and announcing this year's Honda Initiation Grant awards.

The grants are part of the Institute's efforts to stimulate collaborate research between Honda and the academic community. Since 1997, Honda says it has awarded 75 grants totalling "several million dollars" to universities in the US. This year, Honda received 300 proposals; it chose seven. This year's awards (listed here along with those of past years) cover research in safety, efficiency, emissions control, and user … Read more

New materials at K 2007 will change your life

The recently concluded K 2007 conference in Düsseldorf, Germany, featured a variety of recent advances in materials science that will change your life. No hyperbole there--just a safe prediction.

I didn't make it to the show, but I've been following the announcements on the Web site of Design News, a trade publication for mechanical engineers. The K Fair is all about plastics...but in truth, the line between plastic and metal is getting pretty blurry these days.

Indeed, companies such as DuPont are now talking about plastics climbing "the metals replacement curve." MetaFuse technology, … Read more

TechShop expands with 10 new locations

I'd like to pass along a press release from one of my favorite Silicon Valley start-ups. It's a place you can go to make chips... but I'd better explain that.

A lot of people do woodworking at home. The equipment is moderately priced and there's plenty of support available from TV shows such as Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop on PBS and a variety of woodworking shows on the DIY Network.

But for those of us who like working with metal instead of wood, things aren't so simple. The equipment, for example, is much … Read more

More alternative-energy innumeracy

As an engineer, I hate to see bad engineering treated like a good idea.

I've written recently about questionable proposals for human power generation, electric vehicle recharging and fuel cells. In some cases, there's nothing really wrong with the underlying technology, but it's being implemented and promoted using bad math and misleading promises.

The latest example of innumeracy comes from Shawn Frayne, an independent inventor here in Silicon Valley. Frayne's Windbelt is a low-cost wind-power generator that uses a fluttering membrane instead of rotating blades to convert wind power into mechanical motion; a simple linear generator … Read more

Fire and steel-- at home

I figured I'd take a moment away from reviewing consumer electronics to write a little about a particular application in materials science. That field has long been an interest of mine, especially when it leads to unusual, attractive, and sophisticated products.

The Japanese samurai sword was arguably the ultimate expression of materials science and craftsmanship for hundreds of years. The PBS television series Nova this week aired a show titled "Secrets of the Samurai Sword" that took viewers through the complete process of making a sword.

Watching the show reminded me of a similar sequence from the … Read more

Warning: Dan Rather may be unsafe

I finally got around to watching the recent episode of HDNet's Dan Rather Reports titled "Plastic Planes," about alleged safety problems with Boeing's new 787 "Dreamliner" passenger jet. I was interested in the story for two reasons. As I've said here before, I want to buy one of these planes someday-- and secondly, I've long been fascinated with composite materials.

Vince Weldon, a former Boeing engineer, alleges that the composites used in the 787-- principally forms of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP)-- are brittle, insufficiently tested, dangerous in a fire, and vulnerable … Read more

The Gizmo Report: Victorinox's Trevi 17 briefcase

(Before I get started with this review, a note of caution about one of my other gizmos. My Sony PRS-500 eBook reader has developed some kind of display problem; the leftmost inch of the screen no longer updates. I checked around online and the going price for this repair appears to be about $250. That's on a gizmo that sells for $279 on Amazon right now. Not a good deal. I'll check with Sony and update this information if I get a better price.)

I've been carrying around a cheap nylon briefcase I bought at the Apple Company Store about ten years ago. I bought it because it had a front pocket the perfect size for my… Read more

Gizmo technology report-- edible inkjetting

I'm on a lot of press-release mailing lists, and I get some pretty unusual press releases. Here's an excerpt from one that came in last week (the full text is here):

Press Release: FUJIFILM Dimatix Unit Announces Breakthrough in Decorating Chocolate Digitally; Plans Debut at IFT 2007 Food Expo in July

Lebanon, N.H., July 18, 2007 - Building on its growing success in commercial food decoration, the Dimatix Technology Integration unit (DTI) of FUJIFILM Dimatix, Inc. today announced it has developed a breakthrough technique that employs the latest digital jetting technology in decorating dark or light nonporous … Read more