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Looking Ahead: To the Power Electronics Technology Conference

Opening Oct 30 and running through Nov 1 in Dallas, the Power Electronics Technology Exhibition and Conference has retuned, its sponsors say, to focus on the greatest innovations in power design. The keynote and general- session address highlight two of these innovations. One session covers opportunities to improve efficiency in power electronics, and the other covers the ROHS (restriction-of-hazardous-substances) situation in China. Tutorials cover subjects ranging from basics of components to motor control and energy harvesting. Technical tracks include power design; applications, including the use of ZigBee for energy management; and components.

Looking Back: At asynchronous design comes to supercomputing

The Maniac II computer uses a fast memory unit, any of whose 12,288 48-bit words can be located, brought out, and put back in about 8 µsec. The unit stores information on the faces of 98 3-in. cathode-ray tubes. Three subsidiary magnetic-tape memories can read or write at 600 words/sec. The Los Alamos computer does not have an internal clock but performs successive operations as rapidly as possible without pausing for a given number of clock cycles. Typical operating times are: for addition and subtraction, 18 µsec and, for multiplication, 170 µsec. —Electrical Design News, September 1957

Looking Around: At the rise of the robots

Technical Editor Paul Rako points out an interesting conference coming up next month in San Jose, CA: Robo Development 2007, billed as the first industry event for design and development of robots targeting use outside the laboratory environment and for sale at a profit. This definition implicitly includes that the robots in question are primarily mobile and autonomous—not simply advanced numerically controlled tools. Sometimes, the arrival of a conference signals the presence of enough activity in an area for infrastructure and professional communications to be important and that products are on the way. Plastic dogs and vacuum cleaners move over: These folks could be about to unseat all our assumptions about the feasibility, cost, and ubiquity of robots that can be assistants and associates, not just appliances.

Edited by Ron Wilson

 Adapted from EDN.com

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