Bench Talk

The fields of nanotechnology and machine learning are impressive in their own rights and will continue to grow into staple technologies of the future. Although both are still relatively new fields, they can be combined in certain scenarios to produce practical solutions to various problems.

Design engineers must develop sophisticated systems that keep security at the forefront. We’ll explore challenges and some solutions, as well as the impact the Internet of Things has on the development of these designs.

Using their analog expertise, ROHM Semiconductor has developed a new product line, the Nano Series, to achieve more compact parts that require less energy to operate.

From the security experts at Anitian in partnership with Mouser, here are tangible steps you can take to improve your development processes and minimize risk in the systems you design.

Before a single piece of steel is forged or a circuit board is sent to the fab, engineers rely heavily on 3D models to understand their designs in virtual reality before committing vast sums of money and time in actually building them. But now you don’t have to be a multi-million-dollar design firm to take advantage of this technology. The cost of virtual reality and augmented reality is plummeting as competition in the market heats up in 2016. This means that just about anyone, including fledgling startups and makers, can get take advantage of 3D visualization.

Determining the overall health of the human body is a complicated matter that must account for dozens of indicators, including vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels), fitness behavior (distance walked and amount of time sedentary), and more complex analysis of internal organs and systems to include blood cell counts, blood glucose, etc. Fortunately there is a lot of work occurring to shrink and converge medical-related sensors into inexpensive tools.

People seem to just want to keep toying with my hoverboard-yearning heart. After Funny or Die's almost convincing, but ultimate hoax, and Hendo Hover's exorbitantly priced Kickstarter campaign, Lexus is now in on the hover-game. Earlier today, the luxury car manufacturer released a teaser video, claiming to have created a "real, rideable hoverboard."

Throughout human history failure has been a bittersweet fact of life, and engineering is not exempt from this truth. Despite our best efforts (and sometimes, because of the lack thereof), engineering failures occur. The aforementioned examples are just some of the most highly publicized engineering disasters of the last 75 years. Sometimes, as we push the envelope in pursuit of success, things go horribly wrong. However, engineers should never use the reasons of those failures as an excuse. Instead, a failure should be viewed as a call to action, which brings with it the necessity to keep pursuing the root cause(s) of the failure. By doing this, we expand our knowledge and can reduce the likelihood of another disaster occurring in our future endeavors.