When the Morotola Razr V3 cell phone came out almost three years ago, it was hailed as THE compact and slick cell phone for power users. If you had a Razr, you were cool. That's no longer true as the company has cut prices on the Razr to as low as $30. Indeed, more than 50 million had been sold as of mid-2006. Everybody can afford one now.
I've never heard much good about them. Nothing terribly bad, either. My teenage daughter and I both have had one for 18 months and we both agree, the Razr is neither a bad nor a great phone. That we paid $200 each and committed to two years of mediocre Cingular service feels like a ripoff, now. There's nothing special about this phone. The display on hers is kaput and to replace it would have cost about $150 for the smattering of places that would repair the ribbon connecting it to the main body of the phone. That's the end of her Razr. She now uses a low end Motorola C139 that I picked up the $60 and is just as happy without the cool flip phone form factor, the camera that took grainy pictures and bluetooth. The Razr's menuing interface was never easy to use, either. The sleek ultra-thin Razr was plagued by a defect and temporarily pulled off the market in early 2006.
I'm transitioning off my Razr because the battery barely holds a charge anymore. And I am loathe to pay $20-$45 for a new battery. I am using my Blackberry 8700C, whose phone is greatly improved over its predecessors. For Motorola, the Razr has been a great success. The hardware design is nice, but functionally and in terms of durability, the Razr never came close to living up to the hype.
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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