News reports drone on constantly these days with more and more negative information. I don’t get the same kind of vibe when I talk to design engineers every day for my writing about materials and fastening technology for Design News. Most incredible to me are reports on advances in medical technology by American inventors and engineers. The most recent was an interview I had with Dave Danitz, the vice president of research and development at Novare Surgical Systems In California, which recently developed and brought to market an instrument called RealHand that allows laparoscopic surgery through a single port—and even through natural orifice such as a mouth. The result is a dramatic reduction in the risk of infection.

 

Invented by Danitz, the RealHand is a fully mechanical instrument up to 45 centimeters in length in which jaws at the distal end move inside the human body in reaction to movements of a surgeon’s hands on a handle. Small articulating links connect the jaws to the shaft and the handle to the shaft, which can vary in length from 24 to 45 centimeters. There are no electronics in the device.

 

Although introduced just six months ago, a number approaching 100 surgeons use the tool.

Who would have guessed that PLM software could have any kind of connection to Danica Patrick’s historic win of the IndyCar Series race in Japan. Patrick, part of Andretti Green Racing, won her first IndyCar Series race—the Indy Japan 300–at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan late last month, becoming the first woman to do so. So here’s the connection: AGR cars are developed with the help of Siemens PLM Software  and the company is a sponsor of Patrick. Patrick’s victory came in her 50th career IndyCar Series start in which she drove the #7 Motorola car among the top-eight cars for the entire 200-lap event.

 

Consumer Reports reported last Friday that the LawnBott LB3200 Evolution, a robotic lawnmower that needs no operator, has been recalled due to a safety hazard. A video on the Consumer Reports web site shows that the mower’s blade keeps spinning after one end of it is tilted upward, posing a danger to users and unsuspecting children. The CR web site adds that a distributor said the mower requires a software update to eliminate the problem. 

USA Today reports that corporate customers of Microsoft Corp. are staging a mini-revolt against the software giant’s Vista operating system. The OS, which rolled out in January, 2007, has been said by some to be bloated, causing it to run slowly on some PCs. The newspaper says that Microsoft reported a 24% decline in Windows sales in the third quarter.

 

The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) will present a workshop of technologies critical to electronics manufacturing on May 14 at its headquarters in Herndon, Va. The iNEMI Roadmap Workshop will offer a sneak peek at work in progress, and workshop participants can produce feedback and direction to ensure the final chapters of iNemi’s roadmap will reflect the sate of the industry. “These workshops are a very important part of the roadmap development process, providing our Technology Working Groups with valuable feedback on their chapters,” says Chuck Richardson, iNEMI director or roadmapping. “The workshops also provide useful information to industry, so it’s a win-win situation.”

Topics to be covered include business processes and technologies such as information management; design technologies such as environmentally conscious electronics; manufacturing technologies such as board assembly and test, inspection and measurement; and component/subsystem technologies such as packaging, interconnect substrates, passive components, organic and printed electronic, and more. The registration deadline is May 8.

Here’s a video that discusses the history of circuit bending. The quick discussion explains how inventors with limited knowledge of electronics can turn electronic products into musical instruments.

Next week, I will spend a few hours test driving one of a hundred experiemental GM Chevy Equinox powered by hydrogen fuel cells. These vehicles promise zero emissions are represent one of several alternatives to gasoline. The problem, as an MIT professor friend of mine pointed out recently, is that the pure diatomic hydrogen  to power fuel cells either comes from fossil fuels like natural gas or coal and requires significant energy in the refining process. Indeed, where is all this pure hydrogen going to come from? And what will it cost? The Dept. of Energy (DOE) in 2005 doubled its target for hydrogen costs based on a GGE or gasoline gallon equivalent calculation.

The more you dig into what will power vehicles in the future, the more daunting the challenge seems to become. If you accept the DOE’s target price of $2-$3 GGE for hydrogen (before taxes!!), driving won’t be cheap even if we could power our engines with dirt. The only hope for cheap transportation is a purely electric car that you plug in at night and the power comes from solar panels or a wind turbine. Then again, none of power sourcees are  cheap either!

I am looking foward to driving the Equinox and learning more about hydrogen. I also take comfort in the fact a lot of smart people are working on what will replace fossil fuels or substantially lessen our dependence on them. And you can expect a full report in video, words and photos on my driving experience and continuing indepth coverage on renewable fuels.