433 results found for Editorial, displaying items 1 - 20
August 28, 2008 For Consumer Electronics, The Holidays Start In July
As an editor with a major electronics magazine, I’m invited to industry events all the time. Come July, though, I start receiving invitations from public relations folks for events that are really outside the magazine’s coverage—events that show the hottest consumer electronics items for the coming holiday season. I can’t resist the temptation. Could you? SAMSUNG HOLIDAY IN JULY Samsung Electronics recently held its...
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Joseph Desposito
August 14, 2008 Wireless Everywhere Still Needs To Work Out The Kinks
If you’ve ever seen the Dead Zone commercials from Verizon Wireless, you realize that there is some truth to the statement that wireless everywhere is still working out the kinks. My favorite is the one where a young couple is purchasing the “the old Miller place—in spite of what happened there,” according to an older woman who walks up to the couple as they’re moving in. “Oh, they didn’t tell you,” she says, “It’s a dead zone.” Of course, the couple isn’t worried...
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Joseph Desposito
July 24, 2008 CEA Gives Downtown Manhattan A Digital Boost
In the first installment of what promises to be a yearly commitment to New York City’s downtown area, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) kicked off Digital Downtown for press and analysts. Digital Downtown was conceived as a three-day showcase of consumer technology, open and free to the general public. The first day of the event, June 12, was warm and sunny. I took a subway to the general area and then had to walk quite a few blocks. As I continued...
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Joseph Desposito
July 10, 2008 Show Videos Take Center Stage On ElectronicDesign.com
Most of you have probably noticed the influx of videos to electronicdesign.com over the past year or so. For the most part, these videos were shot at trade shows. Typically, a staff member at the show who knows something about video cameras hooks up with an editor to do video interviews. We shoot with a handheld, harddisk- based camera. When we get back to the office, a member...
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Joseph Desposito
June 26, 2008 Is Solar Energy Really Ready To Rumble?
At the recent International Electronics Forum (IEF) in Dubai, UAE, I attended two days of presentations about the semiconductor industry. The speakers were from all parts of the world and offered unique perspectives. But the talk I found most interesting was given by Mark Pinto, CTO and senior vice president at Applied Materials, as his presentation tackled “Energy Conversion: Photovoltaics.” Photovoltaics (PV) have been making great strides in the last...
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Joseph Desposito
June 19, 2008 Transitions Make Tomorrow Much Different From Today
Welcome to the latest edition of Electronic Design’s Megatrends special issue. When our editorial staff sat down to decide its theme, we knocked around a few ideas before settling on transitions. We tried to envision what our world might look like several years from now in some key application areas due to the constantly evolving technologies in our industry. This issue is the result. Contributing editor Ron Schneiderman begins with the numbers behind some of...
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Joseph Desposito
June 12, 2008 Staying Employed In This Industry Can Be Tough At Times
In an issue where we celebrate the top 50 employers and also list the top employers in the electronics OEM, it’s worthwhile to bring up one of the dirty words of the industry—unemployment. As someone who has lived through many of the industry’s downturns and experienced layoffs firsthand, I can say with certainty that this profession is fraught with career minefields. But probably you already know that. When I found myself out of a job early in my...
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Joseph Desposito
May 22, 2008 Speaking Of Components, Here's An LED Story
The question seemed innocent enough. What type of bulbs do I need for those lanterns? The lanterns in question were a set of five solar-powered models that my wife Lorraine purchased at Costco about a year ago for $89. This wasn’t her first request for that information, but I admit I don’t always pay attention to requests like these. For some reason, this time I listened. So I’m going over the possibilities in my head, trying to remember what the...
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Joseph Desposito
May 8, 2008 Are You Screaming For Help With Prototypes?
At last month's Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, I met with Duane Benson, the Web marketing manager for Screaming Circuits. The company assembles prototypes in as little as 24 hours for one or more boards. You simply send it a package of parts along with the unpopulated printed-circuit board (PCB), and Screaming Circuits will assemble it for you. Screaming Circuits’ assembly capabilities include machine-placed surface-mount...
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Joseph Desposito
April 24, 2008 Turning Buses And Trucks Into Hybrid Vehicles
I recently had a chance to visit Odyne Corp., a sevenyear- old company based in Haupauge, N. Y. It develops plug-in hybrid electric power trains for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. While I was there, I met with its director of engineering, Dana DeMeo. I had worked with Dana when he was in college. His expertise then was in repairing all sorts of electronics equipment for his college buddies. Now, he’s in charge of developing the embedded system that controls the...
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Joseph Desposito
April 10, 2008 Who's Winning The Computer Virus War? Probably Not Us
Back in December, I decided to uninstall the anti-virus software on my desktop computer at home. The computer was taking several minutes to boot up, and when it was finally ready to go, everything ran slowly. Whenever I opened up an Excel file, I had to wait five or six seconds while the anti-virus program frisked it. And then there were the endless popups reminding me to perform hard-disk scans and update the software until I finally got sick of it...
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Joseph Desposito
March 27, 2008 Countdown To The End Of The Analog TV Broadcast Era
As you probably know, analog TV broadcasts will cease on February 17, 2009—less than a year away. For many viewers, it will be a nonevent, simply because they don’t depend on over-the-air broadcasts for their viewing. But the number of American households that will be affected is staggering. A study by the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) put this number at 22 million back in June of 2007. What’s even more astonishing is that in an earlier...
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Joseph Desposito
March 13, 2008 Putting All Your Power Adapters In One Basket
Welcome to this year’s edition of Electronic Design’s One Powerful Issue. In trying to decide what my contribution might be, I needed to look no further than my desk at home. Sitting on it are power adapters for a cell phone, PDA, Bluetooth headset, and notebook PC. This has become almost unmanageable for me, not to mention unsightly, since the cords run all over the desk and down the side to a power strip on the floor. What a mess. To make things...
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Joseph Desposito
February 28, 2008 From Basic Basement Webcams To High-Tech Telepresence Suites
I ’ll admit I’m late to the webcam thing. But when my daughter-in-law suggested a webcam as a Christmas present last December, I jumped at it. She and my son live in Tennessee and I don’t get a chance to see the grandkids very much—Cal, who is two and a half years old, and Autumn, who is four months. We went to a Best Buy in the Nashville area and picked up two Microsoft LifeCams at $99 each, which I thought was a bit expensive, since I often see ...
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Joseph Desposito
February 14, 2008 Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?
I wonder if the line “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” from the famous Simon and Garfunkel song, “Mrs. Robinson,” will have any meaning for future generations. Not because they won’t understand the context of the song or even know who Joe DiMaggio is, but because not knowing where someone has gone might be a concept that is totally foreign to them. I just finished reading an article called “Microchips Everywhere: A Future Vision” by Todd Lewan of the...
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Joseph Desposito
January 31, 2008 Retooling Electronic Design For 2008
You’ll notice some changes in our first standard issue of 2008. For example, our TechView section is now one department rather than a series of individual columns from our technology editors. This will make it easier for us to provide you with more timely and compelling information. Your favorite editors will still contribute to this section, so they’re not going away. They also will have a larger role online. You can follow Don Tuite, David Maliniak, and...
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Joseph Desposito
January 17, 2008 Forecasting 2008 With Some Help From Our Friends
Welcome to Electronic Design’s annual forecast issue, where our editors look into the crystal balls of their particular beats and tell you what to expect in 2008 and beyond. While I don’t have a particular coverage area, I’ll make some predictions anyway.
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Joseph Desposito
December 13, 2007 Stuff Your Stocking With Holiday Goodies This Season
I wonder how many people will buy presents that incorporate some kind of MEMS device this season. There are a lot of choices out there. At the recent MEMS Congress in San Diego, keynote speaker Philippe Khan of Borland fame noted that the Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii have brought MEMS into the mainstream. His current company, Fullpower (www.fullpower.com), seems all set to take advantage of the rapidly growing MEMS sensor...
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Joseph Desposito
November 15, 2007 Putting Data-Center Power In Perspective
I had the opportunity to meet Roger Tipley at the recent Power Electronics Technology Exhibition & Conference in Dallas. Roger is a senior technologist and engineering strategist at Hewlett-Packard as well as a board member of an organization called The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org). The Green Grid has been operating since January and has already grown to 102 members. It is a consortium of information...
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Joseph Desposito
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