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TREE-MENDOUS ISLANDS
Dutch engineering firm Van Oord is finishing the second of
two islands—each shaped like palm trees— off the
coast of the United Arab Emirates. The trunks are 5 miles
long, the fronds, 330 feet long. They'll house shops,
hotels, villas, and marinas. Global Positioning System surveys
were used to map the islands.
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Wozniak. The name still sends chills down the spines of
computer geeks. Steve Wozniak was, of course, a cofounder
of Apple Computer and the designer of the world's first
consumer-friendly PC. Now the 53-year-old inventor is back
with a new company, Wheels of Zeus (WoZ, get it?), that's
in partnership with Motorola to produce a simple-to-use, cheap-to-buy
tracker. The small device could be attached to your kids,
your dogs, or your senile Aunt Tilly, and if they go wandering
off, it would notify you via PC, cell phone, landline, or
PDA. The tracking would be done by the Global Positioning
System, linked to a low-power, low-speed radio network akin
to one used by cordless phones and designed to complement
GPS technology. Wozniak came up with the application after
noticing how inexpensive GPS technology had become. Will there
be a product later this year? "It's possible,"
a spokesman says. The company is in "heads-down development
mode right now" and doesn't want to say too much,
lest it raise expectations to unrealistic levels. "We're
not trying to be secretive; we're trying to be credible."
Perhaps Wozniak paid attention when consumer demand for the
motorized scooter, the Segway invented by his pal Dean Kamen,
didn't meet prerelease hype. Still, any product with
a Woz factor will be expected to have a wow factor. —Thomas
K. Grose
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High Tech Hot Shots: Careers
in Sports Engineering
Author: Celeste Baine
Publisher:
National Society of Professional Engineers; Paperback, $19.99
Celeste Baine, who runs the Engineering Education Service
Center in Eugene, Ore., often talks to high school classrooms,
so she knows how hard it can be to get and keep the attention
of teenagers. To generate some excitement among her audiences,
she began talking to them about sports engineering, a burgeoning
field. Now she's taken her classroom lessons a step
further with the publication of High Tech Hot Shots: Careers
in Sports Engineering, which is aimed at middle and high school
athletes who may want to combine their avocation with their
vocation. Although no U.S. school offers a degree in sports
engineering, there's a huge demand within the industry
for engineers of all stripes, particularly mechanical, biomedical,
chemical, and materials. From running shoes to bowling balls,
manufacturers of nearly every type of sports gear need engineers
to help design improved models. To purchase a copy, visit
Baine's Web site: www.hightechhotshots.com.
—TG
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From the Jetsons' various robotic helpers to Star
Wars' endearing duo, R2D2 and 3CPO, humanoid robots
have pretty much remained in the realm of science fiction.
But Japan now believes humanoid robots will soon become a
big industry. Its Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
has formed a study group, Vision of Robots in the Future,
and has made available $28 million this year for robot development.
Japanese officials think that consumer-friendly bots will
be in mass production by 2010. Robot expert Yiannis Demiris
of London's Imperial College applauds Japan's
initiative—"It's a noble goal"—but
doubts that a machine that can operate among humans can be
produced within six years. Safety and the bots' need
to "see" and comprehend an unpredictable environment
are major hurdles to overcome. The first products will be
basic, Demiris predicts, like a robot that can iron shirts.
—TG
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The high-tech bedrock on which the U.S. economy is based
remains firm, but increased foreign competition and changing
demographics could eventually cause America's science
and technology global leadership to crumble. That's
the gist of Science and Engineering (S&E) Indicators 2004,
a National Science Board (NSB) biennial report. "For
many years we have benefited from minimal competition in the
global S&E labor market, but attractive and competitive
alternatives are now expanding around the world," warns
Warren M. Washington, NSB chairman. The paradox is that America's
economic success demands more engineers and scientists than
the country is producing.  To
a great extent, the United States has relied on foreign-born
workers to fill those jobs. As of 2000, 17 percent of bachelor's
degree holders, 29 percent of master's degree holders,
and 38 percent of Ph.D.'s employed in U.S. high-tech
jobs were not born in the United States. But since 2001 there's
been a decline in the issuing of high-skill-related visas:
in part because of higher State Department refusal rates but
also because of competition from other countries. Another
worrying indicator: Although America-based writers produce
the largest share of scientific journal articles, their output
has been flat since 1992, while the number of articles from
authors based in developing countries is rising.
On that sobering note, here's some good news from the
report. Federal funding for academic research and development,
adjusted for inflation, has grown by 66 percent since 1990.
Corporate R&D spending peaked at $180 billion in 2000,
but despite an economic slowdown, R&D spending didn't
drop by much. It was at $177 billion in 2002, or two thirds
of the total amount spent: $276 billion. A surge in R&D
spending by U.S. service-sector industries helped keep corporate
numbers high. Between 1997 and 2000, the service sector's
share of industrial R&D spending jumped from around 20
percent to about 35 percent. And that's certainly providing
a great service to the American economy. —TG
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The most popular employees are the most productive. According
to a study by Columbia University business professor Francis
Flynn, workers who consistently give help to and receive help
from colleagues are the most productive. Flynn's subjects
were 161 engineers at a California telecom. The engineers
rated themselves and one another for helpfulness. Flynn then
matched the results to company productivity data. Why did
he choose engineers as his guinea pigs? "Their performance
metrics are highly objective." Overly generous employees
who don't receive much reciprocal help from coworkers
aren't productive: They're too busy helping everyone
else. Says Flynn: "That's a zero-sum gain."
The worst performers, however, are lone wolves who neither
seek nor give help. Productivity blossoms, he says, when there's
a mutual sharing of expertise and experiences. —TG
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It may look like a conventional artificial leg, but a new
prosthetic created by a Canadian engineering firm is set to
become the first commercially available bionic leg. Developed
by a team of 60 biomechanical, electrical, software, and mechanical
engineers, Victhom Human Bionics' prosthetic features
sensors in the amputee's shoes that send signals to
an artificial memory, which reacts in real time to mimic the
movement of a normal leg. "Current models are devices
that just absorb the mechanical energy at the joints,"
explains Benoit Côte, Victhom's chairman and CEO.
"But when you walk there are times when you need to
absorb energy and times when you need to expend energy. Our
prosthetic can do both."
Currently there are 20 amputees putting the leg through its
paces before the device is released this fall to the public.
"They all report that they can do a lot of things that
were impossible before, " Côte says, "like
walking fast, walking on a steep slope, climbing stairs, and
even just sitting down and standing much more naturally."
The prosthesis is powered by a rechargeable battery and weighs
exactly what a normal human leg weighs—for a man 5 feet
9 inches tall, about 10 pounds. —TG
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Tech workers already know that some of their U.S. jobs
have been outsourced to India, which has a large, well-educated
workforce with relatively low salary expectations. But if
Indian payrolls are a bargain, U.S. companies pay a very high
cost for broadband connections there. That, however, is about
to change. India recently completed a three-year investment
in international submarine cable connections, and its capacity
to handle online data will soon increase 17 fold. Market liberalization
and access to capital let companies like Tata Indicom, Bharti
Group, and Reliance Infocomm finance the boom. For the time
being, according to research company TeleGeography, U.S. companies
will still pay a premium for high-speed Internet links to
India: A U.S.-India link costs five to 10 times more than
a comparable U.S.-Hong Kong link. But as the new capacity
kicks in, prices will plummet. A connection capable of handling
a call center now costs about $100,000 a month. That price
should drop to around $60,000 by year's end. TeleGeography
estimates that broadband costs will likely decline by 60 percent
within a few years. That's obviously good news for India's
developing economy, but not for American tech workers worried
about their jobs going overseas. —TG
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Consumers make a lot of noise about squealing brakes. Though
brakes that squeak pose no safety risk, they're an annoyance
and they cost automakers $100 million a year in warranty work.
It's a "perceived problem with the quality of
the car," says Kenneth A. Cunefare, a mechanical engineer
and acoustics researcher at Georgia Tech who has devised a
possible, low-cost solution to the problem. Brakes squeal
when their pads touch the rotors at low speeds. That results
in a vibration that creates high-pitched squeals. Fixes such
as putting in damping materials and replacing the pads often
don't work, or don't last. Cunefare's solution
is a piezoceramic actuator that slots into the brake piston.
It's made from stacks of piezoelectric materials that
expand or contract when an electric current passes through
the layers. Every time the brakes are applied, the actuator
injects a burst of a "dithering" frequency to
the pads, which suppresses the squeal. Test devices haven't
been affected by brake wear, or extremes in temperature, or
humidity. The test model costs $130, but Cunefare thinks mass
production would get that figure down to around $30. A small
price to pay for a bit of motoring peace and quiet.—TG
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TOKYO—Heavily dependent on imported raw materials,
Japan has consistently sought ways of synthesizing or producing
inputs at home. The latest chapter in Japan's drive
for self-sufficiency is being written at Saga University,
where researchers are perfecting techniques for extracting
commercial quantities of lithium from seawater. Lithium is
used widely by industry, consumers, and in medicine. It powers
electric cars and laptops, is used in telescopes and ceramics,
and to treat manic-depressive disorders. The versatile substance
is extracted from igneous rocks, which Japan imports from
countries such as Australia and China.
Lithium "is very promising as a next-generation energy
source," notes Kazuharu Yoshizuka, a professor of environmental
engineering at the University of Kitakyushu, who is collaborating
on the project. "When you consider that two thirds of
the Earth is seawater, the amount of [available] lithium is
immense."
The Japanese have been thwarted so far by the fact that lithium
concentrations in seawater are extremely low, requiring vast
quantities of seawater to be processed to harvest even minute
quantities. Saga University's lithium chloride haul,
obtained from forcing seawater through manganese dioxide crystals
which adsorb the lithium, has been a mere gram a day. Still,
Yoshizuka reckons technology to efficiently recover lithium
from seawater is not far off. —Lucy Craft
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The latest survey of faculty salaries is out. For engineering
academics, here's the good news: Only law professors
earn more. The bad news: Overall faculty salary increases
in the 2003-04 academic year were miserly, thanks mainly to
tight budgets at public schools. On average, engineering faculty
earned $84,784 annually, according the College and University
Professional Association for Human Resources survey of 793
institutions of higher learning. The average for law profs:
$109,478. Coming in third: business faculty at $79,931. Bringing
up the rear, liberal arts professors at $52,234. Overall,
salaries last year rose just 2.1 percent, a full point lower
than the previous year's average. Public school salaries
increased a mere 1.4 percent; private school salaries jumped
3.3 percent. For engineering faculty, the biggest raises went
to instructors, whose salaries increased an average 3.1 percent;
full profs received the most meager raises, averaging just
1.9 percent. Engineering faculty at private schools on average
earn more than their public-school brethren: $86,245 versus
$84,208, a difference of 2.36 percent. Law schools also employ
the highest average number of full professors: 60.7 percent.
The percentage for engineering: 46.2 percent. The average
across all disciplines is 33 percent. —TG
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Although one of the most widely used materials on Earth, concrete
doesn't generate much excitement. It's the stuff
of sidewalks, roads, and parking garages. Most people take
it for granted. But in a new exhibit at the National Building
Museum in Washington, D.C., concrete finally gets the respect
it deserves. The show, called "Liquid Stone",
starts out more than 2,000 years ago when the Romans created
the first true concrete and moves quickly into modern times
and some truly spectacular projects that force us to look
at the centuries-old substance in a new way. The surfaces
inside the grid on a new dorm at MIT constructed of perforated
concrete are painted various colors indicating where the building's
stresses are the greatest and the least. Engineering students
can easily "read" the building. Rapid advances
in hybrid concrete have lead to a new bridge in France with
remarkably slender concrete structural elements. Another astonishing
technique allows photographic images to be engraved directly
onto concrete panels. But the "holy grail" of
new technologies has to be translucent concrete that involves
reinforcing concrete panels with small amounts of chopped
fiberglass. Concrete that transmits light could have all sorts
of applications, including allowing occupants to safely exit
the "translucent" stairwell of a building that
has lost electricity. —Jo Ann Tooley
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