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Donald Trump's win in November was the final nudge for one manufacturer to move its production back home from China. For over a year, New York-based Trans-Lux -- which makes LCD and LED displays -- has contemplated relocating its Chinese facilities to the U.S. "It makes economic sense," said J.M. Allain, president & CEO of Trans-Lux, which also makes the huge digital screens that run the tickers at the New York Stock Exchange. To cut costs, the company exported much of its production two decades ago to Shenzhen in southeast China, a manufacturing hub for electronics. But as China's economy...

Citing a national security risk, President Barack Obama on Friday blocked a Chinese investor’s proposed takeover of Aixtron SE, a German maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, a rare move that drew objections from Beijing and complaints that the U.S. was injecting politics into the deal. Obama ordered Fujan Grand Chip to “fully and permanently abandon” its proposed acquisition of Aixtron SE’s California-based subsidiary, Aixtron, Inc. The decision upheld a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews foreign purchases of U.S. companies. The decision threatens to jeopardize the larger deal, which is under scrutiny [by] Berlin...

Chinese firm admits its hacked DVRs, cameras were behind Friday's massive DDOS attack Botnets created from the Mirai malware were involved in Friday's cyber attack. Michael Kan - IDG News Oct 23, 2016 A Chinese electronics component manufacturer says its products inadvertently played a role in a massive cyberattack that disrupted major internet sites in the U.S. on Friday. Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology, a vendor behind DVRs and internet-connected cameras, said on Sunday that security vulnerabilities involving weak default passwords in its products were partly to blame. According to security researchers, malware known as Mirai has been taking advantage of these vulnerabilities...

E-waste recycling is a source of much needed income in many low to middle income countries Electronic product innovations satisfy many needs, including the desire of people to stay connected around the globe. As new products are continually introduced into the marketplace, consumers replace existing electronic products that are damaged or simply outdated. The resulting mass of electronic products discarded is becoming the fastest growing waste stream in the world leading to polluted environments. (1) Electronic waste (e-waste) which includes all types of electrical or electronic equipment is produced in staggering quantities, estimated globally to be 41.8 million tons in...

High-quality graphene would soon be used for the next generation of electronics and energy devices. To produce it a simple method has been done. This method involves only using a microwave oven in order to bake the compound. Researchers at Rutgers' School of Engineering in Rutgers University have found that high-quality graphene could be produced using simple methods. That could potentially mean millions of dollars saved in making the new compound that would be used for new electronic devices. The discovery has been made by students, most of whom are either undergraduates or are post-doctoral associates, as Phys Org reports....

Samsung Gear came to market in 2013 and it offered a camera and speaker built right into its one and only band and clasp design. After Apple introduced the Apple Watch with multiple band options and its quick and easy install mechanism for changing the bands, Samsung set out to copy that idea as quickly as they possibly could. In a patent application that surfaced today at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office titled "Wearable Device," they discuss their new "exchangeable" strap mechanisms. What struck me was that a great number of their form factor patent figures were actually Apple...

It’s been almost two decades since the DVD arrived, sparking the long, slow decline of video cassette tapes. But the tape era is about to come to a final close. The last maker of VHS-compatible video cassette recorders, Japanese manufacturer Funai Electric, says its going to stop producing the devices at the end of the month due to declining sales. Sony said it would cease production of video tapes in its Betamax format last year, 13 years after it stopped making compatible recorders.

US scientists have found what it could be key for the future of the country’s ailing coal industry as they detected that ashes from local operations, particularly those around the Appalachian region, are very rich in rare earth elements. Researchers from North Carolina-based Duke University analyzed coal ashes from coal-fired power plants throughout the US, including those in the largest coal-producing regions: the Appalachian Mountains; southern and western Illinois; and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. One of the team main conclusions was that coal waste generated by the Appalachian coal operations was the richest in rare earth...

The vial contains liquid-metal particles suspended in ethanol. The particles were used to demonstrate heat-free soldering. Credit: Christopher Gannon/Iowa State University =========================================================================================================== Martin Thuo likes to look for new, affordable and clean ways to put science and technology to work in the world. His lab is dedicated to an idea called frugal innovation: "How do you do very high-level science or engineering with very little?" said Thuo, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Iowa State University and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. "How can you solve a problem with the least amount...

From sundown to sundown, turn off all your technological devicesWell, this weekend you can take part in a makeshift holiday as thousands will be joining in to the National Day of Unplugging to take a 24-hour break from technology. Participants are asked to log off beginning Friday, March 4 at sundown and stay offline through Sat., March 5 at sundown. At nationaldayofunplugging.com, you can sign the "Unplug pledge" and promise to unplug from tech devices including phones, tablets and laptops. This project was started by Reboot, an group that "affirms the values of Jewish traditions and creates new ways for...

Fabrication schematic of ordered mesoporous fewlayer carbon (OMFLC). Credit: Science (2015). DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3798 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (Phys.org) - A team of researchers working in China has found a way to dramatically improve the energy storage capacity of supercapacitors - by doping carbon tubes with nitrogen. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their process and how well the newly developed supercapacitors worked, and their goal of one day helping supercapacitors compete with batteries. Like a battery, a capacitor is able to hold a charge, unlike a battery, however, it is able to be charged and discharged very quickly...

Researchers at the Gedik Lab at MIT use strong ultrafast laser pulses to stimulate changes in material, followed by a weaker probe laser pulse after some time delay to monitor the changes with femtosecond time resolution. Tungsten (W) atoms are black, and sulfur (S) atoms are yellow. Credit: Edbert Jarvis Sie =================================================================================================================================== Monolayer films of tungsten disulfide, just three atoms thick, have unique electronic valleys which can be manipulated with laser light. This finding, by MIT physics graduate student Edbert Jarvis Sie, Associate Professor Nuh Gedik, and colleagues, was significant enough to warrant placement on the cover of Nature Materials...

Rice University scientists are making small, flexible microsupercapacitors in a room-temperature process they claim shows promise for manufacturing in bulk. The technique is based on their method to burn patterns of spongy graphene into plastic sheets with a commercial laser. Credit: Tour Group/Rice University ====================================================================================================================================== Rice University researchers who pioneered the development of laser-induced graphene have configured their discovery into flexible, solid-state microsupercapacitors that rival the best available for energy storage and delivery. The devices developed in the lab of Rice chemist James Tour are geared toward electronics and apparel. They are the subject of a new paper in the...

These tungsten ditelluride crystals behave as insulators for current applied in some directions and as conductors for current applied in other directions. The researchers found that this behavior is due to a newly theorized particle, the type-II Weyl fermion. Credit: Wudi Wang and N. Phuan Ong, Princeton University --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An international team of researchers has predicted the existence of a new type of particle called the type-II Weyl fermion in metallic materials. When subjected to a magnetic field, the materials containing the particle act as insulators for current applied in some directions and as conductors for current applied in other...

I need some help. I’m a private investigator. I’m trying to build a self-contained, 12-volt surveillance camera rig that I can set up in a vehicle. I want to be able to either run it off of the vehicle’s power or off of a battery pack. [I’ve already got the battery pack set up].

HIRSCHFELD, GERMANY - Scientists in Germany have come up with a method for extracting the precious element germanium from plants. The element is a semi-conductor and was used to develop the first transistor because it is able to transport electrical charges extremely quickly. Nowadays, silicon-germanium alloy is indispensable to modern life, crucial in making computers, smartphones and fiber-optic cables. Transparent in infra-red light, germanium is also used in intelligent steering systems and parking sensors for vehicles. Yet although germanium is present in soil all over the world, it is difficult to extract, and most supplies currently come from China. Now...

One day 3D printers will be able to churn out working electronics and fully-functional machines, instead of just plastic parts. And that day is now slightly closer with MIT CSAIL’s MultiFab 3D printer that can use ten different materials to build working devices in a single print run. For 3D printers to fully realize their Star Trek ‘replicator’ potential they can’t just be one part of the manufacturing process, they need to do it all. The holy grail of 3D printing is to one day let anyone recreate any device with a simple button press. We want to be able...

There is a refurbished Slingbox for sale at a good price. Can I use that as a cable box for a tv in my house that presently doesn't have one?

They can theoretically carry charge 1,000 times faster than ordinary electrons. After 85 years of searching, researchers have confirmed the existence of a massless particle called the Weyl fermion for the first time ever. With the unique ability to behave as both matter and anti-matter inside a crystal, this strange particle can create electrons that have no mass. The discovery is huge, not just because we finally have proof that these elusive particles exist, but because it paves the way for far more efficient electronics, and new types of quantum computing. "Weyl fermions could be used to solve the traffic...

A typical computer chip includes millions of transistors connected with an extensive network of copper wires. Although chip wires are unimaginably short and thin compared to household wires both have one thing in common: in each case the copper is wrapped within a protective sheath. For years a material called tantalum nitride has formed protective layer in chip wires. Now Stanford-led experiments demonstrate that a different sheathing material, graphene, can help electrons scoot through tiny copper wires in chips more quickly. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a strong yet thin lattice. Stanford electrical engineer H.-S....