It is very interesting to hear Volker Bibelhause of Phonix Contact saying that in the near future embedded software vendors will have to learn from iphone apps developers. Their software is simple, doing usually one thing at the time, you can pay for it on-line, support is always on-line.
He says the embedded software is too clumsy, too complex and unreliable. Some embedded vendors already work according to new specs that take them into always on line customers.
I am sure this is a trend that is only going to grow among software vendors and end user are going to love.
Showing posts with label Embedded Systems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Embedded Systems. Show all posts
2010/10/09
2010/08/19
AMS experiment takes off for Kennedy Space Center
Geneva, 18 August 2010. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), an experiment that will search for antimatter and dark matter in space, leaves CERN1 next Tuesday on the next leg of its journey to the International Space Station. The AMS detector2 is being transported from CERN to Geneva International Airport in preparation for its planned departure from Switzerland on 26 August, when it will be flown to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on board a US Air Force Galaxy transport aircraft.
A press conference to mark the occasion will be held at the press room of Geneva International Airport at 9:00 CEST on 25 August, and journalists will have the opportunity to visit the AMS detector and the aircraft. Those wishing to attend to the visit should contact the CERN press office by 12:00 CEST on Monday 23 August at the latest, providing their nationality, date of birth and passport or identity card number. This document must also be presented before the visit. Please note that only the people who have registered will be able to go on the apron to visit the AMS detector and the aircraft. Journalists who would like to see the arrival of the AMS detector at Kennedy Space Center on 26 August are invited to apply until 19 August. Details are available from ESA: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM0R65OJCG_index_0.html.
AMS will examine fundamental issues about matter and the origin and structure of the Universe directly from space. Its main scientific target is the search for dark matter and antimatter, in a programme that is complementary to that of the Large Hadron Collider.
Last February the AMS detector travelled from CERN to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk (Netherlands) for testing to certify its readiness for travel into space. Following the completion of the testing, the AMS collaboration decided to return the detector to CERN for final modifications. In particular, the detector’s superconducting magnet was replaced by the permanent magnet from the AMS-01 prototype, which had already flown into space in 1998. The reason for the decision was that the operational lifetime of the superconducting magnet would have been limited to three years, because there is no way of refilling the magnet with liquid helium, necessary to maintain the magnet’s superconductivity, on board the space station. The permanent magnet, on the other hand, will now allow the experiment to remain operational for the entire lifetime of the ISS.
Following its return to CERN, the AMS detector was therefore reconfigured with the permanent magnet before being tested with CERN particle beams. The tests were used to validate and calibrate the new configuration before the detector leaves Europe for the last time.
“The entire AMS collaboration is delighted by this departure, because it marks a crucial milestone for the experiment. We are getting close to the space shuttle launch and the moment when our detector will finally be installed on board the ISS,” explained Professor Sam Ting, Nobel laureate and spokesman for the experiment. “The detector’s construction phase is now finished and we are eager for the data collection phase to begin.”
“The launch of AMS detector is very timely,” added Roberto Petronzio, President of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. “Today we are well aware of our ignorance of Universe’s most abundant constituents and we still challenge the puzzle of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Furthermore, recent results from the Pamela experiment suggest scenarios for important discoveries for AMS. The experiment stems from a large international collaboration joining the effort of major European funding agencies with the US and China.”
Upon arrival at the Kennedy Space Center, AMS will be installed in a clean room for a few more tests. A few weeks later, the detector will be moved to the space shuttle. NASA is planning the last flight of the space shuttle programme, which will carry AMS into space, for the end of February 2011.
Once docked to the ISS, AMS will search for antimatter and dark matter by measuring cosmic rays. Data collected in space by AMS will be transmitted to Houston (USA) and on to CERN’s Prévessin site, where the detector control centre will be located, and to a number of regional physics analysis centres set up by the collaborating institutes.
"We are proud that this detector, which will play such an important role, will be flown from Geneva International Airport to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida," said Robert Deillon, General Manager of Geneva International Airport.
Contact
CERN Press Office, press.office@cern.ch
+41 22 767 34 32
+41 22 767 21 41
1.CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
2.The AMS detector components were produced by an international team, with substantial contributions from CERN Member States (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland), and from China (Taipei) and the United States. The detector was assembled at CERN, with the assistance of the Laboratory’s technical services.
A press conference to mark the occasion will be held at the press room of Geneva International Airport at 9:00 CEST on 25 August, and journalists will have the opportunity to visit the AMS detector and the aircraft. Those wishing to attend to the visit should contact the CERN press office by 12:00 CEST on Monday 23 August at the latest, providing their nationality, date of birth and passport or identity card number. This document must also be presented before the visit. Please note that only the people who have registered will be able to go on the apron to visit the AMS detector and the aircraft. Journalists who would like to see the arrival of the AMS detector at Kennedy Space Center on 26 August are invited to apply until 19 August. Details are available from ESA: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM0R65OJCG_index_0.html.
AMS will examine fundamental issues about matter and the origin and structure of the Universe directly from space. Its main scientific target is the search for dark matter and antimatter, in a programme that is complementary to that of the Large Hadron Collider.
Last February the AMS detector travelled from CERN to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk (Netherlands) for testing to certify its readiness for travel into space. Following the completion of the testing, the AMS collaboration decided to return the detector to CERN for final modifications. In particular, the detector’s superconducting magnet was replaced by the permanent magnet from the AMS-01 prototype, which had already flown into space in 1998. The reason for the decision was that the operational lifetime of the superconducting magnet would have been limited to three years, because there is no way of refilling the magnet with liquid helium, necessary to maintain the magnet’s superconductivity, on board the space station. The permanent magnet, on the other hand, will now allow the experiment to remain operational for the entire lifetime of the ISS.
Following its return to CERN, the AMS detector was therefore reconfigured with the permanent magnet before being tested with CERN particle beams. The tests were used to validate and calibrate the new configuration before the detector leaves Europe for the last time.
“The entire AMS collaboration is delighted by this departure, because it marks a crucial milestone for the experiment. We are getting close to the space shuttle launch and the moment when our detector will finally be installed on board the ISS,” explained Professor Sam Ting, Nobel laureate and spokesman for the experiment. “The detector’s construction phase is now finished and we are eager for the data collection phase to begin.”
“The launch of AMS detector is very timely,” added Roberto Petronzio, President of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. “Today we are well aware of our ignorance of Universe’s most abundant constituents and we still challenge the puzzle of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Furthermore, recent results from the Pamela experiment suggest scenarios for important discoveries for AMS. The experiment stems from a large international collaboration joining the effort of major European funding agencies with the US and China.”
Upon arrival at the Kennedy Space Center, AMS will be installed in a clean room for a few more tests. A few weeks later, the detector will be moved to the space shuttle. NASA is planning the last flight of the space shuttle programme, which will carry AMS into space, for the end of February 2011.
Once docked to the ISS, AMS will search for antimatter and dark matter by measuring cosmic rays. Data collected in space by AMS will be transmitted to Houston (USA) and on to CERN’s Prévessin site, where the detector control centre will be located, and to a number of regional physics analysis centres set up by the collaborating institutes.
"We are proud that this detector, which will play such an important role, will be flown from Geneva International Airport to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida," said Robert Deillon, General Manager of Geneva International Airport.
Contact
CERN Press Office, press.office@cern.ch
+41 22 767 34 32
+41 22 767 21 41
1.CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
2.The AMS detector components were produced by an international team, with substantial contributions from CERN Member States (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland), and from China (Taipei) and the United States. The detector was assembled at CERN, with the assistance of the Laboratory’s technical services.
2010/08/18
Smart Meters market faces problems in Germany
Energy markets in EMEA and especially in Germany, where new technologies play increasingly there, that new legislation allows for the consumer, to choose energy provider, and type of energy used. This has complicated to staid situation of measuring and billing for energy.
Certainly will every good citizen decide for the expensive meter, which would analyze and tell him when is the best moment to switch hie next batch of washings for the cheapest rate.
However is as surely every provider or reseller, try to postpone such situation of billing transparency that allows consumer to use its energy in a best and least expensive way possible.
Provider would like to derail or postpone such situation, so it could make his own inefficiency obscure to the consumer.
Citing various technical excuses, like incompatible standards, wireless or wire connections, time delays and data flood or overcapacity.
German government has indicated they want action and expect that by the year 2020 over 80% of all households would be equipped with smart meters. Industry is saying laud and clear, they see that goal unobtainable, and the guilty shall be parliament and or industry influenced legislation or lack of it.
Certainly will every good citizen decide for the expensive meter, which would analyze and tell him when is the best moment to switch hie next batch of washings for the cheapest rate.
However is as surely every provider or reseller, try to postpone such situation of billing transparency that allows consumer to use its energy in a best and least expensive way possible.
Provider would like to derail or postpone such situation, so it could make his own inefficiency obscure to the consumer.
Citing various technical excuses, like incompatible standards, wireless or wire connections, time delays and data flood or overcapacity.
German government has indicated they want action and expect that by the year 2020 over 80% of all households would be equipped with smart meters. Industry is saying laud and clear, they see that goal unobtainable, and the guilty shall be parliament and or industry influenced legislation or lack of it.
2010/08/15
Export grew strongly in Germany
EMEA markets slowly come out of the big letter R, and especially Germany, the export champion have clocked really good numbers: in June +30% against June 2009, and 26% in the first 6 months. Generally in the electronic industry specifically the growth in June 2010 was even 42%.
Not forgetting other crisis of the recent, especially in the financial sector, we can cautiously say that that with so far results, we can expect the growth of exports this year at 8%. What still is high comparing that industry has suffered in the 2009.
Distortions in the supply chain (allocation lists, rise in rare earth material prices, short and long term contracts, rise in Yen value) breaking the progress.
Not forgetting other crisis of the recent, especially in the financial sector, we can cautiously say that that with so far results, we can expect the growth of exports this year at 8%. What still is high comparing that industry has suffered in the 2009.
Distortions in the supply chain (allocation lists, rise in rare earth material prices, short and long term contracts, rise in Yen value) breaking the progress.
2010/08/10
Components shortages drive use of unauthorized copies
Passive and mechanical components vendors suffer from copies, as allocations lists elongate. Distributors are forced to use them to make sure the production lines are running. According to Jean Quecke, of TTI, the problem arose late in 2009 and is going to extend into 2011 when the Supply Chain should return to normality. Distributors use vendors delivery notes as a proof of guarantee for product quality and reliability. Sometimes for the expediency vendors require also use of brokerages, where such documentation is not easily available.
2010/07/13
Automatica 2010, the show goes on with more pep than before
This years edition of Automatica was astounding success. It may tell us a positive story we all badly need and longing to read in the Embedded Industry as well as in others. In comparing to the year 2008, this years edition was bigger and better. Visitors jumped to some 32000, not quite on the par with 2008 admitting organizers, but we expected only 30000 this year (?). However foreign visitors came in droves (34% as opposing to 26% 2 years before), Exhibitors were 708 as opposing to 868 2 years ago.
The organizers tried to prove badly that the crisis is over and we are back to business.
Not quite so sees the writer. It is plain to all who attended the press conference: Exhibitors are still reluctant to invest marketing activities, expecting (justly) fewer visitors from home markets. And they were right, fewer visitors from Germany made the foreign component larger in entire visitors account.
The so called "positive Bilanz" is still going to be waiting until 2012 the next edition of this still interesting event. That is not what organizers wanted to say.
Munich exhibitor area is an excellent facility, well connected, hotels, restaurants, etc, for several venues, however, the trend is to move out to Nuremberg (SMS/Drives) and those which stay tend to morph into a regional rather than national shows. Productronica and Electronica comes to mind, or even close like the Systems have done. I remember that sometimes at Systems there we all 12 pavilions, full of exhibitors, where now 5-6 are taken at the most. It may be some trend here but if so the crisis started way before the 2008 when Lehman Brothers bank collapsed in September.
The organizers tried to prove badly that the crisis is over and we are back to business.
Not quite so sees the writer. It is plain to all who attended the press conference: Exhibitors are still reluctant to invest marketing activities, expecting (justly) fewer visitors from home markets. And they were right, fewer visitors from Germany made the foreign component larger in entire visitors account.
The so called "positive Bilanz" is still going to be waiting until 2012 the next edition of this still interesting event. That is not what organizers wanted to say.
Munich exhibitor area is an excellent facility, well connected, hotels, restaurants, etc, for several venues, however, the trend is to move out to Nuremberg (SMS/Drives) and those which stay tend to morph into a regional rather than national shows. Productronica and Electronica comes to mind, or even close like the Systems have done. I remember that sometimes at Systems there we all 12 pavilions, full of exhibitors, where now 5-6 are taken at the most. It may be some trend here but if so the crisis started way before the 2008 when Lehman Brothers bank collapsed in September.
2010/07/12
The Economist comments on the debt economy of today
Looking for faster growth for your company? Borrow money and make an acquisition. And if the economy is in recession, let the government go into deficit to bolster spending. When the European Union countries met in May to deal with the Greek crisis, they proposed a €750 billion ($900 billion) rescue programme largely consisting of even more borrowed money.
Debt increased at every level, from consumers to companies to banks to whole countries. The effect varied from country to country, but a survey by the McKinsey Global Institute found that average total debt (private and public sector combined) in ten mature economies rose from 200% of GDP in 1995 to 300% in 2008 (see chart 1 for a breakdown by country). There were even more startling rises in Iceland and Ireland, where debt-to-GDP ratios reached 1,200% and 700% respectively. The burdens proved too much for those two countries, plunging them into financial crisis. Such turmoil is a sign that debt is not the instant solution it was made out to be. The market cheer that greeted the EU package for Greece lasted just one day before the doubts resurfaced.
From early 2007 onwards there were signs that economies were reaching the limit of their ability to absorb more borrowing. The growth-boosting potential of debt seemed to peter out. According to Leigh Skene of Lombard Street Research, each additional dollar of debt was associated with less and less growth (see chart 2).
Stopping the debt supercycle
The big question is whether this rapid build-up of debt—a phenomenon which Martin Barnes of the Bank Credit Analyst, a research group, has dubbed the “debt supercycle”—has now come to an end. Debt reduction has become a hot political issue. Rioters on the streets of Athens have been protesting against the “junta of the markets” that is imposing austerity on the Greek economy, and tea-party activists in America, angry about trillion-dollar deficits and growing government involvement in the economy, have been upsetting the calculations of both the Democratic and Republican party leaderships.
To understand why debt may have become a burden rather than a boon, it is necessary to go back to first principles. Why do people, companies and countries borrow? One obvious answer is that it is the only way they can maintain their desired level of spending. Another reason is optimism; they believe the return on the borrowed money will be greater than the cost of servicing the debt. Crucially, creditors must believe that debtors’ incomes will rise; otherwise how would they be able to pay the interest and repay the capital?
From charts you can very easily deduct that countries like Germany and Canada, but especially the BRIC countries are riping positive effects of their predicament, they are fast growing, even Germany was hailed as a export champion even in the 2010 again. Canada healthy banking system (however with limited, strongly regulated competition) is not breaking the C$ raise to a par with CHF and at 1.34 to the €.
For the whole article please log in to the latest issue of the Economist.
For Embedded Industry the growth is back, however stumbling, on Allocation, on rise in prices on BOM, lead times cause delivery problems for smaller players. Who is serving Mil markets in States, or some mil markets in EMEA the business is good if not brisk. EMEA shows increase in sophistication and complexity of some new project, simply demand on performance plays increasingly stronger role.
2010/06/06
Kontron expands in Military and Aerospace markets
As Ulrich Gehrmann Kontron chairman, announced in March 2010 during the annual press conference, his company has stoked funds for expansion, and now he announced the acquisition of AP Labs Group a top system integrator group based also in San Jose, CA. Kontron's long term goal was to reinforce its presence in markets by offering extended range of not only services and products but complete solutions especially with the help of its French subsidiary Thales Computers and AP Labs is in central position to offer complete one stop-shop regionally and accross that range of industries. AP Labs annual revenues bring additional $30 Mio annually.
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