Author: Serkadis

A new TSI PRM suitable version of the MTSM sound module is available now from EAO – the expert partner for Human Machine Interface.

The new Series 56 MTSM (Multi-Tone Sound Module) can be programmed to emit clear warning and orientation sounds which may be adapted to any operating environment, especially rail vehicles.

It is pre-programmed with three TSI PRM *-suitable tone sequences for door opening, door closing, and an orientation signal to help disabled users. Other sequences can be created by programming these tones to play at different volumes, durations and intervals.

With this new product, EAO has extended the MTSM functionality. The volume can now be adjusted after mounting which makes it easier to set the level according to how loud it is in the middle of the vestibule – a TSI PRM requirement. Using EAO’s ‘volume control box’, a clever new remote controller, the volume can be finely adjusted in 1.5dB steps between 66 and 90dB to achieve the 70dB (+/- 2dB) prescribed by the TSI PRM.

Also important, it now operates with a wide range of nominal voltages between 12 and 110 VDC (+/- 30%). There are only four terminals to connect instead of six, and all tones can be created from just three wires.

While the new product is still protected to IP69K for use in harsh environments, EAO now offers a cost-conscious, IP40 version for interior use.

The new MTSM is an extension to the Series 56 range and matches the same design and dimensions of other Series 56 products. It can be retrofitted into the existing mounting holes so it’s an ideal way for train builders to meet their obligations under the PRM TSI.

This product is one of the many devices supplied by EAO which help persons with reduced mobility to enjoy the same travel opportunities as other members of society.
* Persons of Reduced Mobility Technical Specification for Interoperability.

The eyecatching design of the new Rondex-M range – a combination of charcoal plastics
and matt chrome – as well as the RVA range made of high-quality stainless steel have
now got a ring illumination, which means an optical enhancement for both series. The
pushbuttons are now available with metallic push-caps and circular illumination. The
colour of the illumination can be customised by different LED colours and laser printing
is possible on the push-caps.

GAMM presents the range of indexing plungers model PNCX. Threaded stainless steel body and stainless steel pin and spring. Mat black thermoplastic knurled knob. Knurled knob of different colors upon request. We can also provide the version with Stainless steel nut. For more technical information you can visit our web-site.

Hamar Laser manufactures the most accurate, versatile and portable bore alignment laser system available: The L-707.

Data taking targets include: self-centering, see-through, 2-axis and 4-axis targets, hand-held readouts and windows-based software to display and analyze data in real time.

L-707 Bore Alignment Lasers can be used for a variety of bore alignment and measurement applications: engine block bearings, compressor bores, shaft bearing bores, stern tubes and many more.

Results 3x Faster Than Optical
Bore Scopes or Tight Wire With the L-707, alignment of bores is fast and easy: Setup takes 15 to 20 minutes, and overall alignments are done up to 3x faster than with optical bore scopes or tight wire. Because alignment data is real time, misaligned bores can be brought into tolerance very quickly.

After setup, a 10′ (3 M) long bore can be measured for straightness every foot (300 mm) in under 5 minutes!

Self-Centering Target Adapters
Reduces Setup time by 50% With conventional bore alignment methods, the measuring device is typically mounted outside the bores, and targets are used in reference bores to align the measurement system — a very cumbersome process that can easily take an hour, or more.

With Hamar Laser’s patented, selfcentering target adapter technology, the setup process is simple: Use the A-514G Leg Setting Gage to set the legs to the desired diameter.

Then the laser and target are mounted directly into the reference bores, reducing setup time to just minutes rather than hours.

The BCP 1K-27CB Series rugged industrial quality battery charger specifically designed to assist vehicle warm-up during extremely cold weather. Typically permanently installed on a vehicle, this charger is activated on days when the ambient temperature drops below 0ºC. It is suitable for operation on Buses, Trucks and other Vehicles.

This charger accepts 115Vac nominal input (100V – 132Vac range) and delivers 27.5Vdc at 36A for float charging the 24Vdc battery – custom input and output options are available on request. In addition to maintaining the battery condition, it provides sufficient power to keep essential on-board equipment and heater fans operational during the vehicle warm-up period.

The BCP 1K-27CB operates at full specification over a -40°C to +50°C cold plate temperature range Cooling is by conduction via baseplate to chassis wall and by additional convection. This charger is fully ruggedized and conformal coated and meets SAE International J1455 and IEC61373 Cat 1 A&B shock and vibration standards as a minimum. The enclosure measures (5.5” x 6.5” x 14”) and weighs approximately 10 pounds.

This battery charger is based on field proven technology with a track record in transportation environments including railway, trucking and aviation. The absence of fans, large design headroom, and the use of components with established reliability result in a high MTBF. Protection includes inrush current limiting, over-voltage protection, short circuit protection, and self-resetting thermostat for thermal protection.

What’s Your Application?

Here at FUTEK, we’re big fans of visuals and charts as seen in the concept diagrams in our application page. Most of the images were provided by loyal customers wanting to give us a better understanding of how they use our sensors while other applications came from: reconnaissance missions, area 51 and figments of our imagination. We love learning more about your application and came up with some nifty prizes to help you spill the beans (share your application with us). Rules & Entry From March 31 to May 31 send us a picture or diagram with an explanation on how you use a Load Cell or Torque Sensor for a chance to win:

A complete USB Sensor System including a Mini HP Laptop.
1st Prize: Our LSB200 S Beam Jr. Load Cell (1 lb capacity), USB Output Kit, Extended USB Software along with an HP Mini Laptop.
2nd Prize: A LSB200 S Beam Jr Load Cell (1 lb capacity) with USB Output and Extended USB Software.
Digital Multi Meters for all entries (applies only to US Residents).

Visit our Application Contest page on our website for complete rules and complete details!

Laboratory automation in the fast lane: With Metrohm’s new 889 IC Sample Center, less than 10 seconds elapse between start of determination and sample injection. This new and robust x-y-z autosampler has been designed for small sample volumes (1 µL… 10 mL) in particular. Moreover, it is available with a cooling function making it ideal for critical samples from the biochemical and clinical field that need to be kept stable over extended periods of time.

The 889 IC Sample Center is highly versatile. Various injection methods can be selected: full-loop, partial-loop and pick-up. For all three modes, users can select injection with Pressure-Assisted Sample Aspiration (PASA™), a great advantage especially when viscous samples need to be analyzed.

Standard accessories of the 889 IC Sample Center include two 48-position-sample-racks for 300 and 700 µL vessels. Injection volumes from 1 to 100 µL (with 1 µL increments) can be selected. Other sample racks that are common in liquid chromatography or SBS standard microtiter plates can also be used on the 889 IC Sample Center. The system supports sample racks with 12 to 384 positions.

The 889 IC Sample Center is also available with a cooling function. In this version a Peltier element ensures that samples are cooled to a stable minimum of 4 °C. Because of the sophisticated cooling system no temperature gradient can develop; a constant temperature is guaranteed.

JS Humidifiers has supplied and installed two Neptronic SKE resistive steam humidifiers and reverse osmosis water treatment systems to leading data centre, Citadel 100, in Dublin.

The steam humidifiers can supply up to 140 litres of moisture every hour to help control the humidity around the 7,500m2 data halls and the water treatment systems remove most of the minerals from the supply water prior to boiling.

George McDonald, technical manager at Citadel 100, comments, “We need to maintain 50% relative humidity in the data halls to prevent static build-up and maintain a healthy environment. Without the humidifiers the atmosphere can drop to 25%rH which is a risk to both people working in the area and the equipment.

“The humidifiers operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 80% capacity. The Neptronic SKE humidifiers have performed well since they’ve been installed and we’ve been able to fit and forget them with absolutely no issues.

George continues, “The reverse osmosis water filters have also been very effective. Previously we had to service the humidification system every one and a half months to empty to the limescale from the boiling chambers. This took about a day to do. However, with the reverse osmosis filters in place we only have to service the units once every six months.”

The Neptronic SKE has 98% metal construction and has been designed to keep consumable components to an absolute minimum. The heating elements are made from scale-resistive Incoloy 825 super alloy, which when heated causes any limescale that does build up to crack from the surface in small manageable pieces. These are then mostly washed to drain during normal operation.

When combined with a PureFlo 100 reverse osmosis water treatment system, which removes 90% of the minerals from the supply water, the maintenance requirements of a Neptronic SKE are dramatically reduced as very little limescale builds up in the boiling chamber. This is in stark contrast to electrode boiler type steam humidifiers, which regularly require expensive replacement boiling chambers to combat limescale build-up.

JS Humidifiers is the UK’s largest humidification company with the widest range of products and offers a service of advice, design, supply, installation and maintenance. It also offers a comprehensive range of humidifier spares, not only for JS equipment but also for a large range of different manufacturers’ humidifiers, mostly available ex-stock.

A couple of weeks back, IO Interactive regaled us with the announcement of release date for the Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, and with a trailer to boot. Today, you’re gonna see that “Welcome to Shanghai”

Joe Mullin has an excellent and detailed blog post about how Scott Harris — no stranger to patent-related controversy — got some bad news in his patent lawsuit against FedEx over its barcode scanning system, as the court’s claim construction greatly limited the patent. The patent is no longer technically held by Harris, but he may still have some economic interest in it. However, the shell company that holds the patent, BarTex, is still pushing forward and appealing the claim construction, and saying that every FedEx package that ships violates its patent on a two-part barcode. The big problem? It appears that similar technology had been in use long before Harris ever filed his patent — including by FedEx. In fact, there’s prior art in a national standard setting group.

Where the post gets interesting is that Mullin went on to explore just how Harris was able to get such a patent with so much prior art. The story highlights how so many terrible patents get granted:

Unfortunately for Harris, the two-part bar code had already been
invented, according to the Patent and Trademark Office examiner who
rejected all of the lawyer-inventor’s claims. The inspector based his
decision mainly on the existence of an earlier patent, No. 5,920,062.
That patent–filed in 1997 and describing a bar code with multiple
“modules”–belongs to Uniform Code Council, Inc. (also known as the
folks who actually invented standardized bar codes; in case you’re curious, such codes have been in use since since 1974.) See Harris’ rejected original application [PDF].

Harris’ bar-code inventing process didn’t stop there. Like all patent
applicants, he was allowed an unlimited number of chances to get it
right. He modified his idea so that the bar code’s second part would
include its own unique information, but would also contain data
embedded in the first part of the code. It was an idea, Harris
explained in a four-page letter to the patent examiner dated April 15,
2003, that nobody had ever thought of  before: “Why would two bar codes
be provided that included the same information? This is quite simply
not obvious based on the prior art. In fact, it is the present
inventors [sic] recognition that using two bar codes with overlapping
information may produce a significant advantage…” See Harris’ amended
application [PDF].

Though the examiner found many examples of multiple-part bar codes, he
didn’t find any examples of ones that had multiple portions with
redundant information similar to what Harris described. As a result,
Harris was notified in July 2003 that his patent would be issued.

In a nutshell, Harris tried to get a patent on a certain type of bar
code, and was turned down. Then he added what was essentially redundant
information to his original invention, and, voila, the nation was
blessed with a new invention.

Mullin goes on to explain how this sorta thing happens all the time, and the inevitable dangerous impact on companies that actually do innovate and do produce products. The “cost” to “invent” is incredibly low — but the cost to “uninvent” is quite high:

The prosecution history of ‘377 patent is an object lesson in why defendants in infringement suits often express frustration over having to fend off patents that they consider vague, unreasonably broad, or just plain senseless given the state of the art in their industries. But the rules of acquiring patents strongly favor a determined and clever prosecutor.

Consider the examiner’s position: He or she is faced with limited time and resources–and an applicant free to ask for as many “do-overs” as he can afford. The examiner can’t say “no” without a reason to do so, and if that reason is prior art, it has to be more or less spot-on. It’s also worth noting that examiners work in a system that rewards the granting of patents, but not endless arguments with an applicant.

Because Harris prosecuted the patent himself, it has only cost him about $2,000, according to PTO documents–$861 when he filed the application, $690 upon issuance, and a $450 maintenance fee paid in 2007. Contrast that with the hundreds of thousands of dollars–at going rates for IP litigation FedEx’s costs–that FedEx has probably spent in legal fees to “uninvent” the ‘377 patent. Had the company not won at the Markman stage, and been forced to go to trial, its costs could have soared into the millions, even to secure a clean victory.

It’s a story we’ve heard many times before, but the point is made pretty clearly here. As per usual, we will ask our regular patent system defenders to explain how the system “worked” in this case, and how a random lawyer with no intention of ever producing any product helped “promote the progress” by getting a patent on something that was already in widespread use, and then suing a large company for doing what it had already been doing all along?

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The Japaneses Media Create has now released the results for their software sales charts for the week of March 29th through April 4th, 2010. On top of their list is newcomer Etrian Odyssey III for the DS.
 
 
 
 

Let me start this off with a stern warning: There are spoilers in this post, so if you’re not done with God of War III, click on something else from the QJ Front Page. Thing is, when

Here’s the latest version of Lino’s handy homebrew app fb4nds, a Facebook client application for the Nintendo DS. The latest update of the brew is mostly a bug fix release to improve the performance of the homebrew.
 
 
Download:

Structures and Materials Research and Development (BAA) – The Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and the Structures and Materials Engineering Divisions under the Air Vehicle Department (AIR-4.3) are soliciting proposals for research and development (R&D) concepts in the area of structures and materials to support current and future Naval Aviation needs. Concepts proposed may represent novel dedicated technologies and/or dual use of new emerging commercial technology.  NAVAIR is soliciting proposals for advanced research and development in a variety of enabling technical areas.  Proposals may be either basic or applied research. Proposals that are not research, but rather integration of technologies or systems development will also be considered.  Response Date: May 31, 2010.

Posted Date: April 1, 2010

Solicitation Number: N00421-10-R-1041

There’s no doubting now that the Blu-ray is the chosen HD format of this generation. Home Media Magazine and blu-ray.com’s data reveal that a whopping 68.5% increase of Blu-ray sales were incurred in Q1 of 2010.
 
 
 

The RDCAP Proposal must involve the attraction and build-out of a high-quality, large, nationally designated and highly visible corporate, non-profit, or federal research and development center or laboratory facility that involves one or more of the following criteria:

• Conducts value-added applied research;
• Performs industry-directed and industry-oriented problem solving; and,
• Develops technologies that can be commercialized in partnership with a for-profit company.
  

RDCAP proposals may address any of the following opportunity areas or combinations thereof:

• Advanced Energy (with an emphasis on fuel cells, photovoltaics, wind, biomass, and storage)
• Advanced Materials (with an emphasis on advanced polymers, carbon nanocomposites, and bioproducts)
• Advanced Propulsion (aerospace)
• Biomedical (with an emphasis on biomedical imaging, cardiovascular, regenerative medicine and orthopedics)
• Instruments, Controls, Electronics (with an emphasis on sensors)

http://ohiothirdfrontier.com/Documents/ResearchDevelopmentCenterAttractionProgram/2010RFP/RDCAP_FY10_81909.pdf

As it’s become clear that the iPad is more of a “content delivery vehicle” than an interactive device (and there’s nothing wrong with that), people are quickly discovering how regional licensing issues and copyright may hold the device back in some areas. Apparently, as the device gets ready to launch in Canada, there are concerns that there won’t be very much content available for it. All that content that US companies rushed out to help “save” their businesses? Well, a lot of it isn’t licensed in Canada, and so the store of content available up there is likely to be greatly limited.

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Costume ROMs have become as popular as Steve Ballmer (okay way more popular than him), so let us know your favorite. Costume ROMs bring the best things to a regular Windows Phones, to better it by improving it’s speed, enhancing the smoothness, and/or include more software. Many have noticed the benefit of costume ROMs and became flashers.

I for one after purchasing my Touch Pro 1 became a heavy flasher. I used to flash once a week, once a day, sometimes, once every 4 hours. It became a problem because I lost my data every time, and setting up was not that quick since I did not have UC going for me. This heavy flasher life of mine is all gone, and I am lucky if I flash one a week.

Comment below and tell us how much you flash, what ROM you us, and what device you flash? Hopefully it’s the WMPoweruser ROM that should be updated very soon.

Based on the developer network BBC Backstage, the learning project titled “DataArt” [bbc.co.uk] aims to introduce people to the power of information visualisation as a contemporary media form of increasing importance (somehow sounds familiar?). The project will publish a series of data visualizations, focused principally on BBC data sources but potentially cross-referenced with other publicly available data. In practice, this means the BBC will provide tools, tutorials, example computer code one can download and modify, and access to copyright free data sources.

BBC Learning recognises that the interpretation of open data is an increasingly important skill for us all and expects the site will appeal to audiences interested in data visualization in general, digital art and design, those interested in the BBC and those looking at data visualization from an educational perspective.

Four different visualization have been released so far: Flared Music shows relationships between musicians as stored in the BBC Music / Musicbrainz database. 3D Documentary Explorer uses video as its source to experiment with the concept of interactive story telling. SearchWeb allows for the exploration of BBC content by generating a tree of links to relevant pages throughout the site. Lastly, News Globe maps the information from the BBC News & Sport website on 3D globe.

This is hardly a surprise, but with the Google Book search lawsuit/settlement with authors and publishers still under discussion, it seems that photographers have decided to file their own lawsuit. This was, in large part, driven by the judge in the existing case, who excluded photographers from the current lawsuit/settlement, because the photographers have a very different perspective and demands concerning the scanning.

Via The Trademark Blog, we get a look at the actual filing:

While Google decided to cave rather than fight the good fair use fight on regular book scanning, it would be interesting to see if they decide to fight the photographers on this one. I would think they have a very strong fair use case — and there is at least some case law to support this position. I know of two recent cases that had at least somewhat similar fact patterns, involving commercial entities using copyrighted images as part of an aggregated product — and both were found as fair use.

Just last year, we wrote about a book that used old magazine covers drawn by artist Basil Gogos that looked at Gogos’ artwork. The magazine that originally published the artwork claimed copyright violations, but the district court found a strong fair use claim in noting that it was “fundamentally transformative in nature.” The other case, involves old Grateful Dead posters, where someone published a book of the posters, but was sued by the Bill Graham Archives, claiming copyright infringement over those posters. Once again, the court said this was fair use, despite it being a commercial endeavor. Again, part of the reasoning was that this was an aggregation of the content, and the overall quality of the images did not match up to the original posters. Given the low-fi quality of Google book scans, it seems likely that the same claim makes sense for photographic/visual media works that Google scans in books as well. It’s worth noting, also, that the Grateful Dead poster decision took place in the same district court (Southern District of NY) where this new lawsuit is being filed.

Even so, this whole thing seems confusing, and feels like a pure moneygrab by photographers. The images from a Google book scan are not high quality in any way. They’re certainly not going to replace or act as a substitute for the original works. In fact, it’s difficult to see how they would do anything but increase the interest in the original, higher quality, works.

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