Blog

New addition to popular PDU2 line offers increased moment load capacity and stiffness suitable for multi-axis systems and demanding single-axis applications.

Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation, manufacturer of the original DualVee guide wheel and industry leader in guided motion technology, announces the availability of the new HepcoMotion® PDU2M Profile Belt Driven Unit, a high moment capacity version of the successful PDU2. The PDU2M incorporates a carriage that contains four extra rollers on each side in order to withstand increased moment forces. Suitable for demanding single-axis systems and multi-axis applications, the PDU2M delivers a 50% higher load capacity, a 200% increase in moment load capacity and a 1,000% improvement in moment load stiffness compared to the standard PDU2. Designers can now specify a single PDU2M unit as a horizontal axis in an X-Z system, where previously two PDU2 units working in parallel would have been required to provide the necessary rigidity and strength.

PDU2M is comprised of a rigid but lightweight aluminum slotted profile fitted with a toothed belt drive and carriage which effectively encloses the unit. Rated for operating speeds up to 6m/s and loads up to 750N, PDU2M’s 20AT3 belt allows for driving forces up to 280N. Left, right or double drive shafts can be specified together with a range of options such as brakes, positioning encoders and mechanical or inductive limit switches. Internal bumpers provide end of stroke protection at both ends.

Key to this unit is the extra ultra-high performance HepcoMotion Herculane® wheels that are mounted on adjustable eccentric studs. These wheels run virtually friction-free on the inside of the profile providing stable support for the carriage plate; felt wipers sweep debris from their path. Several carriage styles are available to allow for quick and easy construction of multi-axis systems with minimal brackets and hardware.

PDU2 is fully compatible with aluminum profile systems (which Bishop-Wisecarver carries) and is an ideal replacement for failing ball-based systems that are unable to match its speed and reliability.

The new MultiMelt tank melter is a product for users who process different hotmelts. The hotmelt unit is engineered to melt PUR hotmelt, but also other thermoplastic adhesives such as EVA, PSA, APAO, etc. Tank and melting grid can be cleaned easily to permit changing from one hotmelt to another. Regular adhesive changes are not recommended. A dry-air supply for the tank is available as an option for processing of PUR adhesives.

– Suitable for processing adhesive blocks from 20-litre drums without inner liner

– Suitable for PUR hotmelt and thermoplastic adhesives

– Tank design for homogeneous, gentle melting

– Quick and easy to clean, easy access

– Robatech modularity & compatibility

– Melting and buffer variant

– Best price/performance ratio

Applications

– Profile wrapping (for example)

– Topping-up of containers and small adhesive applicators

– Applications calling for a fast change of adhesives

A number of groups are offering financial aid to cancer patients who can’t cover the costs of treatment, including many who have inadequate health insurance, as I write in the Informed Patient column today.

An estimated 25 million patients are considered underinsured in the U.S — meaning that they have health policies that don’t cover all of their medical needs and leave them struggling with high out-of-pocket cots. And many of their health policies include high deductibles, which can send patients scrambling for aid in the early part of the year before the deductible is met.

Julie Reynes, president of the Patient Access Network, which provides help to patients who can’t meet co-payments for their medications, tells the Health Blog that the group had a “deluge” of requests for help in January and February, but didn’t have adequate funds to help everyone.

The non-profit is one of five major groups that provide such assistance, along with several other disease-specific groups that help patients with cancer co-payments such as the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Unless the patient has already incurred the expense, the payments usually go directly to providers, physicians or suppliers of the medications.

A large portion of the funding for co-payment programs is provided by pharmaceutical makers, but as donors, the companies have no say over how the funds are used or which products are used by patients. However, any donations can be directed to a specific disease fund.

Patients can visit the group’s Web site to see which disease funds have monies available. For example, for pancreatic cancer patients, applications for new and renewal patients are being accepted, and grants of as much as $7,500 are allocated immediately. But there’s no funding available at present for colorectal cancer in the program.

Patients who meet eligibility criteria can still be approved and placed on a waiting list and receive assistance once funding becomes available. But Ms. Reynes says one reason for posting the status of the funds is to discourage patients from wasting their time when there isn’t any money to help.

The Patient Access Network Web site also provides links to other groups that provide co-payment help, including the Healthwell Foundation and Patient Services Inc.

Photo: iStockphoto

Filed under: Spy Photos, Performance, SUV, Europe, Mercedes-Benz, Luxury

Our keen-eyed spy shoots have managed to nab a few shots of the next-generation Mercedes-Benz ML, though the high-riding SUV is sporting different equipment from the last time we saw it. For starters, there are oil-drum sized cross-drilled rotors on all four corners. Something tells us the standard mom-mobile won’t be needing galactic-sized stoppers, which leads us to believe we’re staring the next ML63 AMG in the face.

We have next to no solid intelligence on exactly what’s under the hood, so allow us to spread on a thick layer of rampant speculation. Our guess is that the engineers at AMG have likely blessed the SUV with the Silver Arrow’s brand-spanking-new twin-turbo V8. At 5.5-liters, the engine dishes out a heady 544 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, though we wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if final figures were slightly lower when the new ML lands at dealers. Throw in a massaged suspension and those meaty breaks, and you’ve got a winner all around. Sounds good enough to get us to soccer practice on time.

[Source: CarPix]

Spy Shots: Next-gen Mercedes ML AMG spotted originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

During the rise of the Beat movement in the 1950s and ’60s, avant-garde writer William S. Burroughs developed a process he called the “cut up” technique, in which he would literally cut out sentences and passages from poems, stories and books (both his own and those of other writers) and stitch them together. If Burroughs had ever decided to automate this process and develop an online encyclopedia, it would probably look a lot like Cpedia. The new offering from Cuil — a startup (pronounced “cool”) that launched in 2008, claiming to have developed a better and faster search engine than Google’s — is destined to do at least one thing very well: make even the most poorly-researched Wikipedia page look like the repository of all the world’s knowledge.

Cpedia launched last week with a blog post from Cuil co-founder and former IBM staffer Tom Costello, who described a meeting he had with Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy when Costello and his wife Anna Patterson (a former Googler) were trying to raise money for Cuil. Joy told Costello that people didn’t need a new search engine that just returned a list of results, they needed something that would write an article based on a search. A note on Cpedia topic pages reads: “We find everything on the Web about your topic, remove all the duplication and put the information on one page.”

It’s important to note that this doesn’t say the service finds everything on the Web and makes sense of it and then puts it all on one page. If what you want are snippets of articles from somewhere (links to source pages are difficult to find) mixed up seemingly at random and then displayed as though they were a coherent encyclopedia entry, even when they are not, then you are going to love Cpedia.

To take just one example, in the entry on Philo Farnsworth, the man who many credit with inventing the modern television, the article starts with a reference to — and a large picture of — an actor named Jimmy Simpson, who apparently played Farnsworth in a movie. There is some history about the development of television and the race with RCA (which reverse engineered Farnsworth’s patents and took credit for the discovery), but it’s all mixed up with references to Simpson and the movie, along with random people including actor Sid Caesar and Jonas Salk, as well as snippets of Farnsworth-related information that appear without any reference to anything.

In his blog post launching the service, Costello says that Cpedia “is very different from a traditional search engine, and not at all like Wikipedia, but that is its strength; it is something new and different.” The Cuil founder is almost certainly right. Unfortunately, being new and different doesn’t necessarily mean that it is either good or useful. Other users who have tried it out describe it as “sentence after sentence of automated nonsense,” and Tumblr and Instapaper developer Marco Arment says that “if this feature is meant to become a serious product, I truly feel bad for them.”

If nothing else, Cpedia proves that there are some things that algorithms and automated processes can’t do — and one of those things is to make sense of all the information that exists on the Internet. Perhaps human beings are good for something after all.

courtesy of Flickr user Kellan

While we tend to focus on the needs of the American motor public here on Gas 2.0, the fact of the matter is there are two huge countries who are going to dominate the transportation equation in coming decades. I am referring of course to India and China. GM and Ford both already have their toes in the Chinese waters, posting impressive sales gains. But India is dominated by microcars and Tata, the largest domestic Indian automaker. GM and Ford need something big to break into the market… and by that I mean something very small.

To this end, GM is planning on introducing an all-electric version of its Spark — which will be coming to the US as a gas-powered car — to select Indian markets. But will the fiscally frugal country spend the extra rupees for an electric car?

(more…)

What's the Genius Button?

The recent images of the myTouch Slide have given us the best look at the phone to date.  There’s one thing we’ve not seen discussed elsewhere so we’re calling on you to help.  If you look to the bottom right of the physical buttons, you’ll see a lime green button with a lowercase “G’ printed on it.  In one image, we can see what appears to be an application called ‘Genius Button’.

This obviously has to be something T-Mobile as opposed to HTC or Google.  A quick check of US Trademarks tells us that T-Mobile filed for the trademark just over a month ago on March 2nd.  We’re curious as to what it actually does.  Is it a quick access button to your favorite social networking services?  Does it pull up an all-in-one portal with news, weather, RSS, and more?  More importantly, is this something we’ll see on other handsets?

If you have anything to offer in regards to the Genius Button, hit up our contact page!

Might We Suggest…

• T-Mobile myTouch Slide Features Android 2.1 [UPDATE]
  The fine folks over at TmoNews have gotten their hands on another picture of the forthcoming myTouch Slide.  This time around, we’re treated to a screen of the firmware.  As it appears, this will be t…

Good news for Opera (and its legions of fans around the world): the company has just announced that its mobile browser Opera Mini has been approved for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store.

The app will be available as a free download within 24 hours, depending on which market you are located in.

The iPhone app was shown off by the Norwegian software company to a small circle of reporters at the most recent Mobile World Congress (us included). Opera then officially submitted Opera Mini for iPhone to the Apple App Store on March 23.

I’ve only visited Detroit once, half a lifetime ago. Even though it was so long ago, I can still remember some of the urban decay and the sense of desolation that permeated the city. Still, I like Detroit. It is home to America’s car culture, and it used to be a bastion of the middle class. But it is in desperate need of revitalization, and lots of ideas are being proposed to save the city, like urban farming.

Before these radical ideas can transform Detroit though, baby steps need to be taken to better the present state of the city. To that end, the Motor City is planning to add 30 miles of bike lanes to its vehicle-centric grid.

As it stands, Detroit has a few disjointed bike lanes across the city, but nothing of the sort to encourage biking en masse. For decades Detroit has emphasized roads at the expense of pedestrians and bikers, and with good reason. Detroit thrived during the 1950’s and 60’s due to its car culture. But times have changed, many jobs have left and are not coming back. People are trying to get away from cars and save money on other ways of commuting. Biking is one of those ways out, and Detroit seems to be listening.

(more…)

This is the Skôn, which means beautiful in Dutch. And beautiful it is, a exquisitely crafted wool hoodie lined with lights. It will make anyone look like an imbecile, unless you are a charming woman. [Mocoloco] More »

Rod Dreher has a poignant reflection up on his roots in Louisiana. He finishes:

I thought about this memory this weekend, visiting Ruthie and my family. Ruthie and Mike bought part of what was once the orchard from our distant cousins, and built their house there. The rest of the land that had once been Lois and Hilda’s was sold to strangers. The cabin has long been gone; a nice big brick house belonging to someone I don’t know is now where the cabin was. True to Hilda’s palm-reading prophecy, I traveled far in my life. I have now spent well over half my life living away from there. Yet that is home for me, because that is where my family is, and the landscape of my childhood. Now, though, my parents are getting up in years, and my younger sister, at age 40, is battling a disease that may take her life. I hadn’t realized until this crisis with Ruthie how much I had counted on the continuity of her remaining there, even after our parents pass away, to anchor that place as the center of my imaginative universe. She, who has always loved the land and her place there far more than I, and she, whom I could count on to always be faithful to it, however unfaithful I was, sits in her armchair in what was once the orchard, coughing and straining for breath. We hope and we pray for healing, but now the way I thought the world would be may not be the way the world is, or will become. And I am having a hard time coming to terms with that, as both an emotional and a philosophical matter (i.e., trying to understand how to relate to where I come from now that the permanence I assumed would always be there is threatened).

From what I recall Louisiana is a region of the United States where people move least, and are deeply rooted in their locales. In this way I suppose it’s more like Europe and much of the Old World, with the importance of place encapsulated in terms such as Heimat. Though I am an American my family is from Bangladesh, and on the rare occasions that I interact with Bangladeshis I will be asked what my desh is, roughly my ancestral homeland. That would happen to be a small town in the southeast of modern Bangladesh, where my paternal ancestors settled several centuries ago, and where my extended family still has lands. But here’s the thing: I’ve never been to “my” desh. My parents always found this amusing when I asked as a child how my homeland could be a place to which I’d never been, and on some level I think they accept that these terms are anachronistic. Like much of Asia Bangladesh has seen massive urbanization within the past generation, and I get the sense that these old terms are far less relevant. In some ways it may be that Europe and North America, where development and modernization occurred at a slower place, may be the regions where a traditional sense of place remains the most robust because of the more gentle transition from the past to the future.

After months of testing, the Large Hadron Collider research program has started at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) laboratory on the Franco–Swiss border. Accelerating particles and colliding them at 7 trillion electron volts – just half of its full capacity, but already three and a half times the energy previously achieved by the most powerful particle accelerator in the United States – scientists at LHC are now hoping to answer fundamental questions on the nature of our universe.
..
Continue Reading Search for ‘God particle’ underway at LHC

Tags: Dark matter,
LHC,
Quantum,
Universe

Related Articles:

• Large Hadron Collider back up and running
• Large Hadron Collider readies for half-power restart
• CERN opens its doors to the world
• World’s faster supercomputer models origins of the unseen universe
• Cosmic Dawn simulation provides insights into the early universe
• No Burn Toaster

Filed under: Motorsports, Ferrari, Racing

The Ferrari F430 Challenge isn’t on our normal scope of motorsports coverage, but when we heard that the series, along with the Corse Clienti cars, were going to be at Miller Motorsports Park we immediately started checking on flights. This year is the first time the series has come to the state-of-the-art track outside Salt Lake City, and hopefully it won’t be the last.

If you aren’t familiar with the F430 Challenge, it’s a spec racing series put on by Ferrari specifically for owners. Professional drivers, instructors or anyone involved in the sale of Ferraris or parts can’t drive in the series. Since each of the cars is exactly the same – a race-prepped Ferrari F430 coupe with 490 horsepower – the playing field is level. Think the races are a bunch of rich guys doing parade laps around the track? Think again. The drivers are extremely competitive and it’s not uncommon to see the cars bumping fenders and jostling for position. That was the case at Miller Motorsports Park, where there were several off-track excursions into the Tooele sand and various bits of body panels, splitters and diffusers left on the tarmac.

It makes for good entertainment, and we highly recommend attending any of the four remaining F430 Challenge races in North America this year – Infineon Raceway, Montreal, New Jersey Motorsports Park and Watkins Glen. If you can’t make it, then you’ll just have to settle for our high-res gallery below.

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Ferrari F430 Challenge makes first appearance at Miller Motorsports Park originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Review: 2010 Audi S5 Cabriolet speaks too softly, but carries a big stick

With performance convertibles, it’s all about compromise, but the S5 Cabrio holds its own… and then some.

GSR Autosport BMW 350R: Part IV – Our inaugural event begins with a drift, a snap and a shatter

Flogging an M5-powered BMW 3 Series in the Formula Drift season opener proves to be too much for a few custom suspension components. Next stop, Road Atlanta, and drifting domination.

Ferrari 458 Italia makes North American public debut in…Tooele, UT

It’s the first time the Ferrari 458 Italia has landed on our shores, and we were there with camera in hand.

Also of interest:

• Motor Trend pits Hyundai Genesis against 2011 Mustang, 2010 Camaro and Challenger
• Ford confirms Explorer, F-150 EcoBoost, ups production target to 1.5M
• Audi’s new R15+ racer comes out storming
• Speeding Tickets: 65 issued per minute and other fun facts
• IndyCar: 2010 Grand Prix of Alabama
  

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 4.12.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

It’s important to give growing kids a well-balanced upbringing and foster their imagination by sending them outside to explore and exercise their bodies and minds. But when they’re inside the house and you don’t want their inquiring minds “playing” with your laptop and its valuable content, maybe it’s time they had their own specially-built kids computer. Little Tikes has combined its plastic furniture prowess and computer knowledge to create the Young Explore – a combination desk and desktop computer, complete with mini mouse and keyboard to help get kids ready for the world ahead of them while at the same time having fun.
..
Continue Reading Young Explorer computer ‘workstation’ for kids

Tags: Children,
Computers,
Workstation

Related Articles:

• A new look for an old favorite – the interactive Dora Links doll
• Home automation designed for kids
• Barbie B Learning Computer
• LeapFrog introduce ClickStart PC for preschoolers
• My Phones volume-reducing headphones for kids
• Crayola goes digital

I keep twisting and turning my iPad with childlike wonder while reading the familiar tale of the adventures of a girl named Alice. For the first time in my life, I’m blown away by an interactive book design. More »

One of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s former pension board appointees has been named to a key seat overseeing the Department of Water and Power, even as that utility is in the middle of a protracted dispute over electricity rates.



Eric Holoman, president of Magic Johnson Enterprises, was named by the mayor to fill the DWP board seat vacated last month by Edith Ramirez, an attorney who recently joined the Federal Trade Commission.



The nomination of Holoman comes as Villaraigosa and the City Council are in a standoff over utility rates. The DWP announced that it would not transfer $73.5 million to the city’s cash-strapped budget unless it receives the first of four planned rate hikes. In response, council members proposed a ballot measure to reduce the number of DWP board members who can be selected by the mayor.



Villaraigosa said in a statement that Holoman’s arrival would usher in “a new era of accountability and transparency” at the nation’s largest municipal utility. Meanwhile, Holoman promised that he would keep rates as low as possible “while ensuring that the DWP continues to invest in green energy and creates jobs in Los Angeles.”



Some council members, including Richard Alarcon and Paul Koretz, said they want a compromise that would end the rate deadlock, possibly as soon as Tuesday.

Holoman served until last year on the board of the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System, which oversees the pension benefits for 45,000 active and retired civilian employees. He stepped down from that volunteer post after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law that places new limits on private financial work performed by publicly appointed pension board members.



The law bars pension board members throughout the state from selling, directly or indirectly, investment products to any other public retirement system in California.



Holoman still must be confirmed by the City Council.



— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

The inaugural National Robotics Week is taking place across the U.S. right now, incorporating a host of organizations including universities and manufacturing companies with the aim of increasing public awareness of the increasingly important role of robotic technology in society. ..
Continue Reading National Robotics Week – increasing awareness bot by bot

Tags: Robotics

Related Articles:

• Evolution Robotics unveils New ER2 Personal Robot
• 3.5 metre Tyrannosaurus Rex Robot
• Honda aims to create humanoid robots for reliable home help
• Wii Wireless Controlled Robot Concept
• Willow Garage offers free robots to researchers
• Personal Robot industry to grow to $15 Billion by 2015

Three small children from Whittier, siblings, were among five people who died and six others who were injured on Interstate 5 in the Newhall Pass after a pickup spun out of control on the rain-slicked freeway and set off a multiple-vehicle collision, authorities said Monday.



The three-vehicle accident occurred shortly before midnight Sunday and shut down southbound lanes  for much of the day in the wake of a storm that dumped an inch or more of rain in areas of Southern California.



A 54-year-old Frazier Park man was driving the 1996 Mazda pickup south just north of the 14 Freeway when he veered into the center divider and overturned in the face of oncoming traffic, the California Highway Patrol said.



A Nissan Altima with six people, including the three children, was traveling behind the pickup at about 60 mph. The driver hit the brakes and veered to the right but was unable to avoid smashing into the overturned pickup, CHP Officer John Lutz said.



A Chevrolet Suburban traveling about 50 mph struck the Nissan from behind. It was unclear whether the three children, riding in the back seat, were properly restrained, according to Lutz.



The siblings were identified as Xochitl Hernandez, 5, Edgar Hernandez, 8, and Cynthia Hernandez, 9, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said.



A 16-year-old boy also riding in the back seat of the Nissan was also killed. He was identified as Luis Villegas of Oakland.



The driver of the Nissan and a passenger in the front seat were seriously injured and taken to hospitals. Authorities identified the driver as Francisco J. Enciso, 25, of Daly City, and the passenger as Yessica Milan, 27, of Whittier.



The fifth fatality was the driver of the pickup, John J. Blackburn, the CHP said.



The Suburban’s driver, Victor Jarillo, was arrested for allegedly driving without a license, and his passenger was taken into custody on suspicion of providing false information to officers, according to Lutz.



The cause of the crash was under investigation.



— Robert J. Lopez and Ruben Vives