15% growth in engineering jobs at Bristol Panasonic plant - 29-11-2007 - 13:04

Panasonic is to increase the number of engineering jobs at its semiconductor development centre in Bristol.

The move follows the adoption of its IC technology into a commercial product and will consist of building on the Elixent foundations.

Last year Matsushita, Panasonic's parent company, bought Elixent though there had been attempts to incorporate its technology before.

Speaking to Electronics Weekly, centre director Andy Elms, explained why the technology had not found its way into commercial products sooner.

He said: "It has gone through a fairly standard productisation process. The first engagement was at the end of 2002 with the initial investigation, and then it had to be ported to fit on the Panasonic process and then it had to be fitted on to a test vehicle and, when the chip's going into an end system product, it requires a lot of buy-ins from different parts of Panasonic."

Elixent technology is being considered for audio-visual applications with a camcorder being the first product to incorporate it.

Copper cables 'can carry 100Gbps' - 21-11-2007 - 11:26

Electrical engineers are attempting to use copper cables to run data rates usually considered the preserve of fibre-optics.

The scientists at Penn State University are trying to use Category Seven cable, which is standard Ethernet cable, to transmit 100Gbps data rates.

Ali Enteshari, an electrical engineering graduate student said: "A rate of 100 gigabit over 70 metes is definitely possible, and we are working on extending that to 100 metres, or about 328 feet."

The new speeds were made possible on the Cat7 cables that have strict specifications for reducing crosstalk and system noise, which is achieved by shielding individual wire pairs and the cable as a whole.

Their findings were presented at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers' High Speed Study Group last week as they decided on new standards to apply to both 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds.

John D'Ambrosia, chair of the study group told Computer Weekly: "The need for speed is growing everywhere, but at different rates. While data output of servers doubles roughly every 24 months, the amount of traffic on carrier networks is doubling every 18 months."

Calls for more women in engineering boardrooms - 20-11-2007 - 14:18

Women are being underrepresented in science, engineering and technology (SET) boardrooms across the UK, according to a new report.

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) warned that 92 per cent of directors in SET boardrooms are male, compared with 87.5 per cent for non-SET companies.

Outlining how to transform the boardroom culture, the UKRC report suggested directors foster a more inclusive and welcoming atmosphere in the upper echelons of organisations to dispel the prevailing notion among women that there are caps on how far their careers can progress.

This approach - in conjunction with the continued focus on targeting female graduates for engineering jobs - would help ensure greater equality and harmony in the workplace, the report argued.

"As the report clearly states there are too few women on SET boards," noted UKRC director Annette Williams. "Firm commitment is needed from the top of British Industry to ensure that women are able to progress to their full potential in science, engineering and technology and that their talent is not wasted."

Computer scientists should 'take systems out of the lab' - 16-11-2007 - 10:48

A computer engineer and winner of this year's British Computer Society (BCS) Roger Needham award has encouraged budding researchers to build their own systems.

Professor Mark Handley, based at University College London, told the audience at the Royal Society that they should strive to "above all, build real systems and demonstrate that systems work and can help solve problems".

Mr Handley, who developed session initiation protocol (SIP) - the basis of internet telephony, was presenting the BCS Roger Needham lecture entitled Evolving the Internet: challenges, opportunities and consequences to a capacity audience.

He stressed the importance of testing out ideas in the real internet environment instead of simply in the lab.

One of our tasks as researchers is to persistently question the status quo," said Andrew Herbert, managing director at Microsoft Research Cambridge - a sponsor of the award. "Professor Handley has done just that through his examination of the core architecture of the Internet, leading to a serious call to action for our industry.

"It is for this reason that we are delighted to congratulate him on winning the Roger Needham Award, which recognises distinguished UK-based contributions to computer science research."

Toddlers befriend robot - 15-11-2007 - 12:05

Human toddlers have come to treat robots placed in their midst as a person, the reports from a study show.

The two-foot QRIO robot was placed in classrooms of children between 18 and 24 months old for five months. Instead of ignoring it after the novelty had worn off, the researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found the children continued interacting with the humanoid.

QRIO was programmed with a variety of human social functions including dancing and giggling and the children responded by treating it as one of them.

They would touch its hands, cover it with a blanket and help it stand up when it fell over.

"Our results suggest that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers for significant periods of time," the researchers report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reported.

The team also discovered the importance of touch, with the children bonding more strongly with QRIO when the robot was programmed to giggle in response to the infants' touch.