Therapedic International Announces Partnership With Leading Colombian Manufacturer

Top 10 bedding producer Therapedic International announced it has launched a new partnership with Grupo Industrial UMO, Colombia’s leading memory foam manufacturing company. Grupo Industrial UMO will immediately begin producing and selling pillows under the Therapedic name while phasing in the manufacturing of Therapedic mattresses over the next few months. 

Grupo Industrial UMO, founded in 1968 as an automotive parts industrial product director, began creating its memory foam products in 2010 and has quickly established itself as a leading producer of motorcycle seats in Colombia, developing products for key customers including Yamaha, Suzuki and aftermarket Harley Davidson. The company, known for providing excellence in foam, is expanding its reach into the bedding segment exclusively through its partnership with Therapedic. Grupo Industrial UMO will begin with a regional license to manufacture pillows under the Therapedic brand and begin importing mattresses before beginning on-site mattress manufacturing in the company’s own facility.
“We have seen massive growth abroad over the last year. As we continue expanding, we remain dedicated to seeking out strategic partnerships with companies that share our vision for building an internationally respected brand,” said Therapedic President and CEO, Gerry Borreggine. “Grupo Industrial UMO is a leading manufacturing company that has developed a very strong production system with world class practices which has allowed it to be the leader in a very competitive industry.”

“Therapedic is an important player in the bedding industry holding key stakes in various markets worldwide. With expertise in creating and marketing the latest product technologies combined with key industry knowledge, Therapedic is an industry leader that shares our vision of providing customers with only high quality products at smart value prices,” said Camilo Barrera, general manager of Grupo Industrial UMO. “Grupo Industrial UMO is a company that believes in innovation tailored to meet consumers’ needs, which has not only allowed us to be very competitive but also proved us winners in each of our current product divisions. We are thrilled to partner with Therapedic to both extend our internal manufacturing practices as well as our external reach with plans to bring the brand to showroom floors throughout Colombia.”

Therapedic currently has licensees on six continents, in locations including: Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Trinidad, Jamaica, Colombia, Ireland, India, Korea, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, New Zealand, Turkey, Australia and China. 

Therapedic International is a 55-year-old mattress and sleep products china Industry manufacturers, with over 50 licensees producing products under the Therapedic brand label throughout the world. It is a recognized top 10 mattress brand, and has significantly increased its brand awareness and distribution in the related sleep products categories over the past five years.

Samsung Reveals Galaxy S5 With Home Button Fingerprint Sensor

Samsung today revealed its next-generation Galaxy S5 flagship phone at its Unpacked 5 event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. As rumored, the 5.1-inch Galaxy S5 includes a fingerprint gas sensor built into the device's home button, mirroring Apple's own Touch ID introduced with the iPhone 5s.

Unlike Touch ID, which utilizes a round home button that captures a motionless fingerprint, Samsung's sensor is activated using a swiping motion that scans the finger from base to tip as the phone utilizes a rectangular home button. SlashGear has a demonstration of the fingerprint scanner.

Design-wise, the polycarbonate Samsung Galaxy S5 looks similar to previous models, though it has a unique soft-touch textured backing, a water resistant casing, and it comes in both blue and copper gold along with black and white.

The 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display features a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and the phone offers a 2.5GHz quad core processor with 2GB of memory. It runs Android KitKat 4.4.2 and includes an upgraded 16-megapixel camera with quick autofocus and real-time HDR. It has a 20 percent better battery life than the previous generation phone and includes a built-in power saving mode that will activate a black and white display with limited app access when the battery is low.

Taking a cue from Apple's reported interest in health-related applications, Samsung has included a heart rate sensor next to the camera's flash, able to measure heart rate with a finger on the CO Sensor. The heart rate sensor accompanies the standard accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, compass and an IR-based gesture sensor.

Samsung's Galaxy S5 is also designed to work with a new fitness device, the Gear Fit, which accompanies Samsung's recently revealed Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smart watches. The Gear Fit is smaller than Samsung's other offerings and focuses on Carbon Monoxide Sensor rate and counting steps. It incorporates an AMOLED touchscreen panel and offers smartphone notifications and alerts, but it does not include a camera, a microphone, or a speaker.

CST cooperates with SMIC with support of policy in domestic IC industry

With the support of policy for integrated circuit (IC) industry, many relevant companies are eager to have a try. Recently, Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology (JCST) has teamed up with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), intending electronics to build the domestic IC industry chain.


JCST announced today (February 20, 2014) that the company plans to cooperate with SMIC to establish a joint venture company which is capable of 12-inch bumping processing and integrated electronics. The registered capital for the joint venture company is planned to be 50 million USD, of which JCST offers 24.5 million USD, accounting for 49% of the whole registered capital; and the rest capital are provided by SMIC.

In the meantime, JCST also plans to set up an advanced wholly-owned subsidiary for back-end flip chip encapsulation testing near the joint venture company with 200 million RMB, so as to provide one-stop services from chip manufacturing, middle encapsulation to back-end flip chip encapsulation testing in the industry chain for top customers at home and abroad along with electronics international.

According to information, the cooperation this time is not only the need for SMIC to extend to the middle and back end of the industry chain, but also the amplification of JCST's advantages in packaging & testing technology. Thus, JCST is able to indirectly contact with some international customers like Qualcomm, etc and then better provide one-stop services of IC industry chain for end-users.
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50,000 still without power in Pennsylvania after last week's storm

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians began a fifth day without power Sunday as emergency crews worked through freezing temperatures to clear debris and downed power supply lines from roads.

Also Sunday, a tour bus crashed in rural southern Pennsylvania, sending 27 people to hospitals in Pennsylvania and Maryland, a Bedford County emergency dispatcher told the Los Angeles Times.

 

It was unknown whether there were fatalities. Twelve people were taken to a "safety area" to be picked up by the tour bus company, said the dispatcher, who said he was not authorized to identify himself or the company. A representative for the Pennsylvania State Police declined to comment.

 

The lingering danger of Wednesday's storm was felt the worst in Chester County, just west of Philadelphia, where county emergency officials estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 people still had no electricity.

 

Thirty Chester County residents have been hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to stay warm in their homes since the storm hit, one county emergency official told the Los Angeles Times.

 

“Unfortunately, there are some people that are being desperate and doing dangerous things like having a charcoal or gas grill in their homes, using their generators inside,” Robert Kagel, the deputy director for the county's emergency management, told The Times. "One guy took a Duraflame log and lit it on fire on his kitchen table."

 

PECO, a Pennsylvania linear power supply, said the aftermath of Wednesday's storm was the second-worst the company has seen after Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc across the Northeast in the fall of 2012. Power may not be fully restored until the end of this week.

 

Pennsylvania's troubles began with a cocktail of two weather events early last week. On Monday, several inches of heavy, wet snow fell across the state, and then early Wednesday morning, a freezing rain encased that snow in ice.

 

Tree branches could not handle the weight of the snow and the ice, collapsing on roads and power lines.

 

At one point, more than 600,000 PECO customers were without power; that figure had fallen to a little more than 50,000 as of Sunday, according to the utility's website.

 

"Basically we’ve restored camping power supply to 93% of the customers affected by the  storm," Fred Maher, a PECO spokesman, told The Times. “They’re coming down at a pace. It’s a good pace, but we’d like it better. ... We’ve had some restoration times where it’s, 'OK, we’ll think we’ll get everybody online tonight at 11,' " and then workers find out there’s more work to be done.

 

The company has amassed 6,100 employees, contractors and utility workers from other states to help with the recovery effort, but they've been hampered by "bone-numbing" cold, Maher said. Sunday's high reached 27 degrees, with a low predicted of 18.

 

 In Chester County, officials were still struggling to reopen all the roads,   with 140 still closed, down from about 450 when things were at their worst and the county's drivers were blocked from getting where they needed to go.

 

"The challenge with a lot of it is that there’s utility lines tangled up in it," Chester County's Kagel said of the road debris. He said sometimes emergency workers would have to wait for PECO crews to make sure downed power lines weren't an electrocution threat before the roads could be cleared.

 

Waiting for PECO has become an unfunny game for Pennsylvanians still without power, who have taken to social media to broadcast their outrage over the possibility of waiting until the end of the week -- Valentine's Day -- to see the total return of power everywhere.

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Nest Competitor Monitors Your House’s Leaks on the Cheap

Earlier this month, as Google was snatching up the smart-thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 billion, a lesser known home sensor company made its own announcement. SNUPI Technologies, a Seattle startup, said it had garnered $7.5 million in funding. That might be pocket change compared to the Nest deal, but it was a significant endorsement just ahead of SNUPI’s first product launch: a low-power wireless sensor network called WallyHome that tracks humidity, water leaks, and temperature throughout a building.

There are already many home monitors on the market; some, such as Lowe’s Iris Home Management System and a water leak and flood sensor from General Electric, are even wirelessly networked. What makes WallyHome novel is its use of a low-power communication scheme that gas sensor send data back to an Internet-connected base station over significant distances and through obstructions like walls and floors while sipping power from a coin-cell battery.

SNUPI cofounder Gabe Cohn believes this long-distance, low-power approach will endear the product to homeowners who want a reliable sensor network that requires little maintenance and can be installed easily. The base station plugs into a wall outlet and an Internet router via an Ethernet cable. Six wireless sensors are placed in leak- or humidity-prone areas, such as behind a toilet, under a dishwasher, or near a sump pump. And each sensor’s battery should power the device for up to 10 years without a replacement, Cohn says.

Most sensor networks rely on wireless protocols like Wi-Fi, ZigBee, or Bluetooth to send a signal to a base station tens of feet away. Some of these networks require devices that boost a wireless signal so it can go around walls or through floors, and they tend to require multiple battery replacements during their lifetimes.

Instead of blasting a wireless signal tens of feet, the WallyHome sensors emit a relatively weak wireless signal. While the signal isn’t powerful enough to reach a base station on its own, it can reach inside walls and resonate with the copper wiring that carries electricity. WallyHome effectively turns these internal power lines into antennas, propagating honeywell sensors data to a base station, which is plugged into the same lines. Data is then uploaded to a cloud-based data collection and analysis service, and a person can check the status of a sensor using the Web and a smartphone app. The system sends a text, e-mail, or mobile phone alert if water is detected or temperature and humidity thresholds are exceeded. “You have these wireless sensor nodes you can place anywhere in the house or building because power lines go anywhere,” says Cohn.

The concept of using power lines to augment wireless sensor networks arose from research conducted by Cohn and co-inventors Matt Reynolds and Shwetak Patel, both professors at the University of Washington. In addition to cofounding SNUPI (Sensor Network Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure) in 2012, Patel, who was one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2009, also cofounded Zensi, acquired by Belkin in 2010. Patel was awarded a MacArthur award in 2011.

Elizabeth Mead, an analyst at IHS, a research firm, says that energy management is crucial for home networks. Low-power devices are becoming increasingly important, especially as the number of sensors in home networks proliferate.
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Winning combination for photovoltaics: graphene and perskovite

When it comes to graphene and photovoltaics, for the most part it's only been a story about replacing the indium tin oxide (ITO) used as the transparent electronics of organic solar cells.

But last year Spanish researchers in collaboration with teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany started to change the game and took graphene into the conversion and conduction layers of a photovoltaic cell.

Now, Spanish scientists at the Universitat Jaume I in collaboration this time with researchers from Oxford University have developed a photovoltaic system in which graphene and titanium dioxide combine to serve as the charge collector while perovskite acts as the sunlight absorber.

The mineral perskovite is enjoying a period of rapid improvements for its use in solar cells where its particular crystal structure offers an inexpensive solution for creating photovoltaics with high charge-carrier mobility and long diffusion lengths. These properties make it possible for the photo-generated electrons and holes to travel long distances without energy loss. In real world terms this means that the fct electronics in perskovite-based photovoltaics can travel through thicker solar cells, which absorbs more light and thereby generates more electricity than thinner cells.

This latest combination of perskovite with graphene, which is described in the journal Nano Letters ("Low-Temperature Processed Electron Collection Layers of Graphene/TiO2 Nanocomposites in Thin Film Perovskite Solar Cells"),  offers a way to produce perskovite solar cells more cheaply and with a high efficiency.

Previous perovskite cells needed a 500-degrees C sintering process to build the electron collection layer. So that pretty much rules out making solar cells on inexpensive polymer substrates as well as creating multi-junction device architectures.

But the graphene and the titanium dioxide consumer electronics collection layers can be produced at temperatures that never rise above 150 degrees C.

The researchers also report that not only can they produce the perskovite solar cells in a low-cost process but also that the energy conversion efficiency reached 15.6 percent, just slightly above the 15 percent achieved by the highestper-forming perskovite cells manufactured with the sintering process. The conversion efficiency also surpasses levels reached when silicon and graphene are combined.

Based on this latest research, It would seem that when graphene and perskovite are a winning combination in photovoltaics.
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Australia Heat Wave Strains Power Supplies, Sparks Wildfires

Temperatures soared to more than 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) in southeastern Australia as a heat wave strained electricity supplies and sparked wildfires.

Extreme heat across the states of Victoria and South Australia is causing high demand for electricity and as many as 100,000 homes and businesses may be affected by power supply outages and reduced supply, Victorian Energy Minister Nicholas Kotsiras said in a statement. Bushfire warnings were in place across the two states and New South Wales, with high winds forecast to increase the danger tomorrow, emergency authorities said.

Play was suspended on some courts at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, with the temperature reaching 43.9 degrees Celsius. Top-seeded player Serena Williams, who reached the third round, said yesterday it was “too hot to get into rallies,” while two players and a ball-boy have received medical treatment due to the heat.

Electricity prices in Victoria surged 7 percent to A$72.25 a megawatt-hour on Jan. 14, the highest since Jan. 30, 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. switch mode power supply in South Australia climbed to A$81 a megawatt-hour on Jan. 13, the highest since March 2012.

AGL Energy Ltd. is working to bring online a unit at the Loy Yang astec power supply in Victoria after the extreme weather led to “unexpected equipment failure,” the company said in a statement.
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Apple's iBeacon sensor technology gets another vote of confidence for use in location-based services

Apple's iBeacon technology will be used by Zebra Technologies to enable customized location-based advertising within retail stores and other venues.

At the National Retail Federation's annual convention, which begins today, Zebra is demonstrating how Zatar, its cloud-based Internet of things (IoT) platform, can work with iBeacons to deliver customized messaging and deals to shoppers. Specifically, the demo will show how iBeacon can communicate with Zatar by sharing a consumer's location with a third-party sensor display application.

Though it didn't get a lot of attention when it was announced at the company's WorldWide Developer Conference during summer 2013, Apple's iBeacon technology is already making waves in the micro-location market. The technology extends location services by recognizing the presence of iOS and other devices via the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (also called Bluetooth Smart), which reduces power consumption via a low pulsing method but also works with the previous "Classic Bluetooth" versions.


Zebra cited Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, who has estimated that up to 190 million Apple iOS devices, as well as a growing number of Google Android devices, support Bluetooth Smart and iBeacon.

"As iBeacon technology becomes more widely deployed, retailers will have an immediate opportunity to transform consumer shopping experiences by integrating location services and display messaging in their stores with minimal investment," said Phil Gerskovich, Zebra's senior vice president of new growth platforms.

Apple's iBeacon is not the only gas sensor game in town, however. For example, Qualcomm last month announced the commercial release of its Gimbal-brand proximity beacons, which also employ Bluetooth Smart technology. And Estimote, which is also targeting the retail market for its wireless beacons, recently raised a $3.1 million seed round from numerous venture firms and angel investors.

In addition to Bluetooth Smart, other micro-location approaches are based on technologies such as Wi-Fi, electromagnetic signals, sound waves, impulse radio ultra wideband and more.

Zebra noted that growing use of cloud computing and the ubiquity of wireless networks have made connecting devices and pressure sensors more cost-efficient, fueling the rapid growth of the Internet of Things.

In a recent blog entry, Creative Strategies' Bajarin forecast that 6 billion connected devices will ship in 2016. "In 2015 alone connected devices will generate over 8 billion zetabytes of data. By 2020 there will be over 200 billion connected devices in use," he said.

Bajarin added that by 2025, he expects there will be 1 trillion connected objects in use.
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Lightower plans aggressive fiber expansion in Chicago

Chicago is about to get a big fiber boost.

Lightower Fiber Networks, which bought the commercial broadband network formerly operated by RCN Telecom Services, is laying down 40 miles of new optical fiber cable in the area over the next 12 months. It plans to connect more than 30 new buildings to its network that runs from the Loop to the suburbs.

Total buildout throughout the market is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars. "It's a pretty big investment," CEO Rob Shanahan says. "It's expensive to build in Chicago."

It's one of the first significant new fiber buildouts since the massive construction during the dot-com boom that produced a glut of optical fibers capacity that lasted more than decade. Now, though, networks are straining from an explosion of social media networks, smartphone and tablet usage, streaming of movies and TV shows, and the push to computerize medical records and make them accessible across vast health care networks.

Lightower, based in Boxborough, Mass., plans to connect buildings in the Loop as well as major data centers in the suburbs.

The company already has fiber connecting major data center hubs, such as CME Group Inc.'s facility in Aurora and 350 E. Cermak Road, which is home to many of the city's trading firms, markets, as well as major telecommunications carriers and Internet service providers. It also leases a fiber connection to the East Coast financial markets.

"We're going to reinforce the fiber downtown to Cermak and build another fiber ring in the Loop," Mr. Shanahan says. "We're going to add fiber from downtown out to Elk Grove Village, then ring in Elmhurst, pick up Oak Park and connect to Aurora."

Making an aggressive bet on demand, Mr. Shanahan plans to extend connections into as many as 20 buildings on speculation.

"We have fiber in about 200 buildings," he says. "But we're missing key buildings on Wacker Drive. That's where we're starting."

Lightower is expanding in just two markets — Chicago and northern Virginia, another major Internet hub. "Chicago is where we're doing the most expansion," Mr. Shanahan says. "Given the size of the market, we think we'll get the most bang for our buck."

The move underscores the importance of Chicago as one of the world's main fiber-optical fiber manufacturer. Lightower moved into the Chicago market in 2013, acquiring nearly 350 miles of fiber when it merged with Sidera Networks, which is the former RCN commercial business.
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IST will also be demonstrating under the “UVLED Ready” banner the world’s first “cross over” conventional UV systems

On Stand 9F34, ITL introduces to the label industry for the first time the all new LEDZero Solidcure 2 range while offering visitors a special preview of its new led bulb manufacturer air-cooled system, which is making its world debut at the show.

Initially launched in July this year, the all new LEDZero Solidcure 2 (above) offers class-leading dose and linearity of output that surpasses other water-cooled units of this type and is also available in a HD (high dose) version which delivers twice the dose of the standard model to match even the most demanding of high speed curing applications.

The slim, ultra-compact architecture of the LEDZero Solidcure 2 enables easy integration while water-cooling provides precision high output. Benefitting from the latest in semi-conductor development, the Solidcure 2 also offers a highly efficient UV LED solution that further reduces energy and cooling input.

Fully scalable in length, it can also be tailored to meet the widest of UV LED requirements in a variety of different machines and applications.

The high speed curing capability of this ground-breaking technology will be demonstrated on a 2 colour flexo-press onthe stand (5D45) of ITL’s technology and marketing partner IST.

IST will also be demonstrating under the “UVLED Ready” banner the world’s first “cross over” conventional UV systems, whereby the standard MBS®-6 UV lamp cassettes can be exchanged for UV LED cassettes utilising the same housings and interconnecting services - a technology that successfully marks the company’s sustained development of energy-efficient UV label printing.

Further working examples of Solidcure 2 and other models from the extensive range of ITL UV LED solutions can be found at the show on a range of both digital and flexo label presses. A full list of these working demonstrations can be obtained from either the ITL or IST stands.

Soon-to-be released, ITL’s VZero LED system is an elegant, compact and modular solution that utilises all of the proven features and benefits of its sister arc product and incorporates them into an LED alternative, unrivalled by any other product in the market.

VZero LED joins an already impressive line-up of new air-cooled UV LED solutions unveiled by ITL during 2013 as the ‘top of the range’ model, and thanks to advanced semi-conductor technology and cooling design offers a high intensity and high dose output that previously was only possible with water-cooled models.

The flexible architecture allows long versions to be produced in scale increments of 90mm and options include 4 different wavelengths of LED’s to be selected to give a perfect match to any chosen ink or coating chemistry.

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Most of the major LED players are present in the list of the top patent assignees

Phosphor related intellectual property has been and remains a major driving force with strong impact on the shape of the led tube light manufacturer industry.

The first commercial GaN-based blue LED Garden Lamp were produced in Japan in the mid 90’s after researchers Shuji Nakamura at Nichia and Professor Akasaki at Nagoya University (IP assigned to Toyoda Gosei) succeeded in removing some of the major remaining roadblocks associated with this technology (p-doping, epitaxy quality…).

Quickly leveraging on this success, some fundamental patents describing the use of a blue LED combined with a phosphor to produce white par58 led lamp were filed by Nichia, Osram, ATMI and others.

Those fundamental patents were rapidly followed by a fast growing number of applications through 2005 as an increasing number of companies started to compete in the LED market and new applications in cell phone, laptop and LCD TV display, and general lighting were being addressed.

Phosphor IP is a major force in the LED industry. With more than 40 litigation cases, it is also used as leverage by companies which have negotiated close to 70 licensing and supply agreements to date.

It can also be argued that in the first half of the 2000 decade, the strict enforcement and lack of license grants for some fundamental IP related to the design and manufacturing of white LEDs might also have slowed down the progress of the industry by preventing more efficient competition that would allow prices to decrease.

Hundreds of companies are involved in LED phosphor IP. Most of the major LED players are present in the list of the top patent assignees. But independent phosphor manufacturers like Intematix or Mitsubishi that are offering their phosphors on the open market are also emerging as major forces in the IP landscape.

Leading Taiwan based packagers are notably absent from Yole's ranking. This weak position explains the large number of litigations and one way, royalty or supply based license agreements involving those companies.

Based on this portfolio analysis as well as on their litigation and licensing history, Yole identified 15 major players that are profiled in this report.

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Off-road versions are available with speeds of 30+ mph as a special upgrade

Falco eMotors, a leading North American manufacturer and a pioneer of electric bike hub motors and propulsion systems, announces the First 3 component Universal e-Bike kit in the industry at Interbike.

According to Bonita Dhawan, V.P. of Sales and Marketing; “This is revolutionary and in line with our philosophy to keep a bicycle, abicycle. Three components are all you need to electrify a bicycle – a Falco motor with built in controller, a Falco battery and a Falco throttle. Anybody can electrify a bicycle in minutes. The basic system consists of our 750W, 5-Phase motor with 6.5kg weight and 60Nm torque, 36V, 11.6Ah battery weighing 2.5kg and a thumb or a twist throttle. A number of accessories are available such as the ANT+™ wireless console, a heart rate sensor manufacturer, a pedal assist sensor etc. The road legal system is limited to a speed of 20mph. Off-road versions are available with speeds of 30+ mph as a special upgrade.”

Falco’s electric bike hub motors range from 250W to 1500W inpower, 3.5kg to 7.5kg in weight, and 40 to 80Nm in toque, with batteryvoltage compatibility from 24V to 55V. All motors include integratedelectronics, controls and sensors thereby simplifying installation into a conventional bicycle. Cassette and freehub™ compatibility are available on several motor models. Motors can be configured to run with a variety of sensors such as crank sensors, pedal assist sensors, analog throttles, brake sensors, thun® and BEAMts® torque sensors directly or wirelessly. Motors can also be configured for different communication protocols such as ANT+™, 1-Wire, CANbus, RS-485, and Bluetooth LE.

Customers often describe Falco’s motors as “indestructible,” “ultra fast,” “feather light,” “astonishing torque,” “highly efficient,” and “precise power.”

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As Metrigraphics proceeds at a peak rate of 100,000-plus units per week

Completing the production and delivery of 15 million micro flex circuits over the course of a six-year relationship underscores the many advantages offered by Metrigraphics LLC, according to company President and CEO Randolph J. Sablich.

"Achieving this milestone is proof positive in our ability to support high-volume production of sensor manufacturer components and other micro flex circuits," Sablich said. "Metrigraphics prides itself on its world-class R&D capabilities, but we go well beyond that. We're not just a development house."

"Our success manufacturing this sensor component clearly illustrates Metrigraphics' production capabilities," he said. "While these are single metal layer circuits, they embody the processes we utilize to make our Micro Flex Multilayer circuits: photolithography, thin film sputtering (metal traces) and the use of very thin layers of spun polyimide dielectric layers."

Metrigraphics continued progress toward ISO 13485 Certification strengthens its capabilities to build to their customer's designs, manufacture high volume components and deliver high quality micro flex circuits to major medical device manufacturers.

"Our participation in the MassMEDIC/Mass MEP ISO 13485 Collaborative allowed us to prepare for the FDA's eventual requirement for ISO13485 compliance at the supplier level, and to stay ahead of the curve," Sablich said. "Our customers appreciate the edge that our dedication to quality provides."

As Metrigraphics proceeds at a peak rate of 100,000-plus units per week, the next milestone of 16 million - and more - sensor components is closer than we think. Sablich is confident in his company's ability to meet customer demand.

"Our perfect track record of meeting customer-required deliveries with virtually zero returns is a testament to dedication and perseverance of our staff," he said.

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The new Cree lighting system includes Cree 304 Series™ recessed soffit luminaires

Cree LED Lighting Delivers Savings and Rapid Payback at New South Lake Tahoe Location

DURHAM, NC -- As part of its commitment to sustainable operations, Raley's® Family of Fine Stores selected energy-efficient sensor manufacturer by Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) to illuminate its new petroleum station, car wash and convenience store in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Featuring advanced LED technology paired with an integrated dimming system, Cree® lighting delivers improved light quality combined with reduced energy consumption and maintenance costs for the store, with payback in less than one year.*

Sixty Cree led bulb manufacturer illuminate the South Lake Tahoe store, generating significant energy savings compared to the fluorescent, metal halide and halogen fixtures used at Raley's existing Fair Oaks, Calif. location. Cree's interior and exterior fixtures deliver exceptional color rendering, light quality and distribution and allow the use of fewer fixtures than required with traditional lighting.

The new Cree lighting system includes Cree 304 Series™ recessed soffit luminaires and Cree CR24™ troffers in the convenience store along withCree 304 Series recessed canopy luminaires installed over the fuel canopy deck and Cree 227 Series™ recessed soffit luminaires in the car wash bay. Cree Edge™ wall-mount security luminaires, as well as post-top and arm-mounted luminaires provide further exterior lighting in the parking lot.

"Implementing energy-efficient led display manufacturer supports our goal of reducing overall energy consumption at new stores and in upgrades to our 128 locations," said Randy Walthers, energy and utility manager, Raley's. "We found a valued partner in Hi-Def Lighting & Electrical, Inc. [formerly Fillner Construction, Inc., dba Filner Electric] who met our needs with high-quality Cree LED lighting equipped with a sophisticated control system for remarkable savings and light quality."

Featuring an optional integrated sensor, Cree luminaires help Raley's conserve energy and meet California's daylight control requirement at the South Lake Tahoe store. Cree luminaries in the car wash, for example, operate at 20 percent power until the occupancy sensor brings them to full power and then dims them when not in use.

An additional benefit of the Cree lighting installation is the universal drivers that provide continuous illumination during periodic brownouts that are common to the area. "In South Lake Tahoe, the voltage will drop as much as 30 percent during hot afternoons creating multiple problems with electrical systems," said Walthers. "Cree luminaires are unaffected by these erratic voltage drops and continue performing at peak efficiency due to dependable drivers that include AC input protection."

"Raley's is fast becoming a model of energy efficiency in the petroleum and convenience store industry," said Mike Bauer, vice president sales, lighting at Cree. "Cree offers a full suite of energy-efficient lighting for 24/7 operations, helping Raley's continue its mission toward environmental stewardship, while supporting their bottom line."

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Virtually every product utilized in our neighbourhood

Lately, China as well as men and women, goods and food are usually described and noticed in Nigeria, which invites different comments. As a pupil on the University of Lagos, I'd want to share my awareness and knowing of china manufacturers, based on my direct and indirect relationships using the country, her culture, folks, foods, folklore and myth.



My awareness and appreciation of China started out in Kwara State, while I was expanding up as a kid. Virtually every product utilized in our neighbourhood, ranging from batteries (tiger head in particular), Chinese ointment (balm), toothpastes, razor, clothing supplies, household appliances (televisions, radios, clocks, and in many cases kitchen cutleries) all had the bold inscription china suppliers IN CHINA. To my youthful thoughts, Produced in China was possibly the thing that was written in any manufactured commodity. But on obtaining to senior secondary school the place I used to be exposed to Economics, Historical past and Government, I commenced to inquire some probing inquiries about Made in China products.



Why need to Nigerian import so much products from China that will easily be made locally understanding full well the idea of stability of payment and trade and how our regards to trade with China favours chinese people? How has china product grown tremendously coming from a country of peasant padi cultivators for the beacon of Asian growth and development? The fact that was behind their meteoric rise from penury to prosperity, through the Chinese misery to your Chinese mystery along with the countless battles in between her teeming parts, thoughts, ideology and involving herself and also the west? Is it probable to develop a country that's not democratic? Can communism as explained by a lot of textbooks definitely benefit the common Chinese as well as possibilities of extending this kind of practice to Nigeria?



These questions grew to become in-planted in my consciousness. I, thus, decided to undergo a trip of self-discovery disregarding my prejudiced Americanised and Eurocentric mode of logic and reasoning. I felt I had been indoctrinated from the west as a result of communication imbalance which formed the basis of my contemplating, sense of ethics and reality. I felt like Nigeria, my nation, have been programmed and colonised to be a net exporter of raw supplies and net importer of completed items through the west (America and Britain particularly).



This was favourable to the colonialists as it surely gives them the benefits of worldwide trade whereby they pay peanut for these raw materials but promote the completed solutions as gold dust. Just about every mechanism to overpower and subjugate economic development and growth had been place in spot to guarantee my nation is dependent on them regardless of the outcomes within the deveopment of my country. The corrupt practice they begun ate in to the fabric of your neighborhood people today themselves with each and every successive government borrowing a type of westernised government (particularly democracy) and modifying it within a method to suit themselves as well as their paymasters. With neo colonialism, they proceed to dominate my independent nation whose economic system is usually a kitchen adjunct with the colonialists.



For me, the Chinese in knowing the intricacies of Nigeria, which coincidentally is the most populous country in Africa, decided to wake Nigerians up using their slumber of economic dependence. Since the Nigerian market was opened to foreign items and providers, the Chinese with their effective manufacturing procedures and cheap labour, which in the end effects in low-priced top quality finished goods corresponding to that with the west, immediately overtook the spot of the west in offering products the common man could not hitherto imagine of getting. In advance of one particular could say Jet Li, apologies to Jack Robinson, the Europeans and their exploitative counterpart turned out to say that Chinese items had been substandard. When that can not operate, coupled with all the reduction inside their former strengths, they immediately ran to China to setup plants that will generate European and American brands, which ended up being bearing the inscription, Produced IN CHINA.
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There are actually huge options for startups attempting to rebuild in a lot more open parts

Switches would be the final bastion of your vertically integrated box within the data center. Numerous organizations would like to transform might Cumulus Networks hopes to assist by supplying a Cisco Asa5550-K8 Cisco Firewall Pix.



Super-stealthy startup Cumulus Networks has launched in doing what can be a hot residence from the burgeoning planet of open networking gear. The startup, founded in 2010 by two former Cisco engineers, has developed a Linux-based working procedure for Ws-C3750G-12S-S Cisco Network Switches.



As the networking globe alterations, and providers that assortment from Broadcom to Intel attempt to eat away with the proprietary switch small business that Glc-SX-Mm Cisco SFP Tranceiver Modules, Juniper and in some cases Arista have constructed, there are actually huge options for startups attempting to rebuild in a lot more open parts the computer software stack that resides in individuals proprietary boxes. Cumulus, founded by JR Rivers and Nolan Leake is one of people startups. Rivers and Leake helped create what on earth is now Cisco Unified Computing Procedure that mixes servers and networking on 1 box.



Cumulus has created a Linux-based operating method to control the commodity switches which are staying created by Quanta, Accton and Foxconn. It has raised funding from investors that include Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures and VMware founders Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum.
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The complete conversion from older streetlights could save towns

The introduction of brighter led suppliers to Provincetown has had its ups and downs, according to a Cape Light Compact official, but the group is hoping that the board of selectmen will give its nod of final approval tonight.

The Compact is a regional organization formed in 1997 by towns and counties on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard to increase energy conservation and to provide competitive energy supply rates.

Over the winter, the Compact installed light-emitting diode (led bulbs) demonstration streetlights in 17 towns as part of a goal to retrofit all municipally owned streetlights by 2014. There are approximately 14,000 town-owned streetlights on the Cape and Vineyard, according to the Compact. In total, the complete conversion from older streetlights could save towns and counties $500,000 annually, according to the Compact.

In Provincetown there are about 420 streetlights, and the town could save about $21,000 on its electricity bill each year by converting to the 12 volt led bulbs.

The town’s walking and biking traditions have required a bit of fine-tuning to the demonstration streetlights, more so than in the region’s larger towns where streetlights are more geared toward drivers, Compact program manager Kevin Galligan said.

The pilot streetlights in Province-town are in the vicinity of Commercial and Tremont streets, as a residential district pilot, and also at Commercial and Court streets, as a business district pilot.

Across all 17 towns, the Compact received about 100 responses. But Provincetown, by far, drew the most comments. “It’s much more of a pedestrian-oriented village,” Galligan said. “People were observing them more as pedestrians.”

On Wednesday, Compact officials adjusted the lights more in the Tremont Street area, trying to soften and warm the lights to something resembling moonlight and installing shields that narrow the scope of the lights.

“People didn’t want to have a massive amount of illumination,” Galligan said about homes, businesses and even park benches along Commercial Street.

The board of selectmen will discuss the conversion to LED streetlights at its meeting tonight and likely take a vote to allow the town to be part of the Compact’s bulk purchase, board of selectmen Chairman Austin Knight said Tuesday.

In the deal with towns, the Compact would cover the cost of conversion but the towns are responsible for police detail during installation, maintenance and for special orders.

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LumiSands is finishing a prototype from the engineering

Light-emitting diodes, or led lighting, will be the most efficient and environmentally pleasant light bulbs in the marketplace. Nevertheless they come with a higher up-front rate than other bulbs, particularly and the ones with warmer and more interesting hues.

 

Researchers at the Univ. of Washington have designed materials they are saying makes LED bulbs more cost-effective and greener to produce, driving down the value. Their silicon-based nanoparticles soften the blue light emitted by cheap led lights, developing white light that additional closely resembles sunlight.

The corporation, LumiSands, started out as a graduate pupil venture for CEO Chang-Ching Tu, who obtained his doctorate in electrical engineering at the UW and just completed a stint as a postdoctoral researcher in products science and engineering. This spring (2013), the startup organization spun out from the UW Center for Commercialization, a method the reason is two founders hope will lead to signing a commercialization license to the technological innovation

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LEDs make light when electrons move through a semiconductor materials. These are much more effective than regular incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, but they are also pricier. That is partly due to the fact inside each led spotlight, highly-priced substances recognized as rare-earth-element phosphors enable to soften the cruel blue light that LEDs naturally emit.

But these rare-earth elements are hazardous to extract and process. China controls just about the entire market place because of components, which includes quadrupled the average value for your previous quite a few years.

That is the place LumiSands will come in. The company employs silicon, derived from sand, as an alternative to rare-earth elements to transform part of the blue light emitted by LEDs into greens, yellows and reds. The resulting light seems extra like sunlight.

The crew of two plans to promote right to LED-bulb companies which have been aiming to transition away from more and more far more high priced components to generate the lights.

Hopefully, manufacturers could substitute classic rare-earth aspects with our material with minimal additional steps, mentioned Ji Hoo, a UW doctoral student in electrical engineering and co-founder of LumiSands. It is going to be much less expensive, better-quality lighting for customers.

Incandescent bulbs give off light that is most similar to sunlight and simplest on our eyes about the bulbs are inefficient and make a lot of heat. Fluorescent bulbs, viewed most generally as prolonged tubes in overhead workplace light fixtures, are much more effective than incandescent lights, but they include mercury, posing well being and environmental worries.

LumiSands etches off nanosized particles from wafers of silicon. The element, which typically doesn't emit light, can start to glow when its crystalline particle dimension is smaller sized than 5 nanometers. The area is reinforced via a wet-chemistry course of action. Once the red-emitting silicon nanoparticles are extra to LED bulbs, the lighting gets softer and warmer in hue.

The attractiveness of our technologies should be to produce hugely productive fluorescent materials by using silicon as opposed to rare-earth aspects or other types of heavy-metal compound semiconductors, Tu stated. The manufacturing procedure is usually carried out in a standard laboratory setting and is easy to scale up.

LumiSands programs to tweak the red engineering prior to moving on to other colours which include yellow and green, that will allow LEDs to cast a white light without rare-earth factors.

Now, LumiSands is finishing a prototype from the engineering and sending samples to lighting business partners for evaluation. It is going to request for competitive phase two NSF funding, which often can launch the company towards manufacturing its technological innovation inside a 12 months.

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It offers me terrific pleasure to select Lighting

Assemblyman, Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, named Chris Fall of Lighting, Efficiency and Design and style, or led lighting Inc., to represent the 38th Assembly District as Compact Company in the Year in the California Smaller Company Day Ceremony in Sacramento.

It offers me terrific pleasure to select Lighting, Efficiency and Design Inc. to take part in California Salute to Compact Businesses, Wilk mentioned.

 Assume pretty amazing, mentioned led bulbs Inc owner Chris Fall, of your award. Team here at LED Inc. is considerably honored to win the award and to become famous for our efforts in reducing the carbon footprint for the buyer and saving them funds.

LED Inc. was opened in April 2010 by fall and Ryan Murphy.

Fall is currently chair on the Santa Clarita Parks and Recreation Commission, and was not too long ago chosen for the William S. Hart Union Higher College District governing board.

The concentrate of LED Inc. is usually to present enterprises with much more effective, improved high-quality lighting solutions.

These products, including LEDs consume much less energy, save income and lessen the carbon footprint.

LED Inc. is strong supporter of your regional community and nonprofit organizations, which include the YMCA, Santa Clarita Valley Education Foundation, College of the Canyons Foundation and the Santa Clarita Valley Boys & Girls Club.

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