The editors at EE Times have compiled a list of 10 emerging technologies to watch in 2010:

1. Biofeedback or thought-control of electronics could give people with disabilities, the military, and consumers new ways to control user interfaces.
2. The possibility of rapidly printing multiple conductive, insulating, and semiconductive layers to create electronics could significantly lower the cost of manufacturing electronics.
3. The development of plastic memory could lead to rewritable, non-volatile memory capable of retaining data for more than 10 years and one million cycles.
4. Maskless lithography could be a spoiler in the effort to replace immersion lithography with extreme ultraviolet lithography.
5. Parallel processing will become better understood and more widely used as initiatives such as OpenCL and Cuda expand the understanding of how multiple processors will be programmed and used for increased computational and power efficiency.
6. Energy harvesting will increasingly be used in devices, such as vibration-powered wireless sensors on machinery or vehicles, or motion-powered mobile phones.
7. Biology and technology will continue to merge, building off of devices such as under-the-skin tags for pets and heart pacemakers for humans.
8. Resistive RAM, or the memristor, will continue to evolve.
9. The depth of the interconnect stack on top of the leading-edge silicon surface could lead to a splitting of front-end fab production into surface and local interconnect.
10. Battery technologies will emerge to power an increasingly diverse number of devices.

Tim, N9PUZ writes:

Dan,

A while back you mentioned your club built up some of the bare bones Arduino boards. I’ve been using the Arduino for a while. Recently I needed to measure some temperatures. I discovered the Microchip MCP9700A in a TO-92 package. It’s $0.36 in single pieces from Mouser and will measure -40C to +120C.

I wrote an Arduino library for the MCP9700A sensor that’s released under a GPL license.The library functions will provide either Celsius or Fahrenheit temperatures for as many sensors as you have ADC ports. If anyone is interested they can download a copy from my blog.

There is an installable library, source code, and an example program.

73,

Tim, N9PUZ

Very cool. Thanks, Tim!

2600—The Hacker Quarterly—has an article in the Autumn issue titled, “Post-Apocalyptic Communications.” It reads,

You’ve watched the movies and now you must prepare for the worst. You’re going to need a bunker deep inside a mountain, preferably at high elevation….You will need some form of communication. That pwned [sic] iPhone just won’t do. Sure, it’s unlocked for use on any provider, but on doomsday, it’s more than likely that you won’t be getting any reception. That’s why it’s good to have an amateur radio!

Now, I’m not so sure about the doomsday scenario, but I think it would be a cool thing if more hackers got into ham radio. After all, hams are the hackers of the radio world!

J.P. Armstrong, the author of the piece, has a page devoted to ham radio on his website. I kinda like it because he features my study guides. Thanks, JP!

Yet another indication that BPL just doesn’t make economic sense….Dan

From InsideNoVA.Com:

City council considers ending Internet service
By Keith Walker
Published: November 18, 2009
Updated: November 19, 2009

If Manassas Councilman Jonathan L. Way had his druthers, he’d shut down the city’s low-cost Internet service as soon as possible, because it’s costing the city more than $100,000 a year.

In 2003, the city introduced broadband over power lines, or BPL, to bring low-cost Internet access to city residents. Since then, the city has spent $1.6 million on the project, Way said.

The service has continued to shed customers while expenses have continued to rise.

“I think we need to get out of BPL forthwith,” Way said Tuesday at a city council special meeting. “It’s not a good product. The whole business is not financially sound and it never has been.”

Forecasts by the utilities commission show that the service is likely to lose between $100,771 and $171,353, or an average of $151,825 each year over the next nine years.

Read the entire article.

QST de W1AW
Special Bulletin 12 ARLX012
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT November 19, 2009
To all radio amateurs

SB SPCL ARL ARLX012
ARLX012 NCVEC to Release New Technician Question Pool to Public in
January 2010

The Question Pool Committee (QPC) of the National Conference of
Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) is due to release the new
Technician class (Element 2) question pool to the 14 VECs on
December 1, 2009; it will be released to the public in January 2010.
Each question pool for the three Amateur Radio license classes –
Technician, General and Amateur Extra — is reviewed on a four-year
rotation. This new Technician class pool will become effective on
July 1, 2010.

According ARRL Assistant VEC Manager Perry Green, WY1O, the QPC
reviews the three question pools every four years to ensure that the
questions are kept current with the latest amateur practice and
technology, as well as addresses information relevant to that
particular license class. “In the case of the Technician pool, the
question set should provide for the new Technician licensee to be
able to establish his station and operate it legally, courteously
and safely. The Technician question pool and exam are intended to be
the beginning of the journey into the Amateur Radio Service. It
prepares the person for the enjoyment of operating, and that of
preparing to learn electronics, the cornerstone of the education
needed to obtain the further enjoyment that can come with the higher
license classes.”

Green is a member of the NCVEC’s Question Pool Committee. Other
members of the QPC include Chairman Roland Anders, K3RA (Laurel
VEC), Larry Pollock, NB5X (W5YI VEC), Jim Wiley, KL7CC (Anchorage
VEC) and Tom Fuszard, KF9PU (Milwaukee VEC).

Green said that earlier this year, the QPC solicited input from
Amateur Radio operators concerning the new question pool, accepting
input for new question topics and new questions, as well as
suggestions for changes or deletions: “The QPC must rely on members
of the Amateur Radio community to suggest questions and answers in a
responsible manner to preserve a high level of legitimacy for our
radio service, so the NCVEC QPC seeks input from the amateur
community concerning a revision.”

The new question pool will become effective for all examinations
administered on or after July 1, 2010, and it will remain valid
until June 30, 2014. The current Technician question pool that
became effective July 1, 2006 will expire June 30, 2010. The new
Technician pool contains approximately 400 questions, from which 35
are selected for an Element 2 examination. This question pool will
contain graphics and diagrams, something new for this element.

The current General class question pool was effective July 1, 2007
and is valid through June 30, 2011. The current Amateur Extra class
pool was effective July 1, 2008 and is valid until June 30, 2012.
NNNN
/EX

On Friday, I got the latest pack of QSL cards from the buro. Included were one each from Japan, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Portugal, and Germany; two from France, three from Italy, and four from Spain.

The Japanese card confirmed a QSO way back in 2003, but the most remarkable thing about it is that the card was from JA1NUT, a station whose callsign spells a word.

When I reported receiving this card on a 2m net last night, a couple of the other guys on the net also mentioned working him in the past. I looked up JA1NUT on QRZ.Com found that he has over 34,000 lookups, so he must be quite an active operator. And, oddly enough, I even heard him this morning on 40m, working a WB4 station. He was weak, but definitely in there.

The other notable QSL card was from HB9DRE. This is the first card for WA2HOM that I’ve received via the buro. I’m hoping there will be many more so that we can beef up our QSL card display at the museum.

From today’s ACM TechNews:

Wall Street Journal reports that the economic crisis and the reduced costs of high-tech tools and materials are fueling a resurgence in tinkering and experimentation. U.S. engineering schools are reporting a comeback in student interest in hands-on work, while workshops are springing up all over the United States in which people can exchange ideas as well as tools. “A lot of people are pretty disappointed with an image of a career in finance and they’re looking for a career that’s real,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Michael Cima. Computer numerical-controlled tools, which carve metal and other materials into whatever design is fed into the computer attached to them, are becoming more affordable. Engineering school undergraduates are taking advantage of the increased affordability and accessibility of high-tech tools previously only available to senior researchers. The new tinkerers are creating a wide variety of inventions, from devices that Tweet how much beer is left in a keg to robots that assist doctors. Decreases in U.S. spending on research and development has provoked concerns that innovation will no longer give the economy the jump it used to, but the tinkering craze may offer some hope as the inventions lead to new companies. NYC Resistor co-founder Bre Pettis says he is witnessing a “merging of [do it yourself] with technology. I’m calling it Industrial Revolution 2.”

View Full Article

Make sure to check out the slide show at the end of the article.

This morning, I found an e-mail from a reader who said, “Great blog…I have been passing it around.” As I composed my e-mail thanking him for his kind words, it occurred to me that I should thank all of you for reading this. So thanks!

I’d also like to encourage all of you to “pass it around.” If you think your friends would like to read it, tell them about it. And remember that you can subscribe to the RSS feed, either directly or by e-mail. To subscribe by e-mail, simply type your e-mail address into the box at the top of the right column. To subscribe directly to the RSS feed, page down to the “Feeds” portion of the right-hand column and choose the type of feed you need.

I’ll also reiterate here what I wrote to the reader—I’m open for suggestions. If you run across anything that you might make a good blog item, please feel free to pass it on to me, and I’ll blog about it. I think part of what makes my blog interesting is that I get stuff from a lot of different sources.

Also, if there’s any topic that you’d like to read more about, please feel free to e-mail me about that. I can’t promise that I’ll write about that topic, especially if I’m not that knowledgeable about the topic, but I’ll certainly consider it. 

Terry, WA0ITP, reports:

The Four State QRP Group is very pleased to announce the availability of our new AAØZZ EZKeyer kit.

This full featured PIC-based iambic keyer features 3 memories, 12 direct entry commands, and is very user friendly. It has many of the features of the high end keyers while maintaining ease of use. The PIC chips have been programmed by
Craig Johnson, AAØZZ, of PIC-EL fame.

There are only 10 parts to install on the quick build pc board, and the extensive manual features an Altoids installation tutorial.

The kit is is reasonably priced at only $17.

Please check out the details and order information at http://www.wa0itp.com/aa0zzkeyer.html

Thank you for supporting the Four State QRP Group and OzarkCon.