A quiet month for news in March – maybe everyone is still recovering from the early shows and events of the year. I’ll be coming over to ESC in San Jose on Wednesday 16th April, so if anyone would like to meet, please drop me an email to bob.jones@publitek.com.
I’ll be meeting with some of the publishers there in an ongoing quest to find out how they’re measuring return-on-investment for online advertisers. I’ll let you know what I find out in the April issue of this newsletter.
Onto the news……
A half-day seminar on “Designing for ultra-low-power wireless sensors applications, powered by energy harvesting” follows the Second Annual nanoPower Conference. The conference takes place from June 2-4 at the Wyndham Orange County in Costa Mesa, California and is hosted by the GreenPeak Academy. It’s available to all nPF ’08 registered candidates. Organising sponsors of the event are Darnell Group and PowerPulse.Net. Media sponsors are Electronic Design, Power Electronics Technology, Microwaves & RF and RF Design.
Electronics Weekly is to change from simply reporting news to taking a more analytical approach. Following a reduction in the full-time editorial team to three – Richard Wilson, Steve Bush and David Manners, the publication will now draw on technical content from its US sister publication, EDN. The magazines have been sharing web content for some years. Editor, Richard Wilson, said, “The website will be the place to read about news as it breaks. The print publication will take a more considered analytical approach to news events adding the context, which is so important in understanding the impact of new technologies.” A print re-design is underway and web editor, Alun Williams, has been working on web site improvements too. He added, “It’s not just about new colours and shades however, we have changed the layout of the site in a number of small-but-important ways”. The search interface has been simplified, signing up to engage with various e-newsletters and RSS feeds has been made easier, and quick-access icons are designed to improve navigation.
Technology journalist, Brian Dance, passed away early in February. Brian was a UK-based writer for Wafer News (a Pennwell Publication). He also contributed to UK-based Electronics World Magazine. Tony Johnson, who launched Electronic Product News (EPN), in 1972 died at the age of 68 during the Embedded Show at Nuremberg. Our condolences go to the families and friends of both of these notable industry figures.
The Radio Solutions conference, run by the LPRA, takes place on 28-30 May in Nice, France, so it’s worth it just for the sunshine and good food. If you’re interested in European regulations for short-range radio devices, you have the perfect excuse to go along. Sector updates will include RFID, intelligent transport systems, automatic meter reading, wireless medical devices, home automation and cordless audio and radio microphones. Experts will also be on hand to discuss trends in RF design, ultra-low-power RF IC design, automotive short-range radar, antenna design, and processor extensions for software-defined radio. A separate one-day radio design workshop is offered as a practical guide to using a commercial RF IC in the SRD bands, and an exhibition will run alongside the conference on May 29-30th.
Web: http://www.lpra.eu
Electronic Design Europe editor, Paul Whytock, has been out with his video camera again, this time recording interviews with some of the leading techies at the Embedded World show held in Nuremberg last month. Amongst his latest creative achievements is a film about a six-legged dancing robot he encountered on the Analog Devices booth. You can see the movies online at the link below. An Oscar next year perhaps?
Web: http://electronicdesign.com/shows/embeddedworld2008/index.cfm
The eetasia.com network and ed-china.com have just launched a new channel to provide engineers in China and the rest of Asia with detailed technical content – eeWhitePaper. Using eeWhitePaper, of engineers across the region can register to download vendor technical papers and technology manuals in PDF format. The papers are sponsored. Links to download eeWhitePaper are placed across eetasia.com network and ed-china.com web pages, making it visible and accessible to design engineers.
The 13th IIC-China attracted 36,046 design engineers, technical and procurement managers, up 21 percent over 2007, making it the largest in the event’s history, according to organisers, Global Sources. Combined, IIC-China show floors in Chengdu, Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai hosted more than 1,400 booths and over 400 exhibitors – up 37 percent and 47 percent year-on-year respectively, they said. IIC-China’s expanded Components Pavilions in Chengdu, Shenzhen and Shanghai featured over 300 booths, more than doubling its size over its 2007 debut in Shenzhen. This year’s IIC-China is also said to have attracted increased presence from regional media. To date, the show has apparently generated over 360 pieces of news coverage worldwide, including Yahoo, China’s Ministry of Commerce, International Financial News, 21st Century Business Herald, Guangzhou TV, China Youth Daily, Xinhua News Agency and Sina.com. In 2009, IIC-China is scheduled to be held in mainland China’s six major electronics hubs – see the link below.
Stefan Böck is leaving as editor-in-chief of Elektronik Journal to take over the same role at Austrian monthly publication, die Wirtschaft. Stefan Strzyzowski, the Austrian section editor of Elektronik Journal is also leaving and will become managing editor of die Wirtschaft. Until the appointment of a new editor-in-chief, Rüdiger Hahn, Elektronik Journal’s previous editor-in-chief, will head the magazine’s editorial team.
Mike Donlin, who worked with editor-in-chief John Miklosz during the old Computer Design magazine days, has joined SOCcentral.com after a 12-year stint as a writer and marketing communications man at Synopsys, Inc. For the last 10 years Mike has written white papers, technical articles and op-ed pieces for electronics trade publications (EE Times, EDN, etc.) and mainstream news publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The San Jose Mercury News.
Stephan Janouch has been promoted editor-in-chief of Elektronik automotive - the technical magazine for automotive electronics and telematics. The 33-year old engineer was previously deputy editor-in-chief. Stephan Janouch has a degree in electrical engineering from Landshut University. Before moving into journalism in 2006, he than worked as an automotive field applications engineer at semiconductor manufacturer Xilinx. In July 2006 he joined WEKA FACHMEDIEN.
Elektronik’s Issue 11, published on May 27, will contain an evaluation sheet for readers to vote for their “Distributor of the Year”. The sheet will also appear in a special issue of Elektronik Distribution, which is published on June 18th. Apparently, around 90% of the magazine’s readers buy from distributors, so this should be a representative picture of how they feel about both global and local distributors in the German market.
Elektronik Industrie has announced its special reports for the next couple of months. In April it will have a regional focus looking a companies along the A4 autobahn from Eisennach to Dresden. A special report on white goods, published as a supplement to the main issue, will appear in May.
The newest electronics show in Europe, the UK’s National Electronics Week, now has 188 exhibitors signed up, say the organisers. The show is being held at London’s Earls Court 2 from 17-19 June 2008. Supporters include Agilent Technologies UK Ltd., National Instruments, OK International and Panasonic.