New radar technology developed in Australia promises comprehensive surveillance of enemy troops without compromising safety. South Australian startup Silentium Defence has developed a passive radar that uses pre-existing and non-sensor sources of radio frequency energy to map out an environment. The technology gives militaries the ability to be aware of both active and silent objects … Continue reading Invisible radar a boost for defence →

Power management company Eaton has launchd its annual Blackout Tracker Report for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), which has revealed 3 million people were affected by more than 240 power outages in 2016. While widespread power failures in South Australia had the largest impact on individuals and businesses, New South Wales topped the list of … Continue reading Report shows 3 million people affected by outages in 2016 →

When Tropical Cyclone Debbie hit Queensland this week, one of the casualties was the region’s mobile phone network. Phone towers can stop working because they have been damaged by the wind, or because they have run out of diesel to run their generators. Whatever the cause, the end result is the same: a number of … Continue reading How to keep your mobile phone connected when the network is down →

For the first time, physicists have experimentally validated a 1959 conjecture that places limits on how small superconductors can be. Understanding superconductivity (or the lack thereof) on the nanoscale is expected to be important for designing future quantum computers, among other applications. In 1959, physicist P.W. Anderson conjectured that superconductivity can exist only in objects … Continue reading How small can superconductors be? →

Two years ago the Morris Group of companies was at a turning point. The Newcastle-based manufacturer found that the mining turndown, mixed in with some archaic manufacturing practises, was affecting its profitability. The group specialised in a range of products and services for the mining and other industries, such as temperature sensors, electronic componentry and … Continue reading How Lean manufacturing saved an electronics company →

CSIRO will partner with start-up company Ecocentric on a system that recognises the electrical ‘fingerprint’ of individual appliances to increase energy efficiency in buildings. Under a licencing and research agreement, CSIRO and Ecocentric will further develop the ‘Numen’ energy system. Numen brings together a building’s total energy signal, identifies the appliances present, and then separates … Continue reading Electrical fingerprint technology helps with energy savings →

Research and Markets’ Home Entertainment Devices Market Report, forecasts that the global market is expected to reach almost $295 billion by 2022, which is good news for those who manufacture and supply components to the CE sector. Video devices are estimated to be the most dominant product type in the market from 2015 to 2022. … Continue reading Good news for component suppliers on home entertainment front →

The recent release of Rogue One (2016), has sparked an unexpected controversy. The film features Peter Cushing, a familiar face from the original Star Wars: IV A New Hope (1977), reprising his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. Cushing appears in new scenes and interacts with fresh characters, despite having died in 1994. More than 20 … Continue reading A genuinely believable CGI actor? It won’t be long →

A computer’s operating system, the layer of software between you and the hardware, has changed remarkably over the past few decades. At the beginning a user had to interact with levers and switches, then came screens and DOS, the Apple’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows, and, finally, the internet. These slowly wormed their way into our … Continue reading Who will be the winner in the next computing revolution? →

Smartphones come with an assortment of sensors that can track behaviours such as our internet search and browse history, where we go, what music we listen to, who we speak to, just to name a few. The habitual nature of people means this data could be used to give insight into our mental wellbeing. Acute … Continue reading Your smartphone knows a lot about you, but what about your mental health? →

Imagine, in a few years’ time, you’re standing on a street corner waiting for your Uber to arrive. It turns up, exactly when it said it would, but there’s no driver. Would you climb in? Are you ready to put your faith in driverless technology? This scenario is not that far off. Uber are trialling … Continue reading Would you trust a driverless car? →

The Internet of Things (IoT) will use distributed sensors to build more intelligence into the world around us. By sensing chemicals, moisture, temperature and other environmental variables, IoT systems will be able to tune conditions inside buildings to be more comfortable, make factories more productive, and distribution more effective by keeping the goods under optimum … Continue reading Using smart hardware to improve IoT energy efficiency →

As the business world becomes increasingly interconnected, Australian organisations are opening their IT infrastructures to larger numbers of external users. Suppliers, service providers and partners all regularly access core systems to undertake transactions and access data. Offering such access can pay big dividends when it comes to productivity and efficiency. Rather than staff needing to … Continue reading Security risks giving third-party access to your IT infrastructure →

The term “artificial intelligence” (AI) was first used back in 1956 to describe the title of a workshop of scientists at Dartmouth, an Ivy League college in the United States. At that pioneering workshop, attendees discussed how computers would soon perform all human activities requiring intelligence, including playing chess and other games, composing great music … Continue reading Computers may be evolving but are they intelligent? →

Regardless of the external and geopolitical conditions that develop across the globe, it is a general rule that national economies tend to thrive so long as they diversify. This remains the key to sustainable growth, even during times of reported volatility or uncertainty. In many ways, the Australian economy represents the perfect embodiment of this … Continue reading Australia’s electronics market boom →

First released in October last year, the Synergy platform was officially launched by Renesas in Australia last month. Brent Balinski spoke to the company and one of its local independent design house partners about developing products for the Internet of Things. There’s a push to make products “smart”: connecting them and making use of the … Continue reading Internet of Things to sharpen importance of speed, services →

Imagine you woke up to discover a massive cyber attack on your country. All government data has been destroyed, taking out healthcare records, birth certificates, social care records and so much more. The transport system isn’t working, traffic lights are blank, immigration is in chaos and all tax records have disappeared. The internet has been … Continue reading What if two countries declared cyber war on each other? →

The implementation of an ERP system is a large and complex task. Such software controls virtually all day-to-day business activity and has a direct impact on the productivity and profitability of an entire organisation. Unfortunately, such large implementation projects often strike problems. These can range from minor cost or time overruns to major failures that … Continue reading Why big IT projects fail…and how to prevent it! →

As the component sourcing landscape continues to change with technology, what strategies and factors do Australian electronics engineers need to keep in mind when considering their parts options?

The innovation in consumer electronics, which Generation Y engineers use in their daily lives, has outpaced the instruments they use in the professional setting.