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What if, in response to the steadily rising tide of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean lithium-ion battery production over the past two decades, a U.S.-based company decided to open up shop and manufacture Li-ion cells? Could it be competitive? A recent study published in the Journal of Power Sources attempts to estimate the cost of such an endeavor and compares it to the cost of the same exact venture in China. The conclusion? Well, maybe.
Examining the production costs involved in the widely-popular, boringly-named 18650-size li-ion cell?commonly found in rechargeable flashlights, older laptop batteries, and the Tesla Model S?battery industry researchers Ralph J. Brodd and Carlos Helou estimate that it would cost 30 cents more per cell to produce 35 million batteries in the U.S. as opposed to doing it in China. (Ramping up the production ten-fold to 350 million batteries reduces that difference to 7 cents per-cell.) The disparity might seem almost negligible, but, over a full year of production, it would cost a U.S. factory $10 million more to produce those 35 million.
Although the numbers seem to say that opening a U.S.-based battery manufacturing operation, right now, will be more costly than opening one overseas, the researchers argue "that this cost differential is not significant enough to influence a siting decision." That conclusion is based on a number of future hypotheticals: Rising wages for highly-skilled Chinese workers, reduced costs due to increasingly automated production lines, as well as a few intangible benefits such as "innovative synergies that may develop when R&D personnel have convenient access to the factory floor," plus the added bonus of a "Made in the U.S.A." tag?however attractive that may be to global automotive companies.
It's nice to fantasize about a return to U.S. manufacturing dominance (the country is still fourth in the world, by the way), but domestic Li-ion battery-makers aren't faring well at the moment. A123 systems, considered a poster-child of U.S. renewable manufacturing after receiving a $249 million federal grant, went bankrupt late last year and was bought by the Wanxing Group, a large Chinese auto parts maker. Currently, Johnson Controls seems to be the strongest U.S. Li-ion battery producer?with an expanding plant in Holland, Mi.?however, their latest project comes by way of a $45 million Department of Energy grant to supply Li-ion batteries for 120 municipal hybrid trucks. Tesla Motors, whose CEO is a driving force behind electric vehicles and bastion of American entrepreneurship, exclusively uses Panasonic li-ion cells made in Japan in the battery pack of the Model S.
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23 hours ago
Richard Termine / Sesame Workshop via AP
Sesame Workshop, creators of "Sesame Street," had to cut staff on Tuesday.
It's a sad day on the "Street." Sesame Workshop, makers of the classic children's program "Sesame Street," laid off approximately 10 percent of its employees Tuesday.
"Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street, is constantly assessing where we must invest for the future in response to today's rapidly changing digital environment," the company said in a statement obtained by Reuters. "After careful review, we have concluded that we must reduce our workforce by approximately 10% to strategically focus our resources."
According to Deadline.com, 30 employees lost their jobs, and the company's Sesame Learning program and Global Education departments will be absorbed into other parts of the company. Former Newsweek, Inc. CEO Tom Ascheim, who was an executive vice-president with Sesame Leaning, was one of those laid off, Deadline reports.
Sesame Learning was described by the company as "a vital Workshop initiative aimed (at bringing) the 'Sesame Street' advantage to classrooms and child-care settings."
There was no word on whether "Sesame Street," the workshop's Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning program, would be directly affected.
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/c-cutbacks-sesame-lays-workers-6C10450530
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It's time to rethink the way our children learn. It's all a bit overwhelming, attempting to restructure the age-old classroom model, particularly in a system as bogged down in bureaucratic red tape as education. This month, however, we packed up our things and toured the country to find out how educational institutions are adopting new models to help reinvent the learning process -- rather than sitting idly by, waiting for the system to change around them. Naturally, technology is playing a huge role in that shift, moving from models of teaching to models of learning, where students can explore, express themselves and learn at their own speed.
We kick things off in Chicago, where Jackie Moore, a former systems programmer, is teaching inner city students how to build robots in a shopping mall basement at LevelUP. Next up, we head Miami and California, to see how technologies like the iPad, Google Chromebook and One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop are being implemented in three schools, including interviews with educators, students, OLPC CEO Rodrigo Halaby and Google director of product management, Rajen Sheth. We'll also talk to component retailers SparkFun and Adafruit about the initiatives those companies have implemented to help kids learn electronics at an early age, and then we sit down with American Museum of Natural History president, Ellen Futter, to discuss the ways the New York City institution is redefining itself for the 21st century.
We've also got an interview with Ali Partovi, a serial entrepreneur, who is working to make computer science an essential part of the elementary-level STEM program, through Code.org. Richard Culatta, the acting director of the US Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology discusses how devices can help target the learning process for individual students and LeapFrog CEO John Barbour tells us how his company is rethinking the educational toy. All that plus prognostications from John Roderick and some really sweet moose dioramas can be yours to enjoy after the break.
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Laptops, Robots, Tablets, Science, Internet, Software, HD, Mobile, Alt, Google, Acer
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/g9NqE-rhFoY/
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June 25, 2013 ? North Carolina State University researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments -- such as collapsed buildings.
The researchers have incorporated Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect system into an electronic interface developed at NC State that can remotely control cockroaches. The researchers plug in a digitally plotted path for the roach, and use Kinect to identify and track the insect's progress. The program then uses the Kinect tracking data to automatically steer the roach along the desired path.?
The program also uses Kinect to collect data on how the roaches respond to the electrical impulses from the remote-control interface. This data will help the researchers fine-tune the steering parameters needed to control the roaches more precisely.
"Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that," says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work.
"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," Bozkurt says. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."
The roaches would also be equipped with sensors, such as microphones, to detect survivors in collapsed buildings or other disaster areas. "We may even be able to attach small speakers, which would allow rescuers to communicate with anyone who is trapped," Bozkurt says.
Bozkurt's team had previously developed the technology that would allow users to steer cockroaches remotely, but the use of Kinect to develop an autopilot program and track the precise response of roaches to electrical impulses is new.
The interface that controls the roach is wired to the roach's antennae and cerci. The cerci are sensory organs on the roach's abdomen, which are normally used to detect movement in the air that could indicate a predator is approaching -- causing the roach to scurry away. But the researchers use the wires attached to the cerci to spur the roach into motion. The wires attached to the antennae send small charges that trick the roach into thinking the antennae are in contact with a barrier and steering them in the opposite direction.
The paper, "Kinect-based System for Automated Control of Terrestrial Insect Biobots," will be presented at the Remote Controlled Insect Biobots Minisymposium at the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society July 4 in Osaka, Japan. Lead author of the paper is NC State undergraduate Eric Whitmire. Co-authors are Bozkurt and NC State graduate student Tahmid Latif. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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