At last week's tech fest at the IMEC research facility in Belgium, we were given an update on the technologies, processes and design techniques that will get us to 10-nm interconnects. But one slide hits hard and shows just what 10 nm really means.

Use IC vendors to bring your product idea to life

The next time you have a great idea for an end product, you should look at bit more closely at your choice of IC: the vendor-as-partner model can do more to realize your idea than any venture capitalist or angel investor ever could--without eating into your long-term profits.

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Old and new: Marconi's Irish roots

In a remote region of Ireland last week I happened upon a monument to Guglielmo Marconi's first commercial wireless transmission: between Rathlin Island and Ballycastle in North Antrim on July 6th. 1898.

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UWB is dead! Oops, sorry: It's alive… again!(?)

There's been a miracle at Computex: It seems there have been enough prayers to breath life back into UWB, at least according to second-hand accounts by a remote witness.

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Having a look at "Micro" electronics

The laboratory facilities of TechInsights Services can provide an interesting view of the microelectronics world. Check out the Image of the Week, and take a unique look at some of the electronics you help create.

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Bluetooth: Dead and alive

After all the research, development, marketing and debates, Bluetooth was successful. As a mobile headset cable replacement. So, is that it?

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The conservation penalty

So, our ever-innovative Long Island Power Authority has thought of yet one more reason to raise our residential bills: We conserved too much power. Apparently its revenues are down due to over-conservation, so we have to pay extra for the over capacity it planned for. Anyone out there appreciate irony?

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The post-American myth

In his brilliant book "The Post-American World," Newsweek columnist and international editor Fareed Zakaria spends some time explaining how the global attitude toward the United States is changing: "Countries are increasingly interested in themselves -- the story of their rise -- and pay less attention to the West and the United States…. The world is moving from anger to indifference, from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism." Not so fast.

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One giant leap for India

Driven by national pride and powered by an economy and workforce that has benefited from a decade of foreign investment and resurgent education, India launched the Chandrayaan I lunar module this week. In so doing, it loosed the shackles of poverty, social stratification, political and religious strife, and emerged from the long shadow of China and Japan. Symbolically at least, and if but for a moment.

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Bad connectors and good design

A recent chat with mobile device service company Rapid Repair left me shaking my head. Despite the untold millions that went into the development of today's most advanced systems, the iPod, Zune and iPhone, they all had the same age-old failure mode: the connectors.

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