All Features
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
When I was a kid, I hated Burger King. I hated it because they put sweet pickle relish on their regular hamburgers, and I hated sweet pickle relish. And, they put mayonnaise on The Whopper, and I hated mayonnaise. I know what you’re thinking: “Why didn’t you get the fish sandwich?” Well, they put…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
While awaiting full access to their labs due to Covid-19 restrictions, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have taken this rare opportunity to report the technical details of pioneering research they conducted on the disinfection of drinking water using…
Harry Hertz
Rest? The new normal will be about activity, you say. Actually, I believe some rest will be necessary. After the frenzy of activity since March 2020 to establish new work patterns and new home life patterns, many of us—especially those with young families—have been left totally exhausted. So some…
Jim Benson
Untitled Document
From Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston (J. B. Lippincott, 1942)
The quote in the picture from Zora Neale Hurston does not end there; it finishes, “It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.”
Zora was…
Chip Bell
Alice—of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fame—had a very vivid imagination. Had she been on the job market today, she would have no doubt been sought by Pixar, Google, or Amazon. If you read Lewis Carroll’s classic, you know the colorful adventures of Alice’s wonder world. In the Tim Burton 2010…
Stewart Black, Patrick van Esch
Millions of Americans are unemployed and looking for work. Hiring continues, but there’s far more demand for jobs than supply.
As scholars of human resources and management, we believe artificial intelligence (AI) could be a boon for job seekers who need an edge in a tight labor market like today’…
Brookhaven National Laboratory
A team of scientists working at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Brookhaven National Laboratory has designed an apparatus that can take simultaneous temperature and X-ray scattering measurements of a 3D printing process in real time, and…
John Wenz, Knowable Magazine
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
You hear a mechanical buzz. You look up, and there it is, hovering in the sky—four whirring rotors. Over your shoulder, you catch sight of someone tracking the flight and manipulating controls.
Drones, little flying vehicles with varying…
Steven Forrest
The ongoing pandemic will likely change, if not completely alter, many aspects of our daily lives. One facet that will significantly change is the way we work. After months of being in lockdown, the massive shift to working from home has proven to be effective in helping employees stay productive.…
Andrew Peterson
Collaborative robots are increasingly attractive to manufacturers that require flexible solutions for their growing product mix but may not have the scale of work or capital resources needed to justify larger investments in automation systems.
These collaborative robots, commonly referred to as “…
Benjamin Kessler
The full economic impact of the pandemic has yet to be felt. However, it seems beyond dispute that Covid-19 and globalization don’t mix well. Of course, all economic activity is suffering in this worldwide recession—but the global breadth of business may experience an especially acute shrinking…
Bill Bernstein, Teodar Vernica
Step into the factory of the future. Alicia, an operations manager, sits at her workstation viewing a digitally enhanced video feed of the facility, using cameras installed in strategic locations. Wearing safety gear, a maintenance engineer named Bob checks his tablet for the next machine to fix.…
Thomas R. Cutler
The old picking methods of paper, pick-to-light, and voice-picking are almost impossible when employees must practice social distancing, use PPE (personal protective equipment), and avoid contact that could potentially exacerbate the spread of Covid-19. One viable solution is pick-by-vision, which…
Rajesh Midha
Digital experiences surround us in all aspects of our lives. Today, as consumers of products and services, we can accomplish most of our tasks digitally. This digital ecosystem has been carefully crafted by brands that have spent millions of dollars to create experiences to build and grow…
Jason Chester
For manufacturers—as for all of us—the past few months have been a blur of fast adaptations and long periods of waiting. At the start of the pandemic, many manufacturers did what they have always done in the face of disruption: adapt and find the fastest workaround for the challenge at hand.…
Tara García Mathewson
In October 2019, I shared the news that the classroom connectivity gap in U.S. schools is effectively closed. More than 99 percent of schools nationwide have access to speedy and reliable internet, making online learning an option for their students.
Only now it doesn’t matter. School buildings…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
The other day I overheard this comment: “Why does innovation always have to be about disruption? That’s all I ever hear anymore, ‘disruption, disruption, disruption,’ and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“Disruption” has become the current (and already overused) buzzword of the day. It seems for the…
Joerg Niessing
Since Covid-19’s arrival, digital resilience increasingly refers to the strategic use of digital technologies in delivering customer value and business growth despite adversities. Indeed, some industries—such as hospitality, higher education, or traditional retail—were hit more than others because…
Katherine McCormick
To detect a virus, you need to already know intimate details about it. You need to design a test particular to that virus: one that finds and copies only a specific, identifying piece of its genetic material.
But Mauricio Terrones and his collaborators at Penn State University think they’ve found…
Ben Brumfield
Dang robots are crummy at so many jobs, and they tell lousy jokes to boot. In two new studies, these were common biases human participants held toward robots.
The studies were originally intended to test for gender bias, that is, if people thought a robot believed to be female may be less…
Celia Paulsen
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered robots, 3D printing, the internet of things (IoT)... there’s a whole world of advanced manufacturing technology and innovation just waiting for small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) that want to step up their digital game. Unfortunately, manufacturing…
NIST
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have demonstrated a potentially new way to make switches inside a computer’s processing chips, enabling them to use less energy and radiate less heat.
The team has developed …
Michael Weinold
After nearly 130 years in business and a series of breakthrough innovations that shaped the way we light up our homes, General Electric has sold its lighting division to the U.S.-based market leader in smart homes, Savant, for a reported $250 million (£198 million). Although a licensing agreement…
Jeffrey Phillips
Throughout human history we’ve constantly sought out tools and capital to make us more productive. From the formation of basic tools to assist in farming to real cultivation and shaping of the land for greater yields, humankind learned to grow food. Further research into genetics, fertilizers, and…
Kayla Wiles
A new laser treatment method could potentially turn any metal surface into a rapid bacteria killer just by giving it a different texture, researchers say. In a new study, they demonstrated that this technique allows the surface of copper to immediately kill off superbugs such as MRSA.
“Copper has…
