Do subjects like high peak load capability and high voltage safety testing keep you awake at night? 

Worried about the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) requirements for efficiency and no-load power consumption? Confounded about why two seemingly-same power supplies can possibly perform differently?

If power supply selection, power supply repair, or other power supply issues are concerning you, then you will want to obtain the new, third edition of the  Power Supply Technical Guide by XP Power.  The plan was to boil all this information down for you right here to make it easy, but having just read this new guide myself, I can tell you… it is so jam packed with useful information that I have thrown my hands up and am just giving you the link. 

Attention all Manufacturers:   ABB is now promoting FUN!  Fun? At work you say?  Under the interesting news category we hear that ABB has teamed with tracermedia interactive to create an electronic game that entertains AND educates manufacturing plant professionals. 

Players have fun while experiencing how their reliability decisions will impact performance down the line and the overall business. Since this a virtual situation, your team can enjoy the challenge without worrying  about disastrous results.

It works like this:  players are members of a failing company.  Then, the game takes them through a series of real-life problems that require  reliability solutions to win the ABB Reliability Challenge.  The virtual manufacturing world gives players a sample of what companies may face in the real world. 

Could smudge marks on your touch screen monitors leave you vulnerable to a security breach?  According to a University of Pennsylvania study it’s true!  Researchers took photos of the smudge trails left on various touchscreens, digitally increased the contrast and found they could unlock secure touchscreens 92% of the time! 

I just checked out my new, totally cool android phone and sure enough, there are my paw prints leaving a “smudge trail” where I unlock the unit.  My phone is no big security breach, but this could affect touchscreen interfaces such as bank machines, voting machines, or any other public or industrial touchscreen requiring a graphical pattern password.