CIRCUITS AND DEVICES
CELL PHONE FOR ACTIVE LIFESTYLE
There are a lot of phones to choose from these days, but if you are an outdoor adventurer, Navy Seal, or just plain clumsy and accident prone, consider
the Casio G'zOne Commando™ available through Verizon Wireless (www.
verizonwireless.com). The Android-powered Commando offers high security
features for secure email, Wi-Fi for Web access, and XT9 and T9 trace inputs to
simplify text entry.
Perhaps most importantly, it's designed to withstand extreme environments,
meeting MIL-STD-810G specs for immersion, rain, shock, dust, vibration, salt fog,
solar radiation, altitude, and temperature. It also includes a five megapixel camera,
stereo Bluetooth, and a GPS, plus Triple Sensor technology that provides
information on direction, acceleration, and temperature. You can pick one up (and
drop it from five feet if you want) for $200
with a two year agreement. ▲
■ Casio's G'zOne Commando
smartphone in Earth Compass mode.
STUFF YOUR BIG BELLY WITH GARBAGE
It's tough to make anything these days without a microprocessor, and the phenomenon has even spread to trash cans. BigBelly Solar, Inc. ( www.bigbellysolar.com), recently announced the sale of its 10,000th waste and recycling station,
purchased by the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). The district bought 75 of the solar powered waste
and recycling kiosks in 2009, and liked them so well that they now have deployed more than 200 of them across nine
campuses. According to the company, "The BigBelly intelligent
waste collection system combines onsite, solar powered
compaction, efficient recycling solutions, and wireless
monitoring and management capability to dramatically reduce
waste collection requirements. That means fewer trips are
needed to collect and transport the material — which reduces
fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions."
The units employ wireless monitoring and notification to
provide status updates to a Cloud-based dashboard, allowing
staff to optimize collections. Because the containers can
compress and hold about five times as much trash as standard
cans (up to 150 gal), collection frequency has been cut by a
reported 70 to 80 percent. Apparently, the units are especially
popular with educational institutions; the company says about
150 colleges and universities in the USA, Canada, and Europe
have adopted them. For a largely sophomoric video, visit
www.laccdbuildsgreen.org/mediacenter/swf
/flvideo/html/ big-belly.php. ▲
■ The BigBelly solar powered trash station holds
up to 150 gal of refuse.
INDUSTRY AND THE PROFESSION
APPLE TAKES BIGGEST SEMI BITE
The stats are in, and Apple beat out Hewlett-Packard in 2010 as the world's largest consumer of semiconductors. Apple bought $17.5 billion worth of chips, a 79. 6 percent increase over the previous year. This was primarily driven
by the success of the iPhone and iPad which suck up huge amounts of NAND Flash memory. In fact, more than 60
percent of Apple's semi budget went for wireless products. In contrast, second place chip purchaser HP devoted 82
percent of its spending to computer products which has been a much weaker market. HP laid out $15.2 billion to grab
the number two spot, followed by Samsung at $13.9 billion. ▲
12
September 2011
