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Joe Desposito and Lou Frenzel of Electronic Design magazine talk with Guy Ray of Marvell about the increasing bandwidth needed with increasing online applications and their development of application gateway chip which integrates Marvell's flagship 2 GHz Application Processor, optical broadband, with smartphone-like power management, and Ethernet switch and transceiver integration.

Hosted by: Joe Desposito and Lou Frenzel Edited by: Megan Paznik

Mat Dirjish of Electronic Design magazine talks with Henry Juszkiewicz of Gibson and Ace Frehley of KISS about a new technology that will revolutionize the music world from the Hard Rock Cafe.

Hosted by: Mat Dirjish Edited by: Megan Paznik

Michael Knight from TTI, and President Elect of NEDA, discusses NEDA's upcoming merger with the Electronic Components Association as well as their ongoing campaign against counterfeit electronic parts.

Hosted by: Joe Desposito Videography by: Curtis Ellzey Edited by: Curtis Ellzey

To keep up with demand, the oil industry ventures increasingly farther and deeper offshore, extracting resources as fast as possible in often hazardous conditions with newly minted technology. So to these panelists, the BP Deepwater Horizon accident did not come as a complete surprise. However, they view the disaster from distinctly different perspectives.

“The same things happen all the time” in major accidents, states Nancy Leveson. There are flaws in the “safety culture” of the industry, including a sense that its enterprise is inherently “more risky” and accidents inevitable --“the price of production.” Leveson notes that “being 35 thousand feet in the air in a metal cylinder is not a safe thing, but the commercial aerospace industry has made it safe.” Industry leaders don’t believe that safety pays and consequently they merely comply with regulations. Rather than seeking systemic fixes, they blame operator error or technical failure. Nevertheless, says Leveson, “Complex systems migrate toward states of high risk, so the oil industry should “must change its culture” and implement safeguards. “We can’t make things perfectly safe but we can make them a lot safer than they are.”

Cement,

It is well know that we cannot engineer our way out of traffic congestion by building new roads. In fact, expanding the road network may paradoxically attract new traffic, and increase gridlock. Andreas Schulz provides a mathematical explanation for this conundrum. Using Nash equilibria and related game-theoretic concepts he explores two issues, namely: “how much fuel and time can we save if we route traffic optimally, and secondly, can we save fuel and time by actually closing streets or rearranging vehicle flow on our existing road network?” The answers to these questions have significant value. It is calculated by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) the cost of congestion, in fuel and time losses, is $87 billion annually (in 2007 dollars). Schulz uses the TTI estimate as a launching point, to ask how much we could save if we routed more optimally.

The optimization is based on a complex set of algorithms with Wardrop’s Principle as a theoretical background, and total travel time as the variable. Wardrops principle says that the journey times on all the routes actually used are equal and less than those that would be experienced

Today, cell phones are a menace to safe driving, as they distract operators who should otherwise focus on the road. Tomorrow, cell phones could actually improve our driving, and help drivers avoid traffic congestion, use the road system more effectively, and manage the parking supply. Li-Shiuan Peh says that the key to these services are future mobile devices that will have the computer power equivalent to today’s large servers in data centers. Combined with rapid advances in wireless networking, these mobile devices will be harnessed to provide new apps, like next generation transportation programs.

We currently use the Internet and Wi-Fi or 3G and then run our programs in the cloud on heavyweight servers. Peh says that an opposite case is likely to emerge, with a move towards collaborative computing, using mobile devices and localized cell phones to replace the heavyweight servers. She envisions a time when advanced cell phones will be “stitched together” to run a single piece or information or a program. Peh says this grassroots type of computing will appeal to the general public, “the sociology” of users, who like to be involved in transportation

It is well know that we cannot engineer our way out of traffic congestion by building new roads. In fact, expanding the road network may paradoxically attract new traffic, and increase gridlock. Andreas Schulz provides a mathematical explanation for this conundrum. Using Nash equilibria and related game-theoretic concepts he explores two issues, namely: “how much fuel and time can we save if we route traffic optimally, and secondly, can we save fuel and time by actually closing streets or rearranging vehicle flow on our existing road network?” The answers to these questions have significant value. It is calculated by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) the cost of congestion, in fuel and time losses, is $87 billion annually (in 2007 dollars). Schulz uses the TTI estimate as a launching point, to ask how much we could save if we routed more optimally.

The optimization is based on a complex set of algorithms with Wardrop’s Principle as a theoretical background, and total travel time as the variable. Wardrops principle says that the journey times on all the routes actually used are equal and less than those that would be experienced

If you had half a million dollars, would you opt for a passenger car that could drive itself (called an autonomous vehicle) or would you choose a new Ferrari? Emilio Frazzoli provides a number of reasons why autonomous vehicles might be the preferred choice, if not the typical one. Autonomous vehicles, that use electronics in place of human drivers, will offer many improvements for urban mobility. Frazzoli says they will advance the safety and comfort of automotives- and open the doors of mobility for people who cannot or should not drive; as he puts it, “if you had too much to drink, maybe you should let the computer take you home.” Future autonomous vehicles can also increase the efficiency and throughput of our existing road system and help reduce congestion by coordinating with others cars. The autonomous vehicle will also be a “green vehicle” that can make more fuel-efficient decisions than human drivers. Future autonomous vehicles might save up to 20 to 50% of emissions and fuel consumption by optimizing speed and stopping.

In some ways, the autonomous vehicle is already with us. There