Category Archives: Technology

For the first time since the explosion, William Gadsby thought about bending his knee, and it happened.

His keys were banging against his hip so he reached down and dropped them on the floor. But he had lost his knee in 2007 during his second deployment in Iraq, when his leg had to be amputated following an explosion.

He was using a brain computer interface, or BCI, that through circular surface electrodes stuck to his head responded to his reflexive thought to bend his knee and unlocked the simple mechanism on the prosthesis he was wearing.

Its hard to explain how great something is that we all take for granted, he said of his experience. BCI is one of those things that give you a reason to wake up the next day.

Researchers with Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond are working with the BCI technology to allow veterans who depend on prostheses to move naturally.

But thats only the beginning, they predict. Eventually, anyone depending on technology to move might be able to control it seamlessly.

Veterans like Luke Sprotte, who has a spinal cord injury, walk because of a system called ReWalk, a robotic exoskeleton, thanks to a VA study. ReWalk provides him a great deal of freedom, but using it isnt always intuitive and takes a lot of practice.

Maybe eventually, Sprotte will be able to use BCI to control the exoskeleton, the researchers hope he could think about walking forward, and the technology would take him there.

The whole trick is to isolate one thought out of thousands and thousands and thousands of thoughts ... and then build a reliable system that can be used every single time, said Dr. Douglas Murphy, a VA physician working on the BCI study.

Building the BCI system was the first phase of the study, and now the second phase involves a 5-year grant of nearly $1 million awarded by the National Science Foundation to make the technology user friendly.

The goal at the end of the five years is to create something that could actually be used by those who need it, from the more than 2 million people in the U.S. who have lost limbs to the 27,000 veterans with spinal cord injuries.

Murphy and a team of researchers and prosthetists including John Fox, chief of McGuires orthotic and prosthetic lab, William Lovegreen with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Dr. Ou Bai with Florida International University are working to make the technology easier to use.

When they sit down and talk , Fox, Murphy and Lovegreen quickly begin referring to the game-changing ways the BCI technology could alter experiences for anyone who has lost a limb or depends on technology to move.

Its going to be phenomenal, Lovegreen said. You can ask any amputee, theyre always conscious of their prosthesis, theyre always conscious of where theyre putting their foot ... People with able bodies, we take that for granted.

The patient wears surface electrodes on his or her head that pick up brain waves, which are then processed by a device about the size of a pager before being transmitted to the prosthesis.

The electrodes sit over the motor cortex and pick up the thoughts that would move an amputated leg, Murphy explained.

The hardware is constantly changing, he added. It started out more cumbersome with the patient wearing a backpack that held the technology to process the brain waves, but has since gotten progressively smaller.

The researchers began their work with a simple prosthesis with a locking knee, but they see the technology becoming increasingly advanced.

Just like every year theres a new smartphone, technology and prosthesis are moving that way, Lovegreen said.

Eventually, Fox said, the electrodes will be down to a pair of glasses they can wear.

After a training accident in January 2009 left him with a spinal cord injury, Sprotte could stand with the help of a few devices, like a standing chair he has in his North Carolina home, but he couldnt walk.

During a recent visit at McGuire, Sprotte was working on mastering the ReWalk system to walk up and down ramps. It wasnt easy because when the system feels the ramp, it senses a barrier and stops and Sprotte must adjust his balance so it starts moving again.

The first time walking, it was pretty unique, kind of like youre floating on something that you cant feel thats carrying you around, Sprotte said. I had to learn to just trust that this was going to do what it was supposed to do.

Allowing veterans like Sprotte to walk carries a host of health benefits, the head of the ReWalk study, Dr. Ashraf Gorgey, said.

It builds up muscles that otherwise arent used, helps improve the digestive system and, Gorgey added, the VA is hoping to show that being able to stand and walk regularly also improves quality of life.

How is a device like this going to make someone be able to be independent in society? said Gorgey, who is also on the BCI grant research team.

It can reflect back on (the patient) in a positive way and helps them gain the benefits by feeling that they are independent: I can do this, Im not any different.

Whether Sprotte will be able to take a device home once he finishes his training is uncertain. Depending on how well he masters the ReWalk, Gorgey said his team may recommend to Sprottes doctor that the VA buy him a device, which costs about $67,000.

That price may go down, though, as more and more companies are making exoskeletons that are getting approved for use by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

Using technology like an exoskeleton or a prosthetic can be physically and mentally exhausting, requiring people to expend energy in ways theyve never had to before.

Amputees constantly have to be aware of their situations, they have to look and no matter how technologically advanced their prosthesis is they physically have to move that prosthesis, Lovegreen said.

BCI could change that, not just for amputees but for those with spinal cord injuries, too. Rather than having to manipulate his center of gravity so the exoskeleton moves him around, Sprotte could simply use the same thoughts and energy he used before his injury.

Once this is out there, it will be a big save on energy because its just a thought, Fox said.

If some type of BCI technology were readily available, it would impact huge numbers of amputees, both veterans and civilians.

Gadsbys experience with the BCI was natural, he said. Previously, even with the most advanced technology, his prosthetic would react to what he was doing. If he was squatting, it would lock his knee to keep him from falling.

But theres always a slight hesitation to it, he said, because it has to catch up with his real leg. With the BCI it just happened.

Youre not as tired mentally and physically, having to wait for the leg to catch up, Gadsby said. It was natural. I didnt have to master it. It didnt master me.

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New technology allows veterans to control prosthesis with their minds - Richmond.com

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Uber and Waymo Duel at Key Hearing Over Driverless Car Technology New York Times The thief, Waymo maintains, is Anthony Levandowski, a former top Google engineer whose start-up was acquired by Uber last year to work on self-driving technology. Waymo has accused Mr. Levandowski of illegally downloading 14,000 documents from ... Waymo has 'no smoking gun' in Uber self driving car case -US judgeReuters Waymo Alleges Otto Was A Ruse To Help Uber Steal Its Self-Driving TechBuzzFeed News Google just accused Uber of creating a fake, shell company with its former engineer to steal its techBusiness Insider all 85 news articles »

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Uber and Waymo Duel at Key Hearing Over Driverless Car Technology - New York Times

Imagination, which relies on the iPhone maker for half of its revenues, said it did not believe Applewas able to do so without using Imagination's technology in some form, and said it hoped to reach an amicable agreement going forward.

On Thursday, it said it had "been unable to make satisfactory progress with Apple to date regarding alternative commercial agreements" and hoped to reach a deal "through a more structured process".

The dispute does not involve legal action but is the formal process for reaching an agreement under the contract between the two companies.

"Imagination has been unable to make satisfactory progress with Apple to date regarding alternative commercial arrangements for the current licence and royalty agreement," it said.

"Imagination has therefore commenced the dispute resolution procedure under the licence agreement with a view to reaching an agreement through a more structured process. Imagination has reserved all its rights in respect of Apples unauthorised use of Imaginations confidential information and Imaginations intellectual property rights."

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Imagination Technologies opens dispute with Apple over iPhone chip - Telegraph.co.uk

Out of more than 1,000 flights scheduled to take off or land at Shanghais vast Pudong International Airport on Friday, one marks the beginning of a new era in the aviation business.

China is making its boldest attempt yet to break the stranglehold that Airbus SE and Boeing Co. have on the market for big commercial airliners. After years of delays, the nations first modern large jet is expected to make its maiden flight.

The C919 will be a game-changer for Chinas aerospace industry, said Corrine Png, chief executive officer of Singapore-based research firm Crucial Perspective.

Comacs C919 passenger plane in Shanghai on April 16.

Source: AFP via Getty Images

The 158-174 seat C919 is made by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. and follows Comacs development of a smaller, regional jet, the ARJ21, that was flown by a Chinese airline for the first time last year. The C919 brings Comac to the table in one of the most lucrative sectors of commercial aviation, competing head-to-head with Boeings ubiquitous 737 and Airbuss A320.

The C919s first flight is set for about 2:00 p.m. local time in Shanghai, Xinmin reported, citing the control center handling the event. Flights at Pudong between 1:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. may be delayed due to the new jetliners maiden trip.

Behind the celebrations of a Made-in-China jet is the reality that Comac was able to build its new plane using a string of Western suppliers. At least 15 foreign partners such as General Electric Co., Safran SA and Honeywell International Inc. worked on components and systems of the C919.

Comac has really leaned on the experience of its suppliers, said Tom Szlosek, chief financial officer at Honeywell. Were adding a lot of value.

Tapping into the supply chains of Airbus and Boeing allows Comac to bypass many of the technical challenges of making a modern commercial jet from scratch and builds up the companys expertise for future designs.

Its impractical for Comac not to take advantage of technologies that are already out there, said Yu Zhanfu, a principal at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in Beijing. If you insist on doing everything from the ground up by yourself, chances are you will become irrelevant.

Companies based outside China supply C919 systems for flight control, power, lighting, cockpit control and much else. The engines and landing gear are from overseas manufacturers.

The Chinese jet demonstrates the extent globalization has taken over the manufacture of major engineering products. Just as the jet relies on systems from firms based around the world, many of those systems are built with components that originated in China.

A mock cockpit of a Comac C919.

Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

The C919s engines for example are made by CFM. CFMs parents, GE and French manufacturer Safran Aircraft Engines, in turn buy more than $500 million of Chinese-made parts a year for the companys single-aisle jet engine series, the company said.

A China-designed aircraft doesnt mean all the parts have to be made by the Chinese, said Bao Pengli, a project manager for the C919 at Comac. Some of the equipment are sourced from international suppliers to meet Comacs standards and they not only supply Comac, but also other airplane makers around the world, he said.

Chinas approach is almost the opposite of the strategy followed by Japan when it was at a similar level of development. There, Japans aerospace companies became suppliers to Boeing, and more recently Airbus, and now make as much as 35 percent of the Boeing 787s airframe, according to Boeing Japan.

Chinas decision to build its own large jet with overseas help is one reason the C919s specifications are similar to the 737 Max and A320, said Michel Merluzeau, director of aerospace and defense market analysis for AirInsightResearch in Seattle. It should also help Comac ensure the plane is a success.

Of 15 non-Chinese suppliers contacted by Bloomberg about their involvement with the C919, eight -- FACC AG, Honeywell, Parker Aerospace, UTC Aerospace Systems, Arconic, Liebherr-Aerospace, Eaton and CFM International -- responded. All expressed confidence in the new aircraft and the potential for further collaboration in China.

Workers assemble a Comac C919.

Source: VCG via Getty Images

While the emergence of a Chinese jet brings new revenue for component suppliers, it turns up the heat on the worlds two biggest planemakers in a key market for growth.

Will Made in China Threaten Boeing and Airbus?: QuickTake Q&A

Boeing predicted in September that China will need over 6,800 aircraft valued at more than $1 trillion in the two decades through 2035, and three-fourths of them will be single-aisle planes. The countrys largest carrier, China Southern Airlines Co., and its units have ordered more than $15 billion of new aircraft from Airbus and Boeing since 2015.

Boeing, which plans to build a facility in China, said it congratulated Comac on the development of the C919. Airbus already assembles A320s at a plant in Tianjin and said the competition would be good for the industry.

U.S. labor unions arent so sure.

We have been sending out the alarm bells for many years now about Chinas growing aerospace industry, said Owen Herrnstadt, director of trade and globalization for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Theyve pitted Western aerospace companies against one another.

Fabrice Bregier, who runs Airbuss jetliner arm, said at an airshow last year he expects the Chinese to become serious competitors but it would be well into the next decade before they had the range of aircraft and support network to be a global player.

The real challenge for the Chinese is not to design and operate and fly an aircraft in the C919 category, said AirInsights Merluzeau. The real challenge is how they are going to be able to demonstrate to the customer outside of China that they can support and service the aircraft.

Passenger seats inside a full scale model of a Comac C919.

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Within China, though, Comac will benefit from strong government support, according to George Ferguson, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who estimates the country has committed as much as $7 billion to the program. At some point, the government is going to say to the airlines: You need to buy these airplanes.

That support is one reason Chinas attempt to build big jets is faring better than efforts in Japan and Brazil, according to a March report by RAND Corp. The report said China was absorbing losses that would dissuade new market entrants operating on a purely private-enterprise basis.

Few doubt Chinas determination to build its expertise. Comac is already working with Russias United Aircraft Corp. to develop a bigger, twin-aisle airliner, dubbed the C929, that would compete with the 787 and A330 models.

Theyre serious about learning how to produce parts -- and producing high quality aircraft parts, said Jeegar Kakkad, chief economist and director of policy for ADS Group, the London-based trade association representing aerospace companies in the U.K. There is a huge learning curve for them.

With assistance by Bruce Einhorn, and Dong Lyu

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Boeing's China Rival Mounts Challenge Using U.S. Technology - Bloomberg

By Ahmed Hashmi

Fourteen years ago, at its 2003 annual energy conference here in Houston, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) presented a bold vision of how digital technology might transform the world of oil and gas production. The industry, it declared, is standing on the crest of the digital oil field of the future, which will enable petroprofessionals and field workers to benefit from total asset awareness (i.e., the ability to monitor and manage all operational activities in real time or near real time, regardless of location).

At the time, the vision was compelling. Today, this vision is a reality.

Indeed, the oil and gas industry now uses data and high-speed telecommunications to help increase production, grow reserves more rapidly and make cost and capital inputs more efficient. My company, BP, has long been at the forefront of digital oilfield technology, thanks to a program known as Field of the Future. Many of the digital technology building blocks needed for a Field of the Future did not exist in 2003, which meant we had to create custom-built systems and solutions.

In the years that followed, BP invested heavily in infrastructure and capability. In fact, since the 2003 CERA conference we have installed more than 1,200 miles of fiber optic cable on seafloors in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and the Caspian Sea. We also have built high-end collaboration and monitoring centers linking onshore and offshore teams, while launching a number of strategic partnerships aimed at boosting our digital capability. Thanks to these efforts, BP has grown our high-performance computing capacity by a factor of 1,000.

In recent years, we have pioneered a number of digital technologies that have enabled us to build out a massive data lake, which provides our engineers and technicians with real-time visualization and analytics of all our wells and plant data.

For example, our BP Well Advisor program integrates data from wells with predictive tools, to help operators improve decision-making. Not only has this made our operations safer, but it also has made them far more efficient, saving hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing unproductive drilling time.

Meanwhile, BP has discovered several hundred million barrels of resources by using advanced seismic imaging algorithms devised at our Center for High-Performance Computing. In addition, production optimization technologies have helped us increase our daily oil and gas production by thousands of barrels.

In short: Since the term digital oilfield was first introduced, BP and other companies have tested and successfully deployed a wide range of new technologies. We have learned first-hand how to overcome the cultural and process challenges of introducing digital technologies to safety-critical, performance-driven offshore environments.

Looking ahead, as computing power increases and sensor technology becomes more sophisticated, there will be further possibilities for a digital transformation everywhere in the upstream from subsurface imaging, project engineering and operations, to finance, supply chains and logistics.

This is the kind of transformation that excited me in 2003 and continues to drive me today.

Waves of digital technology will keep coming at us. Pervasive sensing, high-end analytics and visualization, digital twins of equipment and facilities, automation, remote operations, cognitive computing all of these offer intriguing possibilities and have been exciting subjects to explore at this weeks Offshore Technology Conference here in Houston.

Ahmed Hashmi is BP head of upstream technology.

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OTC Commentary: How digital technology is transforming oil - FuelFix (blog)

The frequent use of explosive devices in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has given birth to a new type of war injury that clinicians are now labeling the invisible wound of war: multiple mild traumatic brain injuries, or mTBI.

Recent research has shown that multiple exposures to explosions, even from a safe distance from flying shrapnel, may damage the brain. But we still have no idea how strong a blast needs to be to cause trauma. Now, researchers are working on advancing new technology that can accurately measure blast strength, and whether or not it causes an mTBI.

Since 2010, there have been more than 361,000 service members diagnosed with some form of traumatic brain injury, according to the US Defense Departments Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. The three different forms of TBIsevere, moderate, and mildall manifest in different ways ranging from memory loss and extended unconsciousness to a simple headache. Mild TBI tends to go unnoticed. One blast may not cause effects like memory loss or slurred speech, the telltale signs of brain trauma, and, especially while in theatre, theres really no easy way to diagnose the condition, says Alex Balbir, director of Warrior Care Network and Independence Services at the Wounded Warriors Project.

The brain has very interesting ways of responding to these mild traumas, says Balbir. Its only after a few [mTBIs], thats when you start to see the effects of the trauma like memory loss and slurred speech.

In an effort to fill that technology gap, Timothy Bentley, and his team at the Office of Naval Researchs Warfighter Performance Department in Arlington, Virginia, have engineered new sensor technology that could give medics on the battlefield a clearer idea of whether or not an injury actually occurred after a blast. The coin-sized sensors, placed in service members helmets and tactical gear, detect the impact of a blast wavewhich moves faster than the speed of soundand assign it a number, a measure of blast strength. The number is then run through an algorithm that computes how a service member was hit by a blast, which sensors were activated based on their placement, and then tells medics if the service member needs to get off the field immediately or not.

If the algorithm shows a possible mTBI, medics in the field have the service member hold a mouse-sized toolnicknamed the brain gaugethat stimulates the fingertips through eraser-sized vibrators. The brain gauge vibrates each finger for a different length of timeif a service member cant recognize which vibrations last longer, its highly likely he or she has suffered an mTBI.

The combination of the sensors, algorithm, and brain gauge would make for the first-ever medical determinant on whether or not an mTBI occurred.

That would be a huge improvement over the militarys current solution: a precautionary 24-hour stand down policy. Service members who are within 50 meters of any kind of explosion have to go for a medical evaluation that consists of mainly checking vital functions before going back outwith a minimum of 24 hours kept off the field. That policy, some say, doesnt take into consideration former injuries. For example, someone standing beyond the 50-meter threshold who has had multiple mTBIs could be affected worse than someone who has never had an mTBI standing within the threshold.

Its like if you have a big earthquake hit San Francisco, says Charles Marmar, director of the Cohen Veterans Center at New York Universitys Langone Medical Center. The bridge that falls probably wont be the Golden Gateits been fortified. The one that collapses could be the one miles away that is a bit more rickety.

And the policy has also been contested, says Steven Flanagan, chair of rehabilitation medicine at the Langone Medical Center. Theres evidence coming out that shows if you prescribe immediate rest and compare that to someone who wasnt prescribed rest, [the latter] actually got better much quicker, he says. Theres still a great deal to learn here. But generally, though, folks will get better on their own [without rest]. In other words, argues Flanagan, the 24-hour policy has no known benefits.

That means a lot of time squandered, says Bentley. Since service members have to stand down in all blast situations, that could mean even the smallest of explosions can hamper a mission. If youre within 50 meters of a firecracker, thats 24 hours wasted, he says.

The sensors being tested by Bentley could solve for these problems, he says, and inform policy changes grounded in better data. The research, which runs a price tag of $30 million and a five-year lifespan, is currently being tested on animals and at bases using electrical shockwaves. Bentley says that within the year, the technology could start being tested on those who spent (and some who continue to spend) lots of time in close proximity to explosions.

Another goal, Bentley says, is to apply data collected in the military to the civilian world, such as in football where multiple concussions have been recognized to cause severe brain injuries later in life for players. Though there are no current plans to sell the sensors to institutions like the National Football League, Bentley says theyve tested it during football games on military bases, and it seems to work.

Weve tested this on thousands of athletes at this point, and with those athletes you can predict and see what sort of and how severe their injury is and how long their recovery will take, Bentley says. This is a big deal and weve made a lot of progress. Its only a prediction and only statistical, but we now have a personal measure of your exposure.

Experts said its just a matter of time before this technology could be used in the civilian world, which desperately needs it. During a House Committee on Armed Services Hearing, military scientists touted their rates of brain trauma-related death to be far lower than that in the civilian world2% compared to 10%and much of that has to do with the research and funding that has gone into projects like Bentleys. If the sensor, algorithm, and brain-gauge tools prove to be substantially effective over the next three years while in testing, they could make all the difference in any profession that has to deal with the threat of head trauma.

Read more from the original source:

The US military has a new technology to finally solve the concussion crisis - Quartz

At Decision Sciences International Corp.s Poway headquarters, a 20-foot shipping container sits beneath a car-wash size scanner.

After about a minute, images of the containers contents pop up on a nearby TV screen, complete with a color-coded identification of the objects based on how they interact with naturally occurring subatomic particles.

Its not a pretty picture. Theres ammunition, firearms, TNT, alcohol and currency inside. If shielded nuclear material were in the container, the companys technology would identify it, too, said Chief Executive Dwight Johnson.

If youre (a customs) officer and you had a manifest that said its all furniture, youd stop right now, said Johnson. Its not all furniture.

Last week, Decision Sciences said it received a contract with the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs to install one of its next-generation cargo scanning systems at its main port.

Though a pilot project, Decision Sciences is betting it will lead to further deployments of its technology, which is licensed from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and has been refined for more than a decade.

In terms of total volume, Singapore is the second-largest port in the world, said Johnson. So this is a very important event for Decision Sciences.

The 70-employee company is one of a handful of firms working on new technology to better scan cargo containers, which became a priority after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

These new systems aim to push beyond todays passive radiation detection and active high-energy X-ray based scanning which do well uncovering smuggled nuclear material but arent as good at finding narcotics, guns and other conventional contraband.

The way to look at the next generation systems is going from human inspection of a projected image to materials identification, said Robert Ledoux, chief executive of Massachusetts-based Passport Systems, which recently deployed a next-generation scanning system in Boston.

The real bottleneck in the existing systems is if you find an anomaly, your only option without materials identification is to de-van the cargo, and that can take tens of hours and cost a lot of money, he said.

Passport System identifies guns, drugs and other contraband based on their atomic number a measure of their density. But it still uses high-energy X-rays in its scanning process.

Decision Sciences scanning technique is passive. It doesnt use X-rays beams to create three-dimensional images or identify whats in a container.

Instead, it tracks naturally occurring subatomic particles called muons, as well as electrons, to call out a containers contents.

Muons are like electrons but heavier with 200 times the mass. Theyre also very short lived. But when they hit something, they deflect at a particular way, giving clues as to what the material is.

The company says its machine learning software uses this information -- along with the behavior of nearby electrons -- to uncover not only shielded nuclear material but also narcotics, firearms, cigarettes, smuggled people and other contraband.

Its scanner consists of thousands of vacuum-sealed aluminum tubes, each filled with an inert gas mixture and an proprietary electrode. The software creates an image of whats in the container and color codes it based on how these objects react to these naturally occurring subatomic particles.

Each year, more than 11 million maritime containers arrive at U.S. ports. Another 13 million come in via by truck and rail, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Since 9-11, every container entering the U.S. by sea or land is scanned by radiation detectors over concerns that terrorists might try to smuggle nuclear weapons into the country.

In addition, Customs agents target about 5 percent of ocean-going containers as high risk. Those containers are subject to X-rays to get an image of whats inside. No nuclear materials have ever been found.

Decision Sciences thinks more containers can be scanned faster with its technology.

What I think we have is a platform technology, lets call it charged particle tomography, said Stuart Rabin, head of New York-based Nine Thirty Capital and chairman of Decision Sciences board of directors. If you have a passive product that can be deployed in multiple locations and scan a large percentage of the volume, it opens up all sorts of applications.

It took years to get the technology right, said Johnson. Some of the original patents go back 10 years, but I would say it has been in the last couple of years that the product fundamentally changed.

In 2012, Decision Sciences, at its own cost, installed an early version of the system at a port in the Bahamas to collect data.

Rabin declined to say how much the companys car-wash size scanning systems cost. He also wouldnt reveal how much money has been invested in the company, which Rabin said is mostly privately funded.

Last year, it did receive a contract from the Pentagons Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office with a potential value of $5.2 million.

While the company is focused on cargo containers at ports for now, it sees the potential to expand into other industries, such as sporting event security or protecting critical infrastructure.

Ledoux of Passport Systems called his companys technology more imaged based and comprehensive than Decision Sciences system, but also likely more expensive because it generates an X-ray beam.

Its apples and oranges, but I think the government wants to test both and that is a good thing, he said.

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973

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Why this company's scanning technology is a smugglers' nightmare ... - The San Diego Union-Tribune

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By Michael Cooney

Online News Editor, Network World | May 4, 2017 9:18 AM PT

In detailing its third quarter 2017 financial discussion Extreme CEO Ed Meyercord said the company was locked and loaded as it worked toward combining and integrating the two companies Avaya and Brocade it is in the process of purchasing.

Extreme a lot of work ahead as it combines Brocade's data center business and the network technology of Avaya Holdings which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy both of which it said it would acquire in March. Extreme added that it has now integrated another buy it made, Zebra wireless with great success. Extreme said that in the third quarter alone four of its top 10 deals came from the Zebra side.

+More on Network World: Juniper takes a swipe at Extremes network buying spree, plans+

In the end, Extreme said it expects the Avaya and Brocade deals to push its revenues to over $1 billion for its Fiscal 2018 year which begins July 1.

The company is now working on a technology integration roadmap which it could talk about as soon as June 2 when it holds an investor conference in New York.

We will benefit from the newly refreshed platform releases for both Avaya and Brocade with VOS and SLX platforms and advanced fabric technologies that bring security, visibility, automation, resiliency and flexibility into the data center and campus networks at any scale, Meyercord said.Each of our companies has been driving independently toward a bright-box model, a common technology base where we support simple form factors built on merchant silicon and a common Linux base. Our collective vision is to provide the industry's first fully customizable networking platforms powered by a set of services and functions access through a cloud -- a common cloud library of features.

+More on Network World: Avaya wants out of S.F. stadium suite, not too impressed with 49ers on field performance either+

A few other key updates gleaned from the financial call include:

A full transcript of Extremes third quarter conference call is available from Seeking Alphas website here.

Cooney is an Online News Editor at Network World and the author of the Layer 8 blog, Network World's daily home for the not-just-networking news. He has been working with Network World since 1992.

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Extreme offers glimpse of integrated Avaya, Brocade technology future - Network World

HOUSTON The oil industry's top equipment and services suppliers this week are hawking vastly cheaper ways of designing and equipping subsea wells, aiming to slash the cost of offshore projects to compete with the faster-moving shale industry.

At the Offshore Technology Conference, the industry's annual gathering of floating rig and subsea well suppliers, sales pitches this year are all about cost savings and faster time to first production. With U.S. crude priced CLc1 under $50 a barrel, offshore projects with their typically high costs and long-lead times are now borrowing from leaner shale in the competition for oil company investment.

Low oil prices have soured new exploration in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, for instance, but production volumes there have remained strong due to the long lead times of these projects. Gulf of Mexico producers are expected to add 190,000 barrels per day this year to output now running about 1.76 million bpd.

Tool and services companies are offering new technologies that can do several jobs, taking the place of multiple devices or highly-paid consultants.

National Oilwell Varco Inc (NOV.N) is exhibiting software it touts as performing much like a drilling expert, sorting through vast amounts of data to find ways to speed production and reduce downtime.

The new software "takes actions a person would do and runs them automatically. It's low cost and it's simple" said David Reid, National Oilwell Varco's chief marketing officer.

Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N) is showing a new tool called DeepFrac that it said eliminates several steps now required to complete underwater wells. That saving pares the price of a well by up to 40 percent, speeding first production and lowering the break-even cost for producers.

"This helps sharply cut some of the risk of drilling an offshore oil well and, we believe, sharply reduces costs for our customers," said Jim Sessions, a vice president of technology at Baker Hughes.

Graham Hill, an executive vice president at KBR Inc (KBR.N), detailed the construction company's plan for a cheaper floating production vessel, saying the new vessel fits producers' tight budgets. KBR can hope to earn more by selling extra features.

"This is like ordering a Ford," he said. "There's a base package, and you can add extras."

Richard Morrison, president of BP plc (BP.L)'s Gulf of Mexico region, said the industry has accepted that crude prices will probably stay low, meaning oil producers like BP must work with services providers to reduce the multibillion dollar cost of offshore projects.

"That break even point can't come back to $80 a barrel, so I've got to figure out ways to work with my supplier over the long-term to keep that in check," he said during a presentation.

Morrison touted BP's use of new seismic imaging technology that helped identify 1 billion additional barrels of "possible resources" at four of its U.S. Gulf of Mexico offshore fields. The technology enhances existing seismic images to find oil hidden beneath salt structures deep underground.

Just weeks away is a coming Vienna meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries where OPEC and other oil producers are to decide whether to continue production curbs past June.

If OPEC fails to continue the curbs, oil prices could fall again, making a difficult market worse, said Charles Cherington, a co-founder of Intervale Capital, a private equity investor in oilfield services.

Assuming OPEC continues the existing curbs, Cherington said the best the industry can hope for this year is crude "gets to the low to mid $50s (a barrel)" or half what it fetched at this time three years ago.

Few oilfield suppliers are generating steady profits, he said, and "in the short run, we don't see the market getting much better," he added.

Marc Gerard Rex Edwards, chief executive of rig provider Diamond Offshore Drilling (DO.N), on Monday reported its first quarter earnings declined on revenue down 25 percent from a year ago.

"I think we're beginning to see the signs of a bottom," he told Wall Street analysts, adding: "But I'm not exactly calling a bottom in the market at this particular moment in time."

(Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault, Liz Hampton and Ernest Scheyder, Writing by Gary McWilliams; Editing by David Gregorio)

NEW YORK As rapid growth in U.S. shale production grabs headlines and threatens to upend attempts by OPEC to balance oil markets, a more unsung sector of the U.S. industry is also hitting new output highs - the offshore Gulf of Mexico.

LAUNCESTON, Australia The heat came out of China's iron ore imports in April, with vessel-tracking and port data suggesting a decline of several million tonnes from the near-record levels recorded in March.

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Slumping oilfield services sector bets on new offshore technology - Reuters

Bill Joy, in 2003.

Bill Joy, the Silicon Valley guru and Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founder, sees the future of energy in a battery that can take a bullet.

The venture capitalist formerly with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC is now dedicating most of his time to Ionic Materials Inc., a Woburn, Massachusetts-based startup developing lithium batteries that wont burst into flames. Theyre strong enough to withstand being pierced by nails and even getting shot, as the company demonstrates in a promotional video.

The effort is part of a global race to devise better storage systems for hand-held devices, cars, trucks and electrical grids. The problem is conventional lithium-ion batteries contain liquid electrolytes that wear out quickly and have a nasty habit of spontaneously combusting, sometimes aboard jetliners. Ionic Materials says its solved those problems by crafting batteries from a solid plastic-like material.

If you can make the battery out of a solid, these problems essentially disappear, Joy said in a phone interview, speaking from a boat in the South Pacific. Its really a breakthrough in cost, safety and performance.

Quick Take: Read more about headaches with lithium-ion batteries.

That could fill a need, said Yayoi Sekine, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Safer stationary storage batteries are definitely welcome in the industry, she said by email.

Joy, who was chief scientist at Sun Microsystems until 2003, first toyed with the notion of a solid battery about 10 years ago when he and colleagues at Kleiner Perkins came up with a list of grand challenges.

The idea was to imagine the technological breakthroughs that could change the world. For example, what if concrete could be made without producing carbon dioxide? Could sugar be extracted from wood chips and other non-edible plant scraps and made into biofuel? And is it possible to develop a battery without volatile liquid electrolytes?

With a list of transformative ideas in hand, Joy and his colleagues scoured laboratories, universities and beyond looking for scientists on the cusp of solving any of these grand challenges. If everything penciled out, Kleiner Perkins would invest.

Thats a different approach than most venture people, Joy said. They typically have people knock on their door and give them story pitches. We went out and looked.

Joy and his partners came up with about 25 grand challenges and found about 15 projects to fund. About half of those have evolved into viable businesses. They include Renmatix Inc., a biofuel company that received $14 million in funding last year from investors led by Bill Gates and the French oil giant Total SA.

The answer to Joys solid-state battery questions came viaMike Zimmerman, aTufts University professor and Bell Laboratories veteran who was already working on the technology and foundedIonic Materials in 2011. Joy sponsored an initial Kleiner Perkins investment that year. He has since invested personally in the company and sits on its board. My major commitment right now is helping with Ionic, Joy said.

It wont be easy. The energy-storage market is crowded with companies and researchers pushing to come up with technology to dethrone conventional lithium-ion batteries.

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Ionic Materials has about 25 employees, and its working to scale up production. Manufacturing may begin within two to three years, Zimmerman said. The company plans to bring the cost of its batteries down as low as $30 per kilowatt-hour within about five years -- significantly below the current $273volume weighted average cost of lithium-ion battery packs calculatedby Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

You will see this technology widely adopted, in everything from consumer electronics, to transportation to energy storage for the grid, Joy said. Weve been pretty quiet about what weve got, but this can radically transform things.

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Technology Guru Bill Joy Is Betting on a Bulletproof Battery - Bloomberg