3-D displays without 3-D glasses

Public screenings have become an important part of major sports events. In the future, we will be able to enjoy them in 3-D, thanks to a new invention from Austrian scientists. A sophisticated laser system sends laser beams into different directions. Therefore, different pictures are visible from different angles. The angular resolution is so fine that the left eye is presented a different picture than the right one, creating a 3-D effect.

In 2013, the young startup company TriLite Technologies had the idea to develop this new kind of display, which sends beams of light directly to the viewers' eyes. The highly interdisciplinary project was carried out together with the Vienna Univ. of Technology.

A startup company and a university
Together, TriLite and TU Vienna have created the first prototype. Currently it only has a modest resolution of five pixels by three, but it clearly shows that the system works. "We are creating a second prototype, which will display color pictures with a higher resolution. But the crucial point is that the individual laser pixels work. Scaling it up to a display with many pixels is not a problem," says Jörg Reitterer (TriLite Technologies and graduate student in the team of Prof. Ulrich Schmid at the Vienna Univ. of Technology).

Costs of U.S. solar photovoltaic systems continues to decline

The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

The median installed price of residential and commercial PV systems completed in 2011 fell by roughly 11 to 14% from the year before, depending on system size, and, in California, prices fell by an additional 3 to 7% within the first six months of 2012. These recent installed price reductions are attributable, in large part, to dramatic reductions in PV module prices, which have been falling precipitously since 2008.

The report indicates that non-module costs—such as installation labor, marketing, overhead, inverters, and the balance of systems—have also fallen significantly over time. "The drop in non-module costs is especially important," notes report co-author Ryan Wiser of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, "as these costs can be most readily influenced by local, state, and national policies aimed at accelerating deployment and removing market barriers." According to the report, average non-module costs for residential and commercial systems declined by roughly 30% from 1998 to 2011, but have not declined as rapidly as module prices in recent years. As a result, non-module costs now represent a sizable fraction of the installed price of PV systems, and continued deep reduction in the price of PV will require concerted emphasis on lowering the portion of non-module costs associated with so-called "business process" or "soft" costs.

Research suggests modular design competence can benefit new product development

A new research study suggests that supplier integration into the new product development process can be more beneficial if buyers increase their competency in modular design.

Penn State Smeal College of Business faculty member Veronica H. Villena and her colleague Fabrizio Salvador of the IE Business School in Madrid examined the ways modular design competence can mitigate costs and challenges associated with supplier integration while making best use of the benefits. They also reveal that such benefits are limited when the buyer is pursuing high levels of product innovation.

Supplier integration refers to a supplier providing information and participating in decision-making during the development of new products and processes. Modular design refers to conceiving of products in terms of modules that can be modified without changing an overall product design.

By integrating suppliers into the new product design process, manufacturers can tap into supplier expertise and knowledge, share risk, cut manufacturing costs and improve technical performance.

The researchers concluded that modular design competence “makes design iterations less frequent, thereby curtailing buyer-supplier negotiations regarding the cost, timing and quality requirements of engineering changes associated with such iterations.”

However, supplier integration has challenges and drawbacks as well. It requires technical and managerial resources, there is a high level of design and technical interdependence and communication channels become more complex.

Tesla promises to add charging stations

DETROIT (AP)—Electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc. promises to boost the number of fast-charging stations in the U.S. and Canada to make cross-country travel by electric car possible in the next year.

The company said Thursday that by the end of next month, it will triple the number of charging stations it runs from the current eight, and the number will go to around 100 in the coming year, putting stations within reach of almost the entire populations of both countries.

The pace of construction is about twice as fast as the company had previously announced.

The expanded "supercharger" network will allow owners of Tesla's $70,000 Model S sedans to travel from Los Angeles to New York, probably by the coming winter, as well as make other long-distance trips. The Model S can travel about 200 miles (320 kilometers), or for about three hours, when fully charged. With the network, it can be recharged to 50 percent of its battery capacity in 20 to 30 minutes, allowing drivers to make quick stops before driving on.

The supercharging stations are about 10 times as faster than most public charging stations, Tesla said on its website.

Currently Tesla has eight supercharger stations in California and on the East Coast. It has plans to add four stations in California this summer. Stations also will be added during the summer so drivers can go from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle and Portland; and from Austin, Texas, to Dallas. They also will come on-line quickly in Illinois and Colorado.

Corning donates $1.8M mirror for space telescope

Corning Inc. has donated $1.8 million in high-tech components for a telescope a private group wants to launch into space.

The not-for-profit BoldlyGo Institute wants to put its ASTRO-1 telescope in orbit by the mid-2020s. The group says obtaining the components for a roughly 6-ft telescope primary mirror marks a major step toward the ambitious goal.

The institute said the space telescope would be used to study planets orbiting nearby stars as well as the Milky Way and other galaxies.

The components donated by the Corning, New York-based specialty glass maker had been intended for a NASA program that was cancelled.

The institute was formed this year to privately raise funds to increase the variety of space science missions. The group also wants to fund an unmanned trip to Mars.

Psychology researchers explore how engineers create

Simply put, engineers make things. But is finding that “new” invention a massive mental leap from point A to point B, or are there scores of unnoticed intermediate steps in between?

The University of Pittsburgh’s Joel Chan and Christian Schunn say that not enough has been done to understand how engineers create. Understanding the process, they say, may provide a road map for speeding up innovation.

Chan, a graduate student in psychology in Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and his mentor Schunn, a professor of psychology as well as a senior scientist in Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center, recently published a paper online in the journal Cognitive Science that delves into the workings of the creative engineering mind by examining the process in real life.

“Most companies make all their money on new products,” Schunn says. “They barely break even on old products. They have to innovate to be viable, and that’s a hard path to follow.”

In the pursuit of innovation, Schunn says, companies pay big money to consultants to help spur creativity. “But little of what they do is based on research,” he adds.

So, along with Chan, Schunn used multiple hours of transcripts of a professional engineering team’s “brainstorming” sessions and broke down the conversation systematically, looking for the path by which thought A led to thought B that led to breakthrough C.

Researchers investigate role of consumers in sustainable product development

Every day, tons of food lands on the garbage heap. In some cases, fresh produce is binned simply because it does not look good. One group of consumers were fed up with this waste and decided to found a company that uses left-over food to make jams and chutney. And there are many other examples, including the first car-sharing organizations and sustainable textile enterprises.

“These people aren’t looking to politicians or NGOs to solve social and ecological problems. They want to do something themselves and see business as an effective tool for solving these problems,” explains Prof. Frank-Martin Belz, Chair of Corporate Sustainability at the Technical Univ.  of Munich (TUM). “Others simply recognize the ever-rising demand for sustainable lifestyle choices and make a conscious move to fill a market gap while they can.”

Established companies are also keen to benefit from consumer’s ideas on sustainable living. Many organizations develop open innovation processes that engage end users in the development of new products. This can be anything from a food and drinks company organizing a brainstorming competition to a car manufacturer joining online communities to discuss new ideas for electric cars. “Consumers are not just product users. Many also have a great deal of technical know-how,” says Belz.

Using 3-D printers to create prototypes at home

New technologies such as 3-D printers could open up even more opportunities for individuals to design products on their own or in collaboration with companies. “Soon, anyone will be able to make a prototype at home,” explains Belz. “We believe there is a huge creative and entrepreneurial potential here that could feed into the development of a sustainable economy.”