Gadgets

09 May 23

Canada’s e-waste triples in just two decades

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The University of Waterloo researchers completed the first comprehensive estimate of e-waste in Canada to understand its lifecycle, from sales of electronic items to e-waste generation. Their findings reveal that the e-waste generation per person has increased from 8.3kg in 2000 to 25.3kg in 2020. The e-waste in Canada is…

27 Feb 23

Qualcomm phones to incorporate satellite-based messaging features

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Qualcomm revealed it is working with a group of Android smartphone companies to add satellite-based messaging capabilities to their devices. The California-based company, which is the world's biggest supplier of chips that connect mobile phones to wireless data networks, said it is working with Honor, Lenovo-owned Motorola, Nothing, OPPO, Vivo and…

13 Jan 23

Paper Batteries, Blue Quantum Dots, and Other Enabling Technologies from CES 2023

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

CES, the huge annual conference, showcase, and deal-making venue for the international consumer electronics industry, is not just about shiny new gadgets. It’s also about what’s under the hood—or at least what researchers and developers hope will be inside a whole host of devices some day.Here, in no particular order,…

11 Jan 23

CES 2023’s Four Wildest—and Catchiest—Gadgets

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The consumer electronics world looks to CES for the next big new technology that’s going to change our daily lives. These, of course, are few and far between. We then seek out dramatic changes in existing technology, a new display, say, that will make our old televisions look dim and…

03 Jan 23

CES 2023 Preview: A Stick-on-the-Wall TV, a COVID Breath Test, and More

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

I’m traveling today to Las Vegas for the in-person CES 2023. I’ll be joining with an expected 100,000 or so other retailers, journalists, and members of the consumer electronics industry.After two years of almost pointless virtual shows, I’m excited to get my eyes and hands on real devices. It’s hard…

02 Nov 22

Britain bids farewell to fax

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The lifecycle of fax machines has come to an end, or so Ofcom seems to believe. The UK regulator has proposed updating the USO – a set of rules that ensures everyone in the UK has access to telecommunication services – to remove the requirement for telecommunications companies to provide…

12 Oct 22

Teardown: Samsung foldable smartphones

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The foldable phone has been trying to make a comeback for nearly four years. There are new clamshell designs that recall the classic Motorola Razr but now fold out to offer the size of touchscreen seen as standard today. And there are book designs that open out to offer a…

02 Oct 22

This Idea Wasn’t All Wet: The Sensing Water-Saving Showerhead Debuts

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

For Evan Schneider, the family dinner table is a good place for invention. “I’m always, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if this or that,’” he says, “and people would humor me.”In 2012, with California in the midst of a severe drought, Schneider, then a mechanical engineering graduate student at Stanford University,…