An interesting approach…. it will never pass, but its a cool idea to foster innovation, by either A the employer, or B the employee, if IP is not acted upon. Considering way less than 2% of all patents generate any revenue, the bill does make some sense. There is always the change an employee could run with something which their employer either was unable to, or chose not to.

Apart from the political aspect of this bill, the headache is in the domain of trade secrets. Thats really where the rubber hits the road, and why I would not support such a bill as it stands. If there was a way to ensure some level of trade secret protection, without involving a lengthly legal mess, the concept of use it or loose it is not such a bad idea. As it is written, I see the writing on the wall where only attorneys would win…. and it could be hugely detrimental to employers if trade secrets, or even just enough info to somewhat understand a trade secret came with the idea.

Japan Warns Of iPod Fire Risks – Podcasting News.

There really is no rocket science to designing LiIon protection circuitry, nor manufacturing such… but the risk of botching it is significant, thus care is needed. And that care seems to be absent a great deal. Granted everyone wants to be cheaper than every other guy, and cost controls are key… but not when it comes to protection circuitry, esp where such could lead to personal injury or death if such fails.

Yet, repeatedly, we see LiIon cells catching on fire…. granted, its been a few years since I was a chief engineer, but FMECA (failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis) were a critical part of any type of product design where a failure could concievable lead to a fire and loss of life. Granted, some products dont need a full Mil-Std-1629A analysis, and others will find that standard a bit week… but some level of FMCEA is a must. Winging a design where the potential for fire or explosion exists is pretty egregious.

Of course, the product design itself is often times only part of the issue… errors in manufacturing, whether it be via raw material or incoming part errors, or assembly errors can seriously compromise even the best of designs. In todays world of lean manufacturing, 100% final test and validation is often times skipped, to say nothing of process verification, much less stringent adherence to a avl and incoming parts qual. If the stats prove things out, often times with all too low a sample size. the potential for, and the mitigation of such errors ends up going out the window in the interest of cost savings.

Granted, there does exist an standard IEC 62133 – titled, Secondary Cells and Batteries Containing Alkaline or Other Non-Acid Electrolytes – Safety requirements for Portable Sealed Secondary Cells, and For Batteries Made from Them, for use in Portable Application. But alas, it is dated…. IEEE, CTIA and UL also have standards in the works, or soon to be released.

I thought this was an interesting comment from IEC online news…

Li-Ion batteries can’t be sold without built-in overcharge protection and over-discharge protection. Refurbished batteries, or after-market batteries, however, can also cause failures, such as explosions and fires. These and other after-market batteries–imitation battery packs with false labeling—can be of lesser quality than those provided by original equipment manufacturers and may not be designed with appropriate safety circuits.

Hmmm… considering many of the fires seem to be coming from OEM products, as contrasted with aftermarket, obviously someone or something is asleep at the switch. Yep, I had an oem cell battery about burst into flame, apparently someone got a real good deal on counterfiet goods at the oem… which they caught, and then recalled, but that happened after my phone melted. Thank goodness i was around when it started to go.

I’ve designed in Li Ion batteries as well as chargers… its not rocket science, but it does require a concerted effort on the part of all parties to ensure something doesnt go wrong in a very bad way. I’ve even consulted on botched battery designs, where in something got done on the cheap… and they caught the problem in production when things started getting hot. That is no time to be playing redo, but better there than after a fire has occureed and someones live was lost.  A few days running a FMECA upfront, AND acting on the results of such is so much easier, than dealing with stopped production, a product liability lawsuit, or even the death of a customer or their family. This is nothing to mess with… its just too critical to wing it, or design and chuck over the wall. Holistic engineering, design,  and manufacturing is a critical part of this…. its not worth skipping some steps in the interest of a few bucks.

I also found a link to the Conference Brochure. Its pretty hard to navigate around all the links and clutter. I hope to build a mini online CES over the next few days, for my own future reference. Perhaps it will be helpful to others as well.

This was just too funny…..

and true btw as well. No wonder we have code bloat city.

The fun of flood recovery. I finally got an answer from the ins co yesterday. Insurance does not cover the loss…. well, I sort of figured that was the case. I don’t live anywhere near a flood plain, and in order to have water here, it would be exceedingly rare. Well, I was wrong… a 500 year flood can and does do a lot of damage.

So, I’ve been ripping out drywall, removing mold and mildew and chucking a lot of stuff. I had a fair amount of inventory, files, books, computers, and networking gear, all trashed. Thank goodness for hard drive backups that were elevated, but alas they were not totally in sync. The hard copy stuff is of course gone. It has been interesting to say the least.

I guess the good thing is, I’ll have one heck of a nice tax deduction, yet the bad thing is, with the loss of inventory, and local clients, the income dropped to about nill.

Thus, its been clean, and repair, while figuring out what all to take on next. One of the things the FEMA folks said, was not to try and save stuff unless it was clearly easy. In retrospect, that was some good advice. I probably should have stepped in, and just chucked more stuff, rather than try to recover or repair it, and instead concentrated on the infrastructure issues like wood and framing.

Thus, now things are a bit more complex than they ought to have been. At least going in with a wreaking bar early on, did allow the walls to drain, and hopefully mitigated the worst of things.

This is a cool website detailing the fabrication of replacement arcade game parts. Its interesting to note the use of PETG as the material selection. I guess it makes sense as its thermoforming range is pretty high, as contrasted with the narrow temperature range of ABS. I don’t think using ones home oven is a good idea though, as the plasticizers outgas, and no doubt serve to contaminate ones oven. Then again, a self clean cycle would no doubt remove them, but then one has the potential for toxic fumes to deal with. Even the thermoforming temps cause some level of fumes, which no doubt should be exhausted outside, rather than into ones kitchen.

Certainly, skypes target market is not the guru’s, as thats not where the the high call volumes are going to come from. Ie, a fracture mechanics expert billing out $1000/hour is not the sort of expert, one is going to randomly pick from a Skype list. These types of expertise require a lot more hand holding up front, and a more conventional approach to service.

Yet, I do think their is a lot of potential in other areas, ie computer and software tech support, especially in the arena of open source seems to be a nice fit for this offering. Another possibility is using skype prime as a loss leader to increase one’s customer base. Of course, the issue with that, is sticker shock, once a contract is on the table.

Being skye primr will eventually be a global offering, the potential for savings from a user standpoint is significant, provided one can overcome the language barriers. Yet, this could also be counterproductive in that it could go the way of elance, where everyone and his brother jumps on the bandwagon, quality suffers, and the prices are so low, that the highly experienced and specialized experts stay away from it.

The question is, whether I’ll give it a go or not. Certainly I am not going to offer full blown services, as it would be a huge loss financially. Yet, within some niche areas, there is a lot that can be learned, the financial risk is lower, and being I would severely restrict my availability, it might be something worth giving a go, at least for a trial period for educational purposes.

Skype Prime Beta introducing the global expertise marketplace – Skype Blogs

As much as I crab about politics, not so much here, but elsewhere in webspace, I need to express my appreciation for the FBI. The average Joe on the street, unless one knows an agent personally knows they exist, and has an idea what they do, but thats about it. That was my perception as well, until a couple weeks ago.

Besides doing the invention work, I’m also a fairly heavily involved with web 2.0. Well a couple weeks back, we had a situation, where in someone went more than too far. And as a result, we had to take action. Normally this results in a lengthy conversation of what to do, and who to contact. In the mean time, another person contacted local law enforcement. In a matter of a few hours, we had contact with a couple FBI agents, and they got right to the task at hand. It made me wonder if these folks ever get any sleep, as their dedication was amazing, and their proactive stance to protect the public gave me the utmost confidence.

Sure, there are a lot of problems presented in the news media, where in the US govt goes too far. Yet, seeing these folks work, and their dedication shows there are some really great people in govt. I am incredibly impressed.

And yes, everything is cool….

This is a hoot… I used to work with a fellow like this, although I must admit, this is a tad cleaner, because the monitor is not full of cigaret burns, and ashes all over the place. Yep, it used to be just blue in the office. I also don;t see any beer cans in the photo either.

This although off topic for my blog, is just too funny not to post.