Engineering Outlook

Short for "electronic mail," e-mail was invented in 1971 by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson (1941-) who developed a communications program for computer users at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The result was ARPAnet, a program that allowed text messages to be sent to any other computer on the local network. ARPAnet is now hailed as the Model T of the Information Superhighway. The technology expanded in the 1970s with the use of modems, which connect computers via telephone lines. Within a decade of its introduction, e-mail had become widely used as a communications mode in the workplace. In the 1990s usage expanded rapidly to Internet users at home, schools, and elsewhere. Some technology analysts call e-mail the "killer app" of the Internet, the most powerful tool on the worldwide computer network.

Mobile communication dates back to radiophones used in the 1940s and 1950s. They were two-way radio systems that were powered by car batteries and required operator assistance; they were not very reliable, and the phones were anchored to a place, not a person. The first truly mobile phone call, in that it used a portable handset, was manufactured on April 3, 1973. The caller was Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola, who, from the streets of Manhattan, called rival researcher Joel Engel at Bell Laboratories (AT&T's research arm); the two companies were in a heated race to develop mobile telephony. The device used by Cooper that day was called the Dyna-Tac; it weighed two pounds and had simple dial, talk, and listen features. The first generation of mobile phones began to be widely used in the 1980s. These phones were large by today's standards and were usually installed in a car or briefcase. Transmission was via clusters of base stations, or cellular networks. The ...

IBM has developed a microprocessor which it claims comes closer than ever to replicating the human brain. The system is capable of "rewiring" its connections as it encounters new information, similar to the way biological synapses work. Researchers believe that that by replicating that feature, the technology could start to learn. Cognitive computers may eventually be used for understanding human behaviour as well as environmental monitoring. Dharmendra Modha, IBM's project leader, explained that they were trying to recreate aspects of the mind such as emotion, perception, sensation and cognition by "reverse engineering the brain." The SyNAPSE system uses two prototype "neurosynaptic computing chips". Both have 256 computational cores, which the scientists described as the electronic equivalent of neurons. One chip has 262,144 programmable synapses, while the other contains 65,636 learning synapses. Man machine In humans and animals,...

When we think of underground confined spaces , we usually think of sewer manholes, the most common type. Although they meet the definition in OSHA 29 CFR 1910.146, “Permit-Required Confined Spaces,” they are usually assembled of precast concrete sections when they are built and pose limited hazards to the workers (and to firefighters and EMS personnel responding to work sites) besides the usual hazards in working in and around excavation. These usual hazards include access to the site on foot and in vehicles, unstable ground, excavations, and spoil piles and access into the space under construction . According to the proposed revisions to OSHA’s 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, excavations and trenches will be considered confined spaces , and under some conditions under both present and proposed regulations, they may be permit-required confined spaces even though they are open to the atmosphere. Other types of underground confined spaces are larger, more complex, and more hazardou...

Lathes are machine tools which can take a piece of material and perform various functions on it including drilling and sanding. They can be used on wood, metal and glass. While they are generally relatively small, there are also large industrial machine lathes which can handle greater workloads. There also combination lathes which can perform a variety of additional functions. They are versatile pieces of kit, and thanks to Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) technology they can now be operated from a computer rather than cumbersome, manual controls. This makes them much easier to schedule and operate, continually churning out parts with occasional supervision. Using a computer to control a lathe means that designs and specifications can be adjusted more accurately and systematically, and means that to use a lathe and operator doesn't necessarily have to be highly skilled or experienced with the manual controls. In the old days knowledge of individual machines was se...