Electronic Test Equipment Blog

No matter how adamantly managers dismiss social networks like Facebook and Twitter as nothing more than time-wasters, the landscape is changing. Companies are beginning to use the sites to connect employees with customers and with one another. How do your people use these increasingly ubiquitous resources? How are you responding to this paradigm shift? Do you regard the sites as resources or interlopers? How does your company control network interactions? How do you use the sites for business purposes? How will your behavior change in the future?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Electronic Test Equipment, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Electronic Test Equipment today.

Design-for-testability has been the war cry in printed-circuit-board manufacture since we learned to make fire. Yet many designers still resist complying for often unspecified performance reasons, then complain when production people have difficulty building boards that work. How have you pursued DFT goals? What proactive steps have you taken to maximize board performance and manufacturing yields? What objections have you heard from designers? How have you responded? How sensitive are designers to test requirements — or test engineers to design? How can each group improve communication and ultimate success?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Electronic Test Equipment, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Electronic Test Equipment today.

AI guru Ray Kurzweil predicts that we are designing ever-more-intelligent computers that will one day wrest control of the planet from human beings. He contends the takeover will prove thoroughly unpleasant, and that it will happen much sooner than most people expect. How real are his concerns? How can we maintain our superiority over machines? Should we stand in the way of this particular evolutionary scenario? Wouldn't the machines run a saner and more logical society than the human version? How content will you be to take a subservient role? Will we resort to a 'revolt of the humans' as in the Terminator movies?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Electronic Test Equipment, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Electronic Test Equipment today.

Difficult economic times affect more than just people who lose their jobs. The people who remain must often shoulder larger workloads to prevent projects from falling behind. An air of "waiting for the other shoe to drop" can erode morale and team spirit. How has the size and makeup of your team changed in the last year? Are you afraid you will lose your job? What signs do you see? If you are one of the lucky ones who remain, how do you continue to keep yourself motivated and to motivate the people around you?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Electronic Test Equipment, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Electronic Test Equipment today.

When the European Union first proposed the current stringent regulations on electromagnetic interference, non-European manufacturers, especially in the U.S., protested that the limits were unattainable and would adversely affect their ability to compete. Since then, protests have quieted considerably. How have you addressed the European EMI standards? Have you changed design, test, and certification procedures to meet them? Have you reduced your presence in the EU and concentrated product efforts elsewhere? Do you target specific European markets rather than try to provide products continent-wide?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Electronic Test Equipment, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Electronic Test Equipment today.