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Tech Tip: Fan selection - Why airflow is not just CFM

For many engineers, fan selection starts and ends with a single number: CFM (cubic feet per minute). Higher CFM feels like a clear win. More air moved must mean better cooling. However, in practice, this assumption is one of the most common causes of thermal problems, excess noise, and late-stage redesigns. Find out why.
Read this Orion Fans technical article.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

The hidden hardware helping AI's heat problem: PCHEs

Across AI infrastructure, thermal constraints now connect semiconductor design with power and cooling systems. More compact, lighter, and efficient than conventional shell-and-tube models, printed circuit heat exchangers save floor space, reduce energy costs, and improve overall efficiency in dense, hyperscale environments.
Read the full article.

Nearly 1,000 parts: Industrial enclosure range expanded

Altech Corp. has expanded its industrial enclosure lineup to 10 unique series with nearly 1,000 parts! Designed for control, junction, and terminal applications, these plastic and aluminum housings offer up to IP69 protection. They mount directly to walls or panels, resisting chemicals, corrosion, flames, impacts, and severe outdoor conditions without sacrificing aesthetics.
Find your perfect enclosure today.

Cool Tools: MetraSCAN BLACK2 -- Next-gen shop-floor 3D inspection

You'll gain some superhero powers when you brandish FARO CREAFORM's new MetraSCAN BLACK2, a next-gen portable metrology-grade optical 3D scanner engineered to deliver total inspection flexibility on the shop floor. This unit boasts a 3-in-1 architecture that combines C-Track scanning, stand-alone scanning, and probing in a single metrology-grade system.
Read the full article.

Compact, touchless position sensors: Wear-free operation in tight spaces

Novotechnik's TFD-4000 Series of touchless linear position sensors delivers wear-free measurement in tight spaces. Featuring ranges up to 50 mm, IP67 protection, 12-bit resolution, and analog outputs, these reliable sensors operate from -40 C to 125 C across diverse industrial, mobile, and medical applications such as short-stroke linear valve positioning, solenoid valves, off-highway brake actuation, and more.
Learn more.

World's first 10-m safety laser scanner: See farther, protect more

Datasensing, Datalogic's Sensor & Safety and Machine Vision business unit, has launched the SLS10 Safety Laser Scanner, the world's first 10-meter safety laser scanner. Delivering a 275-degree scanning angle, 240-m² of coverage, and an 84-msec response time, the SLS10 protects larger workspaces with fewer devices. It features best-in-class angular resolution for precise AGV navigation, SIL-2/PLd compliance, dust immunity, and the new ONEGUI platform for simplified configuration.
Learn more and see it in action.

Accelerate AI-driven machine vision systems

BitFlow has announced full production of its Claxon CXP-12 frame grabbers, designed for NVIDIA GPU-accelerated machine vision. Across five models, the CoaXPress 2.0 lineup delivers up to 50 Gbps -- five times 10 GigE Vision -- eliminating data bottlenecks. The full CXP-12 specification ensures deterministic, high-bandwidth streaming to unleash modern AI inference models.
Learn more.

Millimeter-wave imaging inspection in real time

With its new quality and inspection R&S IMAGER millimeter-wave scanner, Rohde & Schwarz aims to simplify the industrial inspection of packaged products. The system sees through common packaging materials at production speed without using X-rays, protecting both products and operators. The high-contrast 3D images are used as digital twins and can be automatically integrated into AI-powered fault-detection systems. Sees through plastics, cardboard, and composites. Applications include food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, logistics.
Learn more.

What are single-loop process controllers?

PLCs are powerful, but complex control isn't always necessary. For standalone processes requiring single-variable monitoring -- like temperature, pressure, or flow -- a single-loop controller is ideal. See how single-loop controllers can streamline your next project.
Read the AutomationDirect tech tip.

Great Resources: Flexible circuit design guide

Tech-Etch uses advanced techniques to manufacture flex and rigid-flex circuits to exacting customer specs. Special processes include selective plating a single circuit with two different finishes, contoured circuits with variable metal thickness, semi-additive and subtractive techniques, open window or cantilevered contact leads, plus SMT for component assembly. Tech-Etch specializes in flexible circuits for medical, telecommunications, aerospace, semiconductor, and other high-reliability electronic applications.
Learn about flex circuits and get the guide (no registration required).

EMI Investigations: New immunity development system

Saelig Company announces the Langer E1 Immunity Development System for EMI investigations. This compact, affordable kit simulates burst and ESD interference to pinpoint layout weak spots down to IC pins. By eliminating "black box" guesswork early in development, engineers can efficiently identify coupling mechanisms, test measures, and resolve immunity issues before compliance failure.
Learn more and see it in action.

Battery packs for unmanned aerial vehicles

Re:Build Manufacturing has launched U.S.-assembled, NDAA-compliant lithium-ion battery packs for commercial, public safety, and defense UAV applications. Available in Core, Power, and Performance series, the packs use non-FEOC cells and are produced at Re:Build's advanced facility in New Kensington, PA. Re:Build also offers custom pack and battery management system development.
Learn more.

Easy-to-use precision measurement system

Optical Gaging Products has announced the StarLite S1, a compact, semi-automatic 3-axis video measurement system. It combines fully automatic video measurements with manual stage motion and features an IntelliCentric-S optical system for high-resolution images. Powered by Measure-X software, this system delivers fast, repeatable, high-accuracy results, making it ideal for both shop-floor and quality-control applications.
Learn more.

Why a soccer kick bends the ball path: SOLIDWORKS simulation

With SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, you can virtually test a ball's flight path and see the science behind its amazing trajectory. Visualize anything you want to test, including the physics that make a ball curve and dip, to optimize performance and reduce physical testing. See the SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation study setup and learn about the Magnus effect where a spinning object moving through a fluid curves away from its straight path. [Credit: Screenshot courtesy of SOLIDWORKS]
View the video.

What's next for internet privacy? Founder of World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee calls new U.S. ISP rules 'disgusting'

President Trump signed an executive order April 3 that finalized the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) internet privacy rules that would have stopped intrusive practices of ISPs. Internet service providers (ISPs) are now free to collect and share their subscribers' private data that includes precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children's information, and web browsing history. While ISPs are claiming they won't sell customer data, now that they are legally allowed to do it, there's lots of skepticism surrounding this claim.

According to the rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Privacy and security are two sides of the same coin: privacy is about controlling who has access to information about you, and security is how you maintain that control."

Many experts say that the executive order is just the beginning -- and the signs of new developments are already visible.

A notice has already been served by the Trump administration that net neutrality -- which guarantees that all content is equally accessible -- will be possibly revoked. If that happens, Verizon and other ISPs will also be able to control which content users see, giving preference to more lucrative options, and making it harder for independent streaming services or smaller sites to compete. Verizon is likely to be one of the quickest ISPs to take advantage of the new liberties, and will seek to use the subscriber data in order to provide sharply targeted advertising.

As a result of the rights given to Internet Service Providers, a new type of ISP might emerge: an ISP that is also an ad network and content company, taking full advantage of data it receives from its tracking supercookies and other methods.

According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, the measure repealing the FCC online privacy rules "was a disgusting bill, because when we use the web, we are so vulnerable." He said the problem with the internet is that it can be "ridiculously revealing" and notes that we have the right to go to a doctor in privacy, and similarly, we have to be able to go to the web in privacy.

NordVPN, a Virtual Private Network, which has seen its U.S. user inquiries triple in the past week, keeps warning American users about the necessity to take their own internet privacy into their own hands. "The next steps that ISPs might take to undermine internet user privacy are indeed worrying, so we want to stress that people need to use tools to protect themselves. If someone wants to swing the door wide open on your private life, make sure you have a key and a lock for that door," said Marty P. Kamden, CMO of NordVPN. "VPNs play the role of a lock when it comes to internet privacy. By encrypting all users' internet traffic into a secure tunnel that connects only to a VPN server, a VPN protects you from snoopers. It is the best known mechanism that keeps Internet traffic private and secure."

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) secures and encrypts Internet traffic, helping protect users' identity and data by hiding their IP address. It scrambles a user's online data, so an ISP cannot decode and use it for building an advertising profile. It also reroutes internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel, preventing any third parties (including the ISPs) from monitoring user's Internet traffic.

NordVPN has an obvious stake in this issue, because it provides VPN technologies.

Three more ways internet providers can impact online security
Here are three main ways that ISPs can potentially impact online security, given their new rights:

1. Storing large amounts of data could attract hackers. The storage security argument always reappears when discussing the mandatory ISP data-retention programs. Security experts and human rights groups usually agree that collecting citizens' data must be balanced with increased data protection. To make matters worse, the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has recently halted the enforcement of another ISP regulation. It would have required providers to take measures to protect user private data from security breaches. As a result, even if users' data gets hacked because of lax security, broadband providers will bear no responsibility.

2. ISPs could use enhanced tracking techniques. According to a 2015 study, at least nine ISPs, including AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone, were found to have been using a "supercookies." When supercookies are installed, every website a user visits, and every third party embedded in these websites, can track them. Even if a user deletes their browser's cookies or uses the Incognito mode, supercookies persist. Also, the effectiveness of some privacy tools may be weakened because the tracking could be added after the data leaves a device. To prevent trackers from being added on a network level, users would have to use a combination of tools to fully secure their internet traffic, such as a tracker blocker and a VPN for encryption. Thanks to FCC investigation, ISPs (such as Verizon) were fined and have since agreed to notify users about cookies and give an option to opt in before they can track their data. However, if FCC regulations keep getting struck down, ISPs might revert to using, or invent other, enhanced tracking methods.

3. ISP tactics might weaken web encryption. At the moment, ISPs can only track the portion of user traffic that is not encrypted. Although VPN service encryption is recommended, some people choose to rely on web page encryption offered by HTTPS protocol. Tracking is limited on HTTPS websites secured with SSL (Secure Socket Layer). In such websites, any data that is being sent between a user's browser and the server is encrypted. As such, SSL certificates pose a major problem for ISPs since their goal is to build advertising profiles based on their subscriber data. There have been talks of ISPs implementing a standard called Explicit Trusted Proxy, which would potentially allow ISPs to intercept encrypted HTTPS web-page data, decode it, process it, re-encrypt it, and then finally pass the re-encrypted data along to its original destination. Recent studies have shown that many tools used for inspecting HTTPS traffic end up weakening the encryption and potentially exposing it to various security breaches. If internet providers get their way and obtain access to HTTPS data, they could markedly reduce the security of the entire web.

Source: NordVPN

Published April 2017

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