IEN Radio

A pair of German industrial giants this week officially kicked off a pilot project in the heart of Silicon Valley that, they hope, will pave the way for autonomous taxis in dense urban corridors.   Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, and Bosch, an auto supplier and technology provider, first announced a joint effort to work on self-driving systems in 2017.   On Monday, the companies unveiled...

Earlier in the week, Fiat Chrysler became the last among the Detroit 3 to sit down at the bargaining table with the United Autoworkers Union. And while it’s easy to predict at least some drama, a new twist revealed Wednesday will provide a backdrop for the talks that NBC News is calling “explosive.” That’s because rival automaker General Motors has just filed a federal racketeering lawsuit, allegi...

There is perhaps no company in the world that will be happier to put 2019 behind them than Boeing. The aerospace giant started the year with a number of unanswered questions related to the crash of their 737 Max jet in Indonesia, along with increased competitive pressures from Airbus.  Then in March another 737 crashed in Ethiopia, which led to a near-global grounding of the plane and subsequent s...

This year's Hot Wheels report is out. The annual report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau details the ten most stolen vehicles in the United States.  The data comes from information submitted by law enforcement to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). According to the FBI, 748,841 vehicles were reported stolen in the United States in 2018, which is a 3% decline from 2017. It&ap...

Back in 2015, Amazon rolled out its innovative Dash Buttons — which were little oval electronic devices you could stick somewhere and re-order a specified amount of product by pressing its button. It was geared for Amazon Prime members to let them rapidly re-order home supplies like laundry detergent, coffee, juice, and cleaning items. Amazon discontinued its Dash Buttons this past February after...

In September, Jaguar opened up a state-of-the-art design studio in the UK. For the first time in the company's 84-year history, the entire design team assembled in a single location.  The studio is more than 12,000 square meters, doubling the previous footprint. It's enough room for the approximately 280 designers, with backgrounds in everything from fashion and watchmaking to sports and...

On Wednesday, SpaceX was conducting a pressure test on the SpaceX Starship MK1 at a facility in Boca Chica, Texas, when the top of the next-generation rocket exploded. LabPadre was streaming the test and captured the explosion, which sent debris flying in all directions.  According to The Verge , the explosion wasn't necessarily a setback, or unexpected. A SpaceX spokesperson told The Verge t...

It’s cyber Monday and, for many of us, that means sneaking glances at the online price slashing throughout the day in order to net the best deals possible on our holiday purchases. If your shopping takes you to Amazon, you already know that you need to be on alert for knock-off products as the e-tailer itself has admitted it faces challenges in policing the millions of SKUs it offers. But what abo...

DSG Technology specializes in patented, high-tech ammunition, and at a North Carolina firing range, the team recently showed off some of its new capabilities.  The first is CAV-X, super cavitating ammunition classified as a Multi Environment Ammunition (MEA). The ammo can be fired underwater using partially or fully submerged weapons and hit targets both underwater and in the air.  Ammo traditiona...

University of Waterloo researchers have created a new device that takes a small, cheap sensor and solves a sometimes heartbreaking problem.  More than 50 children have died in hot cars in 2019, and more than 100 dogs and other animals have died from heat-related causes over the last two years.  This new device combines radar with artificial intelligence to detect humans and animals alike, and in t...

Tubulanes are theoretical structures that exhibit extraordinary strength because they are made of crosslinked carbon nanotubes.  Researchers at Rice University's Brown School of Engineering recently 3D printed structures based on tubulanes, and they tested their strength the only way a red-blooded American institution knows how: they shot them.  Tubulanes were first theorized in 1993. While t...

Smart toilets on the market today primarily boast energy savings with more accurate flushes or simple luxuries like a seat warmer or massaging bidet.  Researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Morgridge Institute for Research are working on a smart toilet with knowledge that extends beyond the basin.  The team is working on a proof of concept smart toilet that would analyze your urine to ke...

The latest experimental aircraft in NASA’s famed X-plane program is edging closer to its debut flight. More than 70 years after the X-1 first broke the sound barrier, the space agency last week showcased the X-57 at its research facility in California. Instead of setting new speed records, however, NASA hopes the aircraft, named “Maxwell,” will take another step toward practical electric aviation....

If the Titanic taught us anything, it was that you never leave your fiancée alone with Leonardo DiCaprio and his sketch book, and labeling something as unsinkable is apparently a slap in the face of the maritime gods. Regardless, thanks to backing from the U.S. Army, the National Science Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers from the University of Rochester are claiming...

More and more business models are incorporating sustainability plans with actual teeth. That’s because the more we learn about climate change, the scarier it becomes and many organizations are smart enough to either truly care, or care about the potential business implications of doing nothing. But cutting carbon is hardest for those businesses that produce a lot of it, which is why some are respo...

On August 9, 2019, a fire at a Tyson meat processing plant in Holcomb, Kansas, forced the facility to shut down.  According to local reports , the sparks from welders conducting maintenance operations near the slaughterhouse likely caused the fire. No one was harmed in the blaze.  The complex is home to Tyson Fresh Meats, the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods.  The fire damaged the area that...

When Sakthi Automotive Group USA first opened its doors in 2014, it was to major fanfare. The first new auto supplier to open up in the Detroit area in ten years, this Indian-owned company built a flourishing campus producing knuckles and tooling arms for several major OEM clients. But the success story didn’t end there. Sakhti was lauded for hiring practices that gave priority to Detroit resident...

According to studies, if automatic braking systems were installed in every vehicle, the number of rear-end crashes would likely be cut in half… which is one major factor behind the decision by dozens of automakers to agree to put automatic braking systems in each of their new cars by year 2022.  Within three years of the standard, the IIHS says the systems will prevent an estimated 28,000 crashes...

A 64-year-old Ohio man received a 20-month prison sentence for illegally exporting industrial equipment to Iran, and he did it for more than a decade. In November 2006, Behrooz Behroozian became the owner and operator of Comtech International, a computer parts supplier in Dublin, Ohio. The problem was that Comtech didn't have a storefront or any domestic sales, and it rarely exported computer...

In 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board told ABC News that 97 percent of the airplane fatalities that occurred didn’t happen on commercial flights, and that small planes were involved in an average of five accidents per day. Much of this goes back to a lack of pilot training, the NTSB said at the time.  And it appears to be still true today, which is one of the reasons the avionics and n...

This August, a Microsoft subsidiary in Japan experimented with a four-day workweek. The company worked Monday through Thursday as part of a work-life balance project, and the workers received paid leave on Fridays.  The results were surprising as the company announced a nearly 40 percent boost in productivity. The figure was determined by comparing sales figures from August 2018.  According to the...

In October, Hyundai Motor Group became just the latest player to get into the flying car game when the company hired Dr. Jaiwon Shin as Executive Vice President and Head of the company's new Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Division. Shin led R&D projects like the supersonic X-plane at NASA for about 30 years.  On November 7, 2019, Hyundai's Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun revealed tha...

Some chameleons can snatch a cricket in 20 milliseconds; the average human blinks in about 300 milliseconds (on the quick end).  A team of researchers at Purdue's FlexiLab created high-speed prestressed soft actuators that mimic the chameleon's quick tongue using elastic energy. The robots are made of stretchable polymers, like rubber bands, only with internal pneumatic channels that exp...

Harvard researchers have created a new depth sensor inspired by the eyes of a jumping spider. It could soon be in everything from microbotics to wearable devices.  The tiny arachnids have incredible depth perception, which enables them to attack prey with great accuracy.  Researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a device that combines a mu...

Humanity is one of the biggest concerns with autonomous humanoid robots. What if they aren't human enough?  A team of researchers from the University of Illinois and MIT has developed a way to keep a human in the robot by tethering the two together.  The researchers have created Little Hermes. Right now, it's just a small robot torso with legs but is operates simultaneously with a human...