IEN Radio

Batteries go through some intense testing. Researchers drive nails through them, crush them, overheat them, overcharge them and blast them with a laser, among other tests. Now, the engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have a new toy, an indoor tower that drops up to 500 pounds on lithium-ion batteries. The tower is actually the ninth in-house test, or as testing engineer Chris Grosso says, th...

Rocket Lab says reusing its rockets will help it launch small satellites more frequently.  The process of traveling to space is riddled with complicated and expensive engineering challenges, but efforts to make it more economical have thus far emphasized using rockets over and over again.   For most of the spaceflight era, the expensive rockets used to propel men and equipment into orbit were disc...

I know everyone thinks that the worst thing about those electric scooter share programs is that, once they’ve served the rider’s purpose, they’re just discarded like trash until someone from the company arrives to pick them up. It’s this issue that’s resulted in several cities to actually ban certain scooter companies from operating there altogether. But in the past year, we’ve learned that they c...

It’s been several years since much of America has fallen under the spell of the Edison bulb – the trendy lightbulb that goes hand-in-hand with today’s standard hipster décor comprised of bronze industrial fixtures and reclaimed barnwood.  But the Edison bulb offers more than just style: these vintage-looking bulbs come with LEDs, meaning they’re more efficient – and last longer – than bulbs equipp...

A couple of weeks ago Chevy unveiled a new-look Corvette touting an upgraded engine design capable of pushing the iconic sports car to new levels of speed and maneuverability. That news was obviously not lost on the folks over in Blue Oval land.  Ford recently unveiled the most powerful, street-legal Mustang in that brand’s 55-year history. The 2020 Shelby GT500 will feature a 5.2-liter supercharg...

A 28-year-old employee at an automobile seat factory has been arrested and charged with murder after allegedly shooting a co-worker on the assembly line. On Sunday, August 4, 2019, Angela Nichole Mayo shot and killed 27-year-old Shanina Smith while both were working at the Lear Corp. factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The factory manufactures seats and electrical systems for Mercedes-Benz, which has...

In late 2017, Confederate Motors, a high-end motorcycle manufacturer, announced that it was giving up on internal combustion engines . The Birmingham, AL-based company also changed its name. In January 2018, Curtiss Motorcycle was born with the plan to create affordable, but powerful electric motorcycles. Curtiss is going after the market aggressively. While the company doesn't plan to begin...

If you’re into video games you know that, if the controller doesn’t work right, then what’s the point… It appears Nintendo users are taking issue with a specific technology that’s been on the fritz for a while now and a newly filed class action lawsuit is pegging the problem on poor product design. Last week national law firm CSK&D – which specializes in class action suits – filed suit against...

Most computer programmers, we can assume, use their vast technical knowledge for good and – let me just say – whoever created the “document recovery” feature in Microsoft Word – thank you from all of us who can’t be bothered to click save, even in a thunderstorm. But despite all the life- and work-saving computer programmers out there, there are – of course – a few bad apples. And sometimes, their...

When Tesla first announced its upcoming Model Y all-electric crossover in March of this year, it was forced to share the stage with Audi, who also unveiled plans for its Q4 e-Tron around the same time. Both vehicles have release dates in 2020 and both target the popular crossover segment with close to 300 miles per charge. And while the two brands, known for luxury, intuitive interiors, will find...

It was inevitable. In fact, we were talking about it nearly three years ago .  But late last week Chevrolet finally unveiled the mid-engine Corvette. Moving the location of the engine symbolized a number of transitions for the iconic eighth-generation sports car. From an engineering perspective, the move provides better weight distribution for the C8, which improves handling and overall performanc...

Amazon is warning customers this week that nutritional supplements they purchased recently may be knock-offs. In an email to customers, first reported by Wired , Amazon said that certain Align nutritional supplements that were sold by 3rd party sellers – not including manufacturer Procter & Gamble – could likely be counterfeit. Amazon has assured customers they will be refunded for the product...

I know for a fact that we’ve all wondered whether someone could successfully fly across the English Channel on a homemade hoverboard. I mean… right? We’ve thought about that? Well, the short answer is no… you cannot. Or, not yet anyway. Yesterday, French inventor Franky Zapata took his “flyboard” to the French coastal town of Sangatte and hit the skies, attempting to be the first person to cross t...

This week, ITT Cannon, a division of ITT Inc., agreed to pay $11 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that it supplied untested electrical connectors to the military. According to the Department of Justice, ITT sold six models of connectors to the government directly through distributors and to government contractors who designed them into equipment sold to the government.  From Septembe...

 Yesterday marked the start of negotiation talks between the United Autoworkers Union – or UAW – and the Big 3 automakers – GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler … and according to industry experts, we shouldn’t expect this to be easy.  Not that you did.  According to Bloomberg auto executives may be in no mood to make concessions considering the auto market’s shrinking sales at a time when every major compa...

For any of you who have previously been or are currently being chastised for your addiction to first-person shooter games, the United States Army has your six. The Army recently announced that it will begin testing robotic combat vehicles that are remote-controlled by crews from the back of modified Bradley Fighting Vehicles dubbed Mission Enabler Technologies-Demonstrators, or MET-Ds. The tests a...

Lead based paint was banned for residential use more than 40 years ago, but those who live in older homes could still be paying the price. But the impact doesn’t stop there.  We learned this week that three paint manufacturers are still not off the hook, as they’ve finally settled a decades-long lawsuit with the state of California, after being accused of marketing the paint despite knowing of its...

Billionaire Richard Branson’s satellite launch business is one step closer to a live test flight after sending its launch vehicle plummeting into the California desert this week.   Like its sister spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit hopes to reduce costs by launching its rockets and small satellite payloads from an airborne jet. During this week’s “drop test,” the company’s modified...

A former CEO and chairman of a multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing company will spend the next 30 years in prison for an international fraud scheme that led to the collapse of one of the largest banks in Puerto Rico.  According to the Department of Justice, 56-year-old Jack Kachkar ran the now-bankrupt Inyx Inc. from 2005 to 2007.  The scheme started in 2005, when Kachkar took out loans fro...

If you’re BMW and you’re going to make a pickup truck concept, let’s face it – it’s going to be super fancy. And you’re going to insist that it’s just this little old thing you let some trainees tinker with, and you’re never actually going to make it in real life. But if you did… It would be kind of boss . BMW’s X7 truck has a 3.0-liter turbo inline-six, offering 335 horsepower – plus a longer bod...

Last week the Air Force inadvertently tried to add their own kind of fireworks to the holiday festivities. Apparently, an A-10C Thunderbolt II out of Moody Air Force Base in Georgia dropped three 25-pound nonexplosive training bombs after an unlucky encounter with a bird.  Fortunately, the rounds fell harmlessly just outside of Suwannee Springs in Northern Florida. Thus far the Air Force has faile...

So, whenever we talk about drones or unmanned aerial vehicle technology, we try to position these machines as having application potential for various industries. But let’s be real – the main purpose right now is for military operations.  This makes the drone’s ability to operate covertly extremely important. Now, you’re probably thinking we’re going to talk about stealth design, radar-jamming ele...

Harley-Davdison is the latest in a long line of vehicle manufacturers to partner with a Chinese company in an effort to capitalize on a massive, rapidly growing market. But the iconic motorcycle manufacturer is also making a significant design shift under its new agreement with Qianjiang Motorcycle Company. The Milwaukee company known for its large, loud bikes last year vowed to make some changes...

When you start out a custom engineering project with the phrase “I don’t know if this is the smartest or most stupid thing I’m ever going to do”, the results are typically predictable.  However, inventor, tinkerer, brain tumor survivor and YouTube celeb Simone Giertz, who is also known as the Queen of Sh@#!ty Robots, went on to produce possibly the most unique electric vehicle currently on the pla...

For any of you who have been following the peaks and valleys of the tech company Magic Leap over the past few years, you know that for all the hype there has been just as much failed potential. For those of you who haven’t been following, here’s a quick backstory: Magic Leap was established in xx and built a reputation around its own secrecy. There was a long time where the startup was raking in –...