#Electronics Components News

[techmezine2019]

Latest Medical Electronics Equipment and Electronics Components News

Electronics and medical technology are rapidly changing healthcare and boosting patient outcomes. Keeping up with Electronics Components News and the Latest Medical Electronics Equipment is essential for professionals, researchers, and hobbyists. New technologies and developments in these fields are changing medicine.

Electronics Components News: Products

Advanced Semiconductor Tech

Recent improvements are pushing semiconductors, which power electronics. Electronics Components News highlights 5nm and 3nm CPUs that are smaller and more efficient. Computer, telecommunications, and medical device applications need faster processing, lower power consumption, and greater performance.

Wearable, flexible electronics

Flexible and wearable electronics are another exciting trend. These bending, foldable, and stretchable parts enable medical innovation. Flexible sensors in wearable devices can track vital signs. This technology is needed to make unobtrusive, pleasant medical devices that patients can wear for lengthy periods to monitor and collect health data.

Innovations in Power Management

Electronics need effective power management to last. Recent advances include low-power microprocessor and battery technology. Medical equipment that needs long battery life and constant performance needs these developments. More efficient power management reduces medical equipment battery recharges.

Sensor Technology Advances

Modern electronics, especially medical devices, need sensors. Sensor technology improves sensitivity, accuracy, and compactness. These developments enable smaller, more precise medical equipment. Advanced sensors in diagnostic tools detect minute biological indicator changes for earlier and more accurate diagnosis.

The Latest Medical Electronics Equipment is Transforming Healthcare.

Patient Monitoring Systems Remote

With Latest Medical Electronics Equipment, RPM systems overhaul healthcare. These technologies deliver real-time patient data to healthcare providers via IoT devices. Continuous monitoring detects health risks early, intervenes fast, and improves patient outcomes. RPM systems excel at chronic illness management, hospital readmission reduction, and tailored care.

Wearable Health Tech

More intelligent smartwatches and fitness trackers. These contemporary sensors assess heart rate, blood pressure, glucose, and other vital signs. Wearable health data can be analyzed for proactive health management. These technologies enable preventive health care.

[semimediapress]

Infineon expands CoolSiC™ MOSFET family for better thermal performance, power density and easier assembly

July 21, 2023 /SemiMedia/ — Infineon Technologies AG expands its CoolSiC portfolio with the Silicon Carbide (SiC) CoolSiC™ MOSFET 650 V in TO Leadless (TOLL) packaging, optimized for lowest losses, highest reliability and ease of use in applications such as server SMPS, telecom infrastructure, and energy storage systems and battery formation solutions. The CoolSiC 650 V high-performance…

[avalontec]

Revolutionizing Aerospace Manufacturing: The Power of Advanced Technologies in Combustion Liner Production

In the dynamic and challenging landscape of aerospace manufacturing, the production of combustion liners stands as a critical component that demands utmost precision and reliability. A visionary team of engineers set out on a transformational journey to revolutionize the industry's approach to manufacturing aerospace combustion liners. By addressing complex challenges head-on, they not only resolved existing issues, but also propelled the company towards unparalleled success. This blog unveils their strategic triumphs and the remarkable impact created while providing actionable insights to optimize aerospace combustion liner production.

Unraveling Opportunities and Ingenious Solutions:

A Thorough Foundation: The journey began with a meticulous analysis of the initial input study for combustion liners, complemented by a comprehensive gap analysis. By identifying potential failure points and aligning processes with precise engineering requirements, the team laid a solid foundation for their subsequent endeavors.

Streamlined Process Design: Armed with invaluable insights, the team crafted an ingenious process design that maximized efficiency and accuracy in manufacturing combustion liners. An intuitive process flow diagram provided a holistic view of the production process, allowing the team to pinpoint optimization opportunities and enhance combustion liner quality.

Stage-Wise Manufacturing Mastery: A groundbreaking stage-wise manufacturing process emerged, comprising individual components of combustion liners, precise sub-assembly, and the final assembly of the combustion liner. Empowered by process-controlled tools featuring a foolproof poke-yoke mechanism, errors were minimized, and productivity soared.

Elevating Quality with CTQ Inspection Gauges: To surpass customer expectations and stringent aerospace standards, the team introduced stage-wise inspection gauges for Critical to Quality (CTQ) aspects in combustion liners. These precision tools became guardians of uncompromising quality, ensuring the final combustion liners met rigorous performance requirements. A Symphony of Control: A meticulously crafted control plan was orchestrated, harmoniously linking each manufacturing step of combustion liners to key inspections. This symphony of control guaranteed a flawless production process, eliminating rework and costly delays. Mastering Welding Challenges: Recognizing welding's significance in combustion liners, the team established a state-of-the-art welding cell. Welding operators underwent rigorous training and qualification, ensuring precision and consistency in every weld to enhance the combustion liner's structural integrity. The Crucible of Brazing and Heat Treating: Critical brazing and heat treatment processes found perfection under the watchful eye of a reliable and qualified source. These pivotal steps culminated in aerospace combustion liners of uncompromising durability and performance, ensuring optimal operation under demanding conditions.

Unleashing the Impact:

Time-Defying Triumph: The transformational project delivered combustion liners with exceptional efficiency, setting a new benchmark for aerospace manufacturing timelines.

Scaling Heights: With streamlined processes and enhanced capabilities, the team achieved awe-inspiring success by producing a considerable number of combustion liners. The optimized workflow exhibited its scalability and adaptability, driving productivity to soaring heights.

NADCAP-Certified Excellence: The pinnacle of achievements was the coveted NADCAP certification earned for the manufacturing of aerospace combustion liners. This prestigious recognition solidified the company's reputation as a trailblazer in combustion liner production.

Conclusion:

The journey of revolutionizing aerospace combustion liners showcased the potential and bold implementation. By harnessing the power of streamlined processes, meticulous quality control, and a dedicated team, the company realized exponential growth and customer satisfaction in aerospace combustion liner manufacturing.

To embark on your own path of transformation, embrace a holistic approach to process optimization, leverage NPI technologies, and invest in nurturing a skilled and committed workforce. In the ever-evolving aerospace industry, adaptation and continuous improvement are the wings that will propel you towards unrivaled success in aerospace combustion liner production. Now is the time to soar to new heights and unlock the true potential of your combustion liner endeavors.

[4everyadan]

YMIN liquid capacitors boost charging pile performance and stability.

Market Outlook and Capacitor Role in New Energy Charging Piles

With stringent environmental policies and growing public awareness, new energy vehicle sales are expected to capture a significant market share by 2025, driving substantial demand for charging piles. The increasing penetration of new energy vehicles expands the market for charging infrastructure. During the charging process, challenges such as grid voltage fluctuations and high-current impacts may arise. Liquid snap-in type aluminum electrolytic capacitors, known for high capacitance and energy storage density, mitigate these issues by stabilizing and filtering the output DC energy, ensuring stable power quality and protecting electric vehicle batteries from overload and voltage fluctuations.

Advantages of Liquid Snap-in Type Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors Liquid snap-in type aluminum electrolytic capacitors provide significant energy storage capacity and power compensation, supporting transient high-current demands. They exhibit high ripple current endurance, protecting internal circuits and ensuring safety and stability. Enhanced conductivity and heat dissipation capabilities contribute to their extended lifespan and high reliability, reducing maintenance costs and downtime. Excellent high-temperature stability maintains operation in elevated temperatures, crucial for outdoor applications. Their low ESR and dynamic response ensure constant output voltage, protecting battery packs and enhancing charging efficiency.

Recommendations for Selection of Liquid Snap-in Type Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors

Conclusion

Shanghai YMIN’s liquid snap-in type aluminum electrolytic capacitors demonstrate significant advantages in new energy charging piles, enhancing system stability, safety, longevity, and optimizing charging performance. These capacitors support technological upgrades and sustainable development in the charging pile industry.

[medicinemane]

You know... any time I see stuff about how there's a big solar project in the desert I'm just left thinking... you know that's an actual biosphere even if it's not a place we do farming or whatever... like... have you actually considered the environmental impacts or did you just plop it in the middle of a place you decided was barren and empty?

[smbomcom]

ZIP Packaging: Revolutionizing Electronics

ZIP packaging technology stands out due to its unique pin arrangement. In contrast to conventional packaging methods, ZIP adopts a staggered pin design, where pins encircle the chip in a zigzag pattern, creating a space-efficient and efficient layout. The benefits of this arrangement are immediately evident: it occupies less physical space, making ZIP an ideal choice, especially for applications where fitting numerous electronic components into confined spaces is imperative.

Get the full article: ZIP package

More electronics packaging: Smbom's News

[biglisbonnews]

A Quantum Leap In Long-Distance Connectivity Delve deeper into game-changing technological innovation, setting the stage for a future where the boundaries of connectivity are endlessly expanded. In a development that signifies a leap in the world of technology, the previously held long-distance record of LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) has been shattered. A new benchmark has been set at a […]The post A Quantum Leap In Long-Distance Connectivity appeared first on Electronics For You. https://www.electronicsforu.com/news/a-quantum-leap-in-long-distance-connectivity

[todropscience]

DEEP SEA PRODUCE ITS OWN "DARK OXYGEN"

Small metallic nodules, like potato-size strewn across the deep sea ocean seafloor produce oxygen in complete darkness and without any help from living organisms, a new research reveals.

Called polymetallic nodules, are found in the deep sea and produce oxygen through seawater electrolysis, where seawater splits into oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of an electric charge. This charge may come from the difference in electric potential that exists between metal ions within the nodules, which leads to a redistribution of electrons. This is called by scientists as dark oxygen, as is produced without sunlight, as photosintesys does.

-Polymetallic nodules coat fields of the ocean floor Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

These nodules polymetallic nodules are common between 3,000 to 6,000 m below the ocean surface. These nodules mostly contain oxides of iron and manganese , but also metals like cobalt, nickel and lithium, as well as rare earth elements such as cerium that are essential components of electronics and low-carbon technologies. This also raise new concerns about potentially mining polymetallic nodules, which could represent a vital source of oxygen for deep-sea ecosystems.

Main photo by Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Reference (Open Access): Sweetman et al., 2024. Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor. Nat. Geosci.

[techmezine2019]

Examining Electronics Component News and Latest Medical Technology News via Techmezine helps one gain insights.

Constant innovation in the IT sector is driven in part by Electronics Component News. Professionals must remain current with new items and technologies constantly being unveiled. From the most recent semiconductors to microcontroller innovations, these changes define the direction of technology and affect everything from consumer devices to industrial uses.

Revolutionizing Healthcare with the Most Current Medical Technology News

The  Latest Medical Technology News emphasizes the innovations transforming healthcare. Advanced medical technologies, wearable health monitors, and AI-driven diagnostics are altering the way healthcare is provided and thereby increasing its efficiency and patient-centric nature. Both tech aficionados and medical professionals should keep current with these changes since they significantly affect patient treatment outcomes and quality of life.

Keep Ahead with Techmezine's All-Inclusive Coverage

At Techmezine, we are dedicated to giving thorough coverage of Latest Medical Technology News and Electronics Component News. To keep competitive and informed, our platform provides thorough insights into the newest trends, product introductions, and market studies. Our goal in emphasizing the technical features of new components and medical technologies is to equip our readers with the information required to succeed in their particular domains.

Conclusion: Value of Maintaining Information

Maintaining knowledge of Electronics Component News and Latest Medical Technology News is vital in the fast changing environment of today. Your first choice for factual, timely, and perceptive material bridging the gap between technology and healthcare is techmezine. Whether your background is in industry, research, or just a love of technology, our platform offers the knowledge you need to succeed in these exciting disciplines.

[semimediapress]

ST launches Industry's First Embedded SIM Card

June 20, 2024 /SemiMedia/ — STMicroelectronics recently launched the ST4SIM-300, the industry’s first embedded SIM compliant with the upcoming GSMA eSIM IoT deployment standard. Also known as SGP.32, the new standard introduces special features to facilitate the management of IoT devices connected to cellular networks. “Leveraging the incoming GSMA specification, our embedded SIM for IoT…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to have cancer

THIS WEEKEND (November 8-10), I'll be in TUCSON, AZ: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I've got cancer but it's probably (almost certainly, really) okay. Within a very short period I will no longer have cancer (at least for now). This is the best kind of cancer to have – the kind that is caught early and treated easily – but I've learned a few things on the way that I want to share with you.

Last spring, my wife put her arm around my waist and said, "Hey, what's this on your rib?" She's a lot more observant than I am, and honestly, when was the last time you palpated your back over your left floating rib? Sure enough, there was a lump there, a kind of squishy, fatty raised thing, half a centimeter wide and about four centimeters long.

I'm a 53 year old man with a family history of cancer. My father was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer at 55. So I called my doctor and asked for an appointment to have the lump checked over.

I'm signed up with Southern California Kaiser Permanente, which is as close as you come to the Canadian medicare system I grew up under and the NHS system I lived under for more than a decade. Broadly speaking, I really like KP. Its app – while terrible – isn't as terrible as the other apps, and they've taken very good care of me for both routine things like vaccinations and checkups, and serious stuff, like a double hip replacement.

Around the time of The Lump, I'd been assigned a new primary care physician – my old one retired – and so this was my first appointment with her. I used the KP app to book it, and I was offered appointments six weeks in the future. My new doc was busy! I booked the first slot.

This was my first mistake. I didn't need to wait to see my PCP to get my lump checked over. There was really only two things that my doc was gonna do, either prod it and say, "This is an extremely common whatchamacallit and you don't need to worry" or "You should go get this scanned by a radiologist." I didn't need a specific doctor to do this. I could have ridden my bike down to the KP-affiliated Urgent Care at our local Target store and gotten an immediate referral to radiology.

Six weeks go by, and my doc kind of rolls the weird lump between her fingers and says, "You'd better go see a radiologist." I called the Kaiser appointment line and booked it that day, and a couple weeks later I had a scan.

The next day, the app notified me that radiology report was available in my electronic heath record. It's mostly technical jargon ("Echogenic areas within mass suggest fatty component but atypical for a lipoma") but certain phrases leapt out at me: "malignant masses cannot be excluded. Follow up advised."

That I understood. I immediately left my doctor a note saying that I needed a biopsy referral and set back to wait. Two days went by. I left her a voice message. Another two days went by. I sent another email. Nothing, then a weekend, then more nothing.

I called Kaiser and asked to be switched to another Primary Care Physician. It was a totally painless and quick procedure and within an hour my new doc's intake staff had reviewed my chart, called me up, and referred me for a biopsy.

This was my second mistake. When my doctor didn't get back to me within a day, I should have called up KP and raised hell, demanding an immediate surgical referral.

What I did do was call Kaiser Member Services and file a grievance. I made it very clear that when I visited my doctor, I had been very happy with the care I received, but that she and her staff were clearly totally overloaded and needed some kind of administrative intervention so that their patients didn't end up in limbo.

This is a privilege. I'm a native English speaker, and although I was worried about a serious illness, I didn't have any serious symptoms. I had the ability and the stamina to force action in the system, and my doing so meant that other patients, not so well situated as I was, would not be stuck where I had been, with fewer resources to get un-stuck.

The surgeon who did the biopsy was great. He removed my mass. It was a gross lump of yellowy-red gunk in formaldehyde. He even let me photograph it before it went to pathology (warning, gross):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54038418981/

They told me that the pathology would take 2-5 days. I reloaded the "test results" tab in the KP website religiously after 48 hours. Nothing was updated. After five days, I called the surgical department (I had been given a direct number to reach them in case of postsurgical infections, and made a careful note of it).

It turned out that the pathology report had been in hand for three days at that point, but it was "preliminary" pending some DNA testing. Still, it was enough that the surgeon referred me to an oncologist.

This was my third mistake: I should have called after 48 hours and asked whether the pathology report was in hand, and if not, whether they could check with pathology. However, I did something very right this time: I got a phone number to reach the specialist directly, rather than going through the Kaiser main number.

My oncologist appointment was very reassuring. The oncologist explained the kind of cancer I had ("follicular lymphoma"), the initial prognosis (very positive, though it was weird that it manifested on my rib, so far from a lymph node) and what needed to happen next (a CT/PET scan). He also walked me through the best, worst and medium-cases for treatment, based on different scan outcomes. This was really good, as it helped me think through how I would manage upcoming events – book tours, a book deadline, work travel, our family Christmas vacation plans – based on these possibilities.

The oncologist gave me a number for Kaiser Nuclear Medicine. I called them from the parking lot before leaving the Kaiser hospital and left a message for the scheduler to call me back. Then I drove home.

This was my fourth mistake. The Kaiser hospital in LA is the main hub for Kaiser Southern California, and the Nuclear Medicine department was right there. I could have walked over and made an appointment in person.

Instead, I left messages daily for the next five days, waited a weekend, then called up my oncologist's staff and asked them to intervene. I also called Kaiser Member Services and filed an "urgent grievance" (just what it sounds like) and followed up by filing a complaint with the California Patient Advocate:

https://www.dmhc.ca.gov/

In both the complaint and the grievance, I made sure to note that the outgoing message at Nuclear Medicine scheduling was giving out false information (it said, "Sorry, all lines are busy," even at 2am!). Again, I was really careful to say that the action I was hoping for was both a prompt appointment for me (my oncologist had been very insistent upon this) but also that this was a very broken system that would be letting down every patient, not me, and it should be fixed.

Within a couple hours, I had a call back from KP grievances department, and an hour after that, I had an appointment for my scan. Unfortunately, that was three weeks away (so much for my oncologist's "immediate" order).

I had the scan last week, on Hallowe'en. It was really cool. The gadget was awesome, and the rad-techs were really experienced and glad to geek out with me about the way the scanner and the radioactive glucose they infused in me interacted. They even let me take pictures of the scan visualizations:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54108481109/

The radiology report was incredibly efficient. Within a matter of hours, I was poring over it. I had an appointment to see the doc on November 5, but I had been reading up on the scans and I was pretty sure the news was good ("No enlarged or FDG avid lymph nodes are noted within the neck, chest, abdomen, or pelvis. No findings of FDG avid splenic or bone marrow involvement").

There was just one area of concern: "Moderate FDG uptake associated with a round 1.3 cm left inguinal lymph node." The radiologist advised the oncologist to "consider correlation with tissue sampling."

Today was my oncology appointment. For entirely separate reasons, I was unable to travel to the hospital today: I wrenched my back over the weekend and yesterday morning, it was so bad that I couldn't even scratch my nose without triggering unbearable spams. After spending all day yesterday in the ER (after being lifted out of my house on a stretcher), getting MRIs and pain meds, I'm much better off, though still unable to get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time.

So this morning at 8:30 sharp, I started calling the oncology department and appointment services to get that appointment changed over to a virtual visit. While I spent an hour trying various non-working phone numbers and unsuccessfully trying to get Kaiser appointment services to reach my oncologist, I tried to message him through the KP app. It turns out that because he is a visiting fellow and not staff, this wasn't possible.

I eventually got through to the oncology department and had the appointment switched over. The oncology nurse told me that they've been trying for months to get KP to fix the bug where fellows can't be messaged by patients. So as soon as I got off the phone with her, I called member services and filed another grievance. Why bother, if I'd gotten what I needed? Same logic as before: if you have the stamina and skills to demand a fix to a broken system, you have a duty to use them.

I got off the phone with my oncologist about an hour ago. It went fine. I'm going to get a needle biopsy on that one suss node. If it comes back positive, I'll get a few very local, very low-powered radiation therapy interventions, whose worst side effect will be "a mild sunburn over a very small area." If it's negative, we're done, but I'll get quarterly CT/PET scans to be on the safe side.

Before I got off the phone, I made sure to get the name of the department where the needle biopsy would be performed and a phone number. The order for the biopsy just posted to my health record, and now I'm redialing the department to book in that appointment (I'm not waiting around for them to call me).

While I redial, a few more lessons from my experience. First, who do you tell? I told my wife and my parents, because I didn't want to go through a multi-week period of serious anxiety all on my own. Here, too, I made a mistake: I neglected to ask them not to tell anyone else. The word spread a little before I put a lid on things. I wanted to keep the circle of people who knew this was going on small, until I knew what was what. There's no point in worrying other people, of course, and my own worry wasn't going to be helped by having to repeat, "Well, it looks pretty good, but we won't know until I've had a scan/my appointment/etc."

Next, how to manage the process: this is a complex, multi-stage process. It began with a physician appointment, then a radiologist, then a pathology report, then surgery, then another pathology report, then an oncologist, then a scan, then another radiologist, and finally, the oncologist again.

That's a lot of path-dependent, interdepartmental stuff, with a lot of ways that things can fall off the rails (when my dad had cancer at my age, there was a big gap in care when one hospital lost a fax from another hospital department and my folks assumed that if they hadn't heard back, everything was fine).

So I have been making extensive use of a suspense file, where I record what I'm waiting for, who is supposed to provide it, and when it is due. Though I had several places where my care continuity crumbled some, there would have been far more if I hadn't done this:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo

The title of this piece is "how to have cancer," but what it really boils down to is, "things I learned from my own cancer." As I've noted, I'm playing this one on the easiest setting: I have no symptoms, I speak and write English fluently, I am computer literate and reasonably capable of parsing medical/technical jargon. I have excellent insurance.

If any of these advantages hadn't been there, things would have been a lot harder. I'd have needed these lessons even more.

To recap them:

See a frontline care worker as soon as possible: don't wait for an appointment with a specific MD. Practically any health worker can prod a lump and refer you for further testing;

Get a direct phone number for every specialist you are referred to (add this to your phone book); call them immediately after the referral to get scheduled (better yet, walk over to their offices and schedule the appointment in person);

Get a timeframe as to when your results are due and when you can expect to get a follow-up; call the direct number as soon as the due-date comes (use calendar reminders for this);

If you can't get a call back, an appointment, or a test result in a reasonable amount of time (use a suspense file to track this), lodge a formal complaint with your insurer/facility, and consider filing with the state regulator;

Think hard about who you're going to tell, and when, and talk over your own wishes about who they can tell, and when.

As you might imagine, I've spent some time talking to my parents today as these welcome results have come in. My mother is (mostly) retired now, and she's doing a lot of volunteer work on end-of-life care. She recommends a book called Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis:

https://pagetwo.com/book/hope-for-the-best-plan-for-the-rest/

I haven't read it, but it looks like it's got excellent advice, especially for people who lack the self-advocacy capabilities and circumstances I'm privileged with. According to my mom, who uses it in workshops, there's a lot of emphasis on the role that families and friends can play in helping someone whose physical, mental and/or emotional health are compromised.

So, that's it. I've got cancer. No cancer is good. This cancer is better than most. I am almost certainly fine. Every medical professional I've dealt with, and all the administrative support staff at Kaiser, have been excellent. Even the doc who dropped the ball on my biopsy was really good to deal with – she was just clearly drowning in work. The problems I had are with the system, not the people. I'm profoundly grateful to all of them for the help they gave me, the interest and compassion they showed, and the clarity and respect they demonstrated in my dealings with them.

I'm also very grateful to my wife, my parents, and my boss at EFF, all of whom got the news early and demonstrated patience, love, and support that helped in my own dark hours over the past couple of months.

I hope you're well. But you know, everyone gets something, eventually. When you find yourself mired in a broken system full of good people, work the system – for yourself and for the people who come behind you. Take records. Make calls.

Look after yourself.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/05/carcinoma-angels/#squeaky-nail

[dalishious]

A BioWare Guide on How to Murder a Fanbase

I have been a Dragon Age super-fan for almost fourteen years, now. I have played every game, with every DLC. I have read every novel, lore book, and every comic — yes, even the terrible ones that are better off forgotten. I have seen the anime film, the animated series, and the web mini-series. I have enjoyed all of these pieces of the franchise over and over, more times than I can count. So, make no mistake: the negativity you’re about to hear comes from a place of love for this fantasy world, developed by many creative people over the years. I would love nothing more than to see the resurrection of passion in the Dragon Age fandom again. But the unfortunate truth is, that resurrection is only needed because BioWare took the fandom out back and shot it in the first place.

In December 2018, three years after the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser epilogue DLC, BioWare first announced the then-untitled next Dragon Age game with a teaser trailer. At this point, most fans were anticipating this would mean within the next couple years, we would see the game. This assumption was based on the fact that Dragon Age: Inquisition was first announced in 2012, and released in 2014, with an extra year of development added last minute.

There have been dribbles of extra content since then, adding to the franchise. This was enough to keep some fans still breathing and interested. 2020’s Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights was a lovely anthology. 2020’s Dragon Age: Blue Wraith and 2021’s Dark Fortress were wonderful comics tying up the story started in Knight Errant. And 2022’s Dragon Age: Absolution was a well-animated series with an interesting cast of characters and story. But all these still left the fandom with a major question: What was going on with the next game? It was untypical of BioWare to be so secretive, in comparison to how they handled sharing information of the past games in the franchise. The only form of updates fans still have to go on is mostly just concept art and short stories, hinting that something must be in production. But why was the wait so long?

In 2015, the first version of the next Dragon Age began with a clear vision, clear scope of practice, and a reportedly happy developer team. Most gloriously in my book, there was no multi-player… but this did not align with the Electronic Arts typical money-mad schemes. EA’s push for “games as a service” meant they wanted to monetize all their games as much as possible, and therefore, they wanted them to be a live service — as Anthem demonstrated, that meant sacrificing things that are staples of good RPGs, like narrative and character choice. So in 2017, version one of the next Dragon Age was scrapped and replaced. This new version would have, in total or to at least some degree, an online portion of play.

There is one part of Schreier’s article, “The Past and Present of Dragon Age 4,” that really sticks out to me, regarding this:

“One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content.”

The idea of splitting up components of a game into single-player and multi-player is a terrible idea, because it means that there would be a large bulk of content only accessible through online gaming; something many fans, like myself, are repulsed by. Even if I did enjoy it, I spent most of my life growing up with either no internet or shoddy internet incapable of playing online games. I know many rural people who are still in that position, losing more and more of their favourite gaming pastimes because they are locked out of the ability to play them. It is a disservice to hide content behind a wall like this, especially in a world that is so lore-heavy like Dragon Age. The news of multi-player in Dragon Age understandably upset many, and this is when I first noticed a large drop off in excitement over the next game.

However, in 2021, the failure of Anthem (multi-player) and success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (single-player) led the executives at EA to bend to the wishes of BioWare leadership and allow them to go back to the drawing board yet again on the next Dragon Age. This meant removing all multi-player content!

While I am very happy that there will reportedly be no multi-player in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, I can’t help but feel bitter and a little disgusted over the ridiculous development time spent on something no one but EA wanted in the first place. If it weren’t for this foolishness, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf would be in our hands right now. Instead, it’s been in development hell for nearly nine years and counting. Nine years is a long time to expect fans to carry a torch for you through radio silence, but it’s no wonder BioWare has shared barely anything about the next game; it’s been in flux for so long, they likely haven’t had anything concrete to show.

BioWare hurt its reputation even more when the news broke that the studio very suddenly laid off 50 people who were working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. This is pretty damning on its own, but BioWare took it a step further. Former developer Jon Renish shared a statement revealing that the studio was only willing to offer laid-off employees two weeks of severance per year of service, and denied health benefits. The denial of health benefits in particular is a pretty wild move for a studio with a reputation for “stress casualties”. The latest news on this is that BioWare has still so far refused to negotiate better severance packages, leading to a lawsuit. The lawsuit originally had 15 former employees, but this dropped due to the fear of not being able to afford to pay their bills. So now, while EA sits on $400 million net income, the laid-off employees are struggling to buy holiday presents for their children. These horrid business practices are not to be ignored when accounting for a lack of faith in a studio. What kind of monsters reward workers who make your games special with vaguely reasoned lay-offs?

The latest news on the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf front from BioWare came early this month, December 2023, with a trailer… announcing a trailer that will come next summer… that will announce the release of the game. Supposedly. Maybe. We’ll see. But by this time, BioWare is something of a laughing stock of their own fandom. Reactions to the video released with a pretty map graphic and a few rendered locations were, from what I personally observed, mostly sardonic in nature. People have commented on the vapourware nature of the game, and like all vapourware, that leads to disintegrating trust.

Despite all this, people like Mary Kirby, (one of the veteran Dragon Age writers who was a victim of the layoffs,) said, “it’s bittersweet that Dreadwolf is my last DA game, but I still hope you all love it as much as I do,” encouraging fans to still support the game when it eventually is released. But after every misstep BioWare has taken, that’s a tough sell now. Fans are finicky, RPG fans more so than others, one could argue. We have our favourites, and many of us stick to those favourites for life over our appreciation for the artistry — but that relationship between studio and fan should go both ways. EA and BioWare has betrayed that relationship, and it will take a hell of a lot to build it back up again, now.

[This piece is also available on Medium!]

[felassan]

Article from Bloomberg by Jason Schreier, under a cut due to length.

"New ‘Dragon Age’ Game Faced Turbulent Development The studio head of EA’s BioWare says ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ received nothing but support from EA throughout its lengthy production cycle EA’s BioWare label hopes to find redemption with the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard Today we’re getting in-depth on the new Dragon Age game A new age for dragons In late 2020, when Gary McKay took over as studio head of BioWare, the Electronic Arts Inc. subsidiary best known for making big roleplaying games, the climate was dire. BioWare, which is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, had released two critically panned games and was facing turbulent development on a new one — while trying to cope with a worldwide pandemic. “We needed to shift how we were thinking about building our games,” McKay told me in a recent interview. BioWare, founded in 1995 and purchased by EA in 2007, had won over millions of fans with hit single-player RPG franchises such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. But a 2017 entry called Mass Effect: Andromeda was widely panned, and the studio’s next game, the 2019 multiplayer shooter Anthem, flopped both critically and commercially. Both games had also gone through brutal development cycles that drove many BioWare veterans to exit the studio. At the end of 2020, studio boss Casey Hudson was planning to step down and called McKay to ask if he would take over. “We had a few conversations over the course of the next month around the people and the culture,” McKay said. BioWare’s next big project would be a new game in the popular fantasy Dragon Age franchise. But the game, which had been in development for years, was facing turmoil and had been rebooted from a single-player game into a live-service game with a heavy multiplayer component, which EA had been pushing across many of its subsidiaries in the late 2010s. Hudson, too, was interested in multiplayer games and had been the lead visionary on Anthem. Some employees jeeringly referred to the next Dragon Age as “Anthem with dragons,” which worried fans after I reported on the game at Kotaku. Enthusiasts of the series wanted another single-player game, not a repeat of BioWare’s biggest mistake. When he took over, McKay began to feel similarly. “We were thinking, ‘Does this make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?’” McKay said. “No, we need to get back to what we’re really great at.” In the months that followed, McKay met with leadership across BioWare and EA and ultimately decided to reboot the next Dragon Age a second time, pivoting back to single-player."

The choice was obvious in many ways. Anthem had flopped while EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a single-player action-adventure game, had sold more than 10 million copies, helping prove to the publisher that not all of its games needed to be online. BioWare games were popular because of their focus on character dialogue and player-driven narrative decisions, which did not mesh with multiplayer gaming. “Once we made that decision, a lot of things started to fall into place,” McKay said. In the years that followed, he would go on to consolidate more of the studio’s projects, shutting down an attempt to reboot Anthem and selling off the rights to the online game Star Wars: The Old Republic to a separate studio. The goal, McKay said, was “focus.” BioWare then spent the next three-and-a-half years developing what would become Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the fourth game in the franchise. Out this week, the game has received mostly positive reviews and so far topped charts, although EA has not yet revealed sales numbers. Some things went right during development. McKay said they “had the game end-to-end playable” earlier than any previous BioWare product, allowing them to spend extra time iterating. A reorganization at EA, which split the company into divisions called EA Games and EA Sports, allowed Dragon Age: The Veilguard to receive more support from internal teams that might otherwise be stretched thin, such as research and data insights groups. “That gave us an extra boost in terms of the support and focus from the company,” McKay said. But the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard still faced plenty of obstacles. The pandemic led BioWare to shift to hiring remotely, which McKay said made for cultural challenges. The game slipped past its original target date, although McKay wouldn’t say how much extra time it needed. “I’m never going to call it a slip,” he said. And it went through significant scope changes over the course of development. Then, last summer, BioWare laid off 50 people, including veterans with decades of experience. McKay told me the reduction, which arrived during a period of widespread layoffs across the video-game industry, “was all about focus at that time.” “When you have a really large team, you’re always compelled to keep everybody busy all the time,” he said. “When you have a smaller team, you have the right people in the right roles at the right time, some incredible momentum is gained at that point.” The stakes are high for the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Fans and pundits have worried that a third failure in a row might have devastating results for BioWare. McKay wouldn’t comment on the specifics of what would make the game a hit in their eyes. But said he has felt supported by EA Entertainment & Technology President Laura Miele. The game is so important to BioWare’s future that the company brought in its second team, which has been incubating a new Mass Effect, to help out during the final stretch of development. The Mass Effect team played a major role in finishing and polishing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Other companies across EA, such as its Motive studio in Montreal, also supported the game. Now, the company will look to see how players react to the next Dragon Age — and, McKay hopes, “bring BioWare back into the conversation as a top game studio.”

[source]

[smbomcom]

TO3 Packaging

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More electronics package: Smbom's News

[dear-ao3]

bucket of facts here. This is one of my favorite f1 things ever, apologies for how long it ended up being:

In the 1980’s, formula one teams, notably BMW, added toluene to their fuel mixtures. If that word sounds like it’s probably dangerous, that’s because it is — most people know it as rocket fuel. It’s extremely poisonous and carcinogenic, but did have some upsides! For one, it was less volatile [citation needed] than what they had been using, making is slightly less dangerous in the event of a crash (by 1970’s-80’s F1 standards that just means in only turned into a small bomb most of the time). It was also denser and burned faster, so the same amount of toluene could give much more power than the standard F1 fuel.

While the new fuel did allow them to run higher turbo pressures, it did it have a tendency to increase turbo pressure as it was run during the race, and everyone ran turbos at this time. They had to dial back the turbo pressure from what it’s max could’ve been, just to compensate for the power of the fuel — this mitigated the admittedly high likelihood that the engine decided to submit its two weeks notice on two seconds of warning (read: it caught on fire and sometimes kinda maybe sorta just exploded).

Modern f1 fuel has an RON octane rating of 95-102. The toluene aided fuel had an RON octane rating of 120+. For context, your car probably runs on about 87 RON. For those unfamiliar, RON octane ratings measure how much compression fuel can be put under before it sparks, which is how engines work: compress fuel, spark, make power (I can explain that better if you want but short version is that). This incredibly high octane level allowed the engines of the time to be run at a much higher compression, which had a myriad of bonuses to the cars.

Current F1 regulations are 1.6 litre V6 engines that rev to 15,000 RPMs (max allowed) and produce a max of 850 BHP (horsepower) when they’re pushing the edge of their abilities without aid of electric components like H/KERS, which is used to boost the cars to around 1,000 BHP.

Brabham-BMW’s 1983 engine took Nelson Pique to his WDC that year. It was a 1.5 litre inline 4 (so smaller than current) and produced 12,000 RPMs, as the restrictions were a bit tighter there back then. Without electronic aid like today and a smaller engine than your standard Toyota Camry, it easily produced 850 BHP at race trim, the version built to last a whole race. When in qualifying trim, with everything tuned to maximum to get the most out of the car without it blowing up, it ran at 1,250 BHP. Original testing put it at producing over 1,400 BHP, but BMWs testing facilities couldn’t measure past that — the car put out more power than they could even register.

The teams also had a sneaky loophole: the amount of fuel allowed to be held at once in the car (refueling was banned at this time) was effectively limited to how large the gas tank could be. The teams realized that they could literally freeze the fuel and store it at cold temperatures. This compacted the fuel, allowing them to put more fuel into the gas tank — more fuel per fuel, really. This allowed drivers to be more aggressive and push harder more often, not having to worry about running out of fuel.

In case this whole toluene thing seems bad, don’t worry! It’s only used in nail polish, rubber, adhesives, and paints :3

hit me up for more facts if you want

oh my

anon bestie i might in fact be in love with you

[mariacallous]

Oregon governor Tina Kotek yesterday signed the state's Right to Repair Act, which will push manufacturers to provide more repair options for their products than any other state so far.

The law, like those passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, will require many manufacturers to provide the same parts, tools, and documentation to individuals and repair shops that they provide to their own repair teams.

But Oregon's bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function, known as parts pairing or serialization. Oregon’s bill, SB 1596, is the first in the nation to target that practice. Oregon state senator Janeen Sollman and representative Courtney Neron, both Democrats, sponsored and pushed the bill in the state senate and legislature.

“By eliminating manufacturer restrictions, the Right to Repair will make it easier for Oregonians to keep their personal electronics running,” said Charlie Fisher, director of Oregon's chapter of the Public Interest Research Group, in a statement. “That will conserve precious natural resources and prevent waste. It’s a refreshing alternative to a ‘throwaway’ system that treats everything as disposable.”

Oregon's law isn't stronger in every regard. For one, there is no set number of years for a manufacturer to support a device with repair support. Parts pairing is prohibited only on devices sold in 2025 and later. And there are carve-outs for certain kinds of electronics and devices, including video game consoles, medical devices, HVAC systems, motor vehicles, and—as with other states—“electric toothbrushes.”

Apple opposed the Oregon repair bill for its parts-pairing ban. John Perry, a senior manager for secure design at Apple, testified at a February hearing in Oregon that the pairing restriction would “undermine the security, safety, and privacy of Oregonians by forcing device manufacturers to allow the use of parts of unknown origin in consumer devices.”

Apple surprised many observers with its support for California's repair bill in 2023, though it did so after pressing for repair providers to mention when they use “non-genuine or used” components and to bar repair providers from disabling security features.

According to Consumer Reports, which lobbied and testified in support of Oregon's bill, the repair laws passed in four states now cover nearly 70 million people.