Bench Talk

Hands-free computing is a growing technology for personal computers. Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Alexa act as digital personal assistants, allowing users to control their devices through voice recognition. While previously limited to smartphones, these digital personal assistants are rapidly moving onto desktop operating systems. With the move, the assistants will have to conquer larger tasks, like running complicated software, and will have to be able to understand a voice from far away in potentially noisy environments.

Non-volatile storage is a key component in any computer system. Traditionally a computer will contain a hard disk drive (HDD), a rotating disk with data magnetically written on it. Disk drives were invented over half a century ago and have since become small and cheap. Enter the new kid in town, the solid-state drive (SSD). Solid-state drives use non-volatile flash memory to write and read data at speeds far greater than an HDD. Although SSDs have existed for a couple of decades, only recently have they become cheap enough with enough storage space to become mainstream. SSDs are increasingly common in modern computers, especially in tablets and laptops. With this in mind, in what ways are SSDs better than HDDs, and is the difference significant enough to signal a complete revolution in the storage industry?

How long do you think you’ll last before they find out that you are a fraud? The first quiz? The first exam? Do you think you might make it all the way to graduation on a fluke before they realize that you don’t deserve to be there?

I was an intern at Mouser this past summer, and this is my last week before I go back to school. Coming into this internship, I would never have imagined that I would be asked to fly across the country and represent Mouser at one of the biggest technology showcases in the world. I thought I would be writing a blog or an article every now and then while designing some sort of project by the end of the summer. Every engineering student needs some hands-on design experience on their resume, and that means spending time developing some quirky product that stands out among the droves of other students interviewing at major tech companies.

Pokémon Go is a new smartphone game by Niantic which uses augmented reality (AR) to allow players to find and “catch” the popular fictional species Pokémon. Using the phone’s camera and gyroscope, Pokémon appear as if they are in the real world. The concept of augmented reality is far from new, but Pokémon Go is introducing many people around the world to the possibilities of AR. Pokémon Go, with its smartphone integration and franchise appeal, has found the intersection between ease-of-access and mass interest, bringing millions of people into contact with AR for the first time. In a few years, people might be augmenting their reality without having to look down at their phone.

This past semester I took an embedded systems course where my lab partner and I had to design a video game system, from the game software to the controls. When we were finished, the breadboard we were working with was an absolute mess. I was perfectly happy with it simply working. My partner, however, insisted that we clean it up and 3D print an enclosure for it, like a true video game.