As analysts predicted, more environmental laws are headed toward the electronics industry. At a November meeting in France, the European Parliament backed a bill entitled Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH). The law is designed to make companies prove that substances in everyday products such as cars and computers are safe. The properties of roughly 30,000 chemicals produced or imported into European Union (EU) countries would require testing and authorization to be used.
The EU passed the legislation 407 to 155 with 41 abstentions. The rules still need to be agreed upon by EU members and the bill will come back to parliament before it becomes law. REACH will force companies to substitute safe chemicals for hazardous ones when alternatives are available. The bill does not specify whether the RoHS directive renders electronic products clean enough to pass REACH. Industry analysts have argued there are more chemicals in electronic products that will come under scrutiny.
During a teardown of the iPad Air and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 at the Medical Design & Manufacturing Show in Schaumburg, Ill., an engineer showed this "inflammatory" video about the dangers of maliciously mishandling lithium-ion batteries.
Science fiction author Isaac Asimov may have the best rules for effective brainstorming and creativity. His never-before-published essay, "On Creativity," recently made it to the Web pages of MIT Technology Review.
Much has been made over the potentially dangerous flammability of lithium-ion batteries after major companies like Boeing, Sony, and Tesla have grappled with well-publicized battery fires. Researchers at Stanford University may have come up with a solution to this problem with a smart sensor for lithium-ion batteries that provides a warning if the battery is about to overheat or catch fire.
In this new Design News feature, "How it Works," we’re starting off by examining the inner workings of the electronic cigarette. While e-cigarettes seemed like a gimmick just two or three years ago, they’re catching fire -- so to speak. Sales topped $1 billion last year and are set to hit $10 billion by 2017. Cigarette companies are fighting back by buying up e-cigarette manufacturers.
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