Episode 64: OSHW, Makerbot & Memristo - Maundering Memristor Mathematicaster - The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

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Dave lost the bid for a lab which we discussed last week. :-(
Shoutouts:
- Jim Williams' desk is moving to the Computer History Museum. Chris wants to turn it into a wishing well.
- EE Web continues to publish some intriguing interviews with people throughout the industry. We especially liked these two weirdos. Great format for a portal as well.
Sesame Street is taking on STEM topics and teaching engineering! As Elmo seems to say: Yaaaaay!
A fourth Open Source Hardware Company has gotten funding, this time Ayah Bdeir and her company Little Bits. Also relevant, there was an article from Phil Torrone, talking to Bre Pettis of MakerBot and their recent round of funding.
David Manners on Electronics Weekly writes about the growing gap and competitive advantage of large fabs...and how that will jack up the price of chips.
TI has decided to give away some of their chips and award senior projects that use 3 or more in a design with up to $10k. We see it more as a way for them to recruit new talent.
When do you decide (monetarily) to start working on a low sales-volume product to refresh it?
India launches a $45 dollar tablet ($35 after subsidies). Is it real and how did they actually get the cost that low?
Memristors are supposed to be in production by 2013 (and likely expensive) in a joint venture between HP and Hynix. It's weird that they are a whole new component that could be designed into new products, as well as the math that goes along with it.
This week's history is an entire site, devoted to transistor history. How cool is that?! Be sure to check out the oral histories with some of the inventors of key chips.
Shonky Product of the Week:
- The AMPilizer. A capacitor in a box! It's based around the idea of Power Factor Correction, but this should not be required in homes (esp. where Dave lives, as they don't charge for apparent power).