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• 'Simple pleasures'
  TV3 News, 13 September
  A group of NZ companies have become part of a modern world movement towards slow food, organic produce and simple clean flavours – 'the way food used to be before pesticides, herbicides, emulsifiers and preservatives came on the scene'.
  Discussion starters:
  • Nature of Technology: sustainable business practices
• Clean green machine
  Manawatu Standard, 13 September
  A Massey University mechatronics student's inexpensive, simple and environmentally friendly invention could go global, helping to resolve the ongoing issue of broken glass on roads.
  Discussion starters:
  • Construction and mechanical technologies: understanding machines
  • Technological modeling: Prototype testing
• Skate boarding's latest thrill ride
  Close Up video, 14 September
  A new Auckland skatepark is taking shape with a likely price tag of close to $1 million.
  Discussion starters:
  • Nature of Technology: Socio technological environments
  • Technological modelling: stakeholder feedback using social networking media
• Gestural hand-tracking interface being developed by MIT researchers
  www.physorg.com, 14 September
  Researchers at MIT have developed software that can track a Lycra fabric glove with a special color pattern. Using only a cheap web camera equipped with a wide angle lens, the software can track hand gestures.
  Wang and MIT associate professor Jovan Popavic have developed gesture-recognition algorithms that are more efficient by reducing gestures to 40 by 40 pixels. Unique patterns are then generated from the layout of the Lycra glove with specially placed color splotches.
• Pain in the nest
  Stuff.co.nz, 14 September
  Birds are a pain for farmers, causing fires in tractors and making a mess in sheds – but Bird Buster designer Bryan Bate has found a way of combating the problem.
  Discussion starters:
  • Technological systems: design and manufacture
  • Characteristics of Technological Outcomes: evaluation in terms of fitness for purpose
• F&P banks on fridge innovation
  Stuff.co.nz, 15 September
  Iconic Kiwi whiteware manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Appliances has made an internationally significant breakthrough in fridge technology which could cut refrigerator power use by a third.
  The company today announced refrigeration compressor technology which will not only potentially save up to 30 per cent on power use, but also impact design with more space available in the fridges.
• Artificial 'skin' can sense pressure
  Stuff.co.nz, 15 September
  New artificial "skin" fashioned out of flexible semiconductor materials can sense touch, making it possible to create robots with a grip delicate enough to hold an egg, yet strong enough to grasp the frying pan.
  Discussion starters:
  • Technological products: new materials formulation
  • Technological systems: sensor technology
• Home's Electrical Wiring Acts as Antenna to Receive Low-Power Sensor Data
  www.sciencedaily.com, 16 September
  If these walls had ears, they might tell a homeowner some interesting things. Like when water is dripping into an attic crawl space, or where an open window is letting hot air escape during winter.
  The walls do have ears, thanks to a device that uses a home's electrical wiring as a giant antenna. Sensors developed by researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology use residential wiring to transmit information to and from almost anywhere in the home, allowing for wireless sensors that run for decades on a single watch battery. The technology, which could be used in home automation or medical monitoring, will be presented this month at the Ubiquitous Computing conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Two years to analogue switch off
  Stuff.co.nz, 16 September
  Analogue television broadcasts will be progressively switched off between September 2012 and November 2013, the Government has announced.
  The phased switch-off will start in Hawke's Bay and the West Coast.
  From then, consumers will need a Freeview set-top box, a television with Freeview built-in or a subscription to a digital pay-television service such as Sky Television in order to watch television.
  New Zealand will follow other countries, including the United States, Britain and Australia in turning off its analogue network and switching to digital-only transmission.
• Kiwi rocket man flies high
  Stuff.co.nz, 16 September
  It's the stuff boyhood dreams are made of and one made real by a determined Kiwi inventor.
  Glenn Martin, inventor of the world's first practical jetpack, gave his account of turning the dream into reality during a lunchtime presentation in Timaru yesterday.
  The presentation, hosted by the South Canterbury branch of the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, was a chronicle of his 30-year endeavour to design and build a personal jetpack.
• Air NZ crash - what went wrong?
  TVNZ video, 17 September
  A discussion with former Airbus captain Edward Hunkin following the release of the report over the crash of an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 in France.
  Discussion starters:
  • Characteristics of Technological Outcomes: system malfunction
  • Technological systems: redundancy and reliability within system design
• Perfection is creamy blue
  Stuff.co.nz, 18 September
  At Fonterra Brands in Eltham, a Taranaki food technologist and a French master cheese maker form a creative team. They are both innovators and their job is product development. Someone will come up with a new idea for a cheese and they have to make it work. Or prove it can't be done.
  Discussion starters:
  • Food technology: new product development; manufacturing constraints
  • Processing technologies: regulatory requirements in dairy production processes
• Doing things big
  Stuff.co.nz, 20 September
  The home made trebuchet, which took a Taranaki family two months to build, has a 13m throwing arm atop a tree trunk frame, complete with wooden wheels. A two-tonne concrete block is used as a counterweight and the weapon can hurl a 20kg object about 100m.
  Discussion starters:
  • Construction and mechanical technologies: ancient machines
  • Technological products: material properties and their performance capability
• 3-D Printing Comes To New York
  The New York Times, 23 September
  Shapeways is a 3-D printing company which has just moved its headquarters from the Netherlands to New York. The company brings with it a service that lets people design their own objects, send the design to Shapeways and then receive the printed 3-D object back a few days later in the mail. People using the service print more than 10,000 products each month, ranging from iPad kitchen stands to jewellery and DNA molecular models.
  Discussion starters:
  • Characteristics of Technology: transformation of materials energy and information
  • Technological modeling: the '3-D printing revolution'
• Invite for aspiring fashionistas
  Otago Polytechnic, 24 September
  Sophie Hardy graduated from Otago Polytechnic with a Bachelor of Design (Fashion) in 2009. She became an international finalist at the Mittelmoda Fashion Awards in Italy, and then won the lifestyle section of Australia's FashionTV awards. Now, while she is working to turn these achievements into an ongoing career, she is offering students an insight into life as an emerging fashion designer by letting them follow her on Facebook.
  Discussion starters:
  • Textiles technology: Tertiary study options and career development