Technology in the news – Articles from 2011

2012 onwards | 2011 | 2010

Design news articles

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Idealog Daily Bacon article, 27 October
Torino, Seoul and Helsinki have all earned it in the past, but now congratulations is being sent to the city of Cape Town, which has been named World Design Capital 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. The honour is awarded to cities based on their commitment to use design as an effective tool for social, cultural and economic development.
Discussion starter:
• Urban design: infrastructural enhancement; social responsibility; sustainability
BBC online news article, 31 October
Imagining the future, we naturally think of it as a different place to the one we live in now. It is populated with new technologies, advanced science and perhaps even a more evolved version of humanity. But who are the architects of this future, whose ideas will shape the coming reality?
Discussion starter:
• Nature of Technology: process of invention; futurism - prediction techniques; culturomics
NewScientist online article, 3 November
On 1 November the first aircraft with a pressurised fuselage and wings made from carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) flew its first passengers from Tokyo to Hiroshima. The All Nippon Airways Boeing 787's composite structure makes it around 15 per cent lighter than a typical aluminium-based plane of that size, increasing fuel efficiency and making aviation greener. But the media hoopla over the flight disguised some worrying questions about the long-term safety of composite aircraft.
Discussion starters:
• Technological Products: material properties and performance characteristics.
• Nature of Technology: competing priorities; testing and trilling; mitigation of risk
TV3News video, 3 November
Maritime New Zealand says it is not yet clear why the system failures on the Aratere are happening, but the ferry will not be operating until its been tested, and inspectors are confident that it is safe.
Discussion starter:
• Technological Systems: Mitigation of risk; reliability and redundancy
TV3News video, 4 November
For the first time ever, media has been allowed to film inside Christchurch's severely damaged Hotel Grand Chancellor. Now that intensive stabilising work has been completed the infamous 27 level leaning hotel is to be deconstructed floor by floor.
Discussion starter:
• Construction and mechanical technologies: Deconstruction planning
Stuff.co.nz article, 14 November
Cooking with iPads and other tablet computers is on the rise. But what if a slip of the saute pan leaves that $1000 gadget Wi-Fried? Enter the growing market of wraps, stands and shields designed to make sure that floury hands and splattering pans don't turn into a recipe for techno disaster.
Discussion starter:
• Product development: spin-off protection devices
Stuff.co.nz article, 14 November
It's been a good year for 21-year-old Jonathan Wrait who has made the finals of the Unlimited Investment Challenge and is now off to New York for the final of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA). Wrait's business is Virtuoso Tutoring, which tutors students in partnership with high schools, often using recently graduated students from the same school so they are familiar with the school and its culture.
Discussion starter:
• Enterprise: entrepreneurship; business models
BBC News online article, 18 November
The million pound Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, announced on Thursday at the Science Museum in London, is a global award which aims to, "to identify and celebrate an outstanding advance in engineering that has created significant benefit to humanity". It's part of a long tradition of using prizes to reward and encourage innovation.
Discussion starter:
• Nature of Technology: socio-cultural influences: international awards and prizes
BBC News online article, 18 November
Made of tiny metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice, the material is100 times lighter than Styrofoam and has "extraordinarily high energy absorption".
Discussion starters:
• Technological Products: material structure and performance properties
• Nano-technology: micro-lattice architecture
NZ Herald online, 12 December
A survey of some of the more remarkable trends and breakthroughs that may - or may not - come to pass in the next year. Discussion starter
Discussion starter:
• Nature of Technology: technological innovation - creative solutions versus socio cultural reality
www.bbc.co.uk, 13 December
A camera capable of visualising the movement of light has been unveiled by a team of scientists in the US.
The equipment captures images at a rate of roughly a trillion frames per second - or about 40 billion times faster than a UK television camera. Direct recording of light is impossible at that speed, so the camera takes millions of repeated scans to recreate each image. The team said the technique could be used to understand ultrafast processes.
New York Times online, 27 December
The most widespread medical implant failure in decades involves thousands of all-metal artificial hips that need to be replaced prematurely. The financial fallout is expected to be unusually large and complex because the episode involves a class of products, not a single device or just one company.
Discussion starters:
• Technological Products: material properties and performance characteristics
• Nature of Technology: sociocultural factors - legal responsibilities

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