If Bravo’s Start-Ups: Silicon Valley makes you gag and, in turn, makes your gags want to gag , you could be in luck. HBO has bought the pilot for a very different Silicon Valley that might serve as an effective antidote to that reality TV schlock. More »
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HBO Just Greenlit a Silicon Valley Comedy By Mike Judge That Could Actually Be Good
General Electric has moved some of its key appliance-manufacturing work back to the USA, re-opening “Appliance Park,” a megafactory in Louisville, KY. The company is finding it cheaper to do some manufacturing in the US relative to China, thanks to spiking oil costs, plummeting natural gas prices in the US, rising Chinese wages, falling US wages, and, most of all, the efficiencies that arise from locating workers next to managers and designers. The GeoSpring suffered from an advanced-technology version of “IKEA Syndrome.” It was so hard to assemble that no one in the big room wanted to make it. Instead they redesigned it. The team eliminated 1 out of every 5 parts. It cut the cost of the materials by 25 percent. It eliminated the tangle of tubing that couldn’t be easily welded. By considering the workers who would have to put the water heater together—in fact, by having those workers right at the table, looking at the design as it was drawn—the team cut the work hours necessary to assemble the water heater from 10 hours in China to two hours in Louisville. In the end, says Nolan, not one part was the same. So a funny thing happened to the GeoSpring on the way from the cheap Chinese factory to the expensive Kentucky factory: The material cost went down. The labor required to make it went down. The quality went up. Even the energy efficiency went up. GE wasn’t just able to hold the retail sticker to the “China price.” It beat that price by nearly 20 percent. The China-made GeoSpring retailed for $1,599. The Louisville-made GeoSpring retails for $1,299. The Insourcing Boom [The Atlantic/Charles Fishman]
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Why (some) manufacturing is returning to the USA
Lights out, rebels: it looks like the Syrian government just blacked out almost the entire country’s access to the web. This is cyber warfare. More »
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Did Syria Just Turn off The Internet? (Updated)
After the US and Israel cooked up Stuxnet—a potent cyber weapon aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities—whenever a virus targets Iran, it could be something major. This time around, the web threat wants to erase Iranian banks . More »
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New Money-Destroying Virus Attacks Iran
In a medical first, researchers have streamed Braille patterns directly onto a blind person’s retina, allowing him or her to read letters and words visually, with almost 90% accuracy. Developed by researchers at Second Sight , the headset-like device is set to revolutionize the way degenerative eye diseases like Retinitis Pigmentosa are treated. More »
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New implant allows the blind to stream Braille directly onto their retinas
An internet cafe webmaster in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, Guangdong, was recently arrested for stealing user information, passwords, and money from the very same internet cafe he was working in. The method of his crime was something that seems like something lifted from the 1999 movie Office Space . More »
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Internet Cafe Webmaster Steals Internet From Internet Cafe
In a very, heh, familiar story , Google apparently lost the upcoming Nexus 4 in a bar last month. Yes, the LG Nexus phone we expect to be unveiled next week . Yes, the phone that’s probably going to take the crown as the best Android phone available when it comes out. More »
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Google Lost the Nexus 4 in a Bar