By Prasad Akella • As the pandemic altered how everyone went about their daily lives, it became clear that not even organizations with nearly disaster proof business models would escape making changes to how they operate. By historically focusing primarily on maximizing efficiency, businesses did not have the robustness to withstand any black swan type events,…
Festo and the power of worker upskilling at the Oracle Industry Lab
Oracle and Festo are joining forces to help educators create new opportunities and solve tough challenges at the Oracle Industry Lab. Opened today, the facility provides hands-on, simulated industry settings for customers to experiment, learn, and bring transformative technologies to life. At the lab, visitors will interact with a sophisticated Festo “Learning Factory” used in…
Keeping cool with capacitors
Ordinary vapor-compression cooling is inefficient and un-green. Future-generations of air conditioning may instead use electrocaloric techniques with almost no moving parts. Leland Teschler • Executive Editor Here’s some bad news about our warming world, courtesy of the International Energy Agency: The use of air conditioners and electric fans already accounts for about a fifth of…