44 The PCB Magazine • January 2016
Frost & Sullivan: Five Big Technology
Predictions for 2016
Frost & Sullivan's Audrey William, Head of ICT
Research, Australia & New Zealand, shares her in-
sights for the five big technology predictions go-
ing into 2016.
Portable Device can Quickly Determine
the Extent of an Eye Injury
An engineer and an ophthalmologist are develop-
ing a portable sensor that can quickly and inex-
pensively determine whether an eye injury is mild
or severe. The device, called OcuCheck, measures
levels of vitamin C in the fluids that coat or leak
from the eye.
Smart Grid Data Analytics Market
to Triple by 2022
According to a new market report published by
Transparency Market Research "Smart Grid Data
Analytics Market—Global Industry Analysis, Size,
Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015– 2022,"
the smart grid data analytics market was valued
at US$1.6B in 2014 and is estimated to reach
US$4.6B by 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 13.4%
from 2015–2022.
A Battery Revolution in Motion
The first prototype of a sodium-ion battery has
just been revealed by the RS2E, a French network
bringing together researchers and industrial ac-
tors. This technology, inspired by the lithium-ion
batteries already used in portable computers and
electric vehicles, could lead to the mass storage of
intermittent renewable energy sources.
Flat Camera Invented at Rice University
Looks into the Future
How thin can a camera be? Very, say Rice Univer-
sity researchers who have developed patented
prototypes of their technological breakthrough.
FlatCam, invented by Rice labs' electrical and
computer engineers Richard Baraniuk and Ashok
Veeraraghavan, is little more than a thin sensor
chip with a mask that replaces lenses in a tradi-
tional camera.
TrendForce Anticipates 4K TVs to Reach
23% Market Penetration in 2016
Global LCD TV shipments for 2015 will total
216 million sets, according to the latest estima-
tion by WitsView, a division of TrendForce. This
year's shipments will represent a slight annual
decline, for the first time since the shipment
slide in 2013.
Researchers Find New Phase of Carbon,
Make Diamond at Room Temperature
Researchers from North Carolina State Univer-
sity have discovered a new phase of solid car-
bon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the
known phases of graphite and diamond. They
have also developed a technique for using Q-car-
bon to make diamond-related structures at room
temperature and at ambient atmospheric pres-
sure in air.
Future Batteries Could Charge
in 30 Seconds
Future cell phones and other electronics could
have batteries that charge in less than a minute.
This new capability will be in part thanks to a
space experiment using hard, flexible material as a
clean power source.
Intel Takes Integration Down
a New Path
In its latest teardown report, ABI Research, a leader
in technology market intelligence, discerns that
the Intel Atom x3 Platform, the company's second
integrated communication platform, includes the
highest integration mobile platform transceiver to
date.
Teaching Machines How to Learn
Machines will become not just more intelligent
in the future, but also more capable of learning.
To promote research in this field, ETH Zurich and
the Max Planck Society officially opened the Max
Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. The sci-
entists want to understand the theoretical princi-
ples of learning and how these can be applied to
real machines.
44 The PCB Magazine • January 2016
Electronics Industry News
Market Highlights
