2009 was a pretty big year in terms of new technology and advancements. We’ve seen lots of new green technologies come out, Ares 1-X launched, and NASA has even found water on the moon! Not to mention we now have Windows 7, the Android phone, and twitter on your PS3.

Truly, we live in a time of miracles.

Time magazine put together their list of top new inventions for the year, and by all accounts it’s a pretty good list (seriously it’s a good read) and the rocket scientist in me is proud that the Ares 1-X took top honors. But what about all of you? What are your favorite new technologies of the year? I’ll post a few of my picks for 2009, but I would love to hear from everyone else on this as well.

So without further ado…

Craig’s Favorite Inventions of 2009!

• Cause I’m a rocket man…

What do a crazy British adventurer, a man with mutton chops the size of Florida, and more carbon composites than you can shake a stick at have in common? Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites unveiled their design for Space Ship 2 this month as the first of (hopefully) many space ships for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

While it’s still only sub-orbital, and tickets start at a hefty $200,000 a piece, a vacation in space is still a long way off, but hey, private aviation started the same way not to long ago!

• Is this the droid you’re looking for?

Smart phones are quickly becoming ubiquitous. It’s not just enough to make calls on the go and text message till you thumbs fall off, because if your phone can’t surf the web, play games, interpret multi touch gestures, play music and videos, and make phone calls, than you’re simply not cool.

Apple has the corner with its iPhone, and that’s something not likely to change soon, but the new phone, the Droid, is stepping up to the challenge. Whats it’s killer app?

You

The Droid is using a version of open source software so that anyone can easily create applications and modify the phone to their liking, something a tight lipped and tight reined Apple would never dream off.

• I am Iron Man… kinda

Lockheed Martin introduced their new third generation Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) this year. Basically HULC is a lower body exoskeleton allowing soldiers to carry hundreds of pounds over any terrain without breaking a sweat.

Tony Stark… Lockheed isn’t the only one working on exoskeletons, Cyberdyne Inc. (yes, that’s really their name, it’s creepy I know) has developed the HAL 5 (seriously? I’m starting to worry a bit here) allowing a person to lift 5 times their body weight.

While they won’t let a person throw cars or fly at supersonic speed, and I’m certain they won’t gain a malevolent sentience and attempt to destroy the earth, I would still love to have one of these babies in my garage.

So these are my top 3, what cool stuff from 2009 is on your list?

In this context, I reflect upon what I’ve accomplished personally and professionally as one year ends and another begins. From a business perspective, Knovel has had a strong year measured by 90%+ subscription renewals, new customers, team growth, on-time product development and good employee morale in a tough year. Our planning for 2010 is in high gear, and the bar is high. So my time has lately been dominated by budget negotiations, sales projections and product planning meetings. In this swirl of activity, it was important for me not to loose sight of the value of spending quality time with family and giving back to the community.

I’ve been involved with Change for Kids for many years and currently serve as the Chairman of the Board.  It’s been a rewarding experience. We partner with New York City public schools to bring underprivileged children enrichment programs, such as literacy, arts, music, and fitness, that engage them in a way that their proficiency in core programs (e.g., math and reading) sees measurable improvement. Over 85% of the families that send their children to the schools we support live below the “poverty line,” so they would not have access to these programs without Change for Kids (CFK). Through the 14 years of our existence, we have seen many lives changed for the better. Take a look at this video, and you’ll get a sense for what we do.

As you consider your personal and professional goals for 2010, I encourage you to support a charity or cause you are passionate about. Volunteer your time, donate toys, books, or clothes. Raise awareness about an organization or issue. The possibilities are endless. Cash donations, while always welcome, are increasingly difficult for people to make. Don’t underestimate the value your of enthusiasm, time, talent and insight.

Every holiday season the Vice-Principal of P.S. 160, a 90% poverty-rate school situation in Jamaica, Queens makes an effort to provide something special for her most-needy students and their families. This year Knovel employees sponsored 10 families from P.S.160 donating children’s clothes, toys and books. Here’s Mike Quinzio, our program director, delivering gifts last week.

We’ll keep you posted on all of our community activities throughout the year.

In the meantime, if you are interested in Change for Kids, you might consider reading to our children, helping out in our offices, or  taking part in one of many other activities – check out these volunteer opportunities.

Happy New Year!

As a responsible and prominent engineer I feel it’s my duty to set the record straight. (Plus I really REALLY want a new netbook for Christmas). While I don’t like the idea of disseminating these lies, I still feel like I need to let you know what we’re up against:

“There are approximately 380 Million children celebrating Christmas. This averages to about 1/1000 of second for Santa to visit each home, deliver gifts, eat some cookies, and move on to the next house. Santa would need to travel at 650 miles per second to travel to each home in one night. (Approx 3000 time the speed of sound) The speed he would need to travel combined with the weight of all the toys would result in 17500 Gs and the heating due to air resistance would incinerate the rein deer, Santa and sleigh in less than a single second.”

Personally, I think the fact that Santa has been doing his job for longer than I’ve been alive is evidence enough that these “theories” are incorrect. But let’s get into the physics of it. The underlying problem is that Santa has some many stops to make, right?

Well that’s only a problem if you are using Newtonian based physics. By simply applying quantum mechanics, specifically quantum superposition, Santa is theoretically able to visit every house at the same time!

Why? because quantum superposition supposes that “if the world can be in any configuration, any possible arrangement of particles or fields, and if the world could also be in another configuration, then the world can also be in a state which is a superposition of the two.” Or, since there is an equal chance of Santa being in any one individual house at any individual moment, he can be assumed to be in EVERY individual house at ANY individual moment. (Since everyone is asleep and we don’t see which home he visits, he visits them all, not unlike Schrödinger’s cat). This means he only makes one round trip from the North Pole to your home and back, greatly reducing these “top speed” and “payload” issues.

But, since he still needs to travel across the globe in several
hours there is still an issue of heating from air resistance!

Casual observers may note that it is actually this heating which causes Rudolph’s nose to glow red! This carbon-carbon phenolic nose actually trips the boundary layer and forces a phase change (from gas to plasma) in the atmosphere surrounding the sleigh. This ends up bleeding off the heat, keeping Santa and his precious payload cool. (This not unlike when the Space shuttle re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere)

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he is a brilliant engineer and physicist.

And for all you REAL nerds out there:

Think all the best green innovations are coming from the engineering department? The Baltimore Sun has a piece on four Howard County highway workers who built a device to cut vehicle emissions.

Next, from the world of pseudoscience, author Cory Doctorow has asked readers on boingboing.net to handle (correctly) the orbital mechanics for his next book!

From the mapping of the human genome to finding water on Mars, MSNBC.com takes a look at the Top 10 Science Stories of the Decade.

And finally in my personal favorite link of the week, Today’sBigThing brings us an in depth look at a classic story in Little Red Riding Hood for Engineers.

“The founding of YouTube in February, 2005 stands as one of the greatest moments in internet history. The implications of easily available streaming videos were boundless. Our favorite result of YouTube? Wacky science and engineering related music videos!”

While  I still wholeheartedly stand by my love of goofy music videos for entertainment, I can’t help but consider the benefit of using YouTube and streaming videos for education and training purposes.

Ensuring Knovel is accessible and easy to use is a high priority. As we continually add more features, content and functionality, it’s good to know that we can provide videos that enable our users to quickly adopt new offerings.

Before I get into Knovel’s new videos, I’d like to highlight videos produced by our users. Many information professionals have taken the time and effort to create instructional videos that raise awareness and encourage use of resources available in their libraries.

• One of the best videos that we’ve seen came courtesy of Jay Bhatt and Dana Denick of Drexel University’s Engineering Library. The video provides a quick and easy overview of Knovel’s search capabilities and interactive tools, while also providing specific information to help Drexel Engineering Students access the library. Terrific job Jay and Dana! If you have any Knovel tutorials that you’ve created, we’d love to see them! Drop your links into the comments section or send an e-mail to nschulman@knovel.com.

See this video on YouTube

With our recent spate of product updates, we at Knovel have created new tutorial videos to keep pace with the changes. I’m proud to debut our new videos, right here on K Exchange!

• First, we have a new video that demonstrates our Basic Search capabilities. The video details how the search function works and illustrates how to use Basic Search to determine the best materials to use to avoid the negative effects of weathering. Take a look!

See this video on YouTube

• Next, we have a new video that demonstrates the use of our Data Search function to develop improved liquids for cleaning the mixing vessels used in a production process.

See this video on YouTube

• Finally, we a have a new video that demonstrates our Interactive Tools. This video includes a chemistry problem in which the user needs to analyze the physical properties of ammonium compounds.

See this video on YouTube

What do you think of our new videos? Did you learn anything new about Knovel? Have you created any videos, or has anyone in your organization created a tutorial? We’d love to see them if you have!

It may seem cold-hearted, but this is exactly how a recent lay-off went in our office. On the morning of the previously announced lay-off, the engineers huddled together keeping watch for signs of management. When a manager would dart towards us we’d all scatter back to our own cubes; but no safety could be found for the targets, and those fated to be laid-off were picked out from among us one by one.

As engineers, we often borrow some of our best solutions from the natural world. Interestingly enough, the response animals have taken to predators are applicable to avoiding our own pink-slip predators.

Clean me up Scotty!

At every reef around the world you can find “cleaning stations” places where small fish setup shop to feast on algae and parasites plaguing other fish. These cleaning fish enjoy freedom from creatures which would normal consider them prey. They are allowed to swim around freely, sometimes working inside the very mouths designed to rip them to shreds.

Take a cue from these cleaning fish, make yourself irreplaceable to your bosses by attacking the problems that plague them. Understanding the needs and metrics that they are responsible for, and helping fulfill those can keep you off bosses the hit list when the time comes.

A need… for speed.

The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, chasing down its prey at 70 mph. How can you avoid a predator like this? Simple: be nearly as fast and much more agile, just like the 50 mph gazelle which can change velocity much faster than the straight-line speeding cheetah.

Like no other field, engineering is constantly on the move. Staying up to date on current technology, techniques, and industry trends equals staying fast and agile. Slowing down and losing touch with what’s going on in the industry and/or failing to adopt or adapt to new technology, is a perfect way to make yourself vulnerable when the lay-offs roll around.

Hide with Pride

Fight or flight isn’t really the only 2 options in the animal kingdom. Sometimes it pays to not be seen at all. Highly evolved camouflage helps countless animals avoid predators by seemingly vanishing into the background.

Staying hidden can be as simple as not sticking out in the office. Don’t get involved in gossiping or rumors, even more importantly stay away from being the topic of office gossip and rumors. Be polite and smile at everyone you come across, but when things get tough, don’t complain, or vent because it can, and often does, get back around to the boss. Keep your head and down, and keep working hard.

Most analysts predict that the economic recovery efforts won’t prove fruitful anytime soon. This means few construction projects, fewer government contracts, less frequent technology refreshes, and the ever looming threat of lay-offs. Huddling yourself in a group of coworkers is human nature, but by being proactive in defense of your job you can stay one step ahead of the office predators.

Energy Efficiency in Industrial Process Heating Systems

By Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan, West Virginia University and Deepak P. Gupta, Southeast Missouri State University.

This article provides a summary of case studies resulting from an energy assessment of process heating systems at seven large industrial facilities.  The average energy savings in those facilities were estimated to be 13% (range, 6% to 28%)… Read More >>

Autoblog.com’s John McElroy takes a look at a radically new type of engine from a company called Eco Motors that may offer a 50% increase in fuel economy.

In my favorite link this week, Popular Mechanics takes a look at the World’s 18 Strangest Roadways. Without a doubt my favorite is the Atlanterhavsveien in Norway

From the ground we look up to the sky as nitrobahn.com looks at the World’s 10 Fastest Aircrafts, with the coolest being, without a doubt, the X-43 Scram Jet.

And finally, what happens when a houseboat meets a bio-dome? Dornob.com takes a look at the WaterPod, an entirely self sustaining houseboat being built to travel around the Hudson River.