Rising inflation and wage costs are transforming the Asian giant's industries and its role as the world's low-cost factory. John Garnaut reports from Shanghai.

The world's second largest sportswear company, adidas, is confronting a new and unexpected problem. The costs of labour, materials and red tape are spiralling upwards.  How to engineer the costs down ?

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Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a smart video goggle system that records everything the wearer looks at, recognizes and assigns names to objects that appear in the video, and creates an easily searchable database of the recorded footage. Designed to function as a high-tech memory aid, these “Cyber Goggles” promise to make the act of losing your keys a thing of the past, according to head researcher professor Tatsuya Harada.

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China - Industrial production increased 15.4 percent in the first two months from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today.

The sales rate of industrial goods by these companies, defined as those with annual revenue of more than 5 million yuan (US$703,235), edged up 0.7 percentage points year-on-year to reach 97.5 percent.

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Bhubaneswar, March 15: Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) , a Unit of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), is all set to establish new records in its performance during 2007-08.

Official sources said here that the steel plant completed a sterling performance during February 2008 and also set up all-time best performance for the period April 2007 to February 2008 as compared to any corresponding period since its inception.

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The extensive compilation of data in the recently released 2008 version of the National Science Board's biennial "Science and Engineering Indicators" (S&EI) report quantifies the continued strong growth in the number of students graduating from U.S. colleges and universities with degrees in the sciences.

The report also updates the dramatic ongoing shifts in the makeup of science graduating classes by both gender and citizenship. Most of the data are from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the National Science Foundation.

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A good engineering plant maintenance department, in some respects, is like a good professional football referee.

"If we do our jobs right, nobody knows that we even exist." So says George Doll, the maintenance manager at Batesville Casket Company's assembly plant in Batesville, Ind.

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Assembling a printed circuit board (PCB) assembly populated with ball-grid array (BGA) packages requires the utmost precision, especially in the case of micro-BGAs. Component placement tolerances must be remarkably tight, and the right kind of flux is critical, because the method of activating the flux determines the reliability of the solder joints

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Wealthy Chinese parents are buying toys which are NOT made in China . When freelance writer Wang Jian buys for toys for her young son, she’s happy to pay extra for Legos blocks and Japanese-brand train sets.

With a reputation for higher quality — a perception reinforced by the product scares of recent months, she and other parents are steering away from local products in favor of more expensive toys engineered and manufactured overseas

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 LG, Samsung have put their stamp of leadership on the electronic goods market in India with good customer care & high-end technology.
Korean companies, it seems, have proved their worth. After 10 long years in the Indian market, Korean giants like Samsung and LG have managed to make their presence felt in more than one segment.
When the Korean companies ventured into the India market, they were greeted with a lot of scepticism. It was a time when quite a few Indian brands were creating ripples in the market.

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There are many applications for a high speed camera and the manufacturing and engineering environments are major potential customers for this technology

Vision Research —maker of crazy-fast high-speed cameras have released their first handheld model, the Miro.

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The cool valleys of Darjeeling produce some of the best teas in the world, delicate little leaves so delicious that some call them the "champagne of teas." But you don't need to taste them to know how much they are valued. At Happy Valley tea estate, perched at 6,800 ft. (2,100 m) where the Himalayas snake into India between Nepal and Bhutan, workers harvest the autumn flush, plucking each tip of dwi paat suiro--two leaves and a bud--as if it were worth its weight in gold. As the sun sets on the looming Mount Kanchenjunga and a lazy mist begins to settle, pickers carefully empty their bamboo baskets and take in their loads to be weighed. One man swiftly but keenly examines the leaves before each worker signs in her day's pickings.

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ArcelorMittal , the world’s largest steel maker , raised its stake in the China Oriental Group to more than 73 percent, becoming the first foreign company to take control of a Chinese steel maker.

Arcelor raised its interest in China Oriental from 28.03 percent, according to the stock exchange filing, but no financial terms were released.

 The world's largest steel firm, ArcelorMittal , has seen quarterly profits jump thanks to high steel prices and demand from new markets.

Although Asia is still a major region where ArcelorMittal does not have a large presence, and they need to increase their exposure in this fast-growing region

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