Editorial

• Tesla conducts voluntary recall of older EV charging adapter

  Early in December, Tesla announced that it was voluntarily recalling nearly 7,000 adapters for electric vehicle charging after reports from two customers that the NEMA 14-30 adapters had overheated and cause melted plastic on the plugs. details>>

• Qualcomm introduces next-gen Snapdragon 835 processor

  Qualcomm announced in November that it will be releasing its next generation mobile system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor, the Sanpdragon 835, which will be built with Samsung's one-of-a-kind 10 nanometer FinFET technology. details>>

• Microsoft announces Cheyenne data center will be fully wind powered

  In early November, Microsoft announced that it was making its Cheyenne, Wyoming data center fully powered by wind, following the purchase of 237 megawatts of wind energy from Bloom Wind Project in Kansas and Black Hills Energy in Wyoming. details>>

• MSI releases Trident, smallest VR-ready gaming PC

  MSI released the Trident in mid-November, a system that it claims will be the smallest virtual reality-ready gaming PC on the market. details>>

• European Thermodynamics Conference to be held in Budapest in May

  The 14th annual Joint European Thermodynamics Conference (JETC) will take place in Budapest, Hungary from May 21-25, 2017. The conference will be hosted by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. details>>

• Aquila and TAS Energy launch liquid cooled data center solution

  New Mexico-based Aquila, the creator of the Aquarius line of liquid cooled computing solutions, has partnered with TAS Energy to turn its compute, switching, and storage cooling technology into a liquid cooling solution for edge data centers. details>>

• Exploring immersion cooling as thermal solution for electronics

  Researchers at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan is currently studying immersion cooling for electronics, a potential solution that has become increasingly popular in recent years as attitudes towards liquid cooling in general have shifted. details>>

• Early transistor material maybe making return as substitute for silicon

  Peide D. Ye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue, recently published a story on IEEE Spectrum hailing germanium, the material used in the very first transistors, as a potential replacement for silicon and alternative materials such as gallium arsenide in cutting edge transistors. details>>

• Thoughts on what lies behind Samsung smartphone fires

  In a recent article on IEEE Spectrum, Philip Ross and Andrew Silver explored the possibilities of what was behind the fires reported in Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that eventually forced the company to recall the line of smartphones, which amounted to more than 2.5 million phones. details>>

• Startup developing smartwatch powered by body heat

  Matrix Industries, a startup company, has announced the PowerWatch, a smartwatch that uses body heat to stay powered up, so that it never requires the battery to be charged or changed. details>>