Category Archives: New Technologies

The future is cloud-y for engineering data management

February 8, 2015 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Feb 2015

Lately I have been deluged with the announcement of or introduction to a series of cloud based data management systems for design engineering that are also focusing on collaboration. I plan this blog to be the first in a series that explores new PDM/PLM (PxM) solutions for product design.

Before I begin, we need to clarify the differences between PDM and PLM. PDM manages design changes during product development while PLM manages engineering and other changes made after the production release of the product for manufacturing and other downstream processes. Using this definition, PDM can be used to store all sorts of information during the design or work-in-process stage. Such information might include, but not be limited to: product specs, preliminary designs, analyses and simulation, product versions, QC specs, engineering BOMs, material types, etc. PLM manages engineering and other changes made after the release of the product from engineering. PLM systems might include PDM data managed during design as well as other data, such as, manufacturing BOMs, manufacturing instructions, NC data, service tracking, cost data, customer level documentation, etc. I think you get the picture.

PTC’s recent announcement of PTC PLM Cloud, a webinar I attended about GrabCAD Workbench and Onshape’s inherent use of a cloud-based solution — all piqued my interest. I began wondering about the differences between them and how one might choose a solution for a mid sized firm. One obvious differentiator is how cloud based PxM software connects to CAD software, be it desktop CAD or cloud based CAD. By the way, if you have not seen Onshape’s Dave Corcoran’s blog about the “The blue screen of death,” then I urge you to read it now. http://www.onshape.com/cad-blog. Corcoran discusses some of the benefits of a cloud based PxM – CAD implementation.

A true cloud based system allows full use of easily extensible computational capability and virtually unlimited storage

A PxM system cloud based system may not be much different from the tired old server based software that has been promoted for years. Adding a web based interface and hierarchical data storage in the cloud, masks an antiquated architecture. The old approach of bolting external data management software into CAD simply does not work well enough. It’s too laborious, takes extra time, and makes little use of design info developed automatically during the design cycle. It’s lack of adoption to date verifies this assumption.

A true cloud based system should be radically different in architecture allowing full use of cloud system flexibility. For instance, one reason I always disliked the previous generation of PDM/PLM was their outdated reliance on text-based interfaces. I would expect modern PxM systems to be graphically oriented offering comprehensible and visual navigation within the product structure. It should offer a tight connection to related CAD systems and automate much of the data management function. Automatic backup and easy restore of historical data are mandatory functions, as are easily distributed design among partners along with IP (intellectual property) protection.

The vendors are all moving quickly to position (or re-position) their PxM systems as cloud based

The plethora of cloud based data management systems for engineering and CAD include the following (plus some I haven’t yet discovered): Autodesk PLM 360, Onshape, GrabCAD Workbench, PTC PLM Cloud, and Kenesto as well as Dropbox and related cloud drive systems. More traditional software is offered by ARAS, Dassault Systemes and Siemens PLM software. What follows is a summary of how some of these vendors are positioning their software.

  • Onshape promotes distributed design. Using cloud based CAD along with a fully integrated cloud PDM system allows a brand new perspective on how modern CAD systems should work. Essentially all costs for compute power and data storage are greatly minimized, easily increased, even ”borrowed” for a short duration.
  • GrabCAD’s Workbench calls itself “The fast, easy way to manage and share CAD files without PDM’s cost and hassle.” The company goes on to state “Workbench allows teams on any CAD system to work smoothly together by syncing local CAD files to cloud projects, tracking versions and locking files to prevent conflicts.” The enterprise version costs $89 per month.
  • PTC recently announced PTC PLM Cloud, stating “this solution leverages the power of PTC Windchill, while simplifying PLM adoption with a flexible, hosted subscription offering, deployable at a pace that matches the needs of SMBs.” I am not exactly sure what this means, but expect to clarify this when I speak with PTC this week.
  • Very soon, Kenesto plans to announce a cloud based system that, Steve Bodnar – VP of Strategy, calls a terrific solution for small shops, enabling them to replace their server based, in-house error prone, file based systems with a much higher function cloud based system that requires minimal change to the way CAD users work, yet improves the reliability of their data management.

Alas, how can an engineering organization differentiate which PxM technology to buy and invest their time and money in? More detail about various implementations and my assessment of them will be forthcoming in future blogs.

——-

Ray Kurland — I have returned to consulting and analyzing systems for TechniCom, from an early and erstwhile retirement.

References:

Onshape: I have seen it and it is good!

January 21, 2015 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies Tags: , , , Leave a comment

21 Jan 2015

I cannot yet discuss Onshape details, having agreed, as did all others who viewed the product, to an all-encompassing non-disclosure agreement.

But surely, others must have noticed the recent activity from Onshape. After more than two years of secrecy, their executives and others in the company are finally reaching out to the public. Just last week I had three calls from Onshape execs, all wanting to make sure I was aware of their product beta. Within the past two weeks they have started a blog, which now has two posts. See it at www.onshape.com. The first posted just two weeks ago was from Jon Hirschtick, Founder and Chairman of the Board at Onshape. A second blog post from Dave Corcoran, Co-Founder and the Vice President of Research and Development at Onshape reveals some new faces among the development staff along with a remark about the company’s cloud centric approach.

I must admit being somewhat skeptical when I heard the new company was founded. After all, after being around the CAD business for more than 25 years, what could possibly be new? Yet I was still frustrated after these many years with some CAD software systems general fundamentals: the software was hard to use, PDM was a pain in the butt to use, the software was still too costly and often unreliable, all vendors still wanted to lock in their users and multi-CAD usage was rare, new releases became more and more difficult to install because existing data needed to be “migrated”, PDM’s big brother (PLM) promised the moon but seldom delivered without great expense and manpower, the benefits of cloud computing was relegated to special cases because the software was designed for interactive desktop computing.

Does Onshape solve all these BIG problems? I can’t divulge any details yet, but some are being directly addressed. You can get a few clues if you carefully read Dave’s blog; there you will find some hints about where Onshape is heading.

With all this recent activity my guess is that Onshape is getting ready for a public announcement.

More to follow.

World Technology Summit 2013 reveals exciting technology

November 18, 2013 By in Computer Industry, New Technologies Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Last week, on November 14th, I had the privilege of attending the first day of the 2013 World Technology Summit. This conference gathers many of the most innovative people and organizations in the science and technology world to celebrate each other’s accomplishments; to explore what is imminent, possible, and important in and around emerging technologies; and to create the kinds of serendipitous relationships that create the future. www.wtn.net

The day was a fascinating chance to hear from and meet with some very exciting people and listen to their (thankfully short) pitches. Some were from larger well-established firms, while others were at the earliest stages of their products. The venue and the breaks allowed me to casually meet and chat with many of the principals.

I have summarized below some of the notes I took at the presentations and recollections from more casual meetings. The standouts were RelSci (Relationship Science), Hidalgo (Human Performance Monitoring) www.hidalgo.co.uk, Planetary Resources (Asteroid Mining), Interaxon (Brainwave Monitoring), and ViaSat (High speed satellite communications).

Ariel Garten, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, InteraXon Inc.

(Brainwave control for the masses)

In 2007, Ariel co-founded InteraXon, one of the world’s leading companies creating brainwave controlled products and experiences. Her team is merging technology, neuroscience, art and design. Muse, InteraXon’s brain-sensing headband allows consumers to interact with their computing devices using the power of their mind.

I had a chance to try out a demo headset, which contained three sensors that monitored alpha brainwaves. Attached to an Apple MacBook, two readouts were displayed on a screen. One monitoring my focus and the second monitoring my calmness. While the system was a bit balky I seemed to be able to control the readouts. The headsets are going on sale for $249 at www.getyourmuse.com soon. My impression was wow! This seemed an amazing system for bio feedback control, particularly for anxious individuals. http://www.interaxon.ca

Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief and Publisher, MIT Technology Review

(10 trends to watch in the next year)

The editor in chief and the publisher of MIT Technology Review, Pontin directs the editorial, platform development, and general business strategy of the company’s digital and print publications, as well as its events.

Here are what Pontin calls 10 breakthrough technologies (as best as I was able to record them) that will deform the world:

  1. Deep learning
  2. Ultra efficient solar power by changing light beams to improve the efficiency of solar panels, as have been explored using prisms at CalTech.
  3. Data extraction from cheap phones for poor country data gathering leading to better information, for instance, on disasters.
  4. Temporary social media — like Snapchat?  Creating space for making mistakes.
  5. Smart watches: need a less socially intrusive way to interact with the web
  6. Memory implants to reduce mildly cognitive memory problems.
  7. Robotic manufacturing. Today’s robots are too fixed in nature. Need more flexible robots. Automate new areas of manual work. For example – serving up burgers. What might be the impact on society and employment?
  8. Additive manufacturing. At industrial scale using metals, where the output compares in durability to machined objects.
  9. DNA sequencing. This is becoming cheap (hundreds of dollars rather than thousands) using mothers blood with little danger to the fetus. Troubling because may promote abortion. How to make decisions based on statistical outcomes?
  10. 10.Super power grids. Could conceive of DC grids with less power loss transmission.

Eric Brown, Director, Watson Technologies, IBM Research

(Moving from Jeopardy to medical science)

Eric Brown, the Director and Principal Investigator for Watson Technologies at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center joined IBM in 1995 and has conducted research in information retrieval, document categorization, text analysis, question answering, bio-informatics, and applications of automatic speech recognition. The goal of Watson is to achieve human-level question answering performance and Brown is currently focused on applying Watson to clinical decision support in Healthcare. Efforts to move Watson to the cloud are taking place now. I am not sure about deployment, but it seems that this could go a long way towards improving physicals and emergency care. Sounds very exciting!

Neal Goldman, Chairman/CEO, Relationship Science (RelSci)

(LinkedIn on steroids)

Relationship Science (RelSci), an information services business headquartered in New York City provides a “six degrees” type of business development tool that helps users see connections between – and make connections with—influential people based on their profiles in the system’s database.

RelSci has compiled over two million influential names and their connections, charity work, work and board associates, and education to find pathways between dealmakers, power brokers, and business executives. The company has been called the “ultimate business development tool.

RelSci is relatively new, having rolled out product early this year. How does the company do this? Apparently with a herd of people in New York and India going through all sorts of publically available sources and inputting the data into their database. Designed for companies selling high value items to other businesses, a single sale might pay for the service. No service costs were discussed, but I certainly could have used such a tool in my former account executive jobs at IBM. I would be intrigued as to how the data is filtered for accuracy, since there might be substantial changes over time. It seems an ideal service business. www.relsci.com

Dan Harden, Industrial Designer, President/CEO Whipsaw Inc.

(Designing for users)

Whipsaw Inc., a highly acclaimed design firm in the Silicon Valley. Whipsaw designs products and experiences for major companies around the world including Google, Cisco, GE, Intel, Merck, Nike, Olympus, Samsung and many others. Dan directs the strategic and conceptual direction of most accounts and his focus is in technology design where he strives to make complex products simpler, friendlier, more meaningful, and more beautiful. He recently designed many hit tech products including the Google Chromecast, Dropcam security cameras, Livescribe computer pens, Eton emergency radios, Cisco Telepresence systems, Intel healthcare tablets, and Pano Logic, the first “zero client” computer.

Dan discussed how he always approaches designs from a user’s point of view and concentrates on simplifying the UI. This seems a badly needed approach to much of what design engineer’s face using their overly complex software. http://www.whipsaw.com

Ian Webster, Software Engineer at Planetary Resources

(Asteroid mapping simplified and mining TBD)

Ian Webster is a Software Engineer who founded Asterank, which was acquired by Planetary Resources in early 2013. Asterank pioneered techniques for asteroid discovery, analysis, and visualization of over half a million objects from sources such as NASA/JPL, the Minor Planet Center, and world markets. My impression: Just viewing the data on a laptop was astounding. Spinning the solar system around in real time while viewing the location of these half million objects made me realize the fascinating planarity of the planets, moons, and asteroids. Webster stated that most objects fall within 20 degrees of planarity.

Even more fascinating is the opportunity for asteroid mining. Webster stated that there is one asteroid that contains more platinum than has ever been mined on earth. That alone might seem a worthwhile target. It seems that there are a few obstacles to overcome. Besides the technology, spacecraft, methods and processes, who owns and controls these asteroids? First come, first served? How do you fend off competitors? Who determines the laws? Hmmm, interesting! www.planetaryresources.com

—–

What’s up with Belmont Technology?

September 9, 2013 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

9 Sep 2013: Last week Siemens PLM Software announced that “Belmont Technology, a venture backed software start-up founded by CAD industry veterans, has licensed Siemens’ Parasolid® software and D-Cubed™ software components to be the foundation of a new generation of cloud-based applications for the computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) market. The Belmont team, which includes Founder and Chairman, Jon Hirschtick, and CEO John McEleney, will use Parasolid and D-Cubed components to provide the solid modeling and geometric constraint solving capabilities that are fundamental to modern CAD/CAM/CAE applications. Parasolid and D-Cubed components are developed by Siemens’ PLM software business unit.”

So that’s news. We have not heard from Belmont in some time. Note this verbiage: “a new generation of cloud-based applications for the computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) market.

As I recall, this mirrors the way SolidWorks started – a long time development followed by a brilliant piece of software, delivered at the right time and making the best use of existing and soon to be future computing technology. The company, in its early stages also was brilliantly managed and established new ways to market along with a close customer-vendor relationship. Today, SolidWorks – the company, for many reasons no longer has the many of these characteristics.

So, I am speculating about the possible new product. Perhaps my 20+ years in the CAD/CAM market allow me some perspective on what might be coming. Also, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what the sticking points are in existing products. So here goes:

  • Cloud based
  • Much easier to use
    • Model building guidance that encompasses user methodology
    • Speech recognition for commands
    • Automatic initiation of model veracity as you build
    • Real time collaboration with other designers
  • Automatic management of major topology changes
  • Fully integrated with PLM from the start
  • Easy upward migration from existing CAD systems and data formats
  • Built-in simulation and analysis software
  • Real time, full time shading and visualization
  • A flexible pricing structure
  • Combines both history and non-history based modeling
  • Easier use of vendor libraries
  • A new collaboration schema among internal and external designers
  • More flexible modeling allowing easier to redesign models
  • Incorporation of requirements at the early stages of design

Even if Belmont incorporated all of these, would it be enough to convince users to move or even migrate to a new system? After all, today’s CAD systems work and pretty much can design anything. Let’s take a quick look at the past.

What convinced new customers to migrate to SolidWorks at its introduction, was its new use of variable driven modeling and history based design. The logic was that if you correctly designed the model, than changing a few variables could change the resulting design, possibly resulting in a massive savings of design engineering. Many users bought into this, including me.

Unknown to us at the time, were the inherent drawbacks to such designs. The primary one being that this only worked for MINOR changes in the variables: one that caused few topology changes. There was no way to account for major topology changes without extensive programming, an undesirable way to manage the problem. Many confusing workarounds were built to significant CAD systems that are in use today.

Another problem was how to “unwind” the history and variables when changes are desired that cannot be handled parametrically. Thus, design re-use became only marginally workable. SpaceClaim solved this by totally eliminating design history, sacrificing much of its power, yet allowing users to manage deigns more easily.

Conclusions

Belmont Technology needs to hit a home run in making mechanical design engineering and re-design engineering better than today’s systems by orders of magnitudes.

Let’s see where we stand today with major mechanical CAD software:

  • Siemens PLM Software with NX, Solid Edge and Teamcenter.
  • Dassault Systemes with CATIA, SolidWorks and Enovia
  • PTC with Creo and Windchill
  • Autodesk with AutoCAD, Inventor and Autodesk PLM 360

Each has strong offerings and are large well funded companies with global sales and marketing, large well-funded development teams, and many customers. Can a newcomer easily overturn them? It has certainly been done in the past and certainly some are more vulnerable than others. All but Autodesk have made only limited accommodations for cloud based computing, while Autodesk has gone “whole hog.” Just today, Autodesk announced monthly pricing for its entire design suite, a big change from past pricing models.

IMHO, all of these vendors MAY be vulnerable to a fundamental change in technology. But it will have to be huge or promise to be huge, while at the same time require a unique difficult to copy technology.

I look forward to hearing more.

What are your thoughts?

Kenesto 2013 now focuses on Social Business Collaboration

January 28, 2013 By in 3D Design, CAD, Computer Industry, New Technologies, Social business collaboration Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

28 Jan 2013: Last week I had the opportunity to meet, via the web, with Stephen Bodnar and Maya Olsha-Yehiav of Kenesto, the startup featuring Mike Payne as CEO. Bodnar is Vice President, Products and Marketing; Maya Olsha-Yehiav is Director of Customer Success.

The topic under discussion was the announcement yesterday of what Kenesto calls their Unified Social Business Collaboration Platform, a substantial change from their former business strategy offering a cloud based workflow based system.

For some background information readers can review my two previous blogs about Kenesto.

Kenesto was formerly a cloud based workflow system. Here, from my previous “what is it” blog, is a description of what they formerly did. “Aimed at the category called business process automation, this cloud-based application allows asynchronous spawning of processes. Different from similar systems that try to model processes, Kenesto builds processes on the fly. Users wanting to track a process they are initiating, for instance an ECO, initiate a process, attach documents to it, and add users to the next process by adding their email addresses. Different types of “next processes” can be defined, such as “review and approve.” At each step in the process the recipient can add additional processes that add steps to the overall process. Kenesto builds the process diagram as steps are added. Note that this differs significantly from the BPM (Business Process Modeling) approach that models processes using a cumbersome programmatic approach. Kenesto calls it Business Process Automation (BPA).”

Kenesto 2013’s Kenesto Social Business Collaboration platform expands on their workflow system by adding extensive capabilities that vastly expands their offering by adding collaboration on documents, document storage sharing and control, team building and messaging collaboration among the team, and a text based team capture and audit trail. Users can also build multiple teams, and invite users to teams. Documents automatically link to related viewers and more than 200 are currently offered, including special extensions for viewing of Revit documents.

Pricing

Pricing has now changed from buying of bundles of processes to a more traditional user based pricing. This chart is taken directly from the Kenesto.com website.

Kenesto Pricing chart

Definitions of interest (from Wikepedia)

  • Social collaboration refers to processes that help multiple people interact, share information to achieve any common goal.
  • A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on facilitating the building of social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections.

Conclusions

Bodnar described what they are doing as both social business and collaboration. For companies to realize social business they usually have to deploy 3 to 7 separate technologies. For example: specialty social business sites include: Yammer, Chatter, Socialtext, Nuage, file sharing sites like Dropbox, etc. Kenesto incorporates many of these into one.

While I am a CAD/PLM guy, not a social collaboration expert, I can see quite a few things in the Kenesto demo that seem really useful. You can organize teams, add people to it, add documents that can be shared, and record textual comments of the entire team. Of course, documents can be any type of document. Different than a doc sharing site such as Dropbox, you have limited control of access to the document, for instance, viewing only. Other elements can be added, such as workflow. Bodnar states that Kenesto is “**highly** complementary to the existing PDM/PLM tools.” It seems to me that this offers more ready access to design data than many PLM systems of today. While PLM systems are more rigid in document control, they are often very difficult to navigate. Perhaps there might be some middle ground by coupling the two systems.

In summary, different than many other social business sites, Kenesto provides multiple capabilities. It’s a cloud based, secure document sharing site, has team groups, document (including CAD) viewing for team members, task management, and a history audit trail of team communication.  Yet, the solution is a general solution applicable to many areas other than engineering and design.

Try it yourself by joining the free Kenesto Community at http://www.kenesto.com .

—-

SolidWorks founders start new company

November 1, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 11 Comments

11/01/12: You heard it first here! Earlier today I received a call from John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks. John explained that he and five of the original founders of SolidWorks started a new company that will explore and develop solutions for the product development space. He shared with me that this includes: Jon Hirschtick, Dave Corcoran, Scott Harris, and Tommy Li.

Hirschtick, Harris, and Li were among the original founders of SoldWorks. McEleney joined a few years later. Corcoran led product development, while Harris was a key architect. In the early years, I was most impressed with the way the entire team was focused on a single perspective and all pulled together to accomplish their common goal. Since then I have seen many a company flounder, not because their product was flawed, but because the team was unable to work cohesively together.

McEleney further explained that the company has just been initiated today. They are obviously, in the super early stages of development. John would not discuss their products. He said they are still exploring many alternatives.

He went on to say that he was contacting many of the people in the CAD and product development space who will be able to promote the fact that their company was beginning its development. People like myself.

With a team like this, I don’t doubt that they can be successful. Hmmm, but what will they turn out? Keep tuned for further information.

———-

BUFFALO MiniStation Leads Thunderbolt Storage Sales

September 18, 2012 By in Computer Industry, New Technologies, Workstations Tags: , , Leave a comment

NPD Reporting Recognizes BUFFALO MiniStation Thunderbolt as Most Purchased Thunderbolt Storage Product
—-
My take: Thunderbolt provides a super fast external connection – a speedy 10GBS. Similar to how USB devices connect, Thunderbolt has the added capability for daisy chaining devices and is ideal for graphics displays and external drives. Gone are the clunky fat cables needed for displays and no more waiting for external drives to spew their data through skinny pipes. Originally offered on the latest Apple computers, it’s now becoming more available. For a long time devices supporting this were not common and very pricey. Buffalo’s drives now offer this capability at modest prices. Hmm, I wonder about device reliability.
—–

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced impressive sales results for its new portable Thunderbolt™ storage solution in the first full month of sales. In August 2012, the MiniStation™ Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive outsold all other Thunderbolt technology enabled desktop and portable storage devices in the U.S. retail channel, according to the monthly hard drive tracking service from the NPD Group.

The MiniStation Thunderbolt, announced in mid-June 2012, is the world’s first portable Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 dual-interface external hard drive. Featuring the revolutionary Thunderbolt technology for unparalleled transfer speeds and a USB 3.0 port for universal connectivity, the MiniStation Thunderbolt offers easy plug-and-play storage, ideal for Mac® and PC users seeking the fastest interface speeds available while preserving compatibility with existing USB devices, including USB 2.0. Since its launch, the MiniStation Thunderbolt has received high praise from industry publications and end-users alike, citing great performance, high quality materials and ultimate device compatibility with its appealing dual-interface design.

“In its second month, after only one full month of sales, the MiniStation Thunderbolt has superseded the competition, placing Buffalo at the pinnacle of the fast-growing Thunderbolt storage market,” said Matthew Dargis, vice president of North American sales at Buffalo Technology. “The successful launch of MiniStation Thunderbolt demonstrates Buffalo’s continued ability and desire to innovate world-first technology, and the market has ardently responded to this innovation.”

The MiniStation Thunderbolt is a complete portable Thunderbolt storage solution, uniquely supplied with all cables and components, including a Thunderbolt cable, most often sold separately from other Thunderbolt storage solutions. Simply plug the device in to any available Thunderbolt or USB port on your Mac or PC and securely store files to take on the road.

Delivering maximum interface speeds and universal connectivity, the MiniStation Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive is the first to couple the ubiquitous 5 Gbps SuperSpeed USB technology for legacy support with the lightning fast 10 Gbps Thunderbolt technology. This dynamic combination and ample storage capacities make it perfect for those who manage large files such as creative professionals and multimedia enthusiasts.

Pricing and Availability
Buffalo’s MiniStation Thunderbolt, available now for $179.99 for the 500 GB (HD-PA500TU3) and $229.99 for the 1 TB (HD-PA1.0TU3), is backed by a limited three-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support. Buffalo products can be purchased through distributors, online resellers and Buffalo’s website. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s website at http://www.buffalotech.com.

About Buffalo Technology
Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of award-winning networking, storage, and multimedia solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit http://www.buffalotech.com.

Buffalo, Inc. trademark statements. Buffalo is a trademark of Buffalo, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Buffalo Technology

CONTACT: Lori Zielinski, Nereus for Buffalo Technology, +1.503.459.9150, lzielinski@nereus-worldwide.com

Web Site: http://www.buffalotech.com

Dell announces new Precision Mobile workstations

July 24, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

24 July 2012: I was pre-briefed last Friday about Dell’s new mobile workstations. Today I am in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia writing this blog, taking time from all this natural beauty to keep you informed about the latest technology.

Today Dell is announcing the newest entries into its Precision line of workstations – the M4700 and the M6700 mobile workstations.

While these are hardly your ordinary laptops, weighing in at about 8 pounds, they offer a high degree of portability and an awesome display of computing power, incredible graphics options, high speed memory up to 16 GB or 32 GB depending on memory speed, disk capacities of up to 3.2 terabytes, and all this with a 10 hour battery life. Nevertheless, it’s better than lugging a desktop workstation and an external display to your next meeting. This is truly a machine that I would be comfortable to use as both my desktop workstation AND and mobile workstation.

They are not cheap. Starting prices range from $1649 for the Dell Precision M4700, to $2199 for the M6700, and $3579 for the M6700 Covet. Fully decked out I could easily imagine them coming in at 100% to 150% above their base price.

Why the covet name I asked? Mano Gialusis, Dell’s Sr. Product Manager, replied that after seeing the Gorilla Glass and edge to edge display, all users will covet it!

Last year TechniCom had the opportunity to benchmark software using the M6600 and that delivered excellent performance on Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks. While Dell was not able provide any specifics on the performance of the latest workstations, I estimate that the M6700 with the extreme I7 processor and the higher performance graphics cards should deliver from 2X to 5X the overall performance on compute intensive operations. The overall performance that users will see, naturally will depend on the specific applications being run.

A bit about the graphics options. The AMD card is new and these workstations are the first to have it. The specs are available on the Dell website. This card offers HD3D stereoscopic viewing. NVIDIA offers three cards, offering their Quadro GPU technology, 3D vision and power conservation techniques. See more details at http://www.dell.com/precision .

Dell was not able to use Intel Xeon processors because they are too big and power hungry for mobile workstations. Instead the Intel Core i7-Extreme Edition Processor provides outstanding features, such as: four 3.33 GHz cores for better multitasking and multithreaded performance, 8 MB of smart cache, an Integrated memory controller delivering high memory bandwidth, and a new Quick Path Interconnect for fast data transfer between the processor and chipset.

Conclusions:
I am very impressed with Dell’s attention to the high end engineering and graphics markets. The previous announcement a few months ago of their desk-side systems show that they understand these market needs by offering well balanced compute speeds, amazing graphics, monstrous expandability, serviceability, and reliability. These mobile workstations expand on those offerings.

These babies are hot! If you need high end, portable workstations that are truly super-computers, there is no better way to go.

http://www.dell.com/precision

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are mine.
—-

Stereoscopic 3D – it works!

July 20, 2012 By in 3D Design, New Technologies Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I noticed that Randall Newton, in his Graphic Speak newsletter of 16 July 2012, commented on the Dimension 3 conference in Paris that focuses on digital 3D. He stated that “not all is well in 3D Land, reports Kathleen Maher; total revenue from 3D movies is dropping, despite blockbusters that do well. 3D in the home is still an expensive novelty, with few choices for consumers.” http://gfxspeak.com

I want to give you some feedback on my own experience with 3D TV and how it changed my perception.

On a recent trip to visit my son, it turns out he had a room added to his house and was in need of a new HDTV. He asked me to help him make a selection. Being somewhat of an electronics geek, I happily agreed, particularly since he was paying.

Off we went to Costco to browse their selection of LED TV’s. One that instantly struck our eyes was a new 3D LED HDTV by Samsung, a 55 inch TV from their new ES Series. While this was almost $400 more than we expected to spend, after looking at it and the rest of the offerings, my grandson lobbied hard for this TV. Even without seeing 3D on this set it blew away anything else in the store. He coupled this with a 3D blu-ray player by Samsung. My contribution was to buy a 3D movie (John Conner 2012) so we could test it out at home.

The hookups were easy, so after about half an hour of moving everything around and connecting all the wires, we turned it on and were literally blown away by the 3D experience! Lightweight active glasses seemed to avoid headaches I typically have gotten from passive glasses.

The picture was crisp and with amazing 3D. I didn’t quite flinch when things appeared to come out of the screen, but came close a few times. I had seen the movie before in 2D and was amazed by the difference. More lifelike. More compelling. Great images.

My conclusion: the next TV I buy will be one with 3D. I wonder why all CAD vendors don’t fully support 3D? We have 3D input devices. We have 3D printers. Yet, few vendors offer 3D display software for graphics design. Why?

—

Cloud PLM Systems ease collaboration

July 19, 2012 By in Manufacturing industry, New Technologies, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

While there have been several articles negatively discussing using cloud software for CAD, users should be aware that for the PLM aspects of collaboration a cloud based system is by far the best way to go. Okay, there are a few cons to using a cloud system for access, such as concerns over security and potential downtime over which users have no control. Security may be a major concern for government projects requiring super high levels of secure data requirements. For 98% of users this should not be a concern. That does not mean that you should blithely ignore what security your chosen cloud vendor provides – by all means make sure that your concerns are met. But today’s security and encryption seem more than adequate for most users, providing that it is properly executed and monitored. You might even want to consult with independent security experts prior to committing to a solution.

Nevertheless, there are a quite a few benefits that far exceed the other alternative — that of maintaining an internal server capability.

First I need to make an assumption that a typical user installation has the following situation:

  • More than one engineering facility at which design is done
  • Multiple suppliers that need some type of restricted access to the design data

 

Assuming this is the case (and I’ll bet that more than 80% of users fit in this category), then here are only a few advantages cloud based PLM software accrues:

  • Little or no IT required for installation, setup, updates to the software, or backups.
  • A single copy of the database that does NOT require synchronization among multiple servers.
  • Easy management by database administrators
  • Lower software costs??
  • No personnel and space costs for servers or multiple servers
  • Ready internet access via various speed connections worldwide
  • No special costs for high speed telecomm connections

 

I can think of only two PLM systems that are completely architected for cloud operations: Arena Solutions and Autodesk 360.

—