HP VS APPLE

HP to Apple: Hey, we already make PCs in the U.S. 

 

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HP TO APPLE: HEY, WE ALREADY MAKE PCS IN THE U.S.

HP said 100 percent of the workstations that it sells in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S.

(Credit: HP)

If Made In USA is a feature, Hewlett-Packard's got Apple beat.

In effect, that's what HP said today. "Lots of noise...about Apple moving Mac production back to the U.S.... [We] wanted to offer HP's story," said an HP representative via e-mail Friday.

Part of that story was provided by way of a blog post.

"HP PCs have been assembled in the U.S. since the beginning," the post begins. "HP workstations and commercial desktop PCs are manufactured in Indianapolis, and HP servers are manufactured in Houston. These manufacturing facilities employ hundreds of people and produce billions of dollars' worth of products," the post said.

"There's a significant amount of customization...it's a higher value product than we might do in Asia. A higher level of customers that need build-to-order and close proximity," Tony Prophet, senior vice president of operations at HP, told CNET in an interview, speaking about the Indianapolis operations.Of PCs sold in the U.S., more than a third of business desktop PCs and all workstation PCs are assembled in the U.S., HP said, adding that it will assemble 2.9 million PCs in the U.S. this year.

Prophet continued. "We find that we are better able to serve our customers when we're closer, versus building them in China and shipping them by sea. The labor arbitrage is not really a driving factor," he said, referring to both North American and European desktop production.

Even a limited amount of laptop assembly is done outside China. Some business-classEliteBook laptops are assembled in North America, Prophet said.

And though the bulk of U.S.-based production is business PCs, small-scale consumer PC production is also being brought back to North America. "We're marginally moving even some consumer PC [assembly] back to North America. Doing less of that in China," according to Prophet.

Apple, on the other hand, is just starting to bring Mac production back to the U.S., after a long hiatus. CEO Tim Cook said yesterday that factories in the U.S. will handle "some" of the Mac production currently being handled internationally. Production will ramp up in 2013.

For HP, U.S.-based production is not just PCs. Printing components are made in Corvallis, Ore., and San Diego, Calif., HP said.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

LCD contact lens puts an image right over your eye

The LCD lens, with a dollar sign displayed.

Many research institutions are working on electronics that can be worn on the surface of the eye. While there is the possibility of having a private display overlaid on your vision, there are other applications as well. An electronic contact lens could monitor the eye for problems like cataracts, and a safety lens could block out unwanted radiation, acting as automatic sunglasses.The dream of a bionic eye is closer than ever: Researchers at Ghent University have created an LCD display the same shape and thickness of a contact lens. There's still a long way to go, but this is a major breakthrough.

There are many problems to overcome, however: Among other things, power must be provided, the display must be itself extremely small and durable, and it must fit the shape of the eye.

But there are also many solutions. Power can safely be provided wirelessly, as recent tests showed. The miniaturization and encapsulation of the electronics is an ongoing process, but critical milestones were reached years ago. And now, Ghent's Centre for Microsystems Technology has created a monochrome display with hundreds of pixels that curves spherically, allowing it to be worn on the eye.

Jelle De Smet, the research team's leader, describes the obstacles and accomplishment:

Normally, flexible displays using liquid crystal cells are not designed to be formed into a new shape, especially not a spherical one... By using new kinds of conductive polymers and integrating them into a smooth spherical cell, we were able to fabricate a new LCD-based contact lens display.

Their prototype display shows a dollar sign, which is both a fun nod to cartoon characters and a way of showing off the resolution of the display. At the moment, the display can't become totally transparent or totally opaque, which may reduce its usefulness in some situations — but that's just another technical hurdle to be addressed.

You can see the display turning on and off in the video below, which uses a prototype from 2011, before they could create patterns using the LCD:

Future research could go in multiple directions, De Smet told me in an email. Biocompatibility, or making sure the device can be used safely, is one thing to confirm. The power source for the display must also be considered; De Smet said there are several options, but because the display uses so incredibly little power, a tiny solar cell might actually be able to pull it off.

REFERED-NYCNEWS