Iran unveils flying saucer; no word on circular connectors

As well as a "light sports aircraft", Iran has unveiled a home-grown unmanned flying saucer in an exhibition of strategic technologies as reported on March 16 by Fars News Agency. Ahem, you have to wonder about the wiring harness design of that flying saucer, whether or not it uses circular connectors, and how many, and by whom. Heh, little connector joke, there, for your Friday afternoon.

Although, probably not so funny. The saucer, dubbed "Zohal," is designed and developed jointly by Farnas Aerospace Company and Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association (IASIA), and can be used for various missions, including aerial imaging. Equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS, and two separate imaging systems with HD 10 megapixel picture quality, it is able to take and send images simultaneously. The flying machine reportedly uses a small, portable navigation and monitoring center for transmission of data and images and can fly in both outdoor and indoor spaces.

This design has to represent some sublime victory for Iran in the arena of general "Spy vs. Spy" -type reasoning. We'll disguise our surveillance activities...as extraterrestrial activity! The next time you hear about UFO sightings in the skies over the Middle East, you'll know where to go looking for the Occam's Razor answer. Or, at least, the DoD should.

Also unveiled at the Iranian exhibition was a light sports aircraft designed and developed by Dorna Aerospace Company. The full composite sports plane complies with the Standard Test Method (ASTM) and is evidently the third ISA-class model design introduced in Iran. The plane will reportedly be used for private flights, as well as aerial patrolling and surveillance.

Flying saucers always make for good headlines but this story sounds worthy of some fairly serious consideration on a couple of levels. What do you think?

Avnet sees Japan quake supply disruptions as temporary

“My opinion is the [electronics] supply chain has the ability to adjust fairly quickly,” stated Harley Feldberg, president of Avnet Electronics Marketing, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I’m talking months.” In Feldberg's view, reducing disruptions to customers’ activities in many instances boils down to placing early orders for components or finding other stockpiles, and working to smooth out deliveries so that related products all arrive within the same timeframe.

Full Story: Why Avnet Sees Quake Disruptions As Temporary (blogs.wsj.com)

Price of electronics goods may rise following Japan quake disaster

The price of ubiquitous consumer electronics goods such as all forms of personal computers, mobile devices and audiovisual electronics could rise across the world due to shortages of electronic components from disaster-hit Japan, experts warn. UK Guardian industry commentary speculates the cost of memory chips and display panels may increase, while Japanese carmakers operating abroad may face supply chain disruptions. Elsewhere, the question is asked: How will the earthquake affect U.S. carmakers?

U.S. Senate: Counterfeit electronic parts pose national security risk

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is turning up the heat on a bi-partisan effort to investigate the "growing problem" of counterfeit electronic parts turning up in the DoD supply chain. Led by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), the Senate committee investigation comes in response to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce in January 2010, which found that 39 percent of electronics companies contracted by the DoD encountered counterfeit electronics from subcontractors -- a percentage which more than doubled from 2005 to 2008.

As reported by the D.C. politics watchdogs at Talking Points Memo:

In testimony last week before the House Judiciary Committee, Victoria Espinel, U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator for the executive office of the president, said her office is working "intensely" with the DoD and NASA on a plan to stop counterfeit products from entering the military and "critical infrastructure supply chain, which put our military and national security at risk."

We'll continue to follow this story here at Interconnection World.

Apple's new connector accessories bring HDMI to multiple devices

There was a lot of buzz for a lot of reasons surrounding Apple's announcement this week of the iPad 2 -- and device connectivity, as always, accounted for a significant part of that buzz, especially for those in the interconnection sphere, and with particular regard to dissemination of HDMI video.

So, in terms of fresh connector hardware, you should know that a new dock connector dongle accessory brings 1080p HDMI to the iPad 2. But that's not all -- also, Apple's new Digital AV Adapter connects not only the latest iPad, but also existing iOS devices -- including the fourth-gen iPod Touch, and iPhone 4 and iPad 1 -- to HDMI compatible displays.

Something for everyone!