Blog Review: May 7

What if your toothbrush could talk? Semico Research’s Michell Prunty looks at the crowd-funded connected toothbrush design. And what else can it do?

Cadence’s Richard Goering attended the Electronic Design Process Symposium in Monterey and summed up the progress in ESL: Power is less of an issue (for the moment), emulation is cheaper, but there is still a dearth of expertise and standards and public clouds remain problematic for EDA.

Mentor’s Andrew Caples talks about the need for greater functionality with the IoT and the role of software in all of this. Will smart devices on the edge of networks really make good decisions?

Ansys’ Justin Nescott highlights last week’s top five engineering articles. Check out the Zumanjaro roller coaster. It has a vertical drop of 415 feet. That’s vertical, as in you’re pointed straight down. Lunch anyone?

ARM’s Dominic Pajak highlights the Maker Faire, which is an unusual twist even for the modern-day county fair. It’s all about inventions and how to make your own wearable designs.

How many megapixels do you need in your camera? Rambus’ Jay Endsley says it’s not the number of pixels that’s important. It’s the quality.

Cadence’s Brian Fuller points to a blog by Altera’s Ron Wilson about heterogeneous computing design challenges.

Synopsys’ Richard Solomon takes an accounting approach to PCI Express. No one likes to pay taxes, no matter who’s collecting them.

Mentor’s J VanDomelen provides some comparative stats for military vs. aerospace spending. Guess which one is winning.

Ansys’ Madhusuden Agrawal looks at the impact of irregular sea waves on ship design. Does this work for surfboards, too?

What’s on TV? How about an alert that your wash is done? ARM’s Karthik Ranjan looks at how to leverage the cable infrastructure for the IoT.

The White House’s James Holdren and Kathryn Sullivan examine what climate change means for the United States. This is why there is such as strong push for energy efficiency.

And in case you missed the recent Security newsletter, here are some noteworthy blogs:

Technology Editor Ernest Worthman finds a world of men screaming into hacked baby monitors and back doors on chips. So what’s next?

Executive Editor Ann Steffora Mutschler takes a new spin on SoC with Security on Chip. With security breaches seemingly everywhere, chipmakers must stay on top of protecting data from their end of the ecosystem.

NXP’s Joon Knapen recounts a story of mistaken identity. This one was top story for the BBC.