TEAMSESCO's Wind Power Turbine Repairs

Google's Patent Details Drone Delivery System

Amazing time-lapse of the disassembly of an entire U-2 plane

3D Printer Fixes Prototype Errors

Although 3D printing made the process of prototyping a new product much quicker and easier, developers who need to make adjustments to their prototypes currently need to print another one from scratch.

Manufacturing Minute: Touchable Holograms

Touchable holograms are now a reality, thanks to a group of Japanese scientists. The system, called “Fairy Lights”, emit high frequency laser pulses which respond to human touch.

Bringing Augmented Reality To The Auto Industry

BMW Visit Could Signal Apple Is Working On Its Own Car - Newsy

Bristol Fighter: The Coolest Car You've Never Heard Of - XCAR

Scan your face to pay your bill

First 3D Printed Supercar - A New Way To Build Cars

Disruptive Innovation Changing Manufacturing

By Steve Heller | More Articles 

June 18, 2015 | Comments (0)

Since being coined the "Third Industrial Revolution" by The Economist in mid-2012, 3D printing has captivated the imaginations of investors and enthusiasts as a technology that offers the potential to fundamentally change the way the world manufactures.

While in total dollar terms the 3D printing industry currently generates a trivial amount of revenue compared to worldwide manufacturing activity, which generates upward of $12.8 trillion annually, it can still be viewed as a disruptive innovation changing manufacturing.

What is 3D printing?On a high level, 3D printing is an additive manufacturing process, meaning it builds objects one layer a time -- the opposite of subtractive manufacturing, or machining, in which a solid block of raw material gets cut or milled down into its final shape.

Compared to machining, 3D printing doesn't require tooling to create objects, which can limit a part's geometric complexity. In other words, 3D printing invites complexity in manufacturing that would otherwise be impossible to produce with subtractive manufacturing techniques.

The other major benefit of 3D printing over subtractive manufacturing is that it doesn't create as much waste material, which can be quite cost-effective for manufacturers when they are working with costly materials such as titanium.

Although it's difficult to estimate the size and scope of the worldwide subtractive manufacturing industry, the CNC machining market, which covers a large subset of subtractive processes, is worth about $90 billion per year. Of that $90 billion, 3D printing could have the greatest disruptive impact in CNC machining applications with high complexity and material cost.   

From prototypes to final productsWhen 3D printing was first invented in the 1980s, it offered a cheaper and quicker way for product designers to make prototypes and therefore bring products to market faster. Although this use case still holds true today, the data suggests that the future of 3D printing will be increasingly tied to using the technology to produce parts that end up in final products.

According to Wohlers Associates, a leading 3D printing insights firm, the market for 3D-printed parts that end up in final products expanded by 66% in 2014 to $1.75 billion in revenue, representing about 43% of the 3D printing industry's total revenue for the year. To put this growth rate in perspective, it more than doubled the industry's annual growth rate of 35.2%, suggesting that there's a strong underlying shift in how the technology is being used.

To be clear, 3D printing for final products isn't just being used to produce trivial trinkets or your next smartphone case. General Electric, for instance, has turned to metal 3D printing to manufacture its next-generation fuel nozzle for its upcoming Leap jet engine, which will take to the skies in the coming years.

By leveraging 3D printing, GE was able to consolidate the number of components needed to create a jet engine fuel nozzle from 20 conventionally manufactured parts down to a single 3D-printed component. This reduction resulted in a fuel nozzle that's five times stronger and 25% lighter than its conventionally manufactured counterpart. All told, GE has plans to produce upward of 85,000 3D-printed nozzles to meet the demand of the next-generation engine.

To put this figure in perspective, 85,000 3D-printed fuel nozzles is a huge number for 3D printing, and will likely make history as the largest mission-critical production run of in the history of the technology. However, compared to more conventional means of manufacturing, it's pocket change compared to processes that can produce millions of units with ease.  

Putting it into perspectiveAccording to Wohlers Report 2015, the worldwide 3D printing industry generated $4.1 billion of revenue in 2014, and is expected to exceed $21 billion in revenue by 2020. Looking beyond 2020, if 3D printing grew to represent 1% of the entire worldwide manufacturing industry, it would be worth in the neighborhood of $128 billion.

On one hand, it appears that 3D printing's ability to produce complicated parts at a cost-effective price suggests there's tremendous potential for 3D printing to easily disrupt certain areas of more traditional manufacturing.

On the other hand, it could be a very long time until conventional manufacturers view 3D printing as a serious threat, considering 3D printing is slow as molasses. The layer-by-layer nature of the technology inherently struggles with speed, which doesn't make it well suited for large-scale manufacturing applications that demand speed. Although breakthroughs around speed are expected to be made in this future, this limiting factor will likely keep the technology off large-scale manufacturing runs for the time being.      

At the end of the day, no one can know with certainty the disruptive threat that 3D printing poses to conventional manufacturing. To me, 3D printing offers the most promise in areas where it could be used to create fundamentally better products than its conventionally manufactured alternative. 

Steve Heller has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The 3D printing revolution you haven’t read about

Posted on 12 Jun 2015 by The Manufacturer

The advent of 3D printing is ushering in a fundamental change in the operation of manufacturing supply chains, says Antony Bourne, global manufacturing industry director at software provider IFS.

As the Global Industry Sales Director at IFS, Antony’s responsibilities include acting as the Global Industry Director for Industrial Manufacturing and High Tech.

We’ve read the articles and watched the TV stories. It’s yesterday’s news that the 3D printing revolution is one of the most promising technologies to emerge in recent years. We’re well-versed in the fascinating array of use cases for this technology—from healthcare, to housing, to handicrafts. (One of my personal favourites is the printed hearing aid—a device that’s transformed a labor-intensive industry).

3D printing is much bigger than its hype and it’s already a part of today’s manufacturing business. The technology is proving indispensable in research and prototyping, and for creating unique and obsolete parts—in particular for the automotive and aerospace industries.

But one area of 3D printing that’s not had its due time in the spotlight is the slow but unstoppable march towards a completely new way of managing manufacturing processes. As 3D printing ushers in a new era of securing the right parts at the right time, we’re seeing a fundamental change in the supply chain and it’s time to start considering what this means for your business.

Change is good 

3D printing won’t replace high-volume manufacturing, but the ability to print-on-demand for parts is hugely attractive. The technology makes it possible to print and have parts in a few hours, without the need to buy large volumes, and with positive implications for the environment as customers source products locally, and quickly.

This change means fundamental disruption to the supply chain. It dramatically reduces lead-time and reactiveness, and presents immediate opportunities for make-to-order manufacturing. Rather than keeping spare stock on hand, parts can be printed as needed from a stock of materials. For industries where storage for parts inventory is limited, this is welcome news. We may even see manufacturers source 3D-printed parts on their own premises, bypassing the supply chain altogether.

In the near term, 3D printing is creating demand for smaller, hyper-local premises. But the future ramifications for the supply chain are huge—in particular, the need to have information systems in place to protect the integrity of the new manufacturing process.

Change is challenging

The onset of the 3D printing revolution poses new challenges for assuring the quality and authenticity of products. Competitors attempting to reverse-engineer products will be able to do so far more rapidly since there is no need to develop the likes of tools, dies, fixtures and jigs. That’s why, come 2018, 3D printing will have triggered the loss of at least $100bn per year in IP, globally.

So how can manufacturers ensure they are purchasing genuine replacement parts for industrial equipment? And how can equipment manufacturers be sure that equipment they sell to customers is under warranty and uses genuine parts? Part serialization—the type of functionality normally associated with highly regulated industries such as defense—may become attractive across the board. We’ll see attempts to embed ‘DNA’ into 3D-printed parts, and the development of processes capable of checking for DNA matches.

Part serialization can be achieved in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Blueprints to be downloaded for printing should have a serial ID attached to them that corresponds to the serial ID in the ERP application. This way, it’s possible to ensure warranty issues are not compromised and quality standards are maintained.

ERP will be essential for supporting these authenticity measures and controlling stock at every level.

ERP supports change

Accommodating 3D printing within an ERP system requires a few considerations. All manufacturers using 3D printing will need process manufacturing software in their ERP application to integrate traceability and provide fast access to data on DNA and blueprints being applied by different plants.

It will be more important than ever to maintain records of the chemical components that make up parts. While 3D printing might reduce inventory for spare parts, an enterprise application will need sufficient forecasting functionality to determine the amount of raw materials to be consumed—and how much usage the 3D printer will receive. Manufacturers will need to be able to carry out regular quality checks to determine if parts conform to specifications and requirements.

It’s not an exaggeration to claim that 3D printing is revolutionary. After all, it’s capable of fundamentally changing supply chains and the way in which things are produced.

As the most cost-effective and streamlined way of addressing the unique authenticity and stock challenges associated with 3D printing, ERP systems are proving paramount in the new age of manufacturing.

- See more at: http://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/the-3d-printing-revolution-you-havent-read-about/#sthash.OQ60obtq.dpuf

He tastes 600 cups of tea a day

Why an electric car could be Apple’s biggest disruption yet

The very idea is enough to send Apple faithful and fanbois into a frenzy: an iCar! It appears Apple is working on its own electric-car project – code-named “Titan” – and is intent on giving Tesla “a run for its money”.

There is no doubt about it, cars are the next frontier of tech after smartphones, cloud and tablet computers. Every tech company is clamouring to interface with existing car companies, while some – note Google and Apple – are slyly working to reimagine the personal transport of the future.

In recent weeks evidence emerged that Apple was working on some kind of vehicle experiment as Apple-registered SUVs were spotted in California and New York festooned with cameras and LiDAR sensors, giving rise to speculation it was either working on a Street View mapping exercise for Apple Maps or even a self-driving car.

Now it looks like Apple could be working on an Apple-branded electric vehicle that would compete with Tesla. An even more tantalising vision is an electric self-driving vehicle.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Apple has several hundred people working on an Apple-branded electric car.

Code-named “Titan” the initial prototype resembles a minivan and the project is being spearheaded by Apple’s product design vice president Steve Zadesky, a former Ford executive.

Zadesky, it is understood, has been given permission to create a 1,000-strong team and Apple has hired the president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz R&D Johann Jungwirth and other seasoned auto industry execs to work at a top secret automotive research lab.

Apple is also believed to be locked in a poaching war with Tesla, one that Tesla is currently winning through 60pc salary increases and US$250,000 bonuses.

Tesla is currently riding on a wave of triumph, as orders for its new P85D – which comes with a beguiling new “insane mode” – skyrocket and the Elon Musk-headed company builds a gigantic mega factory to keep up with orders. It has even emerged that Musk – often compared to Steve Jobs – is pushing Tesla to create giant batteries to power homes.

Road to ruin or highway to heaven?

Tesla's new P85D saloon

But in moving towards electric cars, does Apple realise what it is taking on?

Elon Musk is often compared to Tony Stark, the Iron Man hero, but in reality he’s a gutsy entrepreneur with a boundless imagination that involves not only electric vehicles but space exploration and trains that can zoom between mega cities in a matter of minutes.

As we all know the road to success is littered with failures and Musk in bringing Tesla to where it is today has had more than a few close scrapes.

Near run things include successive last-minute funding rounds and bailouts, re-imagining the idea countless times, problems with drive trains, product recalls, to even laying off 10pc of the Tesla workforce in 2007 to get the project on the right track.

The interior of Tesla's new P85D saloon

Today the company is bringing in revenues of US$3bn and more but is still operating at a loss. But either way, it is heading in the right direction with quality cars that run on lithium-ion batteries and which are capable of ranges of 320km and capable of top speeds of 249km per hour.

Not only that, but the cars are equipped with the latest in hi-tech gadgetry including radar and sonar technology.

Tesla is beginning to dabble in autonomous driving experiences and its Model S can detect road signs, lane markings, obstacles and other vehicles and new vehicles are capable of semi-autonomous drive and parking capabilities.

Tesla’s success has been hard fought, and it is nowhere near its destination.

Imagining the future of transport

Renault's Twzy electric city car

Traditional car manufacturers like Ford, Audi, BMW, Daimler and Mercedes-Benz are all trying to imagine what the future of transport, indeed car ownership will look like in the decades to come.

Eventually, the vision is autonomous driving within just a few short years of now.

A recent conversation with the chief digital officer of Renault Patrick Hoffstetter indicated that car makers know there is an intrinsic link between smart devices and vehicles and the manufacturers are coming up with all kinds of ways of marrying the two, from apps that can unlock and start your car with your phone to cars that allow you to switch between driving and autonomous driving whenever it suits you.

“We see the car as the sixth screen,” Hoffstetter said. “Our vision of the autonomous car is not so much about a car that will drive you through the city, but more about giving you time with your infotainment. You are still driving the car but in some instances you will be able to be autonomous and retrieve your focus from pure driving in order to consume services.

“We don’t talk about autonomous driving the same way most people in the media are talking about it. We believe you should also have the capacity to go back to driving much like an airline pilot or a train driver can enjoy automated functions but switch back to manual at any time.”

Google's latest self-driving vehicle prototype

Late last year Google revealed just how advanced autonomous vehicles had become proving vehicles could not only sense other vehicles but also pedestrians possibly about to cross the road.

It is in discussions with motor giants Ford, Toyota, Daimler, Volkswagen and General Motors to bring self-driving cars to market by 2020.

In recent weeks, Google revealed its latest autonomous vehicles with built-in intelligence and sensors that take note of pedestrians likely to cross the street, for example.

Not only that but Google is also about to take on Uber at its own game with a ride-sharing app that will actually link with its self-driving cars, so with an app you can summon a robot car to take you to the shops, work or home.

Uber is also working on R&D for its own self-driving vehicles and has established a lab in Pittsburgh to build its own fleet of autonomous vehicles. The lab is staffed by 50 scientists from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute who had a hand in building the Mars Rover.

Why Apple might be right on the money about electric cars

One of the mysterious Apple-registered minivans spotted in San Francisco and New York. Photo via Claycord.com

Apple has money. Lots of money. Having brought itself back from the brink in 1996 through deftly and correctly guessing the right trends in tech and creating quality products like the iPhone, the company recently recorded the highest profit in business history with profits of US$18bn arising from revenues of US$75bn during which it sold 74.5m iPhones and 21.4m iPad devices.

Not only that but the company is the most valuable on the planet, with a market capitalisation that has just surpassed US$700bn.

The company has even commenced the construction of a giant US$848m, 130 megawatt solar farm in California that will produce enough energy to power its new spaceship headquarters and all of its retail stores in California, equal to 60,000 homes.

So what is the next frontier for Apple?

The very notion of an Apple Car, or an iCar if you will, is a tantalising one. When Apple builds something, it takes its time to get it right. The forthcoming Apple Watch is a case in point and Apple Pay comes at least two to three years on the heels of Google Wallet, for example.

Apple’s focus on quality industrial design thanks to luminaries like Jony Ive is celebrated.

The company’s unique approach to interface design and user experience is exemplary.

So an iCar is not totally out of the question, but building one and testing it and eventually bringing a vehicle to market is something that could take years and could prove very expensive to accomplish.

But saying that don’t forget Apple dabbled briefly with an alliance with Motorola before going it alone and changing technology history forever in 2007 with the iPhone, despite never having made a phone of its own before and in turn displacing the established computing and mobile phone giants forever. The iPhone was the ultimate disruption.

Therefore Apple has the means, the know-how and the guts to try something truly disruptive with cars.

It’ll be transport Tim, but not as you know it

You could picture Del Boy and Rodney in one of these - the driverless Lutz 'Pathfinder' Pod which is being tested by the UK government

To date – with the exception of Tesla – electric cars have lacked style, even substance. Many of them look like golf carts, something Mr Bean wouldn’t look out of place in or even that Trotter’s Trading three-wheeler from Only Fools and Horses.

Self-driving vehicles haven’t fared much better in the design stakes. Google’s self-driving vehicle reminds me of Noddy’s wheels while the driverless Lutz ‘Pathfinder’ Pod is positively poxy looking.

Most of these vehicles are small, two-seater things that for now miss the potential of what autonomous driving could be all about. That’s why reading of Apple’s use of minivans sparks the imagination a little.

In the future we may not even own vehicles. Much like today with Uber and Hailo we may just have accounts or apps that we will use to summon vehicles to bring us from A to B.

Most people, freed from the need to propel themselves on long, lone journeys in saloon cars to work, will probably spend more time at home being productive or at leisure with their families.

They may travel alone if the need requires and a two-seater is fine or they may travel in groups and hence proportionately bigger and safer electrical or autonomous vehicles that can be summoned to carry groups on nights out or take entire families to and from the airport by tapping on a smartphone app would be ideal.

Perhaps Apple has seen this future and is working on a bigger and broader strategy. The Cupertino tech giant could be biting off more than it can chew, or it could be embarking on the journey towards its biggest disruption yet.

I think this is road trip we will all enjoy.

John Kennedy | | | 

Inside the Chevy Volt battery lab

See The World's First 3D Printed Car

What Makes the F-35 a Flying Super Computer

The F-35 is the world's most advanced weapons system. It's virtually undetectable by radar, has integrated sensor fused avionics, a revolutionary helmet with 360-degree views, and much, much more. Bloomberg went to Lockheed Martin's factory in Fort Worth, Texas for an inside look at the tech behind the F-35.

Could You Charge a Smartwatch by Shaking It?

Smartwatches are cool. They can give you smartphone-like access to data without the phone. However, as

Uncle Ben said (Spider-Man’s uncle): “With great power in a smartwatch comes terrible battery life.” Ok, Uncle Ben didn’t actually say that – but he would have if he had a smartwatch. Also, I will admit that the battery life on the Pebble watch (seen above) isn’t so bad. But with more features in a watch, battery life can be an issue. Who wants to charge a watch every night like you have to do with your smartphone? “No one” is the correct answer. No one wants to keep charging a smartwatch.

I have an older watch that is completely mechanical (no battery). This watch is really cool because you don’t wind it up. Instead, there is a weight inside that moves back and forth as you walk around and do stuff. This moving weight essentially winds the watch up for you. Could something like this work for a smartwatch?

Electromagnetic Charging

A mechanical watch stores energy in a spring – but this isn’t true for an electric watch. Those need an electric battery. One way to charge a battery is with a permanent magnet and a coil of wire. This is the basic idea in these “shake lights”. You just shake the flashlight for a little bit and then the flashlight works for a while.

Here is a diagram of the basic setup for one of these flashlights.

As the magnet moves into the coil of wire (from shaking the light), there is a changing magnetic field. This changing magnetic field induces an electric current in the wire to charge the battery – actually I think the shake light uses a capacitor instead.

But how much energy could get from something like this? It wouldn’t be hard to build a small model to measure output energy values, but let me just approximate instead. Really, all the energy comes from a change in kinetic energy of the magnetic. Let’s say the magnet has a mass m and enters the coil with a velocity ofv1 then leaves with a velocity v2. The change in energy for this one motion would be:

Of course all of this energy wouldn’t actually go into charging the battery. That would only be true if the device was 100% efficient – which nothing is. However, I am just going to assume there is no energy loss. I’ll explain why after the calculation.

So how would this work in a smartwatch? It would be exactly the same, just smaller. You would have a smaller magnet and a smaller coil, but the idea would be the same. How about some estimates? Really, I just need three things. I need the mass of the magnet and the starting and ending velocities during the motion.

First, for the mass estimate. The Pebble smartwatch has a mass of 39 grams (including the watch band). I think a magnet mass of over 10 grams would just be a little crazy.

Second, I need the starting and ending velocity of the magnet. This is a bit more difficult. Let me start by approximating an arm swing. Suppose that the wrist moves 1 meter in 1 second in the process of an arm swing (yes, that is a fast and large swing). During this swinging motion, the wrist speeds up for half of that time and then slows down for the other half. This means that the the wrist (and watch) start from rest, move 0.5 meters in 0.5 seconds. I can write the average velocity as:

But this is just the average speed. Really, I want the final velocity during this part of the swing. If I assume a constant acceleration, I can write the average velocity as:

Since the initial velocity was zero, the final velocity would have to be twice the average – that puts it at 2 m/s. Note that this is the velocity of the watch at the midpoint in the swing. I will use this for the velocity of the magnet as it enters the coil. What about after leaving the coil? Realistically, the exiting velocity would just be a little bit slower than the beginning velocity. However, for this estimation I will say that it is going half the initial speed afterwards.

Using this, I get an energy of 0.015 Joules per arm swing. That’s great, but how much arm swinging would you need to charge a Pebble battery? This site on ifixit shows the Pebble battery as a 3.7 Volt with 130 mAh. This means that it could produce 130 mAmps at 3.7 Volts for 1 hour. In an electric circuit, power is current times voltage. With a time interval of 1 hour, I can find the energy in this battery.

Putting in the values for current, voltage and time, I get an energy of 1732 Joules.

So, how many arm swings would you need to charge the smartwatch? Since the battery stores 1732 Joules and you get 0.015 Joules per swing, I get 1.15 x 105 arm swings. Now that seems like a lot of arm swinging – but wait! You don’t have to do all of those swings at once (which would be impossible). In order to make this smartwatch work, you would need to charge it over the life of the battery. Let’s say the Pebble watch lasts 6 days without charging (which seems to be above the average length of time). How often would I need to swing my arm to get the number of swings needed?

Converting 6 days into seconds, I get a arm swing frequency of 0.22 swings per second. Ok, let’s adjust for sleeping time. If I sleep 6 hours a night then that would increase the swing rate to 0.29 swings per second or one swing every 3.37 seconds.

That still seems pretty high. If I just think about what I am doing right now, my arm isn’t swinging at all. I’m just typing. Sure, I walk around – but even then I don’t make giant swings with my arm. So, will this work? I am going to say no – unless you are a marathon runner, then you are all set.

How Could You Make it Work?

Let’s look back and see why this didn’t work. Consider the following:

• I made lots of guesses and assumptions.
• I suspected that this swinging to charge method wouldn’t work. So when I estimated values, I picked values that would give me the best possible case to charge the phone (estimate high on velocities and arm swings and stuff).
• If the swing still doesn’t give enough energy in this case, it’s not going to work with a more realistic calculation.

It’s possible to build a sample wrist motion charger – it wouldn’t be too difficult. However, based on this calculation it would give a lower energy production than my 0.015 Joules per swing. And this is exactly why we do back of the envelope calculations (even though we don’t use envelopes).

But what could you do to increase the power production? Of course you could increase the mass of the magnet, but even doubling the mass wouldn’t really be enough. What about some other charging method? What about a wireless charger? I’m going to guess this wouldn’t work either – but I’ll take a shot at wireless charging in a future post.

By Rhett Allain, www.wired.com

Apple manufacturing costs spike to highest-ever levels, signaling 'iPhone 6' & 'iWatch' launches

Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets noted in a research note provided to AppleInsider that Apple's manufacturing and component costs were up 18.5 percent year over year in the June quarter.

In addition, Apple will spend another $5.6 billion on other obligations such as tooling, capital assets, advertising, and research and development, representing a huge 300 percent year over year increase. While R&D spiked $425 million last quarter to reach a record $1.6 billion, Daryanani also took note of the "material spike" in commitments for tooling.

With Apple spending more money than ever on tooling ahead of this fall's anticipated product launches, Daryanani speculates that the company is spending ahead of the debut of not only its next-generation iPhone, but also a new product category that he believes could be the long-rumored "iWatch." Apple is expected to unveil its next iPhone at a media event on Sept. 9, while a separate event to showcase the company's first wearable device is rumored to take place in October.

While Apple's spending and commitments continue to grow, so does the company's cash: As of the end of the June quarter, Apple had $164.5 billion, with $137.7 billion of it held overseas and the remaining $28.6 billion in the U.S. Apple's overall cash balance was up $17.9 billion year over year, a 12 percent increase.

Apple is also guiding for its fiscal 2014 capital expenditures to reach a total of $11 billion, with $4.8 billion left to be spent. Apple expects to spend $500 million to build 20 new retail stores and remodel 15 more, with the remaining $10.5 billion to product tooling, manufacturing, process equipment and other items.

RBC Capital Markets has maintained its $110 price target for shares of AAPL, which it has held since late July. With $164 billion in cash amounting to a whopping $22 per share, and a "busy fall" expected, Daryanani continues to believe that shares of Apple are undervalued at their current levels. 

By Neil Hughes,  AppleInsider.com

NC Innovation, From Barcodes to Berries

by Frank Vinluan

If you’ve made a retail purchase recently, chances are good you used technology developed in Research Triangle Park without even realizing it.

The modern day barcode has its origins in the 1970s research of IBM scientists Joseph Woodland and George Laurer. Their work in IBM’s RTP labs was accompanied by the scanning technology to read Universal Product Codes. This technology was so transformative for retail that it found widespread adoption. These days, no one even gives the technology that facilitates their shopping transactions a second thought.

Silicon Valley and Boston always top the lists and rankings of technology and life sciences hubs. Like barcodes, Research Triangle Park often remains a distant thought. But there’s a lot happening in North Carolina that the rest of the country doesn’t know about. There’s more happening here than drug research and new cloud-based software. And it’s not just in the Park.

When I first started covering technology and biotechnology in North Carolina, an N.C. State University professor I met during a startup event reminded me that as big an imprint technology and biotechnology have made on North Carolina’s economy, agriculture remains the state’s biggest business. Tobacco still reigns as the state’s top cash crop. North Carolina is also the nation’s leading producer of sweet potatoes. Yet these old standby crops are ripe for innovation. Vaccine developer Medicago operates a manufacturing plant in RTP that can manufacture vaccines from tobacco leaves, a process that is faster and less expensive compared to traditional vaccine production methods. Researchers at N.C. State are studying how to use industrial sweet potatoes—full of starch and not the kind that you’d serve at Thanksgiving dinner—as a biofuel feedstock.

North Carolina is the U.S. home to several global agricultural technology companies. Bayer CropScience, BASF Plant Science, and Syngenta all maintain key operations around the Park and across the state. Bayer CropScience has made a concerted effort to expand in this region; the company recently committed to spend nearly $30 million to build a new state-of-the-art greenhouse at its RTP site. This expansion follows construction on bee research centers in RTP as well as another site south of Raleigh.

North Carolina’s technology innovation is not limited to the Research Triangle. The North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, once a busy textiles town north of Charlotte, is an example of North Carolina’s transition from the old economy to a new one. What was once the birthplace of new towels and bedding is now the site of research on a broad sample of North Carolina crops.

The Research Campus is the realized vision of David Murdock, chairman and CEO of Dole Foods. Dole is a California company but Murdock calls North Carolina home. Murdock, 91, is a firm believer that nutrition holds the key to his own longevity and health. He founded the campus in 2008, aiming to make it a center of food research by emulating the public-private partnership model that made RTP a hub of biotech and tech innovation. The campus currently houses industry operations from Dole and General Mills, as well as labs for university research partners from several North Carolina universities. At some pharma companies, genetic scientists study the human genome to find the causes of diseases and to develop targeted therapies to treat them. At the Research Campus, plant scientists study the blueberry genome to find specific compounds in the berry that have an effect on health and disease.

In Winston-Salem, Anthony Atala directs the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Atala envisions a day when organs can be grown in labs to alleviate the shortage of donor organs. He developed a way to grow tissue in the lab from a patient’s own cells. This technology spun out of the Institute as regenerative medicine firm Tengion. The company has since translated the technology from Atala, a urologist, into a way to help bladder cancer patients who have had their bladder removed. If the technology succeeds in clinical trials, these patients would have a better way to urinate. The company is also pursuing a second clinical program to treat patients whose advanced chronic kidney disease requires dialysis or worse, a transplant.

I have covered business, technology, and life sciences in North Carolina for seven years—long enough to see software entrepreneurs grow their startups into mature companies, but still short of the average time needed to take a new drug from discovery through regulatory approval. When I talk to people in different parts of the country, the first thing they ask about North Carolina is basketball. The second is barbeque. Few ask about biotechnology. No one says anything about barcodes. That’s too bad. While I’m sure that IBMers are quite proud to have changed the consumer shopping experience, and it’s a great North Carolina innovation story, a lot has happened here since the barcode. I look forward to telling Xconomy readers all about it.

Frank Vinluan is a contributing editor at Xconomy, based in Research Triangle Park. You can reach him at fvinluan@xconomy.com