WCA May 2013

With too few Asian-American respondents to allow of statistically reliable conclusions, The Washington, DC-based non-partisan think tank did not include this group in its report, released 14 th February. Pew found – no surprise – that 83 per cent of Internet users ages 18 to 29 avail themselves of social media. Nearly seven of every ten Internet users in the US use Facebook. The microblogging site Tumblr draws six per cent. Of greater interest are some of Pew’s findings on the demographics of social media usage. Among these: ❖ The popularity of Twitter and the emerging platform Instagram is surging among American blacks. Some 26 per cent of black Internet users access Twitter, far outpacing whites (14 per cent) and Hispanics (19 per cent). In August 2011, 18 per cent of black Internet users were using Twitter. Black Americans’ use of Instagram (23 per cent) also outstripped that of Hispanics (18 per cent) and whites (11 per cent). ❖ Women outnumbered men in Instagram usage: 16 per cent vs ten per cent. The gender difference in social media usage was most noticeable with Pinterest, an online “pinboard”. A quarter of American female Internet users are on Pinterest vs five per cent of men. White women under 50 in the US strongly favour it. Overall, 15 per cent of Internet users have tried the virtual scrapbooking site. ❖ Across all groups, younger and urban Twitter users outnumber their older and rural counterparts. But the usage rate generally held steady at around 14 to 17 per cent regardless of gender, education, and income levels. Elsewhere in telecom . . . ❖ On day two of Mobile World Congress, held 25 th -28 th February in Barcelona, Spain, a Samsung Electronics executive pushed back against a Wall Street Journal report that Samsung’s dominant position in Google’s Android ecosystem is a source of tension between the two companies. “My interpretation is that we’re a good partner and we build strong products that promote the ecosystem,” Nick DiCarlo, vice president of portfolio planning and product marketing at Samsung’s US mobile arm, told Phil Goldstein of FierceWireless. He asserted that Samsung has been an overall “big positive for the [Android] brand.” His comments come after the WSJ , citing unnamed sources, reported increasing tension between Google and Samsung, by far the largest Android OEM. Google executives were said to be concerned that Samsung has become so big that it could pressure Google to alter the nature of their relationship. Not so, said Mr DiCarlo, who noted the shifting nature of an “incredibly competitive” wireless industry. “I don’t think you can say that anybody has a dominant position at any [one] time,” he said. “You’ve seen how many companies [were] at the top and aren’t anymore.”

Writing in R&D (established in 1959 as Industrial Research ), Paul Livingstone went on to describe a technology that has, in fact, made such a splash. It is AFA: Alumina-Forming Austenitic Steels, the brainchild of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which earned an R&D 100 Award in 2009. The magazine sponsors the award to recognise the 100 most technologically significant new products of a given year. Investigating the commercial progress of AFA, it found that successful licence agreements and real-world applications have been, in Mr Livingstone’s words, “a pleasant surprise for the developers.” R&D in a recent issue reviewed their pursuit of a solution that would retain the excellent weldability and formability of stainless steel without resort to difficult-to-work, expensive nickel metals. The ORNL team in 2008 announced it had achieved their aim. (“Showing Their Metal,” 15 th February). Summarised by Mr Livingstone, the process induces a protective aluminium oxide surface layer without the conventional addition of oxides. The counterintuitive improvement was noted when titanium and vanadium alloys – the strengthening additions – were omitted. This yielded an upper-temperature oxidation (corrosion) limit that is greater than or equal to that of conventional stainless steels at 50 to 200°C higher. Creep, reportedly excellent at temperatures of 700 to 800°C, is optimal for use in such machinery as turbines. In addition, the material stands up to the aggressive oxidising conditions encountered in energy conversion and chemical process systems. ❖ As to the market traction of AFA, here, too, the results have been more than satisfactory. In 2010, the Oak Ridge scientists successfully made AFA steel foils for advanced turbine recuperator applications. Three foils measuring approximately 100 µm performed well in testing, forming chemically stable external alumina scale at temperatures up to 900°C. Acceptable oxidation was also shown for sheet specimens exposed in a 65 kW microturbine for 2,871 hours. One of the test compositions was selected for a commercial foil batch. In 2011 a turbine manufacturer took delivery of the first commercial material. Also in 2011, Carpenter Technology Products (Wyomissing, Pennsylvania), a producer of stainless and speciality alloys, licensed the AFA technology. The company’s intention is to build on the research done by the ORNL team to develop its own commercial products.

Telecom

Social media in the United States: accessible and influential irrespective of the cost and reach of broadband Internet For its Internet & American Life Project, the Pew Research Center conducted phone interviews with 1,800 Americans over the period 14 th November to 9 th December.

Dorothy Fabian Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2013