manufacturing

NEW YORK--Guitars. Skulls. Bracelets. Colorful heads. And so much more.

That was what was on display at the Inside 3D Printing event here today, a celebration of all things 3D printing, and one of the first-ever professional events dedicated solely to the decades-old technology that has been taking the world by storm over the last few years.

Just about ever leading company in the field was on hand, from 3D Systems to MakerBot to Stratasys, and many others. And hundreds of people packed the event hall, eager to see the latest machines, and hear from some of the leaders in … Read more

Has Intel Korea jumped the gun? A report in the Korea Times claims Intel and Cisco have struck a manufacturing partnership, though neither company has made an official announcement.

"Intel has recently signed an agreement to manufacture Cisco's networking chips on a contractual basis, said Lee Hee-sung, country manager at Intel Korea," reads The Korea Times report.

It continues: "The deal with Cisco looks significant. If Intel successfully produces chips with designs offered by Cisco, then it will get additional momentum to effectively grow its foundry business," the newspaper said, quoting a source at Samsung … Read more

Apple and its manufacturing partner are readying the next-generation processor expected to land in future iPhones and iPads.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is expected to tape out -- one of the final steps before manufacturing -- Apple's A7 chip this month, according to a report in Digitimes.

That will set the stage for pilot production by TSMC this summer and commercial production by the first quarter of 2014.

The A7 will use TSMC's future 20-nanometer manufacturing process -- which isn't expected to be ready until 2014.

Apple, in fact, is designing products now based on … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas -- The future of 3D printing, a technology that's rapidly maturing and enabling a wide variety of people and companies to rapidly design and create physical products, is very bright.

That was the conclusion of a panel of experts who spoke at SXSW yesterday: while there are certainly limitations to the technology, the opportunities that 3D printing offers everyone from garage entrepreneurs to large corporations will be be plentiful, and often economically advantageous.

Today, the technology is already considered one of the hottest around, but during the talk -- which was moderated by CNET's Rich Brown … Read more

Sharp and Foxconn Technology Group likely won't arrive at a deal by the time their negotiations are scheduled to end in March, a new report claims.

The companies have been in talks for months for Foxconn to acquire a stake in Sharp, but they haven't been able to come to terms. Citing people who claim to have knowledge of the companies' negotiation, Bloomberg is reporting today that they can't come to agreement on the share price Foxconn would pay to acquire a piece of Sharp. The companies are also unwilling to agree on corporate control and overarching … Read more

One of President Obama's policy points in his State of the Union speech tonight was that U.S. companies need to create jobs here. Not only did he stress this need, he also praised those companies already in the process of doing this, including Intel and Apple.

"Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing. After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three," Obama said in his speech. "Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs … Read more

Market research firm DisplaySearch said the reduction in shipments of displays for the iPhone 5 -- which reflect shipments of the phone itself -- is real but that it doesn't necessarily mean the device's popularity is suffering.

"We started hearing indications of cutbacks before the new year," Paul Semenza, senior vice president, analyst services, at DisplaySearch, told CNET today.

That said, he doesn't exactly have a negative take on demand for the iPhone 5.

"It was a very quick ramp up. The Q4 [estimate] was originally about 61 million displays [for the iPhone 5]...… Read more

Various industry watchers are weighing in on Apple CEO Tim Cook's remark this week that the company will invest $100 million into making Macs in the U.S., with some saying the move will create 200 new jobs.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Cook was asked what it would take to get Apple back to building products in the states. Cook said, in part: "Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac. We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to … Read more

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 … Read more