The Balex System solving common pain points felt with loading and unloading boats into the water through technology at a push of a button.

Elly Strang in her article for Idealog quite rightly wrote that  anyone who's owned a boat or been out for a ride on one knows it's a bit of an awkward process actually getting a vessel into the water. But last year, Balex set out to change that with its invention of an hydraulically-powered automated boat loader that helps launch and retrieve boats from the water with the click of a button, while being three times as fast as an electric winch.

Automated boat loading company Balex went into liquidation earlier this year, but two Kiwi expat businessmen, Daniel Given and Reon Oak, have come to the rescue. They've relaunched the brand and are rolling out plans to take it global, solving common pain points felt with loading and unloading boats into the water through technology.

Continue here to the full article on Idealog  ||  October 24,  2017   |||

ConnecTire is a sensor-based smart wheel which enables data sharing at multiple levels, reducing the risk of tire slippage on the rim. It allows farmers to leverage the Internet of Things for safer and more efficient operations.

Operating key farm machinery at the lowest safe pressure is a key challenge – being in control of this maintains the safety both of machine and operator as well as ensuring minimum impact on topsoil. During operations tire pressure can change due to a number of factors including ambient and soil temperatures, as well as the intensity of task being performed and the configuration of the machine itself.

ConnecTire constantly monitors two key variables – tire pressure and temperature – which it relays to both tractor and farm mainframes via Bluetooth and wireless connectivity. Operators set their target tire pressure and can then monitor how tire pressure deviates from that target and act accordingly. Should corrective action be required, ConnecTire automatically sends an alert via its App, ensuring minimum disruption and maximum machine safety.

Piero Mancinelli, R&D Director at Trelleborg Wheel Systems, commented: “ConnecTire is about ensuring efficiency and sustainability; tires are required to work intelligently and to be at the right pressure at all times. Farm machinery is exposed to many variables throughout a working day, all of which can impact upon efficiency – ambient temperature, humidity and soil conditions. Being able to be in control of these allows farming operations to reduce inefficiencies. The alert via App capability is an essential feature of ConnecTire; changing conditions can require immediate action in order to maintain maximum efficiency and prevent rim slippage. ConnecTire’s communications functions enables fingertip control.”

Beyond tire monitoring, ConnecTire delivers further advantages: An inbuilt GPS capability identifies the live position of the tractor helping to keep lone workers safe and even safeguarding the tires and machine against risk of theft. In addition, with the help of precision farming software, farm managers are able to track the number of machine passes over every square centimetre of land, helping to limit soil compaction and erosion as much as possible.

Mancinelli, continues: “Repeatedly driving over the same ground at different stages of the crop cycle has a long term impact on yield. With ConnecTire, we saw an opportunity to help reduce this effect by providing the data that allows farms to identify at risk areas and mitigate this. Efficient use of land is essential and by reducing the number of machine passes, ConnecTire helps soil to rapidly recover fertility and yield potential.”

ConnecTire will be on display at Agritechnica 2017, November 12 to 18 in Hannover, Germany. Further information will be available at Trelleborg’s Agritechnica Press Conference on Monday November 13th 2017.

| A Trelleborg release  ||  October 19,  2017   |||

With what3words, Chris Sheldrick and his team have divided the entire planet into three-meter squares and assigned each a unique, three-word identifier, like famous.splice.writers or blocks.evenly.breed, giving a precise address to the billions of people worldwide who don't have one.

In this quick talk about a big idea, Sheldrick explains the economic and political implications of giving everyone an accurate address -- from building infrastructure to sending aid to disaster zones to delivering hot pizza. 

You can view the address by Chris here

| A TED release   ||  October 19,  2017   |||

#6 - The millennialist panic was that all the world’s computer programming would freeze up as 1999 turned into 2000. This it was said would cause aeroplanes to fall out of the sky, and utilities such as electricity to switch off thus crippling transactions everywhere. This was based on a short-cut in the then tiresome business of writing programmes which had caused programmers simply to cut everything off at the end of the last century.The position nowNobody bothered to investigate non standard but widely used computer systems such as the Pick one which had actually expired by this time, yet continued to operate perfectly well beyond its nominal expiry date

| MSC Newswire Big Frights of Our Times Series #6  || Monday 23 October 2017   |||

New Zealand-based heavy equipment specialist Tidd Ross Todd (TRT) has designed and manufactured a widening eight-line platform trailer for Queensland-based Mactrans Heavy Haulage.

According to TRT, the features of this trailer have been designed for Mactrans' specific haulage challenges following extensive consultation, to make the transport 70 – 120-tonne equipment more efficient.

The platform trailer has been designed for maximum manoeuvrability and load variation, using a centre spine with two widening decks that expand its width from 3350mm to 4880mm.

There is 18m of clear deck behind the neck to the inside the ramps, and 855mm lowered height for easy loading. The deck is manufactured with a positive camber and TRT’s coaming rail – which it says is the deepest of any trailer manufacturer – to help optimise load stability.

It has 64 wheels, eight spares and 16 BPW steer axles to provide the 23m trailer manoeuvrability in any direction.

The trailer also features TRT’s live hydraulic compensating “Gooseneck”, which allows the trailer to be lifted and lowered during travel, minimising damage to equipment and load.

| A Trailer release  ||  October 18,  2017   |||

IBM and Stellar Are Launching Blockchain Banking Across Multiple Countries.  The news also comes as an important validation of blockchain technology.  In a breakthrough for payments technology, IBM and a network of banks have begun using digital currency and blockchain software to move money across borders throughout the South Pacific.

The significance of the news, which IBM announced on Monday, is that merchants and consumers will be able to send money to another country in near real-time, accelerating a payments process that typically takes days.

The banking network includes “12 currency corridors” that encompass Australia and New Zealand, as well as smaller countries like Fiji and Tonga. It will reportedly process up to 60 percent of all cross-border payments in the South Pacific’s retail foreign exchange corridors by early next year.

The news also comes as an important validation of blockchain technology, which has long promised enormous efficiencies for the financial sector, but has been slow to move from the concept stage to the real world.

Blockchain, which relies on a disparate network of computers to create an indelible, tamper-proof record of transactions, is most famously associated with the digital currency bitcoin. But it can be used in many other applications such as tracking shipments or, as in this case, to record a series of cross-border transactions.

As an example, IBM said a farmer in Samoa will soon be able to contract with a buyer in Indonesia, and use the blockchain to record everything from the farmer’s collateral to letters of credit to payment.

“This is the next step in the evolution of blockchain technology. It’s live money moving around a network,” Jesse Lund, IBM’s VP of Blockchain, told Fortune.

Digital Currency is KeyThe new blockchain banking process is also notable because the banks will initially rely on a bitcoin-like digital currency, known as Lumens, to facilitate the cross border payments.

Currently, banks arrange such payments by maintaining foreign accounts in a local currency (so-called nostro accounts), and then debiting the accounts as required—a process that is both slow and ties up capital.

Under the new blockchain arrangement, banks will conduct the transactions using Lumens, and then rely on local market makers to convert the Lumens into local fiat currency. The Lumens are created by a non-profit company called Stellar, founded a Jed McCaleb, a well known figure in the payments and crypto-currency world.

Both Stellar and IBM are part of a project called Hyperledger Fabric, which is building open source blockchain tools to support payment infrastructures.

According to Lund, though, the banks use of Stellar’s digital currency is likely to be temporary. He predicts that, in the next year, central banks will begin issuing digital currencies of their own, and that these will become an integral part of blockchain-based money transfers.

The IBM-backed blockchain project comes at a time when other companies are creating efficient new ways to conduct global money transfers. These include BitPesa, which relies on the bitcoin network to replace traditional wire transfers between merchants in Africa, and TransferWise, which provides an inexpensive way for consumers to obtain foreign currencies.

| A Fortune release   ||  October 16,  2017   |||

Cargo Composites (Charleston, SC, US) reports that it has partnered with Boeing (Chicago, IL, US) to deliver composite unit load devices (ULDs) to Air New Zealand. A Boeing 787 departed Charleston on Oct. 6 for Auckland, New Zealand, with Cargo Composites' newest container, an insulated ULD for transporting perishables via air cargo, called the aeroTHERM . To date, Air New Zealand has purchased more than 400 aeroTHERM units.

Cargo Composites says the aeroTHERM ULD makes shipping perishables more affordable by taking advantage of Cargo Composites' patented and proprietary design. There is no need for power or for a cooling system — the aeroTHERM's internal compartment is designed to withstand external temperatures. The insulated ULD helps protect contents from extreme temperatures experienced on the tarmac waiting for loading, when a standard ULD's internal temperature can exceed 120°F or fall below 0°F.

Tom Pherson, president of Cargo Composites, states, "We are thrilled to provide the aeroTHERM units to Air New Zealand and to partner with the local Boeing facility to deliver the composite insulated ULDs on another locally made composite product, the 787. This is another great example of how South Carolina's aerospace industry is thriving with activity around the world."

| A CompositesWorld release  ||  October 16,  2017   |||

WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017 sees young contestants going for gold at the world's biggest vocational skills competition

There are competitions for 51 vocational skills at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017 this week. Can one man watch them all?

Entering the main halls at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, the task seems daunting. Not for nothing is this known as the world’s largest vocational skills competition.

It fills Adnec and then some. There are competitors as far as the eye can see, and then beyond that, even to the other side of Khaleej Al Arabi. If this is the skills Olympics, attendance is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint.

First up in the main exhibition halls is Industrial Mechanised Millwright, which is something to do with maintaining factory machinery.

We can watch the competitors at their work from the other side of barrier, but may not disturb or talk to them.

Bioa Song Chin from China is not in his enclosure, but Tatsuya Kawozoe from Japan is busy arranging sticky notes on his bench. Clearly there is more to come.

Next up is Welding. The welders live in darkened enclosures in which we peer, eyes protected, while looking for signs of life. Here’s Dylan Bloch from Australia, his face hidden by a welder’s mask, illuminated with the blue glow of his torch. The sparks are starting to fly in welding.

The contestants in Construction Metal Work also live in darkened enclosures, like nocturnal animals. Finland’s Juho Nissinen is carefully marking out his design with a metal ruler, as is Guan You Chen from Taiwan. There’s a lot of drilling and welding involved here, but not at present.

For the Manufacturing Team Challenge, competitors must make a battery powered recovery vehicle with the help of what seems include industrial quantities of Mars Bars.

In Prototype Modelling they use something called a Kunzmann Frasmachine WF 410, which also has a big role in Polymechanics and Automation.

The Kuzmann Frasmachine is particularly handy for “producing and installing parts for production machines” according to the information available.

The gold medal for Polymechanics and Automation looks to be shaping up between China, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Lichtenstein.

Moving on, we find Plastic Die Engineering, where they make stuff to make stuff. Just around the corner is the trio of CNC Turning, CNC Milling and Mechanical Engineering CAD.

The “C” in all these refers to computers and at least one of them involves robots like the demonstration model nearby assembling Rubik’s cubes.

Electronics is reassuringly about wires and flashing lights but Mechatronics sounds more like the character from a Transformers movie, even though it is actually about automated systems.

Turning the corner reveals Mobile Robotics, the first proper spectator sport at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi, with its own mini-grandstand in front of the arena where teams must move robotic vehicles around an obstacle course.

At this early stage in the competition, though, it’s mostly immobile robotics.

Industrial control seems to involve wiring up boxes with a big red “stop” button, while Electrical Installation and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning are exactly as they sound.

In Plumbing and Heating, a vocation which in my home country of Britain you take up because there is not enough money in investment banking, contestants must build a working bathroom. They have four days to finish, as opposed to four months in the UK.

Information Network Cabling involves a lot of wires and is in a dead heat with Freight Forwarding (think DHL v Aramex) as the competition least likely to threaten the Uefa Champions League as a mass spectator sport.

The most delicious part of WorldSkills Abu Dhabi is Baking, with the scent of fresh baked loaves filling the air, and Cooking, where stern-looking judges in towering touques observe those most skilled in competitive sautéing, before the dishes are served by the aspiring champion waiters of Restaurant Services.

In Patisserie and Confectionery, the talk was of the smoothness of the sugar paste and the silkiness of the chocolate ganache.

For Heavy Vehicle Maintenance there are giant road rollers to be fixed and a real Abu Dhabi Police helicopter for Aircraft Maintenance. At Car Painting, the contestants have been given a fleet of black Mercedes (“Not for painting. We’re only allowed to put marking tape on them” explained Tony from New Zealand.)

In an air conditioned tent, 20 young florists laboured on their creations, while nearby, meters of polka dot fabric was laid out for Fashion Technology.

For Hairdressing, contests cut and snip at mannequin heads, but in Beauty Therapy and Health and Social Care, real live volunteers are needed to be smeared with creams and tucked up in bed.

At the farthest flung corner, over the highway and in another tent by the water’s edge, dozens of young bricklayers are going for gold, and the Wall and Floor Tiling contests work on a design that incorporates Etihad Towers and the Sheikh Zayed Mosque.

Somewhere in between is Concrete Construction,Painting and Decorating, Plastering and Dry Wall, Joinery, Cabinet Making, Jewellery, Autobody Repair, Web Design, 3D Digital Game Design, IT Software Solutions, IT Networking, Print Media Technology, Graphic Design Technology.

And there is nothing quite like the sight of nearly 30 desert gardens, complete with palm trees, being built simultaneously under competitive conditions.

And there you have it; nearly 60 countries and 51 skills, four hours and seven kilometres later. WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017. Someone deserves a medal.

| A TheNational release  ||  October 16,  2017   |||

A high-tech tent hospital has improved New Zealand’s ability to save lives and give emergency health care when disasters strike at home or in the wider South-West Pacific region.

The new portable medical facility has helped the New Zealand Medical Assistance Team (NZMAT) earn World Health Organization classification as a Type 1 Mobile and Fixed Outpatients Emergency Medical Team, becoming the 13th team worldwide to achieve the standard.

“We’re thrilled to gain WHO classification because it means our team meets international standards and we’re self-sufficient to provide emergency health care for at least 100 patients per day for 14 days, whether in this country or to support our Pacific neighbours,” says Ministry of Health emergency management director Charles Blanch.

See interactive 3D walkthough

“It’s vital we are able to increase our capability for disaster responsiveness for our region because we know early treatment in disasters saves lives.”

Last month, WHO representatives visited New Zealand to put the team through its paces, making sure it could safely and efficiently deploy to a disaster zone within 72 hours.

NZMAT’s new emergency tent features a series of interconnecting sections for triage, maternity, resuscitation, a 10-stretcher observation ward, and a pharmacy. There’s also storage, and an administrative command and control area. It carries sufficient equipment and medical supplies to treat 1400 people in two weeks, including making its own drinking water from raw or salt water.

Blanch says it can be swiftly erected in 90 minutes and arranged in different configurations depending on the space available and needs. It is easy to transport and gives great flexibility for the team to respond to different emergencies in remote locations.

“The tent hospital is essentially a mobile outpatients clinic and means the team can offer triage, first aid, stabilisation, referral of severe trauma, non-trauma emergencies, and care for minor trauma injuries.”

The World Health Organization has praised the Ministry of Health and the New Zealand Government for meeting its international standards.

“We congratulate the New Zealand Medical Assistance Team on its achievements and thank them for their commitment to this quality assurance process and their future assistance to those in need after disasters and emergencies,” its verification team told the Ministry.

BackgroundNZMAT is a civilian-based emergency medical team that can be deployed to support local health services in a major emergency or disaster in New Zealand or the South-West Pacific. The team includes doctors, nurses, paramedics, allied health and non-medical members, such as logisticians and emergency managers.

It has been developed over the last 6 years following the Samoan 2009 tsunami, and to date, has deployed to the Solomon Islands, Philippines, Vanuatu and Fiji.

NZMAT involves a partnership between the Ministry, Counties Manukau District Health Board, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and about 150 trained staff from across the health sector.

A four-day training course for new NZMAT members next month will include using part of the new tent hospital.

| A Ministry of Health release  ||  October 16,  2017   |||

Multinational tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are taking a bigger slice of the New Zealand economy every day writes Rohan MacMahon in his article published on Newsroom:-

'Lack of IT skills adds to dismal productivity' As productivity flatlines, we need to help Kiwi businesses stay competitive in a global world, writes management consultant Rohan MacMahon

Whatever the make-up of the next Government, we can expect some major topics debated in the election campaign to get a lot of attention. Things like housing supply, mental health and water quality.

One fundamental challenge for New Zealand which received little attention in the campaign, but will need to be addressed, is productivity. The latest statistics paint a dismal picture (read a great summary by Michael Reddell here).

Basically, once you net out population growth, New Zealand's productivity is static or, if you choose the most optimistic measure, growing at less than one percent per annum.

This means workers need to work longer hours to have more money in their pockets. It means farmers must hope for better prices on commodity exports or an uptick in global demand to generate growth in profits.

Why is it so hard to, as they say, "work smarter, not harder"?

One area where New Zealanders are not "working smarter" at scale yet is in the use of ICT.

New Zealanders are enthusiastic consumers of technology. Kiwis love global technology brands like Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and Google, and are generally quick to take up attractive new technologies.

However, it's businesses that drive productivity, not consumers - and here the story is less rosy.

| Continue to the full article on Newsroom here  ||  October 17, 2017,   |||