Tech Talk

from press conference in Minneapolis at 2 pm CDT, August 2, 2007:

Gov. Pawlenty stated that MnDOT has hired Wiss, Janney and Elstner, forensic engineers who will conduct a parallel investigation to the one being conducted by the NTSB; this same firm investigated Boston's Big Dig. MnDOT will conduct emergency inspections on three other bridges in Minnesota with a similar steel truss arch design. MnDOT will also investigate all "structurally deficient" bridges: As of 2007, Minnesota has 13,026 bridges, and 1000 bridges in total that fall into the category of structurally deficient; 77,000 bridges are so designated across the United States. Inspections in 2005 and 2006 stated concerns about stress and fatigue, but did not indicate an immediate need for weight restrictions or immediate retrofit. "There was a view that the bridge was ultimately going to have to be replaced...in the future," Pawlenty said.

Dan Dorgan, MnDOT's chief bridge inspector, covered the 35W bridge's maintenance history. Construction on the Interstate 35 W Bridge began in 1964 and was completed in 1967. On average, 141,000 cars traveled over the bridge daily, making it the busiest in the state. In 1990 this steel truss arch bridge was classified as structurally deficient, initially due to corrosion of the bearings "so that they were not able to move as freely as designed. As the years have passed, there has been some corrosion around the joints of the bridge and in the approach spans there were fatigue cracks that were repaired. There were cracks in the tab welds of the bridge "since the day it was built, but those were not growing and they were stable. And for those reasons we thought the bridge was stable and fit for service," Dorgan stated. Two subsequent studies, one by a University of Minnesota associate professor of civil engineering Robert Dexter (an expert in steel fatigue who died in 2004) and one by the engineering firm URS Corporation, showed that the bridge would be serviceable until 2020, at which point either the deck or the entire bridge would have to be replaced.

"In light of what happened, I'd say we thought we had done all we could. Obviously something went terribly wrong," said Dorgan.

When asked if the freeze-thaw cycles of Minnesota contributed to the collapse, Dorgan noted, "Up until the late 1960s, engineers did not believe that fatigue was something you'd see in bridges.... Unfortunately that was a wrong assumption. Some of the construction practices used in that era, the way they welded members together, those engineers did the best they could, but they were not aware of the [fatigue] issue. It started to manifest itself in the middle 1970s, when we started to see problems across the country, which is why we went to fracture critical inspections where you get within an arm's length of what you need to inspect." He also pointed out that while temperature variance can add to fatigue, the main culprit is truck loads over 40 years.

As for the construction going on at the time of the collapse, Dorgan noted that while there was work being done on the deck joints, the collapse would almost certainly have been triggered beneath the bridge in the steel truss superstructure.

No word yet whether there were any strain gauges or other sensors embedded in the bridge that could have warned of potentially catastrophic fatigue.

A video taken from a bridge surveillance camera located on near the north side of the bridge shows the moment the structure gave way, falling from south to north. The video clearly shows the bridge's design. This is a box truss bridge--the steel girders supporting the road deck are not anchored into supporting concrete caissons in the water, but rather arc over the river and connect to concrete piers standing on the shore on either side of the river.

Also: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said this morning at a news conference that the 2005 inspection report gave the bridge a rating of 50 out of a possible 120, and noted some structural deficiencies, though he wasn't specific. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty noted this morning that earlier inspections did find deficiencies in the bridge, but did not indicate that it was in immediate need of replacement.

National Transportation Safety Board chairman Mark V. Rosenker said that the NTSB has already started its investigation. "This will be a complex investigation, these are engineering issues that will have to be determined, materials issues that we will be studying, and they don't come quickly."

The reports issued in 2005 and 2006 by the Minnesota Department of Transportation are not currently available. However, some tidbits about the bridge's condition can be gleaned from the MnDOT's press releases about repairs to 35W bridge, which collapsed about six hours ago.

From a September 2, 2004 release:

The left three lanes in both directions will be closed throughout the night until 5 a.m. Friday morning. The closures are needed so workers can repair a bridge panel in the northbound lanes and conduct the annual fall inspection of the I-35W bridge anti-icing system.

The anti-icing system was installed in 1999--32 years after the bridge was erected-- and according to a press release issued on June 30, 2005, was credited with reducing crashes on the structure by two-thirds. The statement also points out, "The bridge's location above the river near the St. Anthony Falls and nearby power plants made the bridge susceptible to icy conditions and resulting crashes."

This bridge went through numerous freeze-thaw cycles every year (just like thousands of bridges in cold weather climates all over the world): Week-long periods of sub-zero temperatures, big snowfalls that can melt within days, dripping salt water down those steel girders that now sit like a mangled pile of green spaghetti in the middle of the muddy river. That's not to suggest that the load-supporting girders are the primary suspects--no one six hours after this tragedy can fix the blame on any one structural element. Leave that to the engineers from the National Transportation Safety Board who will arrive on the scene tomorrow to start inspecting the rubble and sifting through the MnDOT inspection reports in an effort to root out the cause of what will probably go down as one of the most significant bridge disasters of modern times. But it's worth noting at the end of this blisteringly hot August day that this bridge had to survive 40 brutal Minnesota winters before it succumbed.

At 6:05 pm this evening all eight lanes of the 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed. There was extensive maintenance ongoing all over this stretch of 35W--one of the Twin Cities' major arteries, which carries some 140,000 cars per day according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Itâ''s three hours later, 6 deaths reported to go with 60 injured, but according to the fire department that all people who could be rescued have been. There were at least dozens of vehicles on that 2000 foot long bridge when it went down, and reports state that at least 50 ended up in the river. People claim to have heard a bang before the collapse. Others recall jackhammers. Inspections in 2005 and 2006 showed no major structural problems; 2020 was "the engineering estimate" to rehab the bridge, according to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who spoke at a news conference tonight. He confirmed that there was work ongoing on the bridge, mostly surface concrete repair, but he did mention that there was work being done â''on the joints.â''

from the desk of Senior Associate Editor Samuel K. Moore

Last Friday, the European Commission charged Intel with violations of the European antitrust rules. According to the complaint:

â''First, Intel has provided substantial rebates to various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) conditional on them obtaining all or the great majority of their CPU requirements from Intel. Secondly, in a number of instances, Intel made payments in order to induce an OEM to either delay or cancel the launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU. Thirdly, in the context of bids against AMD-based products for strategic customers in the server segment of the market, Intel has offered CPUs on average below cost.â''

Intel portrays the action as just another attack by a competitor who is not succeeding in the market on the merits of its products. In a conference call to reporters today, AMDâ''s executive vice president of legal affairs, Tom McCoy tried to take apart that argument while CEO Hector Ruiz twisted the knife with such niceties as:

Intelâ''s â''innovations are to serve themselves, not their customers or consumers.â'' And: â''Earned success is one thing, illegal maintenance of a monopoly is another.â''

McCoy really had only one point to make, but it was a pretty good one. â''Intel would like to position this as just a dispute between companies,â'' McCoy told us. â''But it isnâ''t. Itâ''s a dispute between Intel and the European Commission.â'' The European Commission action is based on evidence not from AMD but from Intel and its customers (or its victims of blackmail if you subscribe to AMDâ''s theory). The EC will not even be weighing damage to AMD, but instead charges that European consumers have been forced to pay Intel â''an unjust and illegal monopoly tax.â'' From a legal standpoint, it really is Europe vs. Intel not AMD vs. Intel.

While the EC may be focused on the needs of European consumers, itâ''s obviously AMD that would benefit from a constrained Intel. When asked what the outcome of an EC victory would be for AMD McCoy said you can expect a consent decree, ala Microsoft, that prohibited Intel from using false rebates and retaliating against computer makers that use AMD processors. Meanwhile, Ruiz went for emotion: â''We just want the opportunity for this boycott of our product to stop.â''

McCoy claims that the benefits of an EC victory may already be accruing even before the case is tried. The unblinking eye of regulatory agencies around the world, he says, has stiffened the backs of computer makers formerly bound to Intel. He notes that new business from Dell and Toshiba followed the filing of the antitrust case in the United States and the Europeanâ''s raid on Intel in 2005. It was the computer makers, after all, who know what evidence the Commission has at its disposal.

Speaking of evidence, the EC case could be a boon for a suit against Intel in the United States, which McCoy said was â''bogged down in discovery by Intelâ''s epidemic failure to produce emails.â'' Never mind what an â''epidemic failureâ'' is, the point is that the EC probably has its hands on some juicy stuff, or it wouldnâ''t have taken this latest step. And if such legal morsels exist overseas, they might be imported to AMDâ''s benefit.

It never rains but it pours for the U.S. space agency these days. As if having one of its Shuttle astronauts facing criminal charges for assaulting a romantic rival or having a gunman open fire at its Houston complex wasn't enough for NASA administrators, now they have revealed that some of their space travelers may have been flying under the influence of alcohol and that one of their subcontractors has tried to sabotage a mission-critical computer.

At a press conference today, a NASA spokesperson said that the arrest of former astronaut Lisa Nowak last February had prompted the agency to launch a study of the overall "medical and behavioral health services available to NASA astronauts at the Johnson Space Center." As part of that review, chaired by Col. Richard Bachmann, Commander of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, troubling reports of alcohol consumption near mission times arose.

"[W]e will act immediately on the more troubling aspects of the report, with respect to alcohol use and the anecdotal references to resistance of Agency leadership to accepting advice or criticisms about the fitness and readiness of individuals for space flight," NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said in her opening remarks. "The report does not provide specific information about alcohol-related incidents and the Review Committee has left it to NASA to determine the scope of these alleged incidents."

She then added that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has directed the head of the agency's Office of Safety and Mission Assurance to undertake a full investigation of the matter. "If any incidents occurred, he will determine the causes and recommend corrective actions," Dale noted. "He also will review all existing policies and procedures related to alcohol use and space flight crew medical fitness during the immediate preflight preparation period to ensure that any risks to flight safety are dealt with by appropriate medical authorities and flight crew management, and, if necessary, elevated through a transparent system of senior management review and accountability."

Nevertheless, Dale said the restrictions on alcohol consumption prior to training missions will remain the same as those on space flight missions: no drinking 12 hours prior to takeoff -- the so-called bottle-to-throttle rule. And she assured the public that a "comprehensive review of alcohol use policy prior to aircraft use or space flight is underway."

Equally sobering was news from yesterday that engineers had discovered a computer bound for the International Space Station (ISS) during the upcoming launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour had been sabotaged. In fact, what NASA's leaders really wanted to focus on today was the "Go" status of the Endeavour for launch on 7 August given yesterday. However, outside factors have largely overwhelmed that positive message.

In the case of the intentionally damaged computer, first reported by the Associated Press, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier said an unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the computer, which is supposed to measure the strain on a space station beam and relay the information to flight controllers on Earth. Gerstenmaier said that the damage had been detected by the subcontractor and had subsequently been repaired.

"The damage is very obvious. It's easy to detect. It's not a mystery to us," Gerstenmaier commented. He declined to speculate on the alleged saboteur's possible motivation. "There's an active investigation going on and I'd rather let that get handled that way," he said.

So all in all, it was another rough day for NASA managers in the human space-flight business, in a season of sporadic rough days this year. It's nothing they can't handle, though. When your motto is per aspera ad astra -- "through adversity to the stars" -- you should be able to take a little bruising.

from the desk of Spectrum's Asian correspondent, John Boyd:

The LCD industry has become so ultracompetitive that manufacturers are maintaining a level of security over their operations that is surely worthy of anything the Pentagon has put into practice. Take Sharp Corp., for instance. For the past 12 months it has been operating the only eighth-generation (8G) manufacturing facility in the world: the Kameyama No. 2 Plant, in western Japan. (Eighth-generation plants build displays on 2.2-by-2.4-meter panes of glass, making them ideal for 45- to 50-inch LCD TV panels. Seventh-generation plants work with 1.87-by-2.2-m panes.) The fab churns out 60 000 huge panels a month, which are then conveyed mere meters straight into a TV assembly plant virtually next door. To keep competitors from learning how this cost-efficient setup is designed and works, Sharp keeps overall operations a secret even from most of its own employees working at the facility by restricting their movements. Plant-wide access is reserved for just a handful of top managers.

To enforce this level of security, Sharp has divide the fab into five zones and assigned a color to each one. Plant employees have to wear colored uniforms according to their roles, and they must stay within their designated boundaries. To ensure they do, surveillance cameras keep track of them. Given that the plant is operated entirely by robots, the few humans that do get to enter the inner sanctum are in maintenance or troubleshooting.

To keep its secrets secret, Sharp even went to trouble of buying the fabâ''s manufacturing equipment from different suppliers. This was to prevent a would-be single supplier getting to view the big picture. And just for good measure, Sharp even took on the responsibility of partly installing the equipment itselfâ''the equivalent of James Bond tooling up his own gadgets.

One benefit of all this security is that no one is ever disturbed by a cellphone ringing when working inside the plantâ''they are banned. Cellphones incorporate cameras and thus would be able to transmit photos of the setup instantly. To make sure this regulation is upheld, Sharp employs metal detectors at the entrance, which ring loudly should a phone be discovered.

Might the company now consider relaxing a little, given that rival Sony revealed yesterday that it had begun producing panels at its 8G plant, a joint-venture operation with Koreaâ''s Samsung Electronics? After all, today Sharp actually invited the foreign press to come and â''seeâ'' the plant. Alas, what the company meant was that for a brief couple of minutes we were allowed to peer through a window that looked onto a dimly lit corridor where transport robots carry concealed loads to unknown destinations. Sharp still knows how to keep a secret.

The ambitious drive to put a low-cost computer into the hands of as many of the world's low-income children as possible has entered the production phase. Often mistakenly referred to as the "$100 laptop" project, the managers of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization said yesterday that they had given the signal to ramp-up production of all the components needed to build millions of the devices. A spokesperson for the group told the BBC news service on Sunday that production activities had gotten underway toward a goal of getting the units, known as the XO computer, out to children by this October.

"There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at OLPC, told the BBC. He declined to name the country of destination for the initial shipment.

Manufacturing the millions of XO units needed to justify the production run will be handled by Quanta, of Taiwan, the world's largest laptop manufacturer.

"This is the moment we have all been waiting for," Gustavo Arenas of AMD Corp. told the BBC. "We certainly believe very strongly in the mission and vision of OLPC, so finally starting to see it come to fruition is not only gratifying, it is also rewarding."

OLPC organizers have stated that the cost of producing the first units will be US $176. From there, the organization hopes to reach economies of scale that will reduce the cost to the countries that purchase them down to the $100 level.

A running account on the OLPC site updates developments in getting the last details worked out in the Beta 4 (B4) version of the XO prior to a full deployment.

Only ten days ago, Intel Corp. said it would join the OLPC board of directors to help promote the project with expertise gathered from its own low-cost laptop for students in the developing world, called the Classmate PC -- even though the XO runs on chips supplied by its rival, AMD.

"Joining OLPC is a further example of our commitment to education over the last 20 years and our belief in the role of technology in bringing the opportunities of the 21st century to children around the world," said Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel.

The compromise on the part of Intel, joined with successful beta test results, may have been the sign that convinced the leaders of the OLPC project to move forward with the launch of the XO.

Good luck to all concerned.

[Editor's Note: For more on the One Laptop Per Child project, see "The Laptop Crusade" by Senior Editor Tekla S. Perry in our April 2007 issue.]

According to today's Washington Internet Daily, the FBI's current attempt to modernize its IT systems has been derailed, at least temporarily. The program, dubbed Sentinel, is the follow up to the $170 million Virtual Case File debacle we wrote about in Spectrum in 2005. The first part of the project was successfully deployed by contractor Lockheed Martin only a few weeks ago, as Bob Charette noted in our The Risk Factor blog.

But now its future depends on how well deputy attorney general and an internal review board think the FBI is managing the program, according Washington Internet Daily: "FBI Sentinel data-management system was denied funding in the House-approved appropriations bill for the departments of Commerce and Justice and science agencies....Among a long list of general areas for which Justice funding will not be available, Section 210 of the bill (HR-3093) names Sentinel, barring funding for that program "or any other major new or enhanced information technology program" projected to cost more than $100 million to develop. Such programs can be exempted from the funding ban if the deputy attorney general and investment review board certify to Appropriations that the program has 'appropriate program management and contractor oversight mechanisms in place, and that the program is compatible with the enterprise architecture' at Justice."

Enterprise architecture, or rather the lack of one, was one major reason the Virtual Case File went off the rails. That, and the fact that no one was really watching what the contractor was doing. Could the fact that no one trusts the Bureau to manage its own IT projects actually mess up what has up to now been a relatively successful project? Stay tuned.

I broke the story of Blake Ross' new startup, Parakey, in the November issue of Spectrum. Now comes news that Parakey has been acquired by Facebook, the social network run by Ross' friend, Mark Zuckerberg.

Parakey was impressive when Blake demoed it for me last year; I can imagine its gotten even better since then. Ross and Zuckerberg are dynamic young entrepreneurs with a genuine passion for engineering. Expect to hear much much more about them in the future.