Nintendo released its Pokémon Go app in July, and Apple says it was the most downloaded app in a first week ever. More than 25 million people download and play the game every day; most of them are under the age of 25. They spend hours staring into their smartphones while roaming the streets looking to capture Pokémon. The game promises to get people off the couch and get them outside. The game is very addicting, and some play for hours at a time. Unfortunately, there have been a few incidents where injuries occurred because players are not paying attention where they are walking. The app is now available in more than 36 countries. The Pokemon Co. is a Japanese company owned by Nintendo, but the app was not available in Japan until last week. Developers of the game had to stagger its release in an attempt to minimize the load on its servers. The Japanese government issued a warning to players. Their one-page flier warns players of potential danger they could encounter as they search for Pokemon.

It's been almost a month since Autodesk acquired Cadsoft, and more importantly, its Eagle line of CAD tools, from distributor Premier Farnell. Yet there's been nary a peep from Autodesk on how it plans to adopt or implement its new toys.

Transparent printed circuits were a popular item showcased at the JPCA Show 2016. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) use to be the dominant material used for transparent substrates in optical circuits and devices and generated a huge amount of sales from touch screen panels. Many engineers and designers still searched for other heat resistant & transparent substrate materials because the heat resistance with PET could not stand up during the standard connection processes that use soldering and wire bonding. Polyimide films have a superior heat resistant tolerance as well as favorable electrical and mechanical properties, but their colors are brown making the transparencies challenging.

While other industry efforts at charting the future are losing steam, iNEMI’s is still going strong.