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Two Japanese companies are working together to develop carbon fiber materials for use in cars, according to a Reuters report. Toray Industries (3402.T) and Mitsubishi Rayon (3404.T) hope to mass produce the lightweight material by 2010 in an effot to make vehicles 40% lighter and up to 30% more fuel efficient. They also intend to develop technology to recycle carbon fiberin order to bring costs down. For years, proponents of carbon fiber materials have supported its widespread use in vehicles, but the cost of the highly engineered materials was prohibitive. Now with gasoline and steel prices on the rise, carbon fiber is becoming more economically feasible. The Nikkei business daily reported that Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. were participating in the partnership, along with Toyobo Takagi Seiko Corp and researchers from the University of Tokyo. However, both Nissan and Honda denied that they were participating in the project. A spokeswomam for Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization said teh government is also researching the further use of aluminum and other light-weight metals to replace steel.

"The figures show that copper-based broadband technologies (DSL, ADSL, and ADSL2+) continue to be dominant, although fiber-optic broadband technologies (which include VDSL and VDSL2, according to the Broadband Forum) are taking a firmer grip with growth rates of 17.6% overall. Although DSL remains the predominant technology, fiber continues to outpace all access types in new deployments, according to the analysts."

"superconducting fiber"

"Efforts to produce lighter vehicles necessarily include engine parts, such as the cylinder casing, which could shed up to 20 percent of its weight if it were made of fiber-reinforced plastic rather than aluminum - without added costs. Such injection-molded parts are even suitable for mass production."

Siemon launches a new whitepaper by respected data center infrastructure expert Carrie Higbie. Entitled "Comparing Copper and Fiber Options in the Data Center," this detailed whitepaper and accompanying video is available for download at: http://www.siemon.com/go/cvf

They want to supply residential and business buildings with largely fiber optic connections because the old copper cabling will soon no longer suffice to access communication networks. The growing Internet data network plus new online and multimedia services require increasing amounts of bandwidth and better transmission technology.

"The line between Jandira and Cotia is the world's first commercial installation of Lo-Sag conductors that use a carbon fiber composite core to save weight and double capacity."

Nexans announced on 28th September that after having received expressions of interest in its Berk-Tek copper and fibre cable subsidiary, it is "exploring the possibility" of selling it. Berk-Tek manufactures high-performance copper cable from its plants in New Holland, Pennsylvania, and Elm City, North Carolina, and also produces fibre optic cable in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. Nexan's statement follows its acquisition of Shandong Yanggu Cables Group of China for around RMB930M in early September.

"The team has developed a way to integrate fiber optics - glass or plastic components that can transmit data using light waves - into computer chips, replacing copper wires that rely on electricity."

"A short video on the creative development of a breakthrough new high-density fiber optic panel, project named: Iridium, which is now being released under the name 'Osmium'; highlighting the benefits of Design and Engineering departments working collaboratively to achieve technical innovations."

Verizon Communications Inc. and two unions representing 65,000 workers who had threatened to strike within hours agreed Sunday on a new three-year contract that provides 10.5 percent wage increases and changes in retirement benefits.The union workers are in the traditional telephone part of the company, which is engaged in the labor-intensive process of replacing most of its copper phone lines with optical fiber. Verizon Wireless, the company's big growth driver..

SureWest had said it was contemplating such services when the company began offering broadband via bonded ADSL2+ in its incumbent territory last fall, including 10-megabit-per-second services. The company already offers IPTV through its fiber-to-the-premises network, but its bonded ADSL2+ customers have so far only had access to SureWest's voice and data services. (The company has offered IPTV over copper on a very limited basis even before it began line bonding. It offers IPTV over copper to about 2500 customers today, mostly to those with short loops and modest standard-definition video needs.) The new copper-based IPTV services, which will be available to 15,000 homes in December and another 10,000 by next June, are enabled in part by the company's recent switch from Minerva middleware to Microsoft's Mediaroom and by its use of MPEG-4 encoding for video compression.

" Every technology must compete against an incumbent: Transistors fought vacuum tubes; optical fibers fought copper wires in communications; and today, superconductors are facing off against copper cables in the electricity transmission space. "