The University of South Australia’s Thin Film Coatings Group has entered into a strategic alliance with Swedish research and development company Arubedo AB to bring new electronic products to market. [ + ]

Premier Farnell has released guidelines for electronics companies to help them understand the new obligations of RoHS legislation, which comes into force on 2 January 2013. [ + ]

Researchers at RMIT University have created ‘liquid metal marbles’ - droplets of liquid metal coated in nanoparticles - in what is claimed to be a world-first breakthrough that advances research into soft electronics and industrial sensing technologies. [ + ]

Half a million Raspberry Pis have now rolled off the element14 production line and element14 has now signed a new distribution contract with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to sell the credit-card-sized computer around the world. [ + ]

Paul Gray from Adelaide ‘car-to-car’ communications technology company Cohda Wireless has attracted investment from Cisco Systems and semiconductor company NXP B.V. The technology effectively allows cars to ‘talk’ to each other and reduce or eliminate crashes through car-to-car data transmission that provides drivers with an audio or visual alert in the threat of an accident. [ + ]

Australian scientists have produced a new two-dimensional material that could revolutionise the electronics market, making ‘nano’ more than just a marketing term. Made of layers of molybdenum oxides crystals, the new material has unique properties that encourage the free flow of electrons at ultrahigh speeds and overcomes the limitations of graphene. [ + ]

RS Components’ 3D CAD microsite adds the capability to locate, view and download models by product type and manufacturer. [ + ]

Yes, Christmas is all over and now we are all back at work doing sensible, work things. But it is still worth considering what gifts you’d like to give yourself in lieu of those useless ties, socks and novelty toilet paper you received for Christmas. [ + ]

Scientists are putting a new spin on their approach to generating electrical current by harnessing a recently identified electromotive force known as spinmotive force, which is related to the field of spintronics that addresses such challenges as improving data storage in computers. [ + ]

Norfolk Southern Railway No 999 is the first all-electric, battery-powered locomotive in the United States. But when one of the thousand lead-acid batteries that power it dies, the locomotive shuts down. [ + ]

Electronics company Rohde & Schwarz has been working intensively over the last year on relaunching its website. [ + ]

Plessey’s MAGIC (MAnufactured on GaN ICs) High Brightness LED (HBLED) products have won the Solid-State Lighting Application Category of the Elektra Awards 2012. The winners were revealed last week at the European Electronics Industry Awards ceremony in London. [ + ]

Raspberry Pi, that low-cost, credit-card-sized computer that is exciting the programming and development world, has opened a store that offers total beginners an easier way to find everything they need to get going, in one place and for free. The Pi Store will make it easier for developers of all ages to share their games, applications, tools and tutorials with the rest of the community. [ + ]

HexaTech has received a $2.2 million award that will enable the development of a new power semiconductor technology for the modernisation of the electrical power grid. [ + ]

A team of interdisciplinary researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a new method for significantly increasing the heat transfer rate across two different materials. Results of the team’s study could enable new advances in cooling computer chips and lighting-emitting diode (LED) devices, collecting solar power, harvesting waste heat and other applications. [ + ]