Touch user interfaces have made significant advances in the consumer electronics market particularly for mobile phones and notebook computers, opening the door for adoption in other applications including white goods, computer peripherals, medical equipment, and instrumentation. Synaptics made its debut in the home appliance market earlier this year with the launch of the Samsung Hauzen ZERO air conditioner.
The standout products on day three of the SID 2010 conference is Universal Display's new PHOLED display architecture with a unique four-color, sub-pixel design, which promises to drive commercial development of all-phosphorescent active-matrix OLEDs and Sony's tiny rollable OLED display that can wrap around a pencil.
Smaller distributors were the only ones to post sales gains in 2009. Interestingly, two of the five distributors that posted growth last year -- Interstate Connecting Components and Sherburn Electronics -- derive 100 percent of their sales from interconnect products. Both of them also target the military/aerospace industry. Here are the top 10 sales leaders by ICs, passives/electromechanical devices, interconnects and computer products as well as sales growth.
EcoDog beats Nokia in “greatest gadget” showdown at GadgetFest
San Diego, Calif. — EcoDog’s FIDO Home Energy Monitoring Systems, a technology that provides room-by-room visibility of where energy dollars are spent in the home, earned top honors by both the judges and overall crowd votes at the annual GadgetFest, an event organized by CommNexus.
EcoDog won the 2009 GadgetFest Greatest Gadget award with the debut of FIDO — Your Home Energy Watchdog. EcoDog provides a new level of visibility to electricity consumption, enabling homeowners to optimize household electricity use with savings of 15 to 25 percent or more every month, according to the company.
By capturing the GadgetFest Gadget award, EcoDog joins a list of recent champions that include Google’s GrandCentral, Direct TV’s Slingbox and the Motorola Q phone.
Verizon Wireless finished second with Motorola’s newly launched Droid phone. In addition to EcoDog and Verizon Wireless, other companies participating included Nokia, SilverPlus, Inc., ClimateMinder, FLO TV, and TelCentris.
NXP offers a low-power IC aimed at MPPT applications using PV cells or fuel cells. 
C&K Components offers a series of low-cost, miniature slide switches. The OS Series of RoHS-compliant switches feature a new high-temperature option for lead-free soldering.