We just wrapped up the latest VITA working group updates and meetings in Las Vegas, right at the beginning of March Madness. Walking the Strip and through the casinos got me to thinking about why people visit Las Vegas. Many are there for the shows and people watching. 

In January, Embedded Tech Trends 2019 was held San Diego, California at the Andaz. Located in the heart of the famous Gas Lamp district, the attendees had ready access to great dining and local SoCal activities like the San Diego zoo and the USS Midway.

Almost 5,000 artificial satellites orbit our planet with just over 1,900 of them operational. These satellites provide us with communication networks, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) coverage, technological research, as well as scientific and Earth observation data.

The theme for 2019 was “The Future is Now!” The presenters were encouraged to talk about how the technology that has been in development the past years now has reached deployment status, bringing us into the future.

Something exciting is happening in the service representative community. Representatives from three different programs, one from each of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) services, have come together with a common objective to solve their respective acquisition problems with an agreed-upon, open architecture standard. Here is Part 1 of a 3-part article covering the SOSA [Sensor Open System Architecture] Consortium’s efforts.

An A/D (Analog-to-Digital) converter, frequently abbreviated as ADC, accepts an analog voltage at the input and produces a digital representation of that voltage at the output that’s called a “sample.”