Friday, August 18, 2006
News Bites
Here are a few short updates on the day's headlines:
- Ford has announced that its fourth-quarter production will be down 21% from last year, and that it will have to shutter plants in the USA and Canada. Bill Ford said more details would be announced next month. (AP via Yahoo! News)
- Three days after announcing its recall of amazing flaming batteries, Dell revealed that its quarterly profits were down 50% and that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the company's accounting practices. Ouch. (The New York Times)
- Boeing's C-17 cargo jet program failed to win more orders from the Pentagon. Expect to hear an announcement soon about the end of that program, which employs 5,000 people in California. (Manufacturing.net)
- The hazards of chocolate making: a worker at WI based Debelis Corp. waded into a tank of chocolate to clear a blockage and found himself waist-deep in a deathtrap of deliciousness. Police arrived and rescued him. (AP via Yahoo! News)
- Machinists at Makino in Japan claim to have have made the smallest machined hole in the world. The tiny hole was made for a fiber optic part and measured 0.00044 of an inch. It beats the previous record set in Wales in 2005. (American Machinist, the Register)
