In contrast, its competitor General Electric reallocated capital from commodity plays that had paid in the 1970s to new real enterprises like magnetic resonance machine-manufacturing, betting that discretionary income for health care was going to soar with the coming rise in affluence.

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Shutting off and on several times a day is a good way to quickly wear out your machine --and considering the nasty, ecologically unfriendly PC manufacturing process, the green thing to do is keep the one you have as long as possible.

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The disappearing jobs list also reflects the continuing long-term decline of no- and low-skilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S.--sewing machine operators, engine assemblers, machine tool setters, home appliance repairers and textile knitting machine operators.

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The review of the manufacturing engineering sector also highlighted a long-running demand for skilled machine operators, welders and graduate engineering positions.

BBC: Scottish engineering firms report export orders dip

Once a design is set, different bits of the manufacturing process are tried out on computer: a virtual pipe-bending machine, for instance, makes sure that the fuel lines which snake their way through the airframe can be created without wrapping themselves around the machine and bringing it to a halt.

ECONOMIST: Manufacturing technology

The videos focus on three key industries with significant potential for intelligent systems - healthcare, retail and manufacturing - all with unique needs and requirements for devices, from kiosks to human machine interface panels (HMI), digital signs and POS terminals.

ENGADGET: Windows Embedded 8 Industry scheduled for release first week of April