The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive 2002/96/EC of the European Union aims at minimization of the impact of e-waste (discarded or end-of-life electrical or electronic equipment [EEE]), on the environment by increasing re-use and recycling and reducing the amount of WEEE going to landfills. It is closely linked to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive 2002/95/EC which seeks to limit the presence of six hazardous materials in electrical and electronic equipment. Go to Enviromental technology for further information.

There are several categories of electronic waste or e-waste that fall under the WEEE Directive: large and small household appliances as well as consumer products are included. E-waste in this directive means electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) designed for use with voltage ratings of up to 1000V ac or 1500V dc. Hence manufacturers of most electronic consumer goods used in day to day life, fall under the purview of the directive. Since the consequences of non-compliance are serious (including possible ban on doing business in EU countries), manufacturers need to be conversant with the WEEE and the related RoHS directives.

The WEEE Directive seeks to minimize the environmental impact of e-waste by mandating its collection, treatment, recovery and/or recycling should be facilitated and financed by producers. It also proposes that consumers be able to return their waste equipment free of charge. Manufacturers, therefore, need to assess the impact of these requirements and initiate appropriate action for implementation.

This involves setting up collection centers for e-waste, arrangements for transportation to the recovery and/or recycling centers, facilities for recycling and determination of final disposal options. Recovery and recycling of electronic waste is specialized work and recycling plants must conform to certain minimum standards.

Operation of captive recycling facilities may be both uneconomical and beyond the core competence of equipment manufacturers. Hence suitable tie-ups with external recycling establishments may need to be entered into by manufacturers, either singly or through collective arrangements. The foregoing are post-sales activities.

It is very important for a manufacturer to also understand the importance of certain pre-sales actions which impinge upon compliance significantly. These are actions at the design and manufacturing stages. Refer to enviromental products for further information.

First is the effort to design equipment which can be dismantled into the smallest possible parts and components. This will facilitate recovery of the parts for reuse; a more economical proposition than say, recycling.

Second, manufacturers must ensure labeling of products is in line with the requirements of the WEEE Directive including a “Do Not Landfill” note.

Third, reduction of hazardous material content in the product greatly reduces the need for expensive recovery efforts. It also contributes to overall environmental conservation. For this reason, the importance of RoHS compliance of products and processes cannot be over emphasized. The sooner manufacturers recognize this fact; the better their profits will be long term.

The WEEE 2002/96/EC Directive is not a law and individual EU member states are to incorporate its provisions into their own legislations. Since differences in the laws across the EU member states are inevitable, multi-national manufacturers may need to develop innovative compliance solutions.

Further, the WEEE Directive is based on Article 175 of the EC (European Community) Treaty - the Treaty establishing the European Union. This allows member states to include additional products as long as they countries adhere to European Community laws governing overall trade and commerce within and beyond the EU. Manufacturers must stay abreast of more environmentally sound practices and current WEEE changes. They also need to be aware of the implication of such changes on their businesses. Visit environmental for more information.

People who are into advanced spy equipment will be glad to realize all the things they can buy at their local spy shopspy shop. In this report you will be exposed to exactly what you can get from the shadowy world of espionage. We start with some of the hot selling items. All of them are sure to please spy aficionados if you were to give them any of those.

The cheat test, I have to say, wins the award for most purchases. People finally get to know the truth with this product, regarding their boyfriend or girlfriend. This product analyze an underwear for signs of any extramarital relations. If someone was only to sell product, this would be the one to sell.

Let’s move on with another product that is almost as popular, the spy phone. Since we all communicate on mobile phones, it’s no wonder it is being targeted so much. It’s child’s play to turn any cell into a spy device. And everything stored on the phone can then be accessed from anywhere. Text message spying is a highly appreciated feature for people. There is just no way to find it.

Finally the oldest item we will talk about is the covert hidden camera. A small almost undetectable unit. Price can vary depending on several factors. The wired models will cost you less. Wireless ones can be moved around and placed anywhere you want. We have covered some good ground in this first part on spy equipment.

WAN acceleration improves network application performance by speeding access to resources such as e-mail, CRM databases, and Web servers. WAN acceleration products addresses the common bandwidth, latency and loss issues that can hamper server centralization and data protection plans. WAN acceleration can be an essential tool for overcoming these challenges. WAN accelerators normally provide 10-100x reduction in wide area network utilization once they are deployed.

WAN acceleration technology typically can help majority of network applications, giving businesses maximum wide area network efficiency. WAN Acceleration provides immediate and unique benefits that span all aspects of business operations. WAN accelerators has become a key piece of the puzzle to solving the issues IT has faced for years.

By using WAN acceleration device, you can provide LAN-like access to data and applications anywhere throughout the enterprise network, allowing for real time collaboration for users in branch offices and mobile workers around the world. This has happened in large part as a result of new technology and the information explosion powered by access to the Internet. As interest and adoption of WAN acceleration technology grows, enterprises are demanding better scalability and modularity in these appliances. Partly as a result of this, and the relative newness of the technology, there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty by about some of the more common WAN acceleration technologies being employed today. Here is a short list of areas that WAN accelerators can help:

• Reduce WAN Bandwidth
• Server and Storage Consolidation
• Disaster Recovery

The news keeps getting better on WAN acceleration, with wider connections, better monitoring and management, and a commitment by leading vendors to incorporate the technology directly into future networking platforms. Using a variety of techniques WAN acceleration technology optimizes and speeds data movement over relatively slow links thus saving money on communications costs. To further enhance application delivery, many WAN acceleration solutions have QoS features to prioritize data across the wide area network. WAN acceleration appliances can also employ additional latency mitigation techniques, such as selective TCP acknowledgements and adjustable TCP window sizes, to further improve data transfer times across long WAN links.

Now that WAN acceleration has matured, it has become a critical part of every IT professionals strategy to improve application performance and disaster recovery plans. WAN accelerators can protect IT’s investments in critical applications by making sure end users get consistent application performance and that IT can deliver full proof disaster recovery and data replication for the network. As a result, WAN acceleration provides an extremely rapid return on investment, plus the intangible benefit of increased user productivity and unsurpassed IT satisfaction.

It seems there is no end to the number of different electronic products that are now integrating Bluetooth technology into their design. This is great news for many who are savvy about this mobile wireless technology, but there are still many people who are not familiar with it and find themselves asking, “What is Bluetooth?”

Bluetooth wireless technology networking has become one of the leading technologies for wireless communication world wide. The reason it has become so popular around the globe, in just a few short years since its introduction, is because Bluetooth technology allows phones, computers, PDAs and other electronic devices to easily communicate with the other Bluetooth enabled devices nearby. The range of Bluetooth wireless technology networking is limited to a short range of about 30 feet.

What is bluetooth
Bluetooth utilizes radio waves, in the non-licensed range of 2.4 Gigahertz. The Bluetooth wireless system has been designed with the intention of providing a secure and an inexpensive way to connect with and exchange information between other Bluetooth devices, all without the need of wires.

What is Bluetooth primarily utilized for? This mobile wireless technology is the most popular method of wireless communication. It can now be found integrated into the latest and most popular models of handheld computers, laptops, PDAs, printers and headsets, not to mention cellular phones.

In addition to the Bluetooth wireless phone models, which are probably the most prevalent type of Bluetooth devices on the market, you can now also find bluetooth wireless headset and Bluetooth wireless speakers. It is expected that other Bluetooth wireless audio and video products will continue to be brought to the marketplace.

Broadband wireless technology
With this type of advancement, it is conceivable that some day the only wires you will need to tame, will be the power cords that some of these devices will need for their power supply. That would be a welcomed change from the tangles of cords and wires that are common in home offices and entertainment areas.

One of the best features, is that all Bluetooth enabled devices function on a standard protocol. This means that all transmission of data and voice signals between two Bluetooth devices, even if they are produced by different manufacturers, is straightforward and simple to implement.

It was the need for a standardized communication convention that prompted the development of Bluetooth technology. Rather than the need for each manufacturer to establish their own standards, and thereby limit the connectivity to other devices made by the same company, they can simply implement the Bluetooth wireless technology networking standard. This simple approach has made Bluetooth a global solution used by all manufacturers and benefiting the end-user significantly.

Bluetooth wireless headset
Some of the other advantages of Bluetooth are: data transfers that are fast; communication with other Bluetooth devices that are not in a direct line of sight (as required by the infra-red protocol); inexpensive circuitry and components; the ability to transmit both data and voice concurrently.

Bluetooth mobile wireless technology was introduced to the market almost a decade ago. One reason it was quickly utilized by many manufacturers, and why the price of it has been kept low, is because Ericsson (the original developer) made the specifications royalty-free to use. This will continue to be a factor that will fuel the increased usage, making more Bluetooth enabled devices available and essentially squelching the need to ask, “bluetooth technology?”