Cleaning up building sites and industrial workplaces is going to be made easier by a light but powerful vacuum cleaner which runs off an ordinary 230-V single-phase socket. The PVL 2800 from Pullman Scandinavian AB weighs only 40 kg, but still packs 2.8 kW suction power.  It’s also quiet, with a noise level of only 69 dB(A), which means it can be used without ear-defenders.

Many companies now use Internet/intranet technology to communicate with customers, suppliers, and the rest of the world. This development increases the demand for fast and simple products which reduce development time in web activities. To meet this demand, the Swedish company Infovav AB, of Linköping, has launched Roxen Challenger, a web-server that is both fast and simple to use.

An artificial ‘nose’ will soon be available for tasks including searching for bombs at airports. This ‘sniffer’, which is a biosensor incorporating antibodies, is being developed by Bofors Applied Technologies, Sweden. The sensor is claimed to be the only artificial nose in the world which can rival a dog’s keen sense of smell.

The Finnish Benefon Oy offers its newly type-approved Gamma GSM mobile phone with an exceptional three year warranty. Based on the company´s long experience of analogue mobile phone design, the company´s first GSM terminal is said to be equally reliable and equipped with the latest technology, such as short message service (SMS), CLIP-capabilities and numerous customizing features.

It has long been considered that a common European standard for Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-T) would be impossible, but thanks to a new chip technology it is becoming reality. Siemens Semiconductors and Nokia Multimedia Network Terminals signed a letter of intent for their joint development of a new, integrated receiver chip to be designed for the use in terrestrial digital TV reception equipment. Terrestrial digital services will be launched in a trial starting before end of 1997. The chip supports both the 8k and the 2k Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (COFDM) standards, enabling one type of receiver unit to be used in continental Europe, in Scandinavia and in the UK. 

A novel Gripper LED sensor for printing applications has been launched on to the UK and Irish markets. It has been designed to compete on price withtraditional mechanical counters yet offers the performance of an advanced laser design.

Swedish based LIMT (Local Insertion Media Technology) has developed a method to insert local commercial TV spots into national terrestrial and satellite based television transmissions. The company’s LVS 300 system uses leading edge MPEG2 digital communications technology to allow national and regional stations to split commercial air time among a number of advertisers. In this way they are able to increase advertising revenue while staying within existing concession constraints. 

A new radiation surveying system using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology for geographical positioning has recently been launched by the Swedish manufacturer of radiation detec-tion equipment, Gammadata AB. The GDM 40 is said to be ideal for environmental analysis and large-scale mapping operations from a variety of platforms. The unit uses the GPS unit to determine exactly which section of land is being measured thereby giving an exact position of a potential radiation source.