"This year, Spangler shifted away from the no-label lifestyle with its "Commitment Hearts," which feature artificial intelligence scanning technology that lets consumers express their desire for cohabitation, symbolic headstones and even matrimony.

The new candies read "MOVE IN?", "MARRY ME" and "4EVER EVER?". After buying these new sweethearts, customers can visit sweetheartcandies.com, where they will find a button that says "Commit to your Sweetheart." Clicking the link brings up a page that lets them scan their candies with a webcam.

Alleima is a Swedish steelmaker that makes products out of advanced stainless steel and special alloys. The company, formerly Sandvik Materials Technology, was officially spun out of Sandvik in 2022 and has more than 900 active alloy recipes. The company typically makes seamless steel tubes for the energy, chemical and aerospace industries, precision strip steel for white goods and even ultra-fine wires for medical and micro-electronic devices.

The company recently found itself facing a unique challenge: the crumbling remains of a nearly 400-year-old ship. On August 10, 1628, the Vasa cast off from below Tre Kronor castle in Stockholm and left the harbor. She was a mighty ship with three masts that could carry ten sails, measuring 52 meters from tip to keel and 69 meters long, it weighed 1,200 tons. The Vasa was hit with a mighty gust from the gods that caused her to capsize. Water poured in through open gun ports, the Vasa sank to the floor of the sea, and at least 30 of the 150 or so people aboard perished.

Last week, Panasonic and Mitsubishi Materials recently provided an update on a joint effort more than ten years in the making to operate and expand a product-material-product (PMP) loop. Since 2011, the collaboration has strived to reuse gold, silver, and copper recovered from waste circuit boards, primarily from old Panasonic home appliances. So far, it has been a smashing success.

According to the companies, the PMP loop is the industry's first to achieve consistent resource recycling. As of December 2024, the partners have recovered 1.1 tons of gold, 33 tons of silver, and 8,100 tons of copper.

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing, a podcast that asks young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer.

This episode welcomes 22-year-old Oscar Ramirez, a quality control microbiology technician at life sciences company MilliporeSigma.

Ramirez was introduced to the pharma industry as a senior in high school when he enrolled in BIO+, a dual-enrollment course provided by Kansas City Kansas Community College. After graduating high school, Ramirez decided to pursue a career in the biomanufacturing field and earned his first job as a Dry Powder Media Formulator at MilliporeSigma.

Ramirez was later promoted to a quality control microbiology technician, where he currently completes auxiliary functions and assists scientists with various work, including preparation, laboratory cleaning and biohazard removal.

• The pros and cons of dual-enrollment courses (1:19)
• How Gen Z looks for a job (4:40)
• Challenging the biomanufacturing industry’s definition of “qualified” (7:48)
• How to help Gen Z workers gain more skillsets (10:01)
• Supporting workers who are also attending school (12:56)
• How companies can reach talent in low-income areas (15:27)
• What employers need to know about Gen Z’s priorities (17:12)

Please make sure to like and share this episode. To view previous episodes, visit Manufacturing.net. If you are a member of Gen Z and would like to discuss your experience in the manufacturing industry, please contact Nolan Beilstein at nolan@ien.com.

Every major automaker, at this point, has some sort of driver assistance features on their vehicles, they tend to offer varying degrees of sophistication.

And while Tesla has been most forthcoming about its goals to, at least eventually, make full self-driving a reality, one competitor - Rivian - is suggesting they’ve made some major progress as well.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe recently shared an update on the EV maker’s driverless tech ambitions, revealing plans for what’s in store. These include, according to Scaringe, a hands-free feature set to hit the market this year as well as an “eyes-off” system by 2026.

Space Perspective, a Titusville, Florida company founded in 2018, was developed with the objective of selling trips to the stratosphere.

And in a world of heavy investment in space exploration, it’s the method that’s unique: Space Perspective plans to use a craft called “Spaceship Neptune,” described as a crewed, pressurized gondola propelled by hydrogen.

In the second half of 2024, the firm appeared to be on a positive trajectory. In September, the company completed its first uncrewed test. Funding from British billionaire and space enthusiast Richard Branson was revealed in October – as well as the fact that he would co-pilot the first crewed mission in 2025.

In late December, when TechCrunch reported that EV startup Canoo had just $700K in the bank and was putting its staff on a “mandatory unpaid break,” it felt like there’s never been clearer writing on any wall in history.

That’s why it surprised few when, this week, Canoo announced that it would be ceasing operations and filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In the real world, we’re too often deemed not worthy of fictional gadgets. None of us are getting a proton pack or a flux capacitor any time soon. But if you’re looking for a car roof-mounted licorice dispenser like the one featured in “Wayne’s World,” that can be arranged.

Candy Phelps, a web designer based in Madison, Wisconsin, wanted that licorice dispenser as soon as she saw it in the 1992 movie. But no one was selling it, which was both bogus and sad. More than 30 years later, she’s finally filled that empty space in the market with a real-world version of the contraption, which she sells online through her company called Motormouth.