Remote operation
A bit slow on the uptake on this one, but JEOL is deomnstrating their remote operation capabilities for their analytical FESEM. Not big news, but remote operation is a great thing for places where people aren't close to the research infrastructure they want/need to use (like most places in the northern midwest and west).
I've played a bit with using VNC software to remotely operate the UMD SEM. It's awesome if I'm on campus. Off campus, (at my house) I just don't have the bandwidth to make it work effectively. But I can see it being useful if one campus has a tool and a researcher at another campus wants to use it but doesn't want to incur the expense of traveling several hours across the state for a session remote operation would be an ideal solution.
It also has benefits if you have a very sensitive instrument (such as an analytical FESEM) which can be sensitive to operator induced vibrations or thermal variation in the room. Setup a workstation in the room next door and completely isolate the instrument.
