The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) has announced that it will establish a set of new technology centers at three eastern colleges. It named Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of South Carolina, and Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland as sites for Regional Manufacturing Technology Centers designed to help small and medium-sized companies automate their operations. For nearly a century NIST was known as the National Bureau of Standards. But because of language in the Omnibus Trade & Competitiveness Act passed last August, NBS was suddenly propelled into the searing climate of international technological competition. NIST is now the closest thing the federal government has to a national civilian technology foundation. It will be under the yet-to-be named undersecretary for technology at the Commerce Department. From that base, though with little money, it is setting off to help make U.S. industry dominant once again in manufacturing technology. The late-December announc...