Good sources of what is happening in the world of engineering and controls are free trade magazines. These are some good ones that can give you an idea of what is going on in the field. Many a time you can find interesting devices, sensors, projects and analyses that you wouldn’t find elsewhere.
They are also good for figuring out what is the latest bleeding edge technology being peddled. Alas, some folks fall in love with these shiny new things. There are plenty of times in my experience where I have had to use the “latest and greatest” piece of data acquisition or control hardware, and run into some serious troubles. This is mentioned in the checklists, of course! One of my first questions when being handed an unknown/untested piece of technology for use in an industrial/can’t fail application is invariably “how many people have used this?”