• Energy chief fears 'truly horrific winter' as UK struggles to contain rising energy prices

    Michael Lewis, chief executive of E.ON UK, has warned MPs of the consequences of soaring energy costs once the industry regulator, Ofgem, raises the annual energy cap in October. “We are expecting a severe impact on customers’ ability to pay,” he told MPs at the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee in parliament, adding that he expected debts of customers to rise by 50 per cent, or £800m. The industry called for an “unprecedented” intervention by the government before October to reduce the burden of energy bills. ScottishPower's Keith Anderson proposed the introduction of a £1,000 deficit fund or social tariff for vulnerable customers. Other options discussed were removing VAT on gas and electricity, extending the warm homes discount, removing green levies on bills…

  • Online Safety Bill passes second reading as MPs call for tighter definitions of hate

    Digital minister Nadine Dorries said the new rules will see social media firms “held accountable to their own terms and conditions”. Speaking to the House of Commons she said: “They will be unable any longer to allow illegal content to be published, and we will also be listing in secondary legislation offences that will be legal but harmful. We will be holding those tech giants to account.” The long-delayed Bill was finally published in draft form last May and proposes significant fines for companies that fail to deal with online abuse as well as possible criminal prosecution for executives. The legislation aims to establish a framework for online regulation which upholds freedom of expression whilst also making the internet safe from child predators, extremists and other bad actors …

  • £7.6m fund to decarbonise and improve efficiency of UK’s railways announced

    The Department for Transport is welcoming bids from organisations pitching for projects that will create a greener, more cost-effective and passenger-focused railway. Applicants can submit their ideas from today until 8 June 2022, with bids welcome from organisations of all sizes. Last year saw 33 firms receive grants of up to £400,000 each. The fund has helped to trial and launch over 100 projects in the past which were focused on greener railways, improving passenger experience and accessibility, and helping the railway to be more cost-effective. Past projects include the first trials of hydrogen-powered trains in the UK with Birmingham University’s HydroFLEX project, an app which connects rail travellers to the world outside their window with geolocated audio stories along the route…

  • Printed solar panels to power Tesla on Australian road trip

    The Charge Around Australia project will power a Tesla with 18 of the team’s printed solar panels, each 18m long, rolling them out beside the vehicle to soak up sunlight when the car needs charging. Paul Dastoor, the inventor of the printed solar panels, said the University of Newcastle (New South Wales) team would be testing not only the endurance of the panels but their potential performance for other applications. “This is actually an ideal testbed to give us information about how we go about using and powering technology in other remote locations, for example, in space,” Dastoor told news agency Reuters in the town of Gosforth, north of Sydney. Charge Around Australia project lead and inventor of ‘printed solar’ panels Paul Dastoor next to a printed solar panel…

  • Users of self-driving cars in the UK will not be held responsible for crashes

    UK authorities are making changes to the Highway Code to prepare for the arrival of the first self-driving cars on Britain's roads. Under the proposed changes, drivers will be allowed to watch television programmes and films on built-in screens while using driverless cars, and they will not be held responsible for collisions. However, using a phone behind the wheel will remain illegal and motorists must be ready to take back control of vehicles when needed. In the case of an accident, insurance companies rather than individuals will be liable for claims, the Department for Transport said (DfT). Autonomous driving is expected to improve road safety by reducing human error, which has been identified as the cause of 88 per cent of all traffic accidents. Currently, there are no self-driving…

  • View from Brussels: EU vaccine spat back with a bang

    Slower and lower vaccination rates were a real problem in the early days of the EU’s vaccine rollout, although the tortoise did finally come good in the end when jab supplies eventually caught up with demand. Now the issue is the very opposite, there is too little demand for supply. That poses a problem for the EU executive branch, the European Commission, which is in charge of the procurement programme for the entire bloc of 27 countries. Poland is the first to throw a spanner in the works, confirming this week that it will no longer be drawing jabs from the EU’s pool nor will it pay for more doses. It means an inevitable legal challenge with the pharma giants making the vaccines. The change of policy is down to reduced appetite for vaccines in Poland. Compared with the EU’s average…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Everyday smartwatches could be used to detect onset of Covid-19

    Using a smartwatch's heart rate sensors could also be used to detect other diseases such as influenza. The approach could also help to track disease at home or when medical resources are scarce, such as during a pandemic or in developing countries. The researchers discovered new signals embedded in heart rate data indicating when individuals were infected with Covid and how sick they became. They found that individuals with Covid experienced an increase in heart rate per step after the onset of symptoms, while those with a cough also had a much higher heart rate per step than those without a cough. “We found that Covid dampened biological timekeeping signals, changed how your heart rate responds to activity, altered basal heart rate and caused stress signals,” said researcher professor…

  • Downing Street and Foreign Office infected with spyware, experts claim

    Citizen Lab, which researches digital threats, said that it occasionally observes cases where it suspects that governments are using spyware to undertake international espionage. While it said the vast majority of these cases are outside of its “scope and mission”, it sometimes contacts governments if it believes they can reduce harm through their actions. It found that Pegasus infections were present on electronic devices connected to UK government networks in 2020 and 2021. Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that can be covertly installed on mobile phones and other devices running most versions of iOS and Android. While it may have been built in Israel, the suspected infections relating to the FCO were associated with operators linked to the UAE…

  • UK manufacturers remain unconvinced by government’s ‘levelling up’ plans

    The survey of 225 firms was conducted by Make UK, which said regional mayors should be given more power and responsibility for levelling up funds to rebalance UK economy. The theme of ‘levelling up’ was used as a key pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto. In it, the Conservative Party pledged to “to use our post-Brexit freedoms to build prosperity and strengthen and level up every part of the country”. But 30 per cent of those surveyed remain unhappy with the plan and are not seeing significant impacts for their businesses thus far. This negative sentiment is particularly pronounced further from London and the South-East. The North-East, Yorkshire & the Humber, East Anglia, and the North-West were regions that were most dissatisfied with the government’s progress…

  • View from India: EVs drive into rural India

    Around half that total is the potential revenue to fiscal 2026 for various stakeholders including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and component manufacturers. Disbursements for vehicle financiers account for Rs 90,000 crore (£9bn), with shared mobility and insurance making up the balance The EV market in India has witnessed a sharp spike in FY22 compared to that of FY21, as more people are shifting from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to EVs of various kinds. “The penetration in terms of sales indicate that the percentage of two-wheeler (2W) EVs has risen by 2 per cent, while that of 3Ws has gone up by 5 per cent,” said Hemal Thakkar, director, CRISIL Research, at a CRISIL media webinar on the electric vehicle ecosystem. “The passenger vehicles (PVs) has witnessed an increased…

  • Boots will stop selling plastic-based wet wipes by the end of the year

    The pharmacy chain, which sold more than 800 million wet wipes in the last year, will replace wipes that contain plastic fibres with plant-based biodegradable alternatives by the end of 2022. The move follows Boots' 2001 decision to remove plastic from its own-brand wipe ranges. Boots is one of the biggest sellers of wet wipes in the UK, with more than 140 different lines stocked across skincare, baby, tissue and health care categories. A large proportion of the 11 billion wet wipes used in the UK every year still contain some form of plastic, according to the Marine Conservation Society, and evidence suggests they are the cause of more than nine in 10 blockages in UK sewers. Steve Ager, chief customer and commercial officer at Boots UK, said: “Our customers are more aware than ever before…

  • Hands-on review: 1More ComfoBuds Mini True Wireless ANC earbuds

    In such an extremely crowded, highly competitive marketplace as that for wireless earbuds, a product needs a definitive USP to help it stand out. In the case of 1More's ComfoBuds Mini, how about 'World's Smallest Active Noise Cancelling Earbuds'? That is, indeed, what they are (at least for now). Available in either Obsidian Black or Mica White (also known as simply black or white), the ComfoBuds Mini really do live up to their name. More than just a novelty, their diminutive size will be a large part of their appeal for people who don't want their earbuds pointedly on display, for those who prefer a low-profile gadget, or for those who physically have small ears. As the images here serve to illustrate, the ComfoBuds Mini simply slip into the wearer's ear canal - and that's it. No stalk…

  • The measure of: Otto Aviation Celera 500L

    The Celera 500L fuel-efficient ‘bullet’ plane features a five-bladed pushing propeller mounted behind the tail, which is powered by a Raiklin Aircraft Engine RED A03 engine certified to operate on Jet A1 or biodiesel. According to the firm, the bullet shape of the Celera helps to reduce drag drastically, by allowing the air to flow smoothly over the surface of the aircraft. This allows for the plane to operate with less power, meaning that it burns less fuel, the company said. Image credit: Otto Aviation The start-up fitted the prototype with mechanically linked controls – the reason for using such controls for the baseline configuration was to reduce complexity and overall programme risk, aircraft designer Bill Otto said. Otto and his company believe that the…

  • The eccentric engineer: the original inflatable boat

    Peter Halkett was the son of one of the directors of the Hudson Bay Company, so had grown up in what was then the wild and largely unexplored (at least by westerners) fastnesses of Canada. It must have been a childhood full of stories – the voyageurs returning from trapping expeditions, British adventurers probing the edges of this new dominion and native peoples who had lived for millennia in areas so inhospitable to Europeans that few could survive a month there. So, it’s perhaps not surprising that Halkett had something of a wanderlust himself, returning to his native England in the 1840s to become a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Halkett believed he had more to offer the Navy than just his youth and enthusiasm. He had become fascinated with one of those British naval expeditions that we…

  • Special lens design could see high-quality, wide-angle cameras in smartphones

    The lens is composed of flat, nanopatterned surfaces that can manipulate light. They eliminate the need for bulky and heavy lenses typically required for this type of imaging, which could enable wide-angle cameras to be incorporated into smartphones and portable imaging devices for vehicles such as cars or drones. The new camera is just 0.3cm thick and can produce clear images of a scene with a viewing angle greater than 120°. Wide-angle imaging is useful for capturing large amounts of information for photographs of vistas and other wide shots. For machine vision applications such as autonomous driving and drone-based surveillance, wide-angle imaging can enhance performance and safety, for example by revealing an obstacle you couldn’t otherwise see while backing up in a vehicle. “To create…

  • Teardown: Valve Steam Deck

    The Steam Deck is not the first attempt at a handheld for PC gaming, but it does come with a pedigree and a market-friendly price. Since 1996, Valve has evolved from game developer (the Half-Life franchise) into being a major online market for PC games, into offering an open-hardware platform (Steam Engine) and now, fully into the console market after a flirtation with peripherals. The company has quite the fanbase, and the bad news is that if you have not already reserved a Steam Deck, you will have to wait until “after Q3 2022” for its delivery. Like most console vendors, the company has fallen prey to semiconductor shortages.  Enthusiasm for the Steam Deck does not only reflect Valve’s reputation and the promise of PC gamers being able to migrate much (but not all) of their libraries…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Book review: ‘Power On!’

    It’s rare to come across graphic novels that don’t include any action sequences rippled throughout their illustratively stunning pages. But even without these features typical to the genre, ‘ Power On! ’ (MIT Press, $19.95, ISBN 9780262543255) by Jean J Ryoo and Jane Margolis still fills this void through an insightful story of four close friends who actively try to educate themselves about the world of computer science, highlighting the need for the subject, and practice, to be accessible to all within schools. ‘Power On!’ is about a group of four friends who, when learning that police shot a Black man after artificial intelligence had misidentified him, seek to learn more about the technology and the algorithms that paved the way for his death. This incident sparks a deep curiosity among…

  • Hands-on gadget review: Obsbot Tiny 4K webcam

    For years as a tech journalist I joked, “thank goodness video calling didn’t take off” alongside “I have a face for radio”. Then came Covid and the rise of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Those of us who’d never much used our laptops’ built-in cameras suddenly reached for them… and realised they weren’t very good. Enter: an array of webcams designed to perch on the top of your screen. They offer better specs than the built-in camera and they connect via plug-and-play USB, so the camera footage simply appears in the same place as your built-in cam. You can even flick between the cameras with ease. The only challenge then is picking which external webcam to buy. This innovative webcam is a new 4K version of the Obsbot Tiny, a camera built onto a gimbal, complete with gesture control…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Musk offers to buy Twitter for £30bn

    Musk, the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX boss, has proposed buying “100 per cent of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash”, which values the company at around $43bn. According to Musk's Securities and Exchange Commission filing, this represents a 54 per cent premium on the share price over the day before he began investing in the company in late January. In his filing, Musk wrote “I don’t have confidence in management” and stated that he couldn’t make the changes he wanted to make to Twitter in the public market. If his offer is not accepted, Musk said he would “need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” according to a letter sent to Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman and also co-CEO at Salesforce, which was included in the SEC filing. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Critical instrument on Webb Telescope reaches -266°C operating temperature

    The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reached -266°C on April 7, just over three months after its launch on Christmas day in 2021. Along with Webb’s three other instruments, MIRI initially cooled off in the shade of Webb’s tennis-court-size sunshield , dropping to about -183°C, but further temperature drops required an electrically powered cryocooler. Analyn Schneider, project manager for MIRI, said: “The team was both excited and nervous going into the critical activity. In the end it was a textbook execution of the procedure and the cooler performance is even better than expected.” The low temperature is necessary because all four of Webb’s instruments detect infrared light – wavelengths slightly longer than those that human eyes can see. Distant galaxies, stars hidden in cocoons of…

  • Solid-state engine efficiently converts heat to electricity

    The performance achieved is superior to traditional steam turbines. The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The team’s design can generate electricity from a heat source at between 1,900°C and 2,400°C and can hopefully be incorporated into a grid-scale thermal battery. The system would absorb excess energy from renewable sources such as the sun and store that energy in heavily insulated banks of hot graphite. When the energy is needed, such as on overcast days, TPV cells would convert the heat into electricity, and dispatch the energy to a power grid. With the new TPV cell, the team has now successfully demonstrated the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Back Story: Krystina Pearson-Rampeearee, ‘I realised that I can achieve anything I put my mind to’

    Shini Somara: How has a career in engineering helped you personally? Krystina Pearson-Rampeearee: I didn’t really have a lot of confidence when I was younger. I was certainly a very shy kid. When I first started working, I was very quiet and kept a low profile and worked hard. It was only when I had my little boy, almost four years ago, that I came out of my shell. Motherhood allowed me to gain the confidence I needed to do my job. I think this was due to the challenge of being a mum for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing and in the year I had for maternity leave, I realised that I can achieve anything I put my mind to, particularly because I love learning. When I returned to work, I had an even greater motivation for my job. I was so happy to be back in my engineering role…

  • How healthcare is tackling ever rising cyber threats

    Healthcare is one of the industries most highly targeted by cyber criminals. At the same time, as services have ramped up during the Covid pandemic, the sector has found itself increasingly having to fend off cyber attacks such as large-scale ‘password spraying’ campaigns . As the sector continues to innovate, widen access to healthcare through remote and virtual services, and support greater exchanges of electronic health information, the cyber threat landscape is only set to broaden. Healthcare institutions and organisations face a unique set of challenges when it comes to making access to systems, data and devices more secure. Legacy systems, mergers, shared devices, mobile restrictions and non-employee providers all contribute to creating an even more complex digital landscape. Additionally…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Hands-on review: Airthings View Plus air quality monitor

    Air pollution: it's a hot topic. We're increasingly aware of the dangers of breathing in various nefarious airborne particles over the long-term - and you don't have to be living in New Delhi, by the side of a busy London road, or in the path of a Californian wildfire to be concerned about the quality of the air around you. Accordingly, with increased consumer interest in a subject comes increased consumer technology to assist us in our quest for a deeper understanding. The market for both air quality monitors and air purifiers is an active one now and, with the View Plus, Airthings has released its most comprehensive monitoring device to date. Building on its previous air-monitoring devices, such as the Wave Plus (which had no screen, so all data and interaction had to be done via an app…

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