• US sues Microsoft to block takeover of Activision

    The regulator said the deal, which could close within the next few days, could "substantially lessen competition" in the video games industry. Microsoft first announced its  multi-billion deal to buy Activision  in January 2022, which would see the company  acquire hit titles such as Call of Duty and Candy Crush. The deal has been hailed as the   “biggest takeover in tech history”  and is already the largest acquisition in the history of the video game industry, at least in theory at this stage.   The news follows moves from the UK's competition authority, which blocked the sale in April, as it would “alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market”, fearing Microsoft would make the Activision games exclusive to its existing cloud gaming platform, Xbox Game Pass, cutting off distribution…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Electric ridesharing fleets worsened local air quality, study finds

    Uber has announced plans to transition hundreds of thousands of its drivers to electric vehicles by 2025, with 50 per cent of kilometres in EVs in key European cities by then. By 2030 it claims all its vehicles will be zero emissions in the US, Canada and Europe. But a team funded by Carnegie Mellon University has conducted life-cycle comparisons of battery-powered electric vehicle fleets to a gas-powered one, using real-world rideshare data. They found up to a 45 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from full electrification but warned that traffic problems and air pollution could increase. The cars and SUVs used in ridesharing scenarios typically drive more miles each year than a personal vehicle, contributing a higher proportion of greenhouse gases to the environment, the…

  • Rethinking human evolution through technology

    “Ours, it turns out, is a repeated history of migrations and mixing,” says Cosimo Posth, a junior professor of archaeo- and palaeogenetics at the University of Tübingen in Germany. “Much of what we thought we knew about human history – that populations lived for centuries mostly without mixing – was overturned thanks to modern-day genomics.” In March 2023, Posth and his colleagues analysed the largest ever ancient genetic data set (356 – including 116 from new-found remains in 14 countries) of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, from which they derived new insights about the groups’ migration and survival. A mere decade or so earlier and their work wouldn’t have been possible. Breakthroughs in collecting and deciphering ancient human DNA during this time have rapidly accelerated discoveries about…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Biodiversity emerges from environmental jungle

    The UN’s Cop15 Biodiversity Summit in Montreal last December has been hailed as a turning point in the global approach to loss of biological diversity, marking a critical moment for addressing what many see as a long neglected issue. After two weeks of intense negotiations, world leaders pledged to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 by protecting at least 30 per cent of terrestrial and marine areas. Currently just 17 per cent and 10 per cent of the world’s land and oceans are protected. The agreement follows another significant pledge made at the COP26 UN climate conference in 2021, where leaders and key forest nations pledged to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. G20 leaders also made a pledge in 2021 to plant one trillion trees worldwide by 2030 to mitigate…

  • Largest 3D map of the universe created

    Scientists at Durham University have observed two million distant galaxies, quasars and stars for the first time as part of an effort to create a detailed map of the universe. The study used robotics to take thousands of pictures of the night sky, with the aim of advancing our understanding of the universe and our galaxy, the Milky Way. The team used the  observed data taken from DESI to analyse extragalactic objects and how their light decomposed into different colours or wavelengths. These analyses could reveal the rate at which the universe is expanding, as well as the physical properties of the galaxies and quasars. Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument sits atop the Mayall 4-Meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA/ Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley…

  • Discovering the sunken city of Dvaraka

    In 2001, during routine pollution studies in the Gulf of Khambhat (formerly Cambay), on the north-west coast of India, sonar equipment on National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) survey boats detected regular, geometric shapes. Divers investigated and found large, rectangular blocks embedded 30-40m below water. The manmade blocks, possibly foundation stones of buildings, reignited curiosity about an ancient city that had flourished centuries before Egyptian and Chinese civilisations, and which was devoured by the sea. The area where the sonar images were taken was around 8km x 1.6km – about the size of the city of Manhattan or 150 times larger than the early known settlement of Jericho in today’s West Bank. On the other side of the bay today stands the city of Dwarka. Its name means…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Lidar and thermal imaging fitted to Northern trains to detect track problems

    The trains, which would still operate public services, will travel the network and feed information about the track and surrounding infrastructure to Network Rail. Horizon-scanning lidar cameras, thermal-imaging software and HD CCTV footage will be used to record infrastructure defects, environmental factors and maintenance issues. Once the train is stationary overnight, it will perform a ‘digital handshake’ so the information captured can be downloaded and analysed. The trains have been fitted with a 180 degree camera Image credit: Northern The scheme is part of Northern’s 'Intelligent Trains' programme, which was first announced in 2022 and is a collaboration with Network Rail designed to help make journeys by rail safer, more reliable and efficient. Rob…

  • Book review: ‘When the Heavens Went on Sale’ by Ashlee Vance

    In 2008, SpaceX became the first private company to build an inexpensive rocket capable of reaching orbit. The years since have seen a transformation in who gets to play in space. National space agencies are still ambling along with their Moon and Mars missions, but headlines are mostly made by private companies with their cheap, frequent rocket launches and audacious plans for space colonisation. No longer can Tim Curry’s meme-making Premier Cherdenko of Red Alert 3 escape to space as “the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism”. In ‘When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach’ (WH Allen, £22, ISBN 9780753557754) Ashlee Vance, a technology writer best known for his bestselling Elon Musk biography, tells the story of four of these companies…

  • HSE refuses to act over dangerous electricity network fault

    Responding on behalf of the government to a question from Labour Lord Brooker, Viscount Younger of Leckie said HSE officials had been advised that “neutral current diversions [NCD] are a known phenomenon and can occur for a number of reasons”. Younger added that the HSE had “monitored developments carefully and continues to do so”. However, he said officials “were of the view that no additional action is required by the regulator to manage this risk of neutral current diversion at the present time”. Experts have said the response is disappointing and have called for more transparency. In February, several electrical experts told E&T that there was a real risk of deadly gas explosions and fires in the UK due to NCD. They argued that the HSE needed to acknowledge the risks of NCD so that…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • View from India: India is world’s diabetes capital

    As reported by the media last week, at least 136 million people or 15.3 per cent of the population have pre-diabetes. A pre-diabetic is a person who has higher-than-normal blood sugar level but not high enough to fall into the category of type 2 diabetes. Pre-diabetic individuals need not become diabetic, provided they follow a healthy diet and exercise routine. Hypertension, high cholesterol levels and obesity are other determining factors that could lead to cardiac arrest, stroke and kidney disease. The survey indicates that at least 35.5 per cent of the population has hypertension and 81.2 per cent have abnormal levels of cholesterol or dyslipidemia. Around 28.6 per cent have generalised obesity and 39.5 per cent were found to have abdominal obesity. In normal situations, the blood glucose…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Corporate net-zero pledges shown to have doubled over last 30 months

    The number of companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list that have made climate pledges has increased from 417 in 2020 to 909 in 2023, according to the latest Net Zero Tracker report.  In the UK alone, the  number of net-zero targets set has jumped by 60 per cent, from 37 in December 2020 to 61 firms this year. The tracker is run by researchers associated with the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and the University of Oxford, among other organisations, and it was created to monitor the decarbonisation progress of companies, cities and countries around the world. The team has warned that, while the number of targets set has soared, credibility gaps remain that could undermine progress towards net zero. For example, only 4 per cent of the companies’ net-zero commitments globally meet…

  • Hands-on review: Epson LabelWorks LW-C610

    Epson has just launched its first ever label printers aimed at crafters. The industrial design is compact and sleek, the results are… whatever you want them to be. The printer is teamed with an app that offers a wide range of designs. Media-wise, you can buy rolls of sticky tape and ribbon in various colours. The LW-C610 is compatible with 50 ribbons and tapes up to 24mm in width. Its smaller, lighter sibling, the LW-C410, costs half as much but only works with 36 tapes and ribbons up to 18mm in width. Both use thermal printing, which is long-lasting, resistant to heat, UV and weather. The LW-C610 is sharper, printing at 360dpi (dots per inch), while the LW-C410 prints at 180dpi resolution. The other main difference is that the LW-C410 must be powered by 6xAA batteries. The larger LW-C610…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • ‘Biothreats Radar’ announced to shore up UK defences against biological attacks

    The Biothreats Radar will bring together data from across government, existing independent advisory committees and wider expert groups who analyse biological risks and trends. The centralisation of the data should help decision-makers gain a comprehensive understanding of known and developing biological threats, the cabinet office said. The announcement is part of the government’s new biological security strategy and is backed with £1.5bn of investment each year. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden said: “Covid was the biggest peacetime challenge in a century and we must be diligent in preparing for future threats on this scale. “This plan and our £1.5bn investment per year puts us in a strong position to defeat the biological threats of tomorrow, from diseases to bioweapons and antimicrobial…

  • Former Samsung exec accused of leaking secret chip tech data to China

    The defendant has been accused of violating industrial technology protection laws and stealing trade secrets between 2018 and 2019.  The former Samsung executive was reportedly looking to use the illegally acquired data to build a factory in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian, just 1.5km from the Samsung chip factory in the city, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office said in a statement. The defendant has been charged of “wrongfully using” engineering data from the company’s semiconductor factory, as well as its floor plan, description of core production processes and design drawings. The prosecutors revealed that the plan to build the copycat factory fell through after the defendant's backer, purportedly an undisclosed Taiwanese company, cancelled a $6bn (£4.8bn) investment in the…

  • Sponsored: The power of data in business longevity

    Founded more than a century ago, Wareing Buildings in Lancashire, one of the UK's leading fabricators and constructors of steel framed buildings, prides itself on being a family business primarily focused on excellent customer service and continuous innovation. Operating for more than 110 years, they know a thing or two about business longevity and use technology to stay ahead of their competition. Their teams are early adopters of many of our Trimble technologies, being the most prolific users in the UK & Ireland of our Tekla PowerFab production management software. Leaning against a 1964 Ford Thames truck, once used by the company to transport their steel frames, Matthew Hastwell, Steel Detailer and Innovation Consultant, tells us about the transformation of their business since adopting…

  • How to build a medieval castle today

    It’s coming back to me now. I remember this clearing in a forest in rural France. I recall the peace and quiet, broken only by the tapping of masons’ chisels. This time too, I can hear the clip-clop of a cart horse, the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer. There’s still no roar of diesel engines, no creaking of cranes – not even the buzz of a circular saw. Some things have changed. I pass car parks full of retirees arriving on their day trips, school children streaming out of coaches. Back in 2001, it was more or less just me, in a quarry, chatting to a bunch of passionate but obsessed makers starting out on what seemed like a crazy and perhaps impossible dream: to build a full-scale 13 th -​century castle from scratch, using nothing more than the tools, techniques and resources of the time. Now…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Energy efficiency improvements restricted to wealthy homeowners, Unison says

    The union said that without a major rethink on financial help and incentives, the UK faces “painfully slow” progress on green homes and won’t meet its 2050 net-zero target. The report found that short-term policies and a complex array of “ever-changing support packages” have left millions of households with insufficient help to meet soaring energy bills. In July 2020, the government announced a £3bn package for British homeowners to make their houses more energy efficient and improve insulation efforts. The scheme offered households up to £10,000 to insulate their property, but it badly underperformed. The Public Accounts Committee called it a “slam dunk fail” after it failed to draw sufficient applicants and was closed after less than a year. Nevertheless, IPPR researchers said last…

  • AI could solve the biggest archaeological mysteries

    While relying on clever machines may lack the romance of crossing a desert by camel to discover unopened tombs or roaming through a jungle to discover an ancient temple, using artificial intelligence (AI) would have saved Indiana Jones the trouble of almost being crushed by a rolling stone, shot by mercenaries or being bitten by snakes while solving historical mysteries. So, saddle up and take a tour of how AI is taking on some of the biggest unsolved historical cases, from deciphering scrolls and secret languages to dating mysterious remains. In ‘The Last Crusade’, Indiana Jones reads an incomplete medieval stone tablet in Latin (with a little help from his father’s notebook) to reveal the location of the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, in real life, the solution doesn’t always present itself…

  • Carbon price could pose $256bn credit risk for Canada's economy

    University of Waterloo researchers have analysed the effects of Canada’s carbon price regime on the economy. Their findings indicated that, as carbon costs rise, high-emitting carbon industries could be placed at risk of default, facing a financial risk of $256bn (£203bn). The study called on financial lenders to consider carbon emissions a part of their credit assessment of Canadian companies.  Over the past few years, Canada has established a national minimum tax on carbon pollution above a certain sector-specific threshold, with the goal of transitioning to a net-zero economy. The price of carbon s tarted at $20 per tonne in 2019, increasing to $50 in 2022. However, the University of Waterloo study has exposed the uncertainty the Canadian economy faces as a result of these measures…

  • Fantastic innovations and where to find them

    Energy security coupled with a global focus on decentralising the grid are profoundly shifting the way we generate, distribute and consume energy. Demand is growing for resilient, efficient, and sustainable power supplies, and operators are in desperate need of technologies and innovation that can help them deliver it. Responsibility for bringing to market the right solutions often falls at the feet of large technology companies. They have the commercial infrastructure and R&D capability needed to deliver the technologies required by those maintaining and improving grid reliability. That said, despite the size of a business, or the skill of the people within it, no company can claim to have all the right ideas at the right time. That’s why it is so important for established businesses and…

  • After All: Trust nobody and nothing when driving in France

    “It is of course a commonplace to say that France is diverse to the point of absurdity,” Fernand Braudel, France’s leading 20th-century historian noted in his book ‘The Identity of France’. Having recently completed a 2,000km coast-to-coast drive across that country, the purpose and the beginning of which were described in my previous column, I couldn’t agree more. France’s mosaic of landscapes is surprisingly versatile – from the vast plains of the north to the meadows of the Loire valley, the hills of Provence and the snow-​capped peaks of the Alps. And yet, alongside this amazing variance, there exists one gratifying sameness – the never-changing uniformity of French national ‘autoroutes’. After several hours of driving, your fast-moving vehicle (in my case, a campervan converted Toyota…

  • Taiwan deploys robotic vehicles to help tackle mosquito problem

    In an effort to slow down the spread of the dengue disease, researchers at Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, have used robotic vehicles to identify and eliminate the breeding sources of Aedes mosquitoes - with great results.  The study was carried out by a team at the Taiwan National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center. Artists rendering of experimental setups / Liu et al., 2023, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, CC-BY 4.0 Image credit: Liu et al., 2023, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, CC-BY 4.0 Dengue fever is an infectious disease caused by the dengue virus and spread by several mosquito species in the genus Aedes, which also spread chikungunya, yellow fever and zika. Due to Taiwan's rapid urbanisation process, its city sewers have become breeding grounds…

  • London showcase illustrates tech literature’s virtues and shortcomings

    Storytelling has always been shaped – although theorists would disagree as to what extent – by the medium it inhabits. The internet gave rise to great experimentation with the creative possibilities that it permitted for storytelling. Some of these experiments were great successes, growing into popular genres of their own, such as the evolution of multi-user dungeons to today’s MMORGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games). Some were thought-provoking, transgressive, but never caught on outside a certain community, like Dennis Cooper’s ‘GIF’ novels. Some retained centralised authorship, while others were collective and anarchic in their creation, such as the universe of the ‘SCP Foundation’, created by a community writing wiki entries for the fictional secret organisation. Significantly…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Windfall tax to stop if oil prices fall further, government says

    The UK government has announced it will remove the 75 per cent windfall tax on oil and gas companies if the average price of oil falls to or below $71.40 per barrel for two consecutive quarters, and the average price of gas falls to under 54p. On Friday morning, Brent crude oil was trading at $75.38 per barrel. UK gas prices were at around 64p per therm. The windfall tax was put in place last year, as an attempt to mitigate soaring inflation and prices that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for many of the UK’s most impoverished households. In that time, it has raised  £2.8bn to fund energy support schemes, and is expected to raise almost £26bn by March 2028. If the tax stops, North Sea oil and gas operators will return to making 40 per cent profits. Despite the tax, the rise in oil…

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