• New material boosts efficiency of cheap, printed solar cells

    Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, which has good efficiency and stability but is relatively expensive to make and can only be manufactured in stiff panels. Perovskite solar cells are an alternative that can be printed from inks, making them low cost, high efficiency, thin, lightweight and flexible. However, they have trailed behind silicon solar cells in efficiency and are prone to breaking down under normal environmental conditions. New metal-containing materials called ferrocenes could help to alleviate many of these issues. Professor Nicholas Long, co-lead author on the study, said: “Silicon cells are efficient but expensive and we urgently need new solar energy devices to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. “Stable and efficient perovskite cells could ultimately…

  • Luxury car line-up makes UK debut

    The three-day event, Salon Privé London , is now open at Royal Hospital Chelsea. It features new machinery, a selection of classic cars for sale in its Concours de Vente (a display of 50 automotive classics), and some of the world’s most desirable luxury brands, including the likes of Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. In addition, a host of automotive reveals took place in the capital’s new event this morning. E&T gives you a breakdown of the event’s global debuts: The first car revealed was all-new luxury British brand Caton’s first creation: a reincarnation of the iconic Austin-Healey 100 sports car. Fusing traditional craftsmanship with OEM-grade design and engineering, Caron says the car “promises an immersive, intoxicating and emotional automotive experience”. Caton brings the revered…

  • Sapphire fibre sensor could improve energy efficiency and enable cleaner air travel

    Each thread of industrially grown sapphire is less than half a millimetre thick but can withstand temperatures over 2000°C. When light is injected onto one end of the fibre, some of it is reflected back at a point along its length which has been modified to be sensitive to temperature. The wavelength (colour) of this reflected light is a measure of the temperature at that point. Whilst the sapphire fibre seems very thin, in comparison to the wavelength of light it carries, it is huge. This means that the light can take many different paths along the sapphire fibre, which results in many different wavelengths being reflected at once. The researchers overcame this problem by writing a channel along the length of the fibre, such that the light is contained within a tiny cross-section, one…

  • Waste criminals continue to avoid landfill tax despite new rules

    Responding to a freedom of information request, HMRC refused to divulge how much landfill tax it had recovered from waste criminals but said there had been “a low number of tax assessments” to date. The waste industry has expressed its disappointment at the revelations. Trade body the Environmental Services Association (ESA) said the additional powers given to HMRC “held the potential to be a powerful tool in the fight against waste crime, so we are disappointed that they are not being fully utilised”. Since 2018, any person or business who makes a disposal at an unauthorised waste site, or knowingly causes or per­mits the disposal, has been liable for landfill tax. When the powers were first introduced, HMRC said the penalties would apply alongside any penalties for environmental offences…

  • Russia tests nuclear-capable missile as Ukraine war drives technological innovation

    The Russian military said it has successfully performed the first test of a new nuclear-capable Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the country's president, Vladimir Putin, claims would make the West “think twice” about any aggressive intentions against Russia. “The new complex has the highest tactical and technical characteristics and is capable of overcoming all modern means of anti-missile defence," Putin said. "It has no analogues in the world and will not have for a long time to come." The Sarmat ICBM was launched on Wednesday from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its practice warheads have reportedly reached mock targets on the Kura firing range on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that Russia had…

  • OneWeb to launch broadband satellites from India after cutting Russian ties

    The UK took a £400m share in the failed digital firm to rescue it from bankruptcy in July 2020, as part of a consortium with India’s Bharti Global, following a bidding war. The company was originally trying to provide satellite internet worldwide with a constellation of up to 648 satellites. However, the firm only managed to launch 74 of its low-Earth orbit satellites before going bust as it failed to secure funding to continue the project. In early March it suspended its use of all Russian-operated spaceports after the country began its invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. OneWeb’s efforts to continue bolstering its satellite constellation will see it conduct the first launch with New Space India later this year from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launches…

  • MPs call for 40-year deadline to remove asbestos from public buildings

    The MPs expressed concern that the risk to health is likely to increase as buildings are adapted with the move to net zero and old asbestos insulation is disturbed in the process. A new report from the Committee found that asbestos persists as the single greatest cause of work-related fatalities, despite the material being banned more than two decades ago. There were more than 5,000 deaths in 2019, including from cancers such as mesothelioma. Many of these deaths will relate to exposures from 35 or more years ago. The available evidence indicates that cumulative exposures are much lower now for younger age groups, but more data is needed to understand the current picture. With asbestos still present in around 300,000 non-domestic buildings and with a likely dramatic increase in disturbance…

  • EU panel backs plans for common worldwide phone charger

    The first proposal for a single mobile charging port was made by the European Commission over a decade ago, hoping phone makers would be able to find a common solution. After they failed to do so, the Commission proposed draft legislation last year, a world first. On Wednesday (20 April), the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee agreed with the Commission's proposal. "With half a billion chargers for portable devices shipped in Europe each year, generating 11,000 to 13,000 tonnes of e-waste, a single charger for mobile phones and other small and medium electronic devices would benefit everyone," said Alex Agius Saliba, the leader of the parliamentary debate. Currently, Apple's iPhones are charged from a Lightning cable while Android-based devices are…

  • After All: My brave digital lie-buster namesake

    Never before has the world been exposed to so many blatant and cynical lies. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of my native Ukraine, Russian mass media has been pouring out tons of dirty fakes. The picture that a gullible Russian citizen can get out of all that torrent of untruth is roughly as follows: Ukrainian neo-fascists have been tormenting their country’s Russian-speakers for years until the valiant Russian army decided to protect them from "genocide" and oppression by sending a limited contingent of its troops to Ukraine. Ukrainians, having lost control of their country, started shelling indiscriminately and razing to the ground their own towns and villages, with peaceful civilians in them. And so on. No exaggeration here. Russia’s UN Ambassador, Vassily Nebenzya, was recorded…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • View from India: Gender diversity holds key for product management’s success

    Apex body NASSCOM has recently launched the NASSCOM Women Product Champions (NWPC) to nurture and promote women in product management, and to help them thrive in product careers at all levels. This means women can easily navigate, grow, and succeed in product-management roles from entering the field, through mid-career, and into senior and executive roles. Overall, the intent is to create diverse workspaces. “There’s a felt need in the industry to nurture diverse talent. Digital talent is the future of the world. A skilled digital talent pool is growing, yet there’s a demand-supply gap. Women constitute about 36 per cent of the tech industry and they may not occupy all posts; representation of women across all cadres may be missing,” said Shalini Sankarshana, EVP at Broadridge Financials, speaking…

  • New form of 3D printing allows for complex shapes without support struts

    The printed object is fully supported by the thick resin, removing the need for the support structures typically required for creating complex designs with more standard printing methods. The new 3D printing system could also make it easier to print increasingly intricate designs while saving time and material, the researchers believe. “The ability to do this volumetric printing enables you to print objects that were previously very difficult,” said Dan Congreve, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford. “It’s a very exciting opportunity for three-dimensional printing going forward.” The technique uses a focused laser which is shone through a lens into a gelatinous resin that hardens when exposed to blue light. Image credit: Dan Congreve …

  • Children likely to spend 10 years of their lives in VR metaverse, study suggests

    This 10-year figure (calculated as being 2 hours 45 mins of metaverse use per day over the median projected lifespan of today's children being 88.75 years = 10.16 calendar years) supports the IET’s ground-breaking new ‘Safeguarding the Metaverse’ report - which explores both the opportunities and potential harms of the new digital realm. The report has been launched to coincide with the latest reading in Parliament of the UK Government’s new Online Safety Bill. The long-awaited, much-delayed bill passed its second reading today (April 20). The IET's report was co-authored by Catherine Allen, Limina Immersive and Verity McIntosh from the University of the West of England. The IET is calling on politicians and policy makers to ensure comprehensive measures for regulating activity taking place…

  • 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…

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