• 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…

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    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…

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    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…

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    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…

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    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…

  • UK institutions secure £15m for Square Kilometre Array control software

    The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is set to explore the evolution of the early universe and delve into the role of some the earliest processes in fashioning galaxies like our own Milky Way, among many other science goals. From its headquarters at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory, the SKAO will oversee the delivery and operations of two cutting-edge, complementary arrays with 197 radio telescope dishes located in South Africa and more than 130,000 low-frequency antennas in Western Australia. Professor Ben Stappers leads the Manchester team developing the 'Pulsar Search' software. This programme will enable SKAO experiments testing general relativity and aiming to detect gravitational waves. The University of Manchester will also lead the development of…

  • Covid-19 test imbued with nanoparticles promises higher sensitivity

    Currently, rapid antigen tests aren’t very sensitive as they can fail to detect early infections with low viral loads. The new test developed by Newcastle University researchers is more sensitive and works under more extreme conditions than antibody-based tests. The PCR test remains the “gold standard” for Covid-19 diagnosis but it generally takes 1-2 days to get a result, is expensive and requires special lab equipment and trained personnel. In contrast, rapid antigen tests are fast (15-30 minutes), and people can take them at home with no training. However, they lack sensitivity, which sometimes results in false negatives. The tests typically use antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 for detection, which can’t withstand wide ranges of temperature and pH. The researchers produced nanoMIPs…

  • Book review: ‘Beyond the Hype’ by Fiona Fox

    It was Winston Churchill who said that when it comes to the relationship between policy and science, input from impartial experts should be “on tap but not on top”. If the recent experience of dealing with Covid has taught us anything, it is that governments can be obstinately selective when they claim to be ‘following the science’. To the public on the receiving end of the 24-hour news cycle, it often appears that politicians prefer the hype that suits their non-scientific priorities while ignoring the imprecations of neutral scientists begging to be listened to. All too often, when science and politics collide in public, people tend to get sacked. For confirmation of this, turn to chapter five of Fiona Fox’s superb ‘Beyond the Hype’ (Elliott & Thompson, £16.99, ISBN 9781783966172), in…

  • Renewable electricity prices soar as energy buyers seek haven from oil volatility

    The ongoing energy crisis has seen developers struggling to meet demand because of supply chain, interconnection and regulatory challenges. In recent months, challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic such as struggling economies and weak labour markets have reversed a decade of cost declines for the renewable energy sector. There is concern that these higher costs could deter demand for green energy at a time when the United Nations has called for rapid expansion of wind and solar in order to avoid the worst effects of a warming climate. Despite uncertainty in the market, the report found that the high energy prices were spurring developers to build more renewable facilities, especially in countries that are highly dependent on Russian natural gas. ‍Flemming Sørensen, vice president…

  • Easter travel misery looms as flights and ferries cancelled

    Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned that travel networks will be “extremely busy” during the bank holiday weekend. British Airways today (Wednesday) axed at least 53 flights planned for domestic or European routes to or from Heathrow, while easyJet cancelled 23 Gatwick flights. Hundreds of UK flights have been cancelled in recent days. Easter getaway delays are expected to build up in Kent as another P&O Ferries vessel was detained. This casts major doubts over the firm’s bid to resume sailings between Dover and Calais this week. Drivers are being warned to expect long queues on the UK’s major roads. The RAC estimates some 21.5 million leisure trips will be made by car between Good Friday and Easter Monday. Compounding the issue, some petrol stations have already run dry due to protests…

  • What can the Metaverse learn from Second Life?

    It is difficult to define what ‘Second Life’ is. Its creator, Linden Lab, however, has been fairly clear about what it is not: it is not a game. ‘Second Life’ allows users to create avatars and connect, build, buy, and sell in a 3D virtual world that persists online. It was launched in 2003 and organisations such as Harvard University, Nasa, the Swedish government, the news agency Reuters, and Burning Man all extended their presence into ‘Second Life’. Today, it is something of a ghost town. Although over 50 million people have tried using it, ‘Second Life’ peaked at around one million users and retained around half a million monthly users for most of its lifetime. This is one vision of the metaverse, as envisaged by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel ‘Snow Crash’ as the immersive successor…

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    E+T Magazine

  • How to turn the UK into a science and technology ‘superpower’

    “It was one of the real inflection points for the business when we got our first grant,” recalls Neill Ricketts, the CEO of Versarien, an advanced materials business based in Cheltenham. “It shows a level of credibility to our investors and proves what you’re working on is valid”. Versarien’s grant came from Innovate UK, one of the country’s big sources of R&D funding, and an important lifeline for businesses like Versarien. Private companies, academic researchers and scientists working on cutting-edge technologies often rely on funding to pay for some or all of their R&D. Without this kind of support, most would run out of cash before being able to turn potentially revolutionary ideas into marketable products. Currently, however, the UK falls behind other comparable countries on R&D…

  • Fish catches will decline as climate change pushes them poleward, study finds

    It found that as temperatures warm, predator-prey interactions will prevent species from keeping up with the conditions where they could thrive. Not only will large species and commercially important fisheries shift out of their historical ranges as climate warms, but they will likely not be as abundant even in their new geographic ranges. For instance, a cod fisherman in the Atlantic might still find fish 200 years from now but in significantly lower numbers. “What that suggests from a fisheries perspective is that while the species we fish today will be there tomorrow, they will not be there in the same abundance. In such a context, overfishing becomes easier because the population growth rates are low,” said study co-author Malin Pinsky. “Warming coupled with food-web dynamics will be…

  • Tower transformed to protect the past

    The project, explains Jeremy Ashbee, head properties curator at English Heritage, was “very much to maintain Clifford’s Tower as a ruin and not pretend that it is something it isn’t. If we had recreated it as a building it would have been wrong on so many levels.” Not least among the problems of recreating it as a building would have been to decide on which era and for what use, as it served as seat of power for all of the North of England through medieval times and subsequently found uses as treasury and armoury, being a stronghold during the Civil War, before being devasted by fire in 1684. The shell remained while most of the rest of the castle was gradually lost over time, and the Tower became a monument within prison grounds during the 18 th and 19 th centuries. This current project…

  • View from Brussels: Spies in the building

    According to reporting by Reuters, the European Commissioner for justice was targeted last year by spyware designed by an Israeli surveillance firm. Other high-ranking staffers were also allegedly compromised. Commission officials reportedly were made aware of a potential breach in November 2021, when Apple issued a warning notice. There have been no official confirmations regarding the attack, whether it was successful or what might have been compromised as a result. Israeli firm NSO and its ForcedEntry spyware – which allows users to take remote control of smartphones – was allegedly the tool used. NSO denies that its product could have been used in this way. Another NSO spyware tool, Pegasus, is the subject of a European Parliament committee that has been specially set up to investigate…

  • Environmentally friendly LEDs created using rice husks

    This new method transforms agricultural waste into state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in a low-cost, environmentally friendly way. Milling rice to separate the grain from the husks typically produces about 100 million tons of rice husk waste globally each year. “Since typical QDs often involve toxic material, such as cadmium, lead or other heavy metals, environmental concerns have been frequently deliberated when using nanomaterials. Our proposed process and fabrication method for QDs minimises these concerns,” said Ken-ichi Saitow, lead study author and a professor of chemistry at Hiroshima University. The technology makes use of porous silicon (Si), a material that is non-toxic and found abundantly in nature with photoluminescence properties, stemming from its microscopic (quantum…

  • What is the metaverse?

    I am standing in the centre of a dark, dimly lit room with the skeleton of a car in its centre. I approach the vehicle, then, using a pair of controllers in my hands, begin to draw the outline of the vehicle’s body. There is the window screen. Here I begin drawing out a door. Then I sketch an arc from the roof towards the bonnet. It could do with a bit of work, but it’s a start. My rudimentary car design took place in a custom-built virtual-reality (VR) environment created by Seymourpowell, a design engineering firm. During my visit to their south London offices, I tried out Reality Works (my dodgy car design) and wandered around several virtual worlds they had built to demonstrate such marvels as the inside of a Virgin Galactic spaceship, or a close up of a spine implant. Ian Whatley,…

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    E+T Magazine

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