• Labour calls for nuclear fusion investment in energy security drive

    In a letter to energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also said the government had failed to do enough to tackle rising bills in the face of spiking oil prices. He said his party would give Scottish residents £1,000 in support to help with the energy crisis in the short term while delivering a “green energy sprint” to tackle energy security in the longer term. “We need answers that focus on bringing bills down long-term, as well as meeting our commitments to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and make our energy supply more secure in an unstable world,” Sarwar said. “To do that, nuclear – and the highly paid and skilled jobs it brings – must be part of Scotland’s energy mix. “But Scotland now risks paying the price in lost jobs and opportunities for the SNP…

  • IET Promoted: What’s on the radar for the radar sector?

    Iain Scott We’re hearing that machine learning is the next big thing in radar – what’s its importance? “Machine learning is a technology that is very relevant to radar, in terms of not only adding new capability or functionality to a radar, but also in the wider manufacturing environment, or in the design lifecycle to optimise designs and minimise rework. We are introducing AI into the way we build things in manufacturing, so we can improve the yield – so it’s not just about new features in a radar, it’s about how you go about manufacturing them. And we use that to optimise the selection and the design of the electronic components that go into a radar system. We’re investing a lot of money in machine learning, right across the board.” In fact Machine Learning/AI in radar is one of…

  • Are NFTs key to accessing the metaverse?

    When it launched almost two decades ago, ‘Second Life’ promised an environment where residents could carve out an existence without many of the restrictions of physical reality. Even gravity was optional in a world where you would simply make your avatar fly to wherever it needed to be. Though ‘Second Life’ provided the ability to create a new virtual identity and all the looks to go with it from scratch, designing and making your own stuff is time-consuming even if it is easier to do in a virtual space where all the components are just bits of data. Many users opted to stick with 18 th -century economist Adam Smith’s invisible hand and instead of DIYing their new life bought what they needed from specialist creators. With that came an economy. In principle, ‘Second Life’ is a near-zero…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • TikTok launches scheme to tackle youth unemployment

    The social media platform is working with London-based social business charity Catch22 on the multi-million-pound programme, which aims to engage with 2,500 people by the end of 2024. The scheme aims to target young people aged between 16 and 24 who are currently not in education, employment or training and will give them access to up to four weeks of an employability course. Young adults taking part in the scheme will also get access to a career coach, virtual work experience, mentoring, mental health support and access to a bursary. TikTok also hopes the programme will encourage marginalised and vulnerable people to learn creative digital skills and use them to support their local businesses and creative industries and bring digital skills into local hubs. Rich Waterworth, TikTok…

  • Nuclear fusion: making energy with star quality

    “I wanted to explain as simply as possible the science and technology of nuclear fusion and I wanted to locate its place in the energy mix today.” Alain Bécoulet is discussing why an engineer with no previous experience as an author should want to take on the task of writing a primer on the subject of nuclear fusion. He thinks that the public doesn’t understand how the international scientific research community is engaging with a technology that will one day democratise energy with cheap, sustainable, clean and green power for everyone. ‘Star Power’ is Bécoulet’s highly readable attempt to provide the history and context of nuclear fusion, “in a way that will help us to understand where we are going with it and what’s left to be done.” The problem with nuclear fusion, he says, is not so…

  • Magneto-electric transistors promise low power future for non-silicon chips

    Along with curbing the energy consumption of any microelectronics that incorporate it, the team’s design could reduce the number of transistors needed to store certain data by as much as 75 per cent leading to smaller devices. It could also lend those microelectronics “steel-trap memory” that remembers exactly where its users leave off, even after being shut down or abruptly losing power Many millions of transistors line the surface of every modern integrated circuit, or microchip. By regulating the flow of electric current within a microchip, the tiny transistor effectively acts as a nanoscopic on-off switch that’s essential to writing, reading and storing data as the 1s and 0s of digital technology. But silicon-based microchips are nearing their practical limits, and the semiconductor…

  • Humanoid robot to tap into the metaverse

    Have you ever wanted to visit a city you’ve never been to without hopping on a plane to that desired destination? Feel the soft sand on a beach in Barcelona, or roam amid the iconic structures in Rome? This is the primary goal of the new iCub robot advanced telexistence system, also called the iCub3 avatar system, developed by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genova, Italy. IIT first tested the new system in a demonstration in November 2021, where the robot was at the 17 th International Architecture Exhibition’s Italian Pavilion, while the operator was 300km away at an IIT lab in the city of Genova. A standard fibre-optic connection was used to link the two. The operator used a suite of wearable devices, known as the iFeel system. These gadgets include multiple…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Hands-on review: JLab Go Work Bluetooth headset and mic

    Two years into the Covid pandemic and video calls have gone from being an entertaining novelty, to the bane of our collective professional existence, to now a routine state of near normality - just another part of our working day. However you feel about them, video calls, Zoom meetings, Teams hangouts etc are here to stay, and we've all had enough practice at them by now to hopefully not still be plagued by technical difficulties. It certainly helps smooth the way for a good, relaxing and productive call if you have a decent headset. Something that puts your voice across clearly and lets you hear others with equal clarity. JLab's Go Work headset is a neat answer to all of the above. A straightforward, good-quality pair of on-ear headphones with a built-in boom mic. The headset works…

  • View from India: Opportunities abound in software and deep-tech ventures

    The digital acceleration is reason for 2021 to emerge as the ultimate watershed year for the IT industry, says Debjani Ghosh, president of India’s software trade association Nasscom. “From services to start-ups to multinationals, the industry grew by 15.5 per cent year-on-year with $227 billion revenue in FY2022,” she said at the Nasscom Women Product Champions launch. “The services ecosystem has been recognised globally. The e-commerce sector has grown phenomenally as much as the product ecosystem, complete with product portfolios.” According to the Nasscom report ‘India’s Software Product Ecosystem– Accelerating Growth’, the software product sector has evolved substantially to reach $13.3bn in FY2022. The software product landscape has grown impressively as enterprises are moving towards…

  • Nissan moves towards solid-state battery production

    Last week, the Japanese company unveiled a prototype production facility for laminated all-solid-state battery (ASSB) cells at its research centre in Kanagawa. Solid-state batteries use a solid electrolyte instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries. This is expected to make them safer in use and give vehicles a longer range between charges. Nissan says ASSBs have an energy density approximately twice that of conventional lithium-ion batteries, significantly shorter charging time due to superior charge/discharge performance, and lower cost thanks to the opportunity of using less expensive materials. With these benefits, the carmaker expects to use all-solid-state batteries in a wide range of vehicle segments, including pickup trucks…

  • AI could help trainee teachers identify pupils with learning difficulties

    Researchers at Cambridge University and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich said it could be an “effective substitute” when personal feedback is not readily available. In a trial, 178 German trainee teachers were asked to assess six fictionalised pupils to decide whether they had learning difficulties such as dyslexia or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and to explain their reasoning. They were given examples of their schoolwork, as well as other information such as behaviour records and transcriptions of conversations with parents. Immediately after submitting their answers, half of the trainees received a prototype ‘expert solution’, written in advance by a qualified professional, to compare with their own. The others received AI-generated feedback, which highlighted…

  • Polluted lagoon set to become first ecosystem in Europe with its own rights

    Spanish MPs have voted to give a heavily polluted lagoon, labelled one of the biggest ecological catastrophes in Europe, ‘legal personality’, meaning that any citizen can go to court to defend it. Last week, the Congress of Deputies in Madrid approved a law that would give  the Mar Menor and its entire basin the first ecosystem in Europe with its own rights, as if it were a person or a company. The Mar Menor is a protected site under the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, but runoff rich in fertiliser from decades of intensive agriculture and illegal irrigation has drained into the lagoon, leading to the death of thousands of marine animals in recent years. In 2016, 85 per cent of the seabed vegetation died because of extreme eutrophication, where an excess of nutrients boosts…

  • Ineos wants UK to approve test shale site to prove fracking is safe

    The firm has made the offer following the UK’s increasing concerns about the mounting costs of energy and its energy security in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There have been calls to step up local fracking production in order to help phase out imports of Russian oil completely by the end of the year. Currently, reserves are privatised so any oil that is produced is priced according to the global markets and therefore does not contribute to the UK’s energy security. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos founder and chairman, said: “The UK is in the midst of an energy crisis with ever increasing prices driving people into fuel poverty whilst giving huge sums of money to oppressive regimes. “It’s a ridiculous situation with so much gas under our feet and we are today offering to drill a…

  • ‘Distractions ahead’ for Twitter as Musk refuses to join board

    In a note posted to Twitter on Sunday, chief executive Parag Agrawal shared Musk's decision and warned of more drama with “distractions ahead”. Agrawal wrote that the company’s board held many discussions with Musk, but did not elaborate further on the reason for the Tesla CEO’s decision. Agrawal said the planned appointment was due to become effective on Saturday, in a move which would have then prevented the world’s wealthiest person from becoming a beneficial owner of more than 14.9 per cent of Twitter’s common stock. The conclusion that many observers are drawing from these developments is that Musk's future intention may be to acquire more Twitter stock. In his Twitter note reflecting on Musk’s decision, Agrawal said: “I believe this is for the best. There will be distractions…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Gearing up for green steel: how the sector plans to decarbonise

    Steel is the world’s largest materials industry and is ubiquitous in everything from car bodies to construction and wind turbines. Therefore, its cost-effective decarbonisation is integral to the global net-zero agenda, as well as for individual companies that have themselves set similar ambitions. Last year a breakthrough proved it’s technologically possible to decarbonise the versatile alloy. HYBRIT, a consortium consisting of Vattenfall, steel producer SSAB and miner LKAB, produced the first ever fossil-fuel free steel using green hydrogen. HYBRIT’s aspiration isn’t unique. Driven by the SteelZero initiative, set up in 2020 by The Climate Group to drive action to decarbonise the sector, key industry stakeholders have made a flurry of commitments and investments to reach this milestone…

  • Could engineers work in the metaverse?

    The machine room of a virtual gas turbine is an odd place for inspiration, but it’s where engineers Ken and Steve had a lightbulb moment. Or rather their avatars did – as they met in a virtual replica of an industrial plant – and realised they could spot a dodgy pump, tackle logistics and chit chat, although they and the plant in question were hundreds of miles away in real life. This synthetic world was a proof-of-concept project created for engineering clients by Capgemini – but went way beyond expectations, says Mike Dwyer, director of digital engineering at the technology consultancy. This is the metaverse – not as you know it in the gaming worlds of ‘Fortnite’ or shopping at Walmart – but a place for engineers and technologists to work together in real-time, with facts and figures at…

  • The strangest NFTs

    The Verge website provides a definition that the layman (like myself) can understand: NFTs are designed to give you something that can’t be copied. You have ownership of the work, though the artist can still retain the copyright and reproduction rights, just like with physical artwork. To put it in terms of physical art collecting: anyone can buy a Monet print. But only one person can own the original. These trendy forms of ethereal blockchain can really be anything digital – some of the most popular NFTs are digital forms of artwork. And some sell for massive amounts of money: the most expensive to date was The Merge, a digital artwork created by anonymous digital artist ‘Pak’. It was sold on 6 December 2021 for $91.8 million on the NFT trading platform Nifty Gateway. Now, artists and…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • E&T Innovation Awards: F1 culture keeps cabinets chilled

    E&T: First of all, could you outline the problem that this technology was intended to counter. A lot of energy was going into supermarket refrigeration units, wasn’t it? Matthew Burke: That is correct. In a typical supermarket about 50 per cent of its energy consumption is for refrigeration. And you’ll be familiar in supermarkets when you buy milk and dairy products that the fridge is generally open-fronted so that you’ve got easy access to browse products. They work on the basis of a cold air curtain that blows cold air from the top of the fridge to the bottom, which is retrieved and recooled and that process is repeated – so that cold air curtain provides a separation between the store ambient conditions and the product that’s sitting on the fridge shelves. One of the issues is that the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • ‘It’s a big thing when a machine goes down’: Ben Findlay, CEO, Machine Compare

    Having seen the problem first-hand during his two-decade stint in the paper industry, Ben Findlay wanted to explore how to recirculate surplus and unseen industrial spare parts in a sustainable way that could be monetised via an e-commerce platform. “The scale of the challenge is vast. Doesn’t matter if you measure it in pounds, euros or dollars. It’s billions.” More specifically, “we know that any mid-sized manufacturing site – regardless of sector – is usually carrying around €250,000 worth of spare parts that they can’t use and are still in the original box. There’s this culture in engineering that ‘stock is good’. But it’s a waste too. We also know that they scrap around €100,000 of these per year, per site, to make space for new parts coming in. Our job is to try to make sure that surplus…

  • Gadgets: Obsbot Tiny 4K, RealMe GT 2 Pro, Garmin Instinct 2 and more

    Obsbot Tiny 4K A remarkable webcam with a built-in gimbal and tracking software, so it pans, tilts and zooms to follow you around. Pace up and down and it follows, or give a presentation, or lead a yoga class. You can even use gestures to zoom. 4K video quality and dual omni-directional mics with noise reduction. £205 obsbot.com   Realme GT 2 Pro The disruptive young brand’s new flagship phone has a back panel made from a biopolymer, reducing carbon emissions while giving a pleasing paper-like feel. In fact, it’s the world’s first TCO 9.0 certified smartphone, for its sustainable design and construction. £699 realme.com   Audio-Technica ATH-GDL3 ...

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Letters to the editor: volume 17, issue 4

    Options for Plastic Waste I found the article on the export of plastic waste for recycling in the March 2022 issue of E&T of interest, particularly as in Coventry, where I live, there is currently a strike by household waste collection lorry drivers. In common with other cities, Coventry has a waste incineration plant that provides heat energy for electrical generation and heating of civic buildings. Flue gases are treated to minimise pollution and the bottom ash has metals recovered by magnetic and eddy current processes before being used for road building or landfill cover. As the waste contains non-recyclable plastic waste the incineration process cannot be considered entirely carbon-neutral. Councils separately collect recyclable material, aiming to meet imposed targets. Much of this…

  • UK pledges £375m to fund green hydrogen and clean energy technologies

    A wide-ranging energy strategy was announced yesterday (Thursday April 7) which made new commitments on boosting nuclear, wind, solar and hydrogen as part of efforts to lower the UK’s carbon emissions and shore up energy security. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said the new financial package includes £240m to support the production of “clean” hydrogen. Hydrogen is a potentially zero-carbon fuel source, although if it is derived from fossil fuels it can actually be more carbon intensive than using gas. This is because there are two approaches to producing hydrogen: blue hydrogen (produced by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide) and green hydrogen (produced by splitting water via electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen). Green hydrogen…

  • Deep sleep phases encouraged using wearable headband

    Many people, especially the elderly, suffer from abnormal sleep. In particular, the deep sleep phases become shorter and shallower with age. Experts say deep sleep is important for the regeneration of the brain and memory and has a positive influence on the cardiovascular system. Researchers have shown that the brain waves characterising deep sleep - so-called slow waves - can be improved by playing precisely timed sounds through earphones while sleeping. While this works well in a sleep laboratory under controlled conditions, there has so far been no at-home solution that can be used longer than just one night. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a mobile system that people can use at home, which aims to promote deep sleep through auditory brain stimulation. The SleepLoop…

  • Western countries release emergency fuel reserves in efforts to wean off Russian oil

    The release is the largest of its kind in IEA history and followed a unanimous agreement between the countries to try to ease the significant strains in oil markets resulting from Russia’s actions. Around half of the release comes from the US alone, which has made just over 60,000 barrels available as part of the larger release from its strategic petroleum reserve that President Joe Biden announced last week. Japan also made a sizeable 15,000-barrel contribution, with France, Germany, Italy, Korea, the UK and Spain all releasing between 4000 and 7000 barrels each. The commitments submitted by members reached 120 million barrels in total to be released over a six month period. “The unprecedented decision to launch two emergency oil stock releases just a month apart, and on a scale larger…

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