• Engineered crystals could help computers run on less power

    Computers are being built smaller and more powerful, but they require a great deal of energy to operate. Experts have said that the total amount of energy the US dedicates to computing has risen over the last decade and it is quickly approaching that of other major sectors, such as transport. But engineers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, have reported a breakthrough in the design of a component of transistors – the tiny electrical switches that form the building blocks of computers – that could significantly reduce their energy consumption without sacrificing speed, size, or performance. According to the researchers, the component called the gate oxide, “plays a key role” in switching the transistor on and off. “We have been able to show that our gate-oxide technology…

  • Book review: ‘The Digital Closet’ by Alexander Monea

    The information tools and platforms that we use on a daily basis are supposedly neutral, but this is far from the truth, especially for those within the LGBTQIA+ community, digital media scholar Alexander Monea argues in his new book ‘ The Digital Close t’ (The MIT Press, $29.95, ISBN 9780262046770). Indeed, Monea’s latest offering examines the heteronormativity of the computer vision-powered content filters that currently detect and block ‘pornographic’ images online. He argues that this bias creeps into our digital discourse, and in return polices sexuality and marginalises LGBTQIA+ users. This book is thoroughly researched and richly sourced, with Monea digging deep into statistics, data and case studies to back up his argument. For example, he includes the story of how eBay purged all…

  • Book review: ‘Freedom to Think’ by Susie Alegre

    ‘Freedom to Think: The Long Struggle to Liberate Our Minds’ (Atlantic Books, ISBN: 9781838951528, £20) is the latest in a flurry of books warning that our present technological landscape is putting control of our very thoughts and behaviour up for sale. It finds a niche in this crowded market thanks to author Susie Alegre’s expertise in human rights law, specifically in digital human rights. The right to freedom of thought (distinct from free expression) is a cornerstone of human rights. The right to something so private, so internal, is easy to take for granted. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was an unwelcome reminder that companies, political parties, intelligence agencies, and other organisations are only too enthusiastic to intrude on the privacy of our minds and ‘rearrange the furniture…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • UK’s Energy Security Strategy focuses on renewables and nuclear

    The new commitments are focused on boosting nuclear, wind, solar and hydrogen, as well as new licences for oil and gas exploration. The Energy Security Strategy could see up to 95 per cent of the UK’s electricity generated through low carbon means by 2030, the government said. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) claims the Strategy could create over 40,000 more jobs in clean industries in the short term, with up to 480,000 jobs by 2030. The Strategy will see a significant acceleration of nuclear, with an ambition of up to 24GW generating capacity by 2050, representing around 25 per cent of our projected electricity demand. Small Modular Reactors from the likes of Rolls Royce could form a key part of this pipeline. It will also see the creation of a new government…

  • First phase of 4G rollout on London Underground complete

    In June 2021, Transport for London (TfL) awarded the mobile infrastructure firm with a 20-year concession deal to build the network itself and then make it available via wholesale for mobile network operators (MNO) to harness. The deal followed a successful trial on the Jubilee Line (eastern half of the line), which saw TfL install a neutral host distributed antenna system (DAS) that was supported by hundreds of kilometres of fibre-optic cable laid in tunnels for data capacity. All four MNOs (Vodafone, Three, EE and O2) took part in the trial, but so far only EE and Three UK have agreed to harness the final network. Billy D’Arcy, CEO of BAI Communications UK, said the delivery “will provide a massive boost to the passenger experience and marks an important next step on the project’s journey…

  • View from India: The circular path to net-zero supply chains

    The supply chain by its very nature, leaves behind a trail of wastage. A circular supply chain would mean that the waste could be treated for reuse or remanufactured, providing a source of revenue. It probably makes sense for supply chains to alter their outlook and look at circularity for environmental reasons. However, a circular approach needs to be integrated into the supply chain right from the early stage. This topic was discussed at the recent UK India Webinar on Digital Manufacturing and Connected Supply Chains . “Circularity is essential for India to achieve its net zero target. The remnants of the supply chain can be repurposed and this function as an allied industry to the supply chain. Waste to repurpose systems need to be put in place. This could create new economic opportunities…

  • Sponsored: Celebrating the best in UK manufacturing, engineering excellence and innovation

    M&E Week covers the entire product lifecycle from design, engineering, manufacturing and maintenance and seeks to celebrate the sector sharing successes and future insight, raising critical discussion and is a destination for professionals to source products and services in order to keep them competitive. The week hosts a series of digital sessions plus 4 Live co-located events on the 8-9 June 2022 at the NEC in Birmingham - Design Engineering Expo, Engineering Expo, Manufacturing Expo and Maintec. Together the events showcase end-to-end manufacturing and engineering solutions, to encourage business and knowledge sharing across a range of sectors including Aerospace, Automotive, Food and beverage, Motorsport, Energy & renewables, Pharmaceuticals, Space and FMCG. CPD accredited educational…

  • Broadband cables to be routed through water pipes in new trial

    The trial has the potential to connect up to 8,500 homes and businesses to faster broadband and the technology will also be used to power new 5G masts to connect people in hard-to-reach areas. Civil works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks. The 'Fibre in Water' scheme will demonstrate what could be a greener, quicker and more cost-effective way of connecting fibre-optic cables to homes, businesses and mobile masts, without the disruption caused by digging up roads and land. The network will also be used to set up 5G masts to bring fast and reliable wireless broadband to hard-to-reach communities where wired solutions are too expensive to deliver commercially. The…

  • Solar nanowire-nanotube filter offers easy access to clean drinking water

    Even today, clean water is a privilege for many people across the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1.8 billion people consume water contaminated with faeces, and by 2040 a large portion of the world will endure water stress because of insufficient resources of drinking water. Meanwhile, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimates that around 1,800 children die every day from diarrhoea because of unsafe water supply, which causes diseases such as cholera. It has thus become imperative that efficient and cost-efficient ways to decontaminate water can be developed. With this need in mind, a team of scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), led by László Forró, has come up with a new water purification filter that combines titanium…

  • Building Europe’s next ‘Channel Tunnel’

    We take it for granted now, but the opening of the Channel Tunnel was the engineering of a miracle. In an instant, the centres of London and Paris grew closer, as travel times between the two fell to under three hours. Since the link first opened in 1994, an estimated 450 million railway passengers have taken advantage of the connection, transforming business and tourism alike. And now 30 years on, ground has broken on a tunnel that arguably lays claim to being Europe’s next Channel Tunnel. The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, as the 18km (11 mile) tunnel is known, is a planned road and rail connection that will create a new link between Germany and Denmark beneath the Baltic Sea. By joining the German island of Fehmarn with the Danish island of Lolland, it will cut what is now a 45-minute ferry…

  • Why electrifying your classic car probably doesn’t make environmental sense

    Electrification of classic vehicles, especially cars, is a divisive subject. The position of the Historic and Classic Vehicles Alliance (HCVA), which is dedicated to ensuring the long-term sustainability of a UK industry with an annual turnover of £18.3bn, is that if a vehicle owner wishes to change the propulsion system in their classic car, then that is their choice. However, they should carefully consider the total environmental impact of a conversion that can often make no logical sense; in fact far from it! If one regards the embedded carbon dioxide from the production of a classic car as a ‘sunk’ environmental impact, adding an electric powertrain and energy-storage system is re-embedding new CO 2 that is unlikely to be recovered due to the very limited use classic cars receive. The…

  • Britain’s energy system gets ‘Future System Operator’ to help boost network resilience

    The new body will boost security and resilience of UK energy supplies and support the transition to net zero emissions. The proposal follows a period of consultation with the energy industry, which backed the creation of the new public body. The FSO will be launched once the necessary legislation is passed and timelines have been discussed with key parties. It will look at Great Britain’s energy system as a whole, integrating existing networks with emerging technologies such as hydrogen. The FSO will be a new public body founded on the existing capabilities of the Electricity System Operator (ESO) and, where appropriate, National Grid Gas (NGG). It will work with energy suppliers and networks to balance the UK’s electricity systems and ensure continued energy resilience and security of…

  • Book reviews: Jonglez ‘Secret Guides’ to Glasgow, Paris and Los Angeles

    The ongoing war in Europe has dealt another blow to a global travel industry already crippled by the Covid pandemic. Many would-be travellers, including myself, have had to put their plans on hold again (I have been planning for some time to visit my native Ukraine) and resort instead to vicarious travels using memories, imagination, maps and the internet. As well as guide books, of course. For many years, E&T has been writing about the multi-award-winning ‘Secret’ series of guide books from the international publisher Jonglez, now based in Berlin. For me, their main time-tested feature is that they are equally useful both for real travellers and for the so-called ‘armchair buccaneers’ – whether voluntary or forced. By pointing out the hidden and little- known features of towns, cities and…

  • Russian gas exodus will lower European carbon emissions, analysis suggests

    The research from DNV Energy estimates that 34 per cent of the energy mix in Europe will come from non-fossil fuel sources in 2024, two percentage points more than the pre-war forecast.  Overall, gas use is expected to drop an additional 9 per cent in 2024 compared to the pre-war model. The biggest percentage increase in alternative energy sources will be solar – up by 20 per cent in 2026.  The delayed retirement of some of the continent’s nuclear power plants is also an important component of filling the gap, DNV said. According to the research, although some coal is needed in the short term to meet Europe’s energy demand, by 2024 postponed retirements and higher nuclear utilisation will be important to cover the shortfall of natural gas.  Emission levels from energy are estimated to…

  • Artificial fingertips give robot hands human dexterity

    Typically, robot hands lack dexterity because artificial grippers do not have the fine tactile sense of the human fingertip, which is used to guide our hands as we pick up and handle objects. “Our work helps uncover how the complex internal structure of human skin creates our human sense of touch. This is an exciting development in the field of soft robotics - being able to 3D-print tactile skin could create robots that are more dexterous or significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands by giving them an in-built sense of touch,” said Professor Lepora, a researcher from the University of Bristol. The sense of touch in the artificial fingertip was created using a 3D-printed mesh of pin-like papillae on the underside of the skin, which mimics similar structures found between the…

  • Treated plastic waste good at absorbing carbon, team finds

    The new chemical technique developed by Rice University researchers offers a potential method to turn waste plastic into an effective carbon dioxide (CO2) sorbent for industry. The Rice lab describes it as a “win-win for pressing environmental problems”. Rice chemist James Tour and Rice alumnus Wala Algozeeb, graduate student Paul Savas and postdoctoral researcher Zhe Yuan reported in the journal ACS Nano that heating plastic waste in the presence of potassium acetate produced particles with nanometre-scale pores that trap carbon dioxide molecules. These particles can remove CO2 from flue gas streams, they reported. “Experts can fit point sources of CO2 emissions like power plant exhaust stacks with this waste-plastic-derived material to remove enormous amounts of CO2 that would normally…

  • Hands-on review: Zhiyun Smooth 5 smartphone gimbal

    We've reviewed a number of Zhiyun gimbals in recent years, but that's not even the half of the Chinese firm's dizzying pace of releases, seemingly slotting a new gimbal into a specific niche every few months. If it's not an entirely new gimbal range, it'll be a refresh of an existing product, often including those with an immediate predecessor still decidedly fresh in many people's minds. Still, technology moves at a pace these days, you snooze you lose etc, so here we are checking out the Smooth 5, one up from the 4. What's new? Moving as it must in tandem with advances in smartphone capability - which in turn raises exciting new use cases for the hardware, which in its way begets heightened creative demands from users of peripherals - Zhiyun is firmly positioning the Smooth 5 as the…

  • MPs want clarity on takeover of Welsh chip fab by Chinese-state backed firm

    In July 2021, it emerged that Nexperia – a Dutch chip firm wholly owned by Shanghai-based Wingtech – had confirmed plans to acquire the UK’s largest chip producer, Newport Wafer Fab in a deal valued at £63m. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had asked the National Security Advisor to take a look at the deal after the government initially decided not to intervene, despite admitting that semiconductors are critical to the UK’s national security and wider global interests. Now, the Foreign Affairs Committee has called on the government to clarify the circumstances in which the National Security Adviser was asked to engage in the review and why Johnson asked for it to be undertaken in the first place. They also question why the review was never taken. The Committee also urged for greater clarity…

  • Fire safety pledges cost housing developers further millions after Grenfell Tower

    Development company Crest Nicholson announced today that it would be signing up to the government’s new 'Building Safety Pledge', which commits developers to new guidelines for work on potentially unsafe cladding on buildings between 36ft (11m) and 59ft (18m) high. The firm became the first builder to commit to signing the pledge to fund retrofit works on buildings over 11m in height. Levelling-up minister Michael Gove had given house builders until today, April 5, to sign the pledge. He had previously warned of dire commercial and financial consequences - including blocking planning permission and even a potential ban on trading - for any company that failed to fix historical fire safety problems, such as dangerous cladding similar to that which caused the devastating fire at Grenfell. …

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • ‘Freeze-thaw battery’ stores electricity long-term for seasonal release

    The small prototype device, developed by scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, could be especially useful for storing energy from intermittent sources, like solar and wind energy. “Longer-duration energy storage technologies are important for increasing the resilience of the grid when incorporating a large amount of renewable energy,” said Imre Gyuk, director of energy storage at DOE’s Office of Electricity, which funded the work. “This research marks an important step toward a seasonal battery storage solution that overcomes the self-discharge limitations of today’s battery technologies.” Renewable sources ebb and flow with natural cycles, which can make it difficult to include them in a reliable, steady stream of electricity. In the…

  • ISS to welcome first private astronauts

    Axiom, alongside Nasa and other industry players, has hailed the launch as a “turning point” in the latest expansion of commercial space ventures, collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy: “LEO economy” for short. Weather permitting, Axiom’s four-man team will lift off on Friday (8 April) at the earliest from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will rise atop a Falcon 9 rocket furnished and flown by Elon Musk’s commercial space launch venture SpaceX. “It is the beginning of many beginnings for commercialising low-Earth orbit,” Axiom’s co-founder and executive chairman, Kam Ghaffarian, told Reuters in an interview. “We’re like in the early days of the internet, and we haven’t even imagined all the possibilities, all the capabilities, that we’re going to…

  • ‘At a crossroads’ to a liveable future: UN ‘file of shame’ urges rapid climate action

    The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science body has today released the third part of its sixth assessment report, spelling out how to cut emissions by switching to increasingly cheap renewables and fuels such as hydrogen, as well as energy efficiency, capturing carbon and planting trees. The first "code red" part of the report, released in August 2021, was considered essential in sounding the "death knell" for fossil fuels . The second part, released in February this year and which followed the intense climate deliberations at COP26, was billed as " an atlas of human suffering ". Now the third and final part of the IPCC's report starkly positions humankind as being "at a crossroads". Meeting goals agreed by countries to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C or below 2…

  • First audio recordings of Mars made by Nasa’s Perseverance rover

    The team operating its SuperCam2 instrument (pictured below) believes that the study of the soundscape of Mars could advance scientific understanding of the Red Planet. Perseverance made its first sound recording on Mars on 19 February, the day after its arrival. These sounds fall within the human audible spectrum, between 20Hz and 20kHz. Image credit: nasa Despite the recordings, Mars is thought to be very quiet, with the team mistakenly believing that the microphone was no longer working on several occasions as it failed to pick up any noise. Apart from the wind, natural sound sources are rare. The team has also been focusing on the sounds generated by the rover itself, including the shock waves produced by the impact of the SuperCam laser on rocks and flights…

  • Carbon tax on imported goods needed to stop ‘offshoring’ emissions, MPs say

    MPs on the Commons Environmental Audit Committee (CEAM) called for the tax as a way to stop domestic firms from “offshoring” their emissions. Taxes are currently imposed on carbon emissions from UK-made products. In a report, the MPs said that putting a price on imported carbon can incentivise sectors to move away from carbon-intensive practices and promote behavioural changes towards the creation of more low-carbon products. Currently, the UK’s emissions figures do not include carbon from imports, which understates the true picture of the carbon associated with UK consumption. CEAM acknowledged that the extra charges could be passed onto consumers without greater incentivisation for the development of more low-carbon products to ensure people are not adversely affected by higher prices…

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