• Carbon tax necessary to make steelmakers more green, says SSAB boss

    Martin Pei, head of Swedish steel giant SSAB, said that many of the attempts to claim steel is green are nothing other than branding. “There are so many green steel initiatives and many of them are only greenwashing. They are not doing anything, they are selling certificates,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Pei called for transparency so that companies could not continue making the same product but brand it green. The global metals industry is one of the largest emitters in the world and cutting carbon is notoriously difficult. According to an estimate from the World Steel Association, steel alone accounts for about 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. To help counter this, SSAB plans to produce 1.5 million tonnes per year of “fossil…

  • IBM predicts ‘quantum advantage’ will overtake standard chips within two years

    The storied semiconductor company said that its 'Eagle' computing chip has 127 so-called 'qubits', which can represent information in quantum form. Classical computers work using 'bits' that must be either a 1 or 0, whilst qubits can be both a 1 and a 0 simultaneously. That fact could one day make quantum computers much faster than their classical counterparts. However, qubits are exceedingly hard to build and require huge cryogenic refrigerators to operate correctly. While Apple's newest M1 Max chip has 57 billion transistors - a rough proxy for bits - IBM says that its new Eagle chip is the first to have more than 100 qubits. IBM said that new techniques it learned in building the chip - which is manufactured at its facilities in New York state - will eventually produce more qubits when…

  • A collaborative campaign for Amplicon's product content

    Read full case study We worked closely with Amplicon to develop content that would provide brand consistency and recognition across our various digital channels including solus emails, web banners and e-newsletters.  A highlight of the campaign was the solus email activity, driving a huge number of clicks to Amplicon's website and YouTube channel. Engagement was well above our average response of 126 clicks and 1.28% click-through rate (CTR), with more than 1,000 clicks and a CTR of 5.1%.  Download our case study to find out more   Reach an unrivalled audience of engineering and technology professionals and get in touch today: Louise Hall, Display Advertising Manager: E:   advert@theiet.org T: +44 (0)1438 767351   Ready to take your ad campaign to the next level? Choose a solution…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Climate activists criticise COP26 deforestation declaration for lacking substance

    As part of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, more than 120 countries pledged to halt and mitigate deforestation by 2030. The announcement was made by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson alongside the presidents of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, and of Colombia, Iván Duque. Under the deal, more than $19bn has been pledged, $12bn of which comes from 12 donor countries with the rest being raised from private initiatives and philanthropic organisations. But bodies such as Greenpeace UK believe the new agreement does not address the causes of deforestation. “It’s simple. World leaders can’t commit to ‘end deforestation by 2030’ if we don’t cut down one of the main drivers of #deforestation: meat and dairy consumption,” the organisation Tweeted. Louis Verchot, head of research…

  • COP26 cop-out on coal as fossil fuel phaseout diluted

    A new draft of the deal that could be agreed at the Glasgow COP26 climate talks appears to have watered down its push to curb fossil fuels. The first draft of the “cover decision” for the overarching agreement at the summit had called for countries “to accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels”. In a new draft produced this morning (Friday November 12), the wording has changed to a call for countries to accelerate the shift to clean energy systems, “including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”. The inclusion of an explicit reference to fossil fuels was a first for a UN decision document of this type, but was still expected to get fierce pushback from some…

  • Decarbonisation efforts likely to trigger uneven job losses across UK

    The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) said that national and local governments should ensure that plans are in place to cushion workers affected by the “green jobs revolution”. In particular, people working in fossil fuels and energy production, heavy industry and the vehicle manufacturing sectors are expected to be significantly impacted in the coming decades. While areas like London and the South will not be heavily affected, as they have the lowest share of jobs in those sectors, jobs in the North, Midlands, Scotland and Wales will be more significantly impacted by the decarbonisation efforts. Furthermore, certain local areas heavily dependent on these sectors will be “acutely” affected, the RSA said. Jobs in fossil fuel and energy production are most concentrated…

  • Concrete that sequesters CO2 could ‘revolutionise’ industry emissions

    The concrete industry alone is currently responsible for around 7-8 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions - the equivalent of more than any individual country except for China and the US. The newly developed method allows for CO2 to be sequestered from the atmosphere and absorbed into the cement, strengthening it and reducing the amount required to produce equivalent-strength concrete. Both CO2 sequestration and cement reduction can contribute to the reduction of concrete’s CO2 footprint, the researchers said. They believe the technology has the potential to mitigate two billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to 4 per cent of global CO2 emissions. Dr Reyes Garcia from the University of Warwick said: “As the world strives to reach zero-carbon goals, the construction industry…

  • Back story: Ayo Sokale, ‘Failure is an indication that you tried’

    Shini Somara: Why is engineering for you? Ayo Sokale: I lived part of my childhood in a different country where I saw infrastructure making things better. To me engineering was almost ‘godlike’ in its power to transform people’s lives. I want to be a person who can help people in such an impactful way.   SS: Were you aware of being in a minority as a Woman of Colour in Engineering? AS: When I was younger, I had never thought about it, because I grew up in a country where I was the ethnic majority. But then I moved to the UK, where I was the first black girl in my school. That was when I started becoming aware of race. But at that point, I was already invested in engineering and was determined to be an engineer. I believe engineering is for people who are interested in solving problems,…

  • Deep diving into deepfakes

    “The weaponisation of deepfakes against politicians or nation states has become something we’re simply going to have to live with,” says Michael Grothaus. Author of ‘Trust No One’, an investigation into the nature, origins and future of the deepfake video. Grothaus thinks that the days of innocent ‘face-swapping’ for the amusement of the YouTube audience, or even the merging of celebrities into pornographic videos, have dramatically transformed into “a real threat.” When the public can routinely view plausible videos of events that haven’t taken place, globally distributed across social media channels, he says, “you start to see the erosion of trust in society. People will become more cynical and will start to think that everything they see is fake. So it is more essential than ever to understand…

  • Artificial intelligence faces the real world

    The dream – or nightmare – for AI is that it will one day be able to perform like the human brain. That concept of general AI (broader intelligence beyond a narrow area) has remained tantalisingly out of reach – or safely so, depending on what science-fiction films you watch. Like the human brain, AI research comes in two halves: symbolic and transformer-based models. Chris Edwards explains how these two halves are now coming together in an awkward but more effective whole and what that means for the quest for general AI. Meanwhile, narrow AI is getting everywhere. This year’s AI market of around $90bn is forecast to multiply by ten times within the next seven years. No wonder that big tech is becoming more involved, taking up the best research and swallowing up AI start-ups. Paul Dempsey…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • The measure of: Speeder flying motorcycle

    According to JPA, the Speeder has completed the first test flight of its one-third scale prototype called P1. JPA completed five months of testing in May 2021 when the company attained certain benchmarks in the Speeder’s ability to take off, climb, hover, or even do turns. Billed as a jet-powered, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, the Speeder, “will be just like riding a motorcycle, but in the sky!” says JPA. The Speeder is an engineering feat that required JPA to write its own flight-control software program to monitor and adjust the thrust. The benefit of that work, which took a year and a half, is described as an intuitive system that functions like a typical motorcycle and automatically stabilises the machine in flight. It can take off and land vertically from most surfaces…

  • The eccentric engineer: an aviation ostrich destined never to fly

    Not all engineering is about novelty. A great deal of time and energy goes into improving things that already exist – making them lighter, faster, stronger and, in a world where economies of scale matter, bigger. Just how big can you make something? That was exactly the question the US Air Force posed to Lockheed. How big could an aeroplane actually get? What they got back from Lockheed’s Skunkworks in 1969 was the plans for the CL-1201 – the largest aeroplane never built. Everything about it was enormous, verging sometimes on the ridiculous. The CL-1201 had a crescent wingspan of over 341 metres (15 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower) and was nearly 170 metres long (two and half times as long as a 747), 11 storeys high and weighed in at 5,265 tonnes. The inside was spacious to say the…

  • Teardown: Apple iPhone Pro 13

    At £999, the iPhone 13 Pro is not that far in price off a DSLR camera that can match it for resolution up to and including 4K video. You get a lot more functionality with an iPhone, but the comparison feels apt because Apple’s latest smartphone flagships – this handset and the 13 Pro Max – lean heavily on their visual capabilities. The three-camera array – Wide, Ultra Wide and Telephoto – has undergone a sizeable upgrade, although resolution remains at 12MP. For example, Wide receives a wider aperture (f/2.8) as does Ultra Wide (f/1.5); Wide has a larger sensor, Ultra Wide a faster one and the Telephoto option now has a night mode. The camera can also automatically engage a Macro mode for very close subjects up to 2cm away. The computation photography muscle in the 13 Pro is assisted by…

  • ISS shunted into wider orbit to avoid space junk from Chinese satellite

    According to Russian space program Roscosmos, the ISS corrected its orbit to be around 1.2km higher than it had been orbiting previously. A command was issued to fire the Progress MS-18 cargo spacecraft engines for six minutes, which was docked to the Zvezda Service Module ISS Russian segment. Without the adjustment, Roscosmos said that a fragment of the Fengyun-1C satellite would have approached the station tomorrow morning and would have come within around 600m of the ISS. “In order to dodge the ‘space junk’, [mission control] specialists have calculated how to correct the orbit of the International Space Station,” the agency’s statement said. The ISS was hit by another piece of space junk in June this year, which took a chunk out of its 17m-long robotic arm . The European Space…

  • Book review: ‘The Science of Life and Death in Frankenstein’

    Modern film treatments of ‘Frankenstein’ – don’t forget that Frankenstein is the scientist and not his ‘Creature’ – have tended to concentrate so much on the elements of the gothic, horror and suspense, that it is easy to forget (if we ever knew) that the original novel behind the franchise is arguably the protype for the science-fiction genre. It’s also an extraordinary tale that weaves together vast ethical themes related to the artificial creation of life with a young woman’s understanding of an emerging frontier of scientific thought. Sharon Ruston’s ‘The Science of Life and Death in Frankenstein’ (Bodleian Library, £25, ISBN 9781851245574) is a superb examination of the confluence of early-19th-century objective discovery and the subjective Romantic imagination. Mary Shelley’s novel…

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    E+T Magazine

  • US and China unveil surprise carbon emissions deal at COP26

    The announcement from the two countries - the world’s largest carbon emitters - came as a surprise to delegates of COP26, the international climate change conference held in Glasgow over the last two weeks. The framework agreement proposes a number of measures including cutting methane emissions, phasing out coal consumption and protecting forests. US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua made the announcement at COP26 just hours after the head of the United Nations conference said that the climate commitments pledged so far in the talks would do too little to tame climate change. Kerry said: “The United States and China have no shortage of differences, but on climate co-operation is the only way to get this job done. This is not a discretionary thing, frankly…

  • Can AI be music to our ears?

    When AI music researchers Bob L Sturm and Oded Ben-Tal realised they had created algorithms effective enough to imitate traditional Irish music compositions, the pair came up with an ingenious idea for an experiment. They would hire professional musicians to record an album, ‘Let’s Have Another Gan Ainm’, using material generated by a computer trained on over 23,000 transcriptions of traditional music. UK musician Daren Banarse was drafted to curate the work. In a cunning ruse, CDs were sent to various critics in the US and Europe with an elaborate fabricated backstory printed on the album sleeve, attributing the tunes to the Ó Conaill family, including daughters Caitlın and Una. Contrary to expectations, the release received almost universal acclaim, says Sturm, an associate professor…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Network Rail says half its suppliers now commit to carbon reductions

    The body, which manages the UK’s railway infrastructure, had already set of series of targets in its Environmental Sustainability Strategy to deliver a greener railway based on efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It said around 97 per cent of its emissions are within “scope three”, meaning emissions largely come from third parties, including suppliers. To address this, Network Rail has set a target for 75 per cent of suppliers to have their carbon targets by 2025. It has already worked alongside transport industry partners to deliver workshops throughout 2021 to help suppliers commit to carbon cutting. Roger Maybury, supplier management director, said: “We’ve had a wonderful response and we’re extremely grateful to our suppliers for showing such positive support for this initiative…

  • Fresh prints: the road to 3D printed organs

    Darcy Wagner is on a quest to improve research into the human lung – and to develop synthetic therapies for both acute and chronic lung disease. “These are the third and fourth leading causes of death in the world – and have no cure,” says Wagner, associate professor in the department of experimental medical science at Lund University in Sweden. Patients with chronic lung disease have one option: a lung transplant. However, survival times are short compared to, say, a heart transplant, and there is an acute shortage of lungs for transplantation. These factors inform Wagner’s work in developing ways to produce synthetic lung tissue using 3D printing. Now, it is being intensively researched – by Wagner and many others – as a way of manipulating biological material. Shortages of donor organs…

  • Big tech is betting on the metaverse: it would do better to focus on email security

    Big tech’s latest obsession is the metaverse. Once a niche concept originating in science fiction, it’s gained a lot of mainstream attention lately. Most notably, Mark Zuckerberg recently told The Verge that Facebook is set to become a metaverse company, although the term was also bandied about in a recent Microsoft earnings call. If devotees are to be believed, the metaverse will change the way we do – well - everything. Sceptics, on the other hand, think it’s more likely to be just another tech bust, along the lines of Google Glass. While the reality is likely somewhere in between, there can be no doubt that big tech could accomplish a lot more in the here and now by doubling down on security, particularly in the email space. Before digging into why focusing on security is so important…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Reversing the trend of failed mine remediation

    Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory has dual World Heritage listings for its ecological and cultural value. Its escarpment country, rainforests, wetlands, and mudflats are home to cascading waterfalls, indigenous communities, and a diverse range of species, including crocodiles lurking in billabongs and creeks. Perhaps only in Australia – a country where the mining industry has poignantly been described as “disaster and triumph entwined” – would such a unique reserve surround one of the world’s biggest and longest-operating uranium mines. Located 260km southeast of Darwin, Ranger Mine started producing uranium oxide in 1981. The mining lease, which is owned and operated by Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto, was approved at around…

  • ‘Sitting on data is like sitting on an oilfield’: Mark Girolami, the Alan Turing Institute

    “Artificial intelligence is very much an umbrella term,” says Mark Girolami. “When we say AI, what we’re really describing is a whole load of technologies that are characterised by three components at their core: data, computing and algorithms.” Girolami, who has taken up the post of the Alan Turing Institute’s first chief scientist, says that while there are plenty of people out there crossing over into philosophy and neural sciences “solving intelligence”, his approach to AI is based on these three inter-related parameters. A University of Cambridge academic, he also holds the Royal Academy of Engineering research chair in data-centric engineering. The two positions “feed off each other”, he says. Girolami’s appointment at the Alan Turing Institute comes hot on the heels of the UK government…

  • Can technology help people with autism in the workplace?

    In February 2021, the Office of National Statistics released figures showing that only 22 per cent of adults with autism in the UK are in any kind of employment. Only 16 per cent work full-time, according to the National Autistic Society (NAS). These figures don’t come close to reflecting autistic people’s levels of capability in the workplace. Pioneers such as Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Mozart, Michelangelo are believed to have been autistic, albeit undiagnosed. Perhaps Steve Jobs too, some observers have suggested. What the numbers do show, however, is a systemic failure to include and involve around 1 per cent of the UK population (according to NAS figures) in the workplace, cater for their needs, provide opportunities, and adequately use their talents. NAS defines autism as a lifelong…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • EVs broadly backed at COP26, but major markets and makers missing

    Cars, trucks, ships, buses and aircraft account for about a quarter of all CO2 emissions, according to data from the International Energy Agency, with road-based vehicles being the main culprits. The 'Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars and Vans' - introduced at COP26 - pledges signatories to “rapidly” accelerate the transition to less-polluting vehicles. Leading markets will aim to end the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2035, with other markets aiming for 2040. According to reports, major signatories include Ford, General Motors, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, BYD Co, and Jaguar Land Rover from the automotive industry; the countries of India, New Zealand and Poland; individual cities such as Seoul, Sao Paolo, California and New York State, and corporations with large…

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