• The electric wingsuits and jetpacks bringing bird-like abilities to humankind

    The electric wingsuits and jetpacks bringing bird-like abilities to humankind

    “When I am on the mountain and I watch these jackdaws, these mountain jackdaws... there’s something inside me that really wants to fly like birds,” says Peter Salzmann, professional wingsuit pilot, and the Austrian pioneer behind BMW’s new electric-powered wingsuit. Salzmann’s bird envy, or avian jealousy complex, is a psychological phenomenon shared by many people today and throughout history. Richard Browning, founder and chief test pilot at Gravity Industries, is one of them. “Birds have always been a deeply inspiring demonstration of a capability that human beings have always aspired to have.” That urge to be free of gravity’s shackles and explore in three dimensions is perhaps as old as life itself. The first organisms moved left and right, forward and backwards, and up and down within…

  • Report urges incentives for manufacturing in industrial heartlands

    Report urges incentives for manufacturing in industrial heartlands

    Rhetoric around 'levelling up' all regions of the UK played a part in the 2019 general election, which saw the Conservative Party make gains in the former northern industrial heartlands known as the 'red wall', due to their historical preference for the Labour Party. Now, pressure is mounting on the government to deliver on its promises to the regions from MPs, regional leaders and think tanks. Onward’s Making A Comeback report  focuses on boosting manufacturing: a sector which tends to pay better-than-average salaries. In 2018, median earners in the North East working in manufacturing earned 22 per cent more than the average worker, while in the North West it was 19 per cent more. This is the equivalent of an additional £2 per hour. With manufacturing maintaining a greater presence in the…

  • Tempest: the stealthy and stress-free future fighter plane

    Tempest: the stealthy and stress-free future fighter plane

    Fighter pilots of the future will operate in a different world. They’ll have more facts at their fingertips, more help from advanced processing, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and laser precision weaponry and drones – aided by algorithms that haven’t even been created yet. This is the UK’s Tempest combat air system, announced in 2018 and under development around the country. As one programme partner puts it, a Tempest pilot will have the situational awareness of Iron Man on a mission – or Luke Skywalker’s faith in The Force as he flies into the Death Star. Tempest is one of several sixth-generation fighter jets being developed around the world. In a multi-billion-pound project, a stealth airframe will incorporate a host of intertwined open-architecture technology, built to adapt…

  • Aviation’s kerosene conundrum

    Aviation’s kerosene conundrum

    The way the world generates energy could look very different by 2050. By that point, most of our road vehicles could well be running on batteries. Industries will have converted to use renewables more or less completely. TSMC, which makes chips for the many companies who do not own their fabs, committed last summer to having its entire operations run on green energy by the middle of the century even though each fab can easily consume 100MW. On the surface, flight looks to be in the same situation. The UK aviation sector has committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But flight is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise fully. When it comes to large, long-haul aircraft, no one has zero-emission aircraft in their sight before 2050. For many flights, net-zero has to come about through…

  • Sensor restores sense of touch in damaged nerves

    Sensor restores sense of touch in damaged nerves

    The tiny sensor is implanted in the nerve of the injured limb - for example, in a finger - and is connected directly to a healthy nerve. Each time the limb touches an object, the sensor is activated and conducts an electric current to the functioning nerve, which recreates the feeling of touch. According to the researchers at Tel Aviv University, the sensor is a tested and safe technology that is suited to the human body and could be implanted anywhere inside of it once clinical trials are complete. The researchers said that this unique project began with a meeting between colleagues Dr Ben Maoz of the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and surgeon Dr Amir Arami from the Sackler School of Medicine and the Microsurgery Unit in the Department of Hand Surgery at Sheba Medical…

  • ‘Electronic paper’ displays colours at a fraction of the energy cost

    ‘Electronic paper’ displays colours at a fraction of the energy cost

    Traditional digital screens use a backlight to illuminate the text or images displayed upon them. While this is fine indoors, it can be difficult to see when in direct sunlight. The reflective screens, developed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, attempt to use the ambient light to mimic the way our eyes respond to natural paper. “For reflective screens to compete with the energy-intensive digital screens that we use today, images and colours must be reproduced with the same high quality. That will be the real breakthrough. Our research now shows how the technology can be optimised, making it attractive for commercial use,” said researcher Marika Gugole. The researchers had already previously succeeded in developing an ultra-thin, flexible material that reproduces…

  • AI ‘eye’ could help explore features on the Moon

    AI ‘eye’ could help explore features on the Moon

    The choice of future landing and exploration sites on the Moon may come down to the most promising prospective locations for construction, minerals, or potential energy resources. But scanning across a large area, looking for features a few hundred metres across, by eye, is laborious and often inaccurate, experts have said, which makes it difficult to pick optimal areas for exploration. Siyuan Chen, Xin Gao, and Shuyu Sun at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, along with colleagues from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, have now applied machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the identification of prospective lunar landing and exploration areas. “We are looking for lunar features like craters and rilles, which are thought…

  • Massive Covid-19 testing lab opens to detect new variants

    Massive Covid-19 testing lab opens to detect new variants

    The Rosalind Franklin Laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa is expected to create around 1,500 skilled jobs for the area and will be capable of processing hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 samples every day. More than 300 are already employed at the lab with another 700 joining in the near future. The Department of Health and Social Care said it has equipped the lab with cutting-edge technology to process even more tests and adopt new ‘genotype assay’ testing to quickly identify variants of concern and new mutations. It is at the heart of the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) plans for the next phase of the battle against the pandemic. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “Trailblazing technologies are going to be pivotal to delivering on this bold ambition and I’m delighted that today we…

    IET EngX
    IET EngX
  • View from India: New work models and remote talent – pandemic outcomes

    View from India: New work models and remote talent – pandemic outcomes

    The IT services sector is on a rebound spree, as leading companies are hiring thousands of freshers amid the pandemic. This can be attributed to increased outsourcing and the acceleration of digital transformation services spurred by Covid. It is mainly felt in sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, retail and manufacturing. “With customers focusing on optimising costs, outsourcing of IT services is seeing a steady rise globally. The pandemic has opened up additional opportunities in digital services due to surge in remote working, e-commerce and automated services,” said Anuj Sethi, senior director, CRISIL Ratings, and added, “Ergo, deal wins by Indian players have expanded by 20 per cent on-year in fiscal 2021, with 80 per cent of these being digital…

  • Is the aviation sector ready for another supersonic age?

    Is the aviation sector ready for another supersonic age?

    Somewhere between starting fires and flinging electric cars into space, human beings became disconnected from technology. Progress, long contingent on people doing things, was pushed across some invisible psychic line to become its own force. Moore’s Law is not an industry insider’s term – it’s a capitalist philosophy. Every year, tech brands release shinier, newer, and nebulously ‘better’ versions of the dusty, scuffed and concretely ‘worse’ things we bought last year, because this is what technology does. When it doesn’t – if, say, a global pandemic were to hobble the production of a new games console – the professionally furious will skitter out from the craterous hellscape of social media to shriek at technology until it can once again keep pace with their entitlement. Come war, come…

  • Letters to the editor: volume 16, issue 7

    Letters to the editor: volume 16, issue 7

    Future vehicle solutions lie outside the box There’s been plenty of recent debate on the subject of switching from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles, and it seems that we are all fixated on the concept of swapping one form of energy for another, without stepping back to look at the bigger picture. Imagine that the motor car didn’t exist, and that someone had come up with the idea that in order to transport a person weighing less than 100kg from one place to another, we should encase them in a metal and plastic cocoon weighing around 2000kg, and carrying either 50kg of highly flammable fuel (petrol) or 100kg of toxic chemicals (batteries). We would probably think the inventor was deranged and that the idea would never become a reality. And yet here we are, making…

    IET EngX
    IET EngX
  • Spain to invest €4.3bn in EV and battery manufacturing

    Spain to invest €4.3bn in EV and battery manufacturing

    According to Pedro Sanchez, Spain's prime minister, the public plan will encompass the entire production chain. Grants will be given to companies with the goal of building the country’s first battery plant and boosting manufacturing of EVs. “It is important for Spain to react and to anticipate this transformation in Europe’s automotive sector,” said Sanchez. He added that government estimates found the private sector could contribute a further €19.7bn to the initiative between 2021 and 2023. Few industrial bidders have publicly stated their intent to seek a helping of the funds, although Volkswagen’s Spanish brand SEAT and energy company Iberdrola have teamed up to work on a bid as an alliance. Their involvement would fit within a wider project they are planning with Volkswagen which covers…

  • Up, up and away!

    Up, up and away!

    After more than a decade, the market for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft is on the rise, and its goal of making urban air mobility (UAM) for everyone personal, on-demand and carbon-free looks within reach. Big money is backing air taxis. This year, at least four leading players will go public. All will reverse-merge into existing listed investment vehicles – or SPACs – which will receive funding from current and new investors. The deals will take the companies’ resources beyond a $700m (£500m) threshold, defined by Lufthansa Innovation Hub as the “minimum estimated capital threshold needed for successful development, certification and industrialisation of air taxis”. Others look set to follow as the sector consolidates. Of the four front-runners, two are American…

  • Power sector will need negative carbon emissions for UK to meet net zero targets

    Power sector will need negative carbon emissions for UK to meet net zero targets

    In its 'Our Future Energy Scenarios' report, it also outlines how people will need to change their lifestyle habits and switch over to low-carbon forms of heating such as those powered by renewable energy and hydrogen. The ESO drew on hundreds of experts’ views to model four credible energy pathways for Britain over coming decades. Its analysis suggests that the UK can achieve its legally binding carbon-reduction targets in three out of the four scenarios. Two of the scenarios see Britain reduce its emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, requiring significant shifts in technology and society in the near future. One such scenario sees people in 2050 turning down their thermostats by an average of 1°C, reducing heat demand by 13 per cent. It also predicts that over 80 per cent of households…

  • Gadgets: Gigabyte Aero laptop, Riutbag+, AirPop masks, Dyson Detect and more

    Gadgets: Gigabyte Aero laptop, Riutbag+, AirPop masks, Dyson Detect and more

    Gigabyte Aero laptop Image credit: Gigabyte Read Caramel’s hands-on review and suggestions of alternatives. This is the laptop to buy if you’re a creative who doesn’t favour Apple. Its Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 supplies state-of-the-art graphics processing. Powerful and slim, the flagship 17-inch HDR model boasts the largest screen, with 4K definition; meanwhile there’s a 15-inch with the world’s first Xrite Pantone colour calibrated OLED display. From £1,799   gigabyte.com RiutBag+ backpack Image credit: Riutbag Read E&T assistant technology editor Siobhan Doyle’s hands-on review. Inspired by a request from a doctor, this has...

  • How it works: An electric fix for aviation’s air pollution problem

    How it works: An electric fix for aviation’s air pollution problem

    Land vehicles’ contribution to degrading air quality and climate change has been the talk of the town. However, a study led by a team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that “aviation emissions are an increasingly significant contributor to anthropogenic climate change”. Upon reaching cruise altitude, aeroplanes spew out steady streams of oxides into the atmosphere. The suspended oxides, mostly nitrogen, linger long enough to spark new chemical reactions with atmospheric oxygen, producing ozone and fine particulate matter. Such highly reactive and toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) are known to cause asthma, decreased lung function and cardiovascular disorders. “When you consider the full flight, which includes emissions from take-off, cruise and landing, aircraft emissions are…

  • Post-pandemic travel: ready for take-off?

    Post-pandemic travel: ready for take-off?

    Unquestionably, the pandemic has resulted in aviation’s biggest ever peacetime crisis. From aircraft manufacturers to airlines, from maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) to supply and service organisations, aviation has been hit extremely hard by Covid-19. The immense challenges, including enterprise survival, have forced aviation to adapt on an unprecedented scale to meet customers’ ever-changing requirements. And significantly, the sector continues to play an absolutely critical role in fighting the pandemic. Let’s set the scene on some of the technical fronts, what the situation is now and where things are likely to be heading. For starters, aircraft have still had to be maintained during the pandemic – passengers stopped flying for the most part, but cargo has most definitely not…

  • WhatsApp accused of breaching consumer rights in the EU over new privacy policy

    WhatsApp accused of breaching consumer rights in the EU over new privacy policy

    In January this year, the Facebook-owned messaging app introduced new data-collection terms for when users interact with businesses on the platform. People were originally given until the next month to accept the terms, before a massive public backlash forced Facebook to extend this to May before features of the app would start becoming unavailable. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), which represents consumers in the EU, has now filed a complaint with the European Commission regarding what it claims is a breach of EU consumer rights. “For several months now, WhatsApp has been unduly pressuring its users to accept its new terms of use and privacy policy. Yet these terms are neither transparent nor comprehensible for users,” the body said. The complaint is first due to the “persistent…

  • Small number of megacities responsible for majority of urban emissions

    Small number of megacities responsible for majority of urban emissions

    Under the Paris Agreement, governments are obliged to take action to cut carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. According to the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2020, current climate mitigation plans are insufficient and will lead to a temperature increase of more than 3°C by the end of the 21st century. Such a significant rise in global average temperature could see major cities largely submerged by rising sea levels (including Shanghai, Miami, Alexandria and Rio de Janeiro); increasing extreme weather including droughts and heatwaves, and the spread of desert and tropical disease to other parts of the globe. A new study presents the first international 'balance sheet' of greenhouse gases…

  • Virgin Galactic marks milestone for commercial space travel

    Virgin Galactic marks milestone for commercial space travel

    US-based Virgin Galactic, which is partially owned by Sir Richard’s Virgin Group, aims to develop commercial spacecraft for the purposes of space tourism. This most recent flight marked the 22nd flight test for the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity, its fourth crewed flight, and its first with a full crew of two pilots and four mission specialists. Take-off was delayed by around 90 minutes by adverse weather conditions. In a livestreamed video hosted by television personality Stephen Colbert, Virgin Galactic demonstrated its launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 15.45 UK time. The vehicle reached 40,000ft (12.2km) 15 minutes later. It was carried into the atmosphere by its mothership, VMS Eve, after which it was released and ignited, powering high above Earth’s surface. This approach could…

  • Tesla updates its cars with trial autonomous features

    Tesla updates its cars with trial autonomous features

    Owners who have purchased the option will now be able to use the Autopilot’s driver-assist features on roads outside of highways. However, Tesla founder Elon Musk stressed on Twitter that the software is still just in beta and although it “addresses most known issues” there will still be “unknown issues” that will need to be unaccounted for. “Safety is always a top priority at Tesla,” he added. While Tesla vehicles do have a degree of automated capability, drivers are still legally obliged to be sitting in the driver’s seat with their hands on the wheel. One of the firm’s vehicles was involved in a crash in April after losing control while trying to take a curve at high speed. The incident in Texas killed both of the vehicle’s passengers. They were reportedly not in a position to…

  • The bigger picture: Burrowing robot

    The bigger picture: Burrowing robot

    This action is harder than moving through air or water because the surrounding material has to be moved out of the way. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Georgia Institute of Technology have taken cues from plants and animals to develop “a fast, controllable soft robot” that can burrow through granular material. Two key ideas taken from nature are to advance by extending the tip, which keeps resistive forces localised to the growing end, and to use ‘granular fluidisation’ by sending a jet of air down into the sand to loosen it. Image credit: . The team is working on a project with Nasa to develop burrowing for the Moon or other bodies. Potential terrestrial uses could include soil sampling, underground installation of utilities and erosion control. It…

  • Analysis: How open data is helping to solve Covid-related crime

    Analysis: How open data is helping to solve Covid-related crime

    Covid-19 lockdown periods have been a boon for crime rates . In some areas, the decline in crime has been considerable. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a 32 per cent reduction in total crime excluding fraud and computer misuse during April and May last year. With more people at home, fewer criminals dared to commit burglary during the pandemic - some prudently eschewed risky in-person encounters with homeowners.  However, crime in some categories noticeably increased. One was dog theft, where criminal activity flourished as demand for the cuddly four-legged friends soared. Criminal gangs prefer stealing puppies as they can often quickly sell them on online to families in search of a companion. Loopholes in British law may have assisted them.  UK law permits…

  • Crossrail’s current budget is not enough to complete the project, watchdog says

    Crossrail’s current budget is not enough to complete the project, watchdog says

    It said the revised schedule and budget agreed for Crossrail in April 2019 was unachievable because the programme was further from being complete than Crossrail Ltd and its other sponsors understood. Although cost increases and schedule delays are in line with Crossrail Ltd’s 2020 estimates , they exceed the available budget and there are still significant issues that could arise as the railway is brought into service, the NAO said. The joint sponsors for Crossrail are the Department for Transport and Transport for London (TfL), while Crossrail Ltd, a subsidiary of TfL, is responsible for delivering the programme. When the NAO last reported in May 2019, the funding package for Crossrail stood at £17.6bn, the forecast cost was £17bn, and the central section of the Elizabeth line was due…

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