• Tesla called on to explain Autopilot function

    Tesla Autopilot provides a range of features that the company says helps prevent accidents caused by driver negligence and fatigue. It includes cruise control, lane centring and changes, and parking. Media reports of fatal accidents associated with drivers handing full control over to Tesla Autopilot has prompted the company to emphasise that the driver must remain in control of the car while it is operating in Autopilot mode. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has carried out a number of investigations into crashes on Autopilot since 2018. Last month, a Tesla driving on Autopilot collided with a parked Florida Highway Patrol vehicle in Orlando. Now, the NHTSA has requested details of how the system works, via an 11-page letter sent to the automaker. Specifically…

  • Nanogenerators enable wooden floors to produce electricity

    Swiss researchers used a combination of a silicone coating and embedded nanocrystals to create a device that could power LED lightbulbs and small electronics. The team began by transforming wood into a nanogenerator by sandwiching two pieces of functionalised wood between electrodes. The wood pieces become electrically charged through periodic contacts and separations when stepped on, a phenomenon called the triboelectric effect. These electrons can then transfer from one object to another, generating an electrical current. Typically, wood is a poor material for transporting electrons which limits its ability to generate electricity. “The challenge is making wood that is able to attract and lose electrons,” explained senior author Guido Panzarasa at ETH Zürich. To achieve this, the…

  • Cocoa ‘fingerprint’ could trace chocolate back to farm

    The £61bn chocolate industry continues to grapple with shocking and unethical farming practices. Some 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa, particularly Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where efforts to put an end to the exploitation of the millions of children involved in cocoa farming have been largely fruitless. A significant fraction of these child labourers are thought to be victims of trafficking or slavery. The volatile price of cocoa in recent years has led to a surge in suppliers seeking to buy cheaper beans. These often come from deforested regions with lower-quality plants and evidence of human rights abuses, affecting the prices and practices of legitimate farmers and compromising sustainability gains. Researchers from the University of Surrey and their colleagues…

  • Rising sea levels pose uncertain challenges for Venetian flood defences

    The assessment was published in a special issue of Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Sciences exploring why the flood risk in Venice has recently increased. Risk is expected to continue growing, perhaps even accelerating, through the 21st century. Among the key factors when considering flood risk in coastal cities such as Venice is projected relative sea level rise; the change in sea level relative to the local solid surface of Earth. This accounts for ground sinking and mean sea level rises. Long-term future projections indicate significant uncertainty in the relative sea level of Venice: between 17 and 120cm by 2100. Study author Professor Davide Zanchettin attributes this to the challenges of projections based on a wide range of possible emissions scenarios and to uncertainty about the…

  • AI technique poised to improve heart imaging

    The team behind the technology, from UVA Health in Virginia, US, compared its AI approach, known as Virtual Native Enhancement (VNE), with contrast-enhanced CMR scans now used to monitor hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the most common genetic heart condition. As part of their study, the researchers found VNE produced higher-quality images and better-captured evidence of scar in the heart, all without injecting the standard contrast agent required for CMR. “This is a potentially important advance, especially if it can be expanded to other patient groups,” said researcher Christopher Kramer, the chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at UVA Health. He added: “Being able to identify scar in the heart, an important contributor to progression to heart failure and sudden cardiac death…

  • Oil and Gas UK calls for more oil fields ahead of 2050 net zero carbon goal

    Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) said that UK had to import 56 per cent of its gas to meet record demand in winter 2021. With many staying in their homes more than usual due to the Covid-19 lockdowns, gas demand from consumers rose in order to heat their homes. But OGUK warned that with gas output from the North Sea in long-term decline, the UK faces increasing pressure to import more gas unless efforts are made to boost domestic production. While gas is less carbon-intensive than some fossil fuels like coal, the UK will struggle to meet its 2050 carbon neutral goals if it continues to rely on it. The UK is now among Europe’s largest consumers of gas. According to OGUK’s latest report, approximately 23 million homes (85 per cent) rely on it for central heating and hot water, as well as providing…

  • Earthshot Prize finalists will be supported by global firms

    Hitachi, Microsoft and the Ingka Group, which owns and operates most Ikea stores, are among the businesses supporting the inaugural 15 finalists of the environmental competition, who will be revealed later this month. William launched the Nobel-inspired £50m Earthshot Prize project in October 2020 through his Royal Foundation. It aims to recognise solutions, ideas and technologies that “repair the planet”. The Prize name draws inspiration from the Apollo Moon landings, nicknamed 'Moonshot', which helped advance mankind’s technological achievements, and features five categories, or 'Earthshots', which organisers say if achieved by 2030 would improve life for all. The five Earthshot categories are: Protect and restore nature. Clean our air. Revive our oceans. Build a waste-free…

  • National Grid gets approval for £7.8bn takeover of electricity distributor

    WPD is the UK’s largest electricity distribution business and is currently owned by US firm PPL Corporation. National Grid, which manages the UK’s power infrastructure, announced the acquisition in March as part of a shift towards electricity and greener energy. WPD currently distributes electricity to around 7.9 million Britons in the Midlands, South West and Wales, covering an area over 55,500 square kilometres and employing over 6,500 staff. It does not directly sell electricity to end users. While the firm is estimated to be worth around £14.4bn, it has around £6.6bn in debt that National Grid will also take on. The deal also includes the sale of Rhode Island utility the Narragansett Electric Company (NECO) to PPL for £2.7bn. According to National Grid, the purchase of WPD will…

    IET EngX
    IET EngX

  • Hands-on review: Xplora XMOVE Bluetooth activity tracker

    We previously reviewed Xplora's XGO2 activity-tracking smartwatch , which is designed specifically for children to wear and parents to control. Noticeably chonky, the XGO2 was clearly designed to withstand the inevitable rough and tumble of our mini-mes' lives. With the XMOVE, Xplora now offers a sleeker, more stylish option for both the adults and the style-conscious teenager in the family. Impressively, the XMOVE offers much of the basic appeal of a class-leading smartwatch, such as Apple's Watch, but comes in at under £50. What you don't get is a SIM-card slot; voice calls; GPS; ECG or other cutting-edge healthcare sensors; an app store ecosystem and the inevitable world of delightful accessories, such as fashion-first straps. What you do get is a Bluetooth (Low energy 4.0) activity…

  • Automated ‘cloud lab’ will handle all aspects of daily lab work

    According to the partners, the remote-controlled Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Cloud Lab will provide a universal platform for AI-driven experimentation, and “revolutionise how academic laboratory research and education are done”. Emerald’s 'cloud lab', which will be used as the basis for the new lab, allows scientists to conduct wet laboratory research without being in a physical laboratory. Instead, they can send their samples to a facility, design their experiments using ECL’s command-based software (with the assistance of AI-based design tools), and then execute the experiment remotely. A combination of robotic instrumentation and technicians perform the experiments as specified and the data is sent to cloud servers for access. CMU researchers have used ECL facilities for research…

  • Mozart conducts AI to keep the bytes flowing

    At 'Hot Chips' last week (the annual technological symposium held in Silicon Valley), researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and startup SimpleMachines described what they see as a necessary change to the way computing hardware is put together. Like many things in computing at the higher end, the apparent driver for this change is familiar: artificial intelligence. Saru Sankaralingam, computer-sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued in his talk on the Mozart architecture that AI models are getting bloated. If you look at things like language models, models are now outpacing Moore’s Law by a factor of ten. In that environment, it’s no surprise to find waferscale processors like those from Cerebras turning up at the same conference. There is one reason…

  • Hands-on review: Realme GT Master Edition smartphone

    Previous devices have typically featured good specs – especially for their price range – but have suffered in build quality, with chunky bodies and cheap, plasticky builds. The GT Master Edition feels like Realme’s first attempt at a smartphone that can compete with the big boys – albeit at a mid-range price point. It touts a 6.43-inch Samsung AMOLED panel display which is vibrant and responsive and features a 120Hz refresh mode. This last spec is something that often separates the mid-range from pricier devices, but its inclusion here is nice if not earth-shattering. While only noticeable when switching between 60Hz and 120Hz modes, it makes the device feel snappier, especially paired with Qualcomm’s capable 778G chip. Multi-tasking and app switching is also smooth…

  • Google, Facebook and Microsoft revealed as EU’s leading anti-regulation lobbyists

    Such committed efforts should be a wake-up call to EU policymakers to beef up the draft laws and lobbying rules, according to the study from two campaign groups, Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl. The tech sector now outspends even the pharma, fossil fuels, finance and chemicals sectors, which all used to dominate EU lobbying, the report said. "The rising lobby firepower of big tech and the digital industry as a whole mirrors the sectors' huge and growing role in society," the study said. "It is remarkable and should be a cause of concern that the platforms can use this firepower to ensure their voices are heard – over countervailing and critical voices – in the debate over how to construct new rules for digital platforms." The study found that 612 companies, groups and associations…

  • World finally rid of leaded petrol, UNEP announces

    At a press conference yesterday, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that the last country to use leaded petrol, Algeria, has now stopped using the fuel. “The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director. UNEP had been leading a two decade-long campaign to ban leaded fuel, which has been shown to cause numerous health problems in humans. Current estimates suggest that leaded fuel bans save more than 1.2 million lives annually around the world, while helping the global economy avoid $2.4tr in healthcare expenses and other costs. Scientists at General Motors first started adding lead to fuel in 1921 as a way to stop 'knocks' in their vehicles’ engines that…

  • Wireless ‘charging room’ powers devices safely at up to 50W

    According to Professor Alanson Sample, an author of the Nature Electronics study , the technology could not only untether phones and laptops but also power implanted medical devices and raise new possibilities for mobile robotics in domestic and industrial spaces. “This really ups the power of the ubiquitous computing world; you could put a computer in anything without ever having to worry about charging or plugging in,” said Sample. “There are a lot of clinical applications as well. Today’s heart implants, for example, require a wire that runs from the pump through the body to an external power supply. This could eliminate that, reducing the risk of infection and improving patients’ quality of life.” The researchers have demonstrated the technology in a purpose-built aluminium test room…

  • Ofgem launches £450m climate innovation fund

    Cutting emissions will require large-scale changes to almost every part of the UK economy, including the decarbonisation and improved efficiency of domestic and industrial heating. Heating accounts for 37 per cent of total UK carbon emissions. Heating is one of four initial challenge areas identified by Ofgem. The other areas targeted by the innovation fund are transport, data and digitalisation, and “whole system integration” (which covers the entire journey of electricity from plant to plug). Further challenges will be announced in due course. Projects could include new approaches to energy storage or rolling out heat pumps to UK homes, Ofgem said. It said that ideas must be “big, bold, and ambitious with potential to scale across the networks upon completion”. The fund will be made…

  • Instagram to force users to share their birthdays; calls to tighten UK porn laws

    The firm said the information would allow them to restrict accounts of older users from messaging those under the age of 18 and change the advertising experience to restrict targeting options for those users too. Instagram plans to give users a window of opportunity to share their birthday with the platform before they restrict access to it altogether. Warning screens will also be placed on adult content that prompts users to enter their birthday as a way to restrict inappropriate content from younger users. “We recognise some people may give us the wrong birthday, and we’re developing new systems to address this,” Instagram said in a blog post. “As we shared recently, we’re using artificial intelligence to estimate how old people are based on things like “Happy Birthday” posts. …

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    IET EngX

  • ‘Smart’ shirt keeps tabs on the heart

    The researchers, from the George R Brown School of Engineering lab at Rice University, sewed nanotube fibres into athletic wear to monitor the heart rate and take a continual electrocardiogram (ECG) of the wearer. According to the team, the fibres are just as conductive as metal wires and are washable, comfortable, and far less likely to break when a body is in motion. They added that the shirt they enhanced was better at gathering data than a standard chest-strap monitor taking live measurements during experiments. When matched with commercial medical electrode monitors, the carbon nanotube shirt gave slightly better ECGs. “The shirt has to be snug against the chest,” said Rice graduate student Lauren Taylor. “In future studies, we will focus on using denser patches of carbon nanotube…

  • Consumers will demand ethically sourced drinks cans, says aluminium expert

    Lord Barker, chairman of aluminium producer EN+ Group, also suggested this could lead to a surge in new jobs as the industry looks to onshore production with plants powered by renewable electricity. Lord Barker said: “As the energy transition rolls forward, the demand for low-carbon materials and particularly aluminium will soar. Roll forward 10 years, I can see heavy industry coming home after four decades of decline in UK manufacturing, as manufacturers strive to decarbonise and move their operations to jurisdictions where there is a plentiful supply of affordable, renewable electricity. “This has the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs here in the UK by the end of the decade and beyond. This would be a very welcome, yet unexpected, industrial dividend from the UK’s world leadership…

  • View from India: India aims to be a global drone hub by 2030

    Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Union Minister for Civil Aviation has announced that the government aims to make India a global drone hub by 2030. The industry is projected to generate income as well as job opportunities in verticals as diverse as transport, logistics, defence, mining and infrastructure, among others. Drones are expected to be a popular option because they contribute to a low carbon footprint, as they can integrate electric power into their systems. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) published the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules in March 2021, but stakeholders, academia and start-ups felt the proposed regulations were restrictive in nature. The general consensus was that they created considerable paperwork, required permission for every drone flight and very few ‘free to…

  • Africa’s tropical mountain forests found to store huge amounts of carbon

    Researchers at the University of Bayreuth said the forests have made a major contribution to preventing climate change and called for their immediate protection. They examined carbon storage in the above-ground biomass of mountain forests on 226 selected plots spread over 44 regions in 12 African countries. The results showed that Africa’s tropical mountain forests store an average of 149.4 tonnes of carbon per hectare, nearly double the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) previous estimates of just 89.3 tonnes of carbon per hectare. The average storage capacity of the above-ground biomass of tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean, as determined in earlier research, is considerably lower than that of tropical montane forests in Africa. “Especially…

  • Developing Fjorden: ‘The important lesson was to focus on the essential features’

    Everyone's a photographer now. Almost nothing happens in the modern world without at least half of those present whipping out their smartphones to preserve the moment for the ages, or at least to pep up their Instagram feed. Snapping away in the carefree spirit of a point-and-shoot camera is one thing, but with each new handset model released, the actual optics, lenses, sensors and image processing software of that smartphone camera in our palms and in our pockets becomes exponentially more powerful. The results possible now are so good, and of such high and professional quality, that iPhone photographs have appeared on the covers of such legendary, image-conscious newsstand magazines as Vogue, National Geographic and Time Magazine. What typically doesn't change is the physical hardware…

  • Lithium-ion battery parts crack under extreme cold

    Although lithium batteries can withstand the cold better than some others, extreme temperatures hamper their ability to store and release energy. These concerns can, for instance, affect the willingness of a consumer to buy an EV rather than a car with an internal combustion engine. When a lithium battery is being discharged, lithium ions travel from the graphite anode to the lithium cobalt oxide cathode via the movement of electrons through an external circuit. This process is reversed during charging. This electrochemical reaction slows down at low temperatures. While this issue is frequently mentioned and has received much attention from researchers and manufacturers, the significant irrevocable capacity loss in cold weather is not well understood. This cannot be resolved by measures…

  • Contactless payment limit to rise to £100 in the UK

    The decision to raise the limit was made by the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority following a public consultation and discussions with the retail and banking sectors. The last time the limit was raised was relatively recently – a more modest £30 to £45 in April 2020 . While already in consideration for some time, that rise was expedited due to the Covid-19 pandemic as a way to minimise the amount of necessary contact in retail stores. While the new £100 limit will be available from the October date, it will take some time to be introduced across all retailers, UK Finance said, given the number of terminals that will need to be updated to accept the new limit. Alternatives such as mobile payments platforms like Apple Pay or Google Pay do not have an upper limit when authenticated…

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