• Right to repair laws come into effect in bid to cut e-waste

    The new rules also include energy efficiency rules and provisions to tackle premature obsolescence – a practice manufacturers use to artificially shorten their products’ lifespan in order to encourage future sales. While the rules come into place from today, the firms affected will have a two-year grace period to make spare parts available to consumers. The rules are in part designed to tackle the 1.5 million tonnes of electrical waste generated in the UK every year by extending the lifespan of products by up to 10 years. A study from late last year found that Britons are the second largest producers of e-waste in Europe, generating around 55kg per household annually. The EU introduced its own right to repair rules in March that mandate that firms make their products repairable for at…

  • Laser comb upgraded to detect all primary greenhouse gases

    Previously, the NIST dual-comb technology was able to detect methane; this upgraded version can sense all primary airborne greenhouse gases – nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and water vapour – as well as the major air pollutants ozone and carbon monoxide. This new system is suitable for monitoring and understanding emissions of these gases, as well as assessing urban air quality. A frequency comb is an extremely precise 'ruler' equivalent which allows scientists to measure exact wavelengths of light; each 'tooth' of the comb identifies a different wavelength. These instruments identify the unique signatures of gases by detecting the amount of light absorbed at each wavelength of the broader spectrum as beams trace a path through the air. Other applications include detecting leaks from oil…

  • View from India: Hyper connectivity for better outcomes

    When we look at the manufacturing scenario, the emphasis has always been on mass production. Though the focus remains pretty much the same, robots and automation are add-ons to the manufacturing ecosystem. They have brought precision and speed to the product development cycle. The latest is Industry 4.0, which will digitally transform shop floors. Industry 4.0 will help in predictions through real-time data. Through Industry 4.0, machine-learning (ML) tools can be integrated into production and machines will become intelligent and take informed decisions. Manual processes will be replaced by automation. “The entire value chain of manufacturing becomes smart and automated through Industry 4.0. Right from conceptualisation-design-execution, every stage of the shop floor is a value add in…

  • Book review: ‘The Pay Off’ by Natasha de Terán and Gottfried Leibbrandt

    Put at its simplest, a payment is a bilateral transaction in which money moves between parties in exchange for goods or services. The ‘payment’ has been at the heart of how societies work since our tribal origins and has been essential to economies for more than seven millennia, which is roughly how long we’ve been using metal coins to represent fiscal value. The idea of physical money is so fundamental to the way humans interact that authors of ‘The Pay Off’ (Elliott & Thompson, £16.99, ISBN 9781783965847), Natasha de Terán and Gottfried Leibbrandt, argue that it is part of a triumvirate of key abstractions that enable societies to function (the other two being religion and writing). And while over time we’ve devised ever more sophisticated ways of moving money around, the most explosive…

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    IET EngX

  • Google’s crackdown on scam adverts draws tepid response from FCA

    However, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a lukewarm response to Google's announcement, saying that the proposal may not be enough to prevent tougher legislation being introduced to tackle the issue in the Online Safety Bill. Writing in a blog post, Ronan Harris, vice president of Google UK and Ireland, said that financial services advertisers will be required to demonstrate that they are authorised by the FCA or qualify for one of the limited exemptions described in the UK Financial Services verification page. He added that while the move would impact a range of advertisers in the sector, Google’s “utmost priority” is to keep users safe. A Which? investigation from last year found that certain Google searches were rife with scammers pretending to be well-known financial firms…

  • Orange to trial cloud-based 5G network to cut hardware costs

    The experimental trial, launching in Lannion, France, will act as a blue-print for what Orange believes will be the future of next-generation 'zero-touch' networks. It follows a tumultuous time for network operators in the West who have poured billions into setting up new 5G infrastructure, in most cases with equipment provided from Chinese firm Huawei, and then being forced to eventually remove the Huawei-built components over espionage concerns. Several telecom companies are now experimenting with a technology called Open Radio Access Network (RAN), which uses software to run network functions on the cloud, a feature requiring less physical equipment. It is thought it could radically cut hardware costs for the firms and Open RAN is also interoperable between them. Orange’s experimental…

  • A solution to the UK’s productivity woes is closer than we think

    Snap lockdowns, Covid-induced factory shutdowns, fluctuating freight costs and tremors across supply chains. There’s no doubt about it – manufacturers have had more than their fair share of grievances lately. What’s more, recent statistics from the UK Office for National Statistics show that UK manufacturers’ profitability has dropped to its lowest level for a decade – which could be seen as indicative of the impact of both Brexit and the pandemic on the sector. We certainly hope this will change. Technology has long been touted as one of the answers to the UK’s industrial productivity woes, and will be more important than ever as we look at strengthening our economy following the pandemic. Yet, in industrial settings, the UK lags behind in implementing advanced digital technologies in…

  • Hands-on review: Realme 8 smartphone

    The firm, a sub-brand of BBK Electronics, the massive Chinese conglomerate that also runs Oppo and OnePlus, has been a rising success story in the West since Huawei became a casualty of the US trade war. Since Huawei’s devices were effectively banned from including the Google Play Store, sales have slumped dramatically, while Realme became the fastest growing brand in 2020. While Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips used to dominate both low-end and high-end devices in the west, Realme has been using a Mediatek chip in many of its cheaper devices, especially since the squeeze on global chip supplies since the start of the pandemic. Image credit: Jack Loughran In the west, Mediatek chips have long been used exclusively in lower-end devices and featured lacklustre performance…

  • Transforming the ROI of Project Information Management

    When it comes to project information, email is the letter of today, and has become more critical since the start of the pandemic. Customer, client, project and supplier communication all lies within email, meaning the accessibility of emails is more important than ever before. Especially as employees need to be able to remain productive, stay connected to the business, and access the information they need, both in the office and remotely. Project information management doesn't need to be expensive and clunky. Arup has developed another way, which is simple and cost effective, and brings their project information and critical correspondence into one, central location. Register for this webinar to learn about: How to improve project productivity and save fee-earner time How to mitigate…

  • Google pushes back plans to block third-party cookies in Chrome until 2023

    Google’s ultimate intention is to ditch third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser in favour of its own “privacy sandbox”. Traditional third-party cookies allow advertisers to track individuals across the websites they visit in order to serve them personalised ads outside of Google’s ecosystem. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expressed concern that the move could distort the market and said it secured commitments from Google that its new privacy sandbox proposals will not favour its in-house advertising platform over rival firms. Nevertheless, Google has shifted the date for the introduction of the new sandbox from January 2022 to late 2023, assuming the CMA signs off on the proposals. “We need to move at a responsible pace, allowing sufficient time for public…

  • UK government backs 5G lab to spur development following Huawei’s exit

    The Sonic Labs facility will be run by Ofcom and tech innovation agency Digital Catapult, and has received £1m in government support to carry out real-world testing. The government hopes it will help to build a more secure supply chain which is less reliant on a small number of multinational suppliers and more accessible for new market entrants. While Huawei was once one of the primary providers of 5G infrastructure, its alleged close links to the Chinese government led the UK to ban its technology from the networks. In January 2020, it was given the option of playing a limited role in the UK’s 5G infrastructure, although this was later rolled back with networks told to remove all traces of the firm’s tech by 2027 at the latest . Sonic Labs will be based in London and Brighton and will…

  • Google ad tech under EU investigation over antitrust concerns

    This investigation will look at whether Google favoured its own online display advertising services over those of rivals. It will also scrutinise Google’s use of data for the purposes of advertising on websites and apps in order to determine whether it unfairly restricts rivals’ access to such data, reserving them for its own use. The investigation will additionally consider tracking of Android users via advertising identifiers and Google’s plans to remove third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser, which publishers – including news sites – rely on to generate income. The investigation will span a great range of Google services, including Android OS, YouTube, Chrome, Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Google Ad Manager (used to 'auction' ad space on websites and apps) and AdX (used to…

  • London Underground to get full 4G coverage by 2024

    Uninterrupted mobile coverage has already been introduced on the eastern half of the Jubilee line and will be expanded in phases to ticket halls, platforms and tunnels on the Tube network over the next three years. Customers will be able to check the latest travel information; keep on top of their emails and the latest news; catch up on social media; watch videos, and make calls throughout their journeys. London’s Tube tunnels will also be used to provide full fibre connectivity across the city, which can then be connected to buildings and street furniture such as lighting and bus stops. This will help to further increase mobile coverage through small mobile transmitters, particularly 5G. The contract was awarded to BAI Communications, who was awarded the concession after a tender process…

  • Alexa, a bheil Gàidhlig agad? Gaelic voice assistant in the works

    The AI-based software takes an input of spoken Gaelic and then prints it as text. It was developed by a team of linguists and AI specialists at the university. Next, the researchers hope to step up the game and produce a Gaelic version of voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, which use the spoken word for input and output. The researchers fed a neural network with millions of clips of spoken and written words in Gaelic, training it to recognise the relationship between spoken and written Gaelic. The project goes back to the 1990s, when Dr William Lamb was working on a PhD in grammatical variation in Gaelic and constructed the first linguistically annotated corpus of Scottish Gaelic. This involved annotating 80,000 words by hand. Returning to the University of Edinburgh…

  • Accurate, 3D-printed liver models allow surgeons to rehearse operations

    The Nottingham Trent University team scan data of cancer-hit patient organs so that clinicians can rehearse difficult operations on lifelike models. The aim is for them to become familiar with the hidden complexities of an operation – which are unique from patient to patient – prior to the real surgery. A prototype 3D-printed model liver – based on an anonymised cancer patient – features the tactile qualities of a real diseased organ, including imitation blood and different tissue hardnesses, such as the blood vessels, liver tissue and the tumour itself. The model – made from synthetic gels and fibres - even allows surgeons to use real surgical tools to practice endoscopies and laser ablation techniques, during which arteries are resealed by laser to prevent a patient bleeding out during…

  • Competition authority to ensure Google’s changes to Chrome ads will not harm rivals

    Google’s plan is to ditch third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser in favour of its own “privacy sandbox”. Traditional third-party cookies allow advertisers to track individuals across the websites they visit to serve them personalised ads outside of Google’s ecosystem. The new system will split users into cohorts, and rather than a person’s browser history being sent to a central location, their own computer will figure out what they like and assign them to a group with similar interests. Online ads will still be personalised under the system, but Google claims it will afford users greater privacy. With Chrome capturing around 65 per cent of the global browser market, the CMA has expressed concern that the sandbox will create a walled garden of sorts that will “cause advertising…

  • Early 6G research suggests a broader range of frequencies could be possible

    Commercial 5G networks launched in 2019 with promises of lower latency and higher data rates. To expand this functionality, it is thought that 6G networks will need to utilise the higher frequency Terahertz bands.  However, at higher frequencies these waves become harder to manage, making it easy to lose connection. New algorithms must also be developed that will allow processing to happen at the new bandwidth and completely new hardware will need to be designed that can function in this new zone. A team from the University of Southern California (USC) has been conducting tests on proposed 6G frequencies to start the work of addressing these challenges. They are attempting to learn enough about the nature of each frequency and then engineer novel devices that will work within them. Andy…

  • Fast-fashion plastics tax urged for UK brands ‘fuelling runaway climate change’

    Most of the cheap clothes are made with fabrics consisting of synthetic fibres such as nylon, acrylic and elastane. These artificial polymers are typically derived from petroleum and thus are closely associated with fossil fuels and damage to the environment through emissions and waste, including the release of microplastics into the environment, according to the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). "These fabrics form part of a petrochemical economy which is fuelling runaway climate change and pollution," said Josie Warden, head of regenerative design at the RSA and co-author of the report 'Fast Fashion's Plastic Problem', when speaking to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Britain's throwaway culture means most fast fashion will end up in landfill where it could take thousands…

  • Relativity Space attracts $650m for 3D-printed, reusable rocket

    Dubbed Terran R, the two-stage rocket is 66 metres tall with a 5-metre diameter and is capable of launching 20,000kg to low Earth orbit (LEO). The 3D-printing process utilises software-driven manufacturing, exotic materials and design geometries that Relativity Space says are not possible in traditional manufacturing. “From our founding days in Y Combinator just five years ago, we planned on 3D-printing Terran 1 and then Terran R – a 20 times larger fully reusable rocket – on our Factory of the Future platform,” said Tim Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Relativity. “Together with our first rocket Terran 1, our second product, Terran R, will continue to take advantage of Relativity’s disruptive approach to 3D printing – reduced part count, improved speed of innovation, flexibility, and reliability…

  • Book review: ‘Hype’ by Gabrielle Bluestone

    In a world where marketing is now prominent on social media and the internet, Vice reporter Gabrielle Bluestone explores some of the biggest online scams in recent history. From music festivals that didn’t really happen to app ideas that made their developers rich before they even developed anything, ‘ Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, Con Artists, and Influencers Are Taking Over the Internet – and Why We’re Following ’ (HarperCollins, £16.99, ISBN: 9780008382643) delves through statistics, marketing data, and interviews to find out the real reason we fall for so much online. Promotional fantasies are everywhere across the internet. One recent example was the famous Fyre Festival scandal of 2017. Indeed, Instagram “influencers” hyped the would-be music festival, which would have taken place in…

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    IET EngX

  • Electric-van startups in race to deliver ‘golden ticket’ investment

    With each carrier having tens of thousands of vehicles in its global fleet, an order from a package delivery giant can launch a startup on the road to manufacturing scale and profitability and serve as a marketing tool to win orders from other big customers. "Everyone is looking for their golden ticket," said Steven Merkt, president of transportation solutions at sensor, connector and electronic component maker TE Connectivity Ltd, which works with all the startups and provides technical feedback on designs. "If you don't have scale, you're going to get squeezed out pretty quick." Hunting for the 'next Tesla', investors have poured billions of dollars into electric vehicle startups, with mixed results. Unlike Tesla, which enjoyed a headstart of years over traditional carmakers, commercial…

  • Amazon’s new African HQ engulfed by heritage dispute

    For the Khoi and San people – South Africa's first inhabitants – a verdant patch of land in Cape Town embodies victory and tragedy. The two communities drove back cattle-raiding Portuguese soldiers there in 1510. A century and a half later, it was where Dutch settlers launched a campaign of land dispossession. Today, the same piece of land is again the scene of conflict, this time over a development where construction is due to begin this month and which will eventually be home to a new 70,000-square-metre African headquarters for US retail giant Amazon. "This is where land was first stolen," said Tauriq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoena Council, a Khoi traditional group opposed to the project. "We want a World Heritage Site. We do not want 150,000 tonnes of concrete." The 15-hectare…

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    IET EngX

  • 5G communications maximised with energy-efficient relay network

    The researchers say the design is both economical and energy-efficient and such an advance in 5G communications could create tremendous opportunities for a wide range of sectors. The ever-increasing demand for wireless data bandwidth shows no sign of slowing down in the near future. Millimetre wave, a short-wavelength spectrum, has shown great potential in 5G communications and beyond. To leverage high-capacity millimetre-wave frequencies, phased-array antennas (antenna elements that work together to boost signal strength in a specific direction) are being adapted. However, the current use case is confined to line-of-sight propagation. As a result, relay nodes are considered for non-line-of-sight communications (see illustration below). While relaying can provide improved bandwidth, coverage…

  • 6G – a generation too far?

    Now that 5G has arrived with an advertising onslaught from operators like EE, what else could there be for the telecom industry to work on but 6G? Due out around the end of this decade, 6G would keep wireless communications on much the same time scale set since 3G first appeared. But questions are now being asked as to whether these generational shifts are working out the way the industry intended. One of the early aims for 5G was to bring cellular wireless to a bunch of industrial applications that could not use its predecessors. Although 4G made some attempts to cut the round-trip latency for delivering packets over the air, 5G was designed to cut that to a millisecond or so. In principle, this makes it possible to coordinate robots without having to cable them up, assuming you do not try…

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