• Apple apologises over iOS 8 glitch as it releases patch

    The issue was caused by an earlier update to its iOS 8 mobile operating system released on Wednesday and the tech giant had scrambled to fix the glitch, releasing an update late yesterday that it claimed would resolve the issue. Apple has also had to defend its iPhone 6 Plus against social media reports that its extra-large shell is vulnerable to bending, saying bending "is extremely rare" with normal use of an iPhone and that just nine customers had contacted the company to report a bent iPhone 6 Plus since they went on sale despite a record 10 million sales of the new models in the first weekend. But the firm was contrite about the iOS issue, having previously vowed to work "around the clock" to fix it, saying: "We apologise for inconveniencing the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who were…

  • Intel buys $1.5bn stake in two Chinese mobile chipmakers

    The US semiconductor firm has struggled to gain a foothold in the smartphone and tablet market, lagging behind industry leader and rival Qualcomm, but the deal would give it a bigger slice of the Chinese mobile chip market, where growth is still strong compared to maturing Western markets. Intel has struck the deal with Tsinghua Unigroup, a government-affiliated private equity firm that owns mobile chipmakers Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics, and the deal will also provide the two Chinese firms support from a US semiconductor giant on chip design and development. "It has become a national priority of China to grow its semiconductor industry," said Tsinghua Unigroup chairman Zhao Weiguo in a statement released by Intel today. "The strategic collaboration between Tsinghua Unigroup…

  • Samsung steals a march on Apple with launch of latest Galaxy

    The Galaxy Alpha will go on sale at the beginning of September the Korean phone manufacturer said, as it reignites its battle at the top of the smartphone market with Apple, which is expected to release the iPhone 6 in early September, with rumours suggesting it could come in two sizes for the first time. Leaked images of the phone appeared online earlier this month, with some comments on social media suggesting it looked similar to an iPhone due to a new metal frame that is flatter. The new device will have a 4.7in screen, which is slightly smaller than the screen on the Galaxy S5, released in April. The Alpha is also more than a millimetre thinner than the S5, making it one of the slimmest devices the company has ever made. Despite the leaner design, which makes the phone 30g lighter than…

  • Poor connectivity at football matches solved

    With thousands of fans crammed into a stadium local mobile network capacity is quickly exceeded during football matches leading to poor connectivity, but TribeHive has developed technology that can build a network directly between phones and use it as the basis for distributing data. The technology is being used in six new smartphone apps being introduced by clubs in the Football League, including one Barclays Premier League team QPR and five Sky Bet Championship teams – Birmingham, Bolton, Brighton and Hove, Middlesbrough and Watford – for the first two months of the 2014/2015 season. The iOS and Android apps are available for fans to download ahead of the first matches of the season and will deliver match-related content, player statistics, live results from other fixtures, travel information…

  • BlackBerry to open BBM up to Windows phones

    The Canadian firm is seeking to reinvent itself as a more software and services driven company as its smartphone market share has dwindled in recent years has been lately touting new BBM features in a bid to make it a more viable messaging tool for enterprise clients. While BBM was one of the pioneering mobile-messaging services and still has over 85 million active users, its user base has failed to keep pace with those of WhatsApp and other rivals, in part because BlackBerry had long refused to open the program to users on other platforms. Last year the company opened the service to phones powered by Google popular Android operating system and Apple's iOS platform and the rollout to the Windows phone platform means the service is now available on all major smartphone platforms. In a bid to…

  • Report calls for chief engineers for hospitals' tech

    The report’s authors argue that every trust should appoint a chief biomedical engineer to co-ordinate and plan how trusts use technology. “It’s vital that engineers are involved in the procurement, use and maintenance of biomedical equipment,” said Helen Meese, head of engineering in society at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). “In order to reap the full benefits that technology can offer, the people who design, make and maintain these pieces of equipment need to be heard.” Speaking at the report's launch, Meese referenced a recent report by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) report that claims more than 300 deaths in 2013 could be attributed to faulty equipment. Other situations have involved simple miscalibration of weighing scales, leading to the…

  • Wildlife monitoring: should UAV drones be banned?

    Just when you thought it was safe to stop talking about UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) as something that conservationists and authorities might one day use to stop poachers killing animals and start talking about drones as something actually being used to catch poachers, African governments have started banning them.On 3 June this year reports emerged that the South African Civil Aviation Authority had banned individuals and groups from flying drones with mounted cameras in South African airspace. The SACAA quickly denied this. They said that drones needed to meet certain requirements to fly in South African airspace, it was just that no drones currently met those requirements. The next day, the Kenyan government also banned privately owned drones with cameras. A few weeks earlier, drones…

  • Tracking wildlife: how scientists monitor endangered species

    Scientists track a wide variety of animals, from butterflies to great white sharks, in order to study how they use their environment, which foods are important and to gain insights into behaviour and condition of the creatures as well as to identify key breeding areas that may need protection.  Miniaturisation of electronics and improvement in battery technology is making it possible to follow even the smallest birds and insects on their migrations. Satellite technology allows us to track the position of animals anywhere on the planet, while crittercams and accelerometers give us a ringside view of their behaviour. “Is it diving, running or sleeping? We can follow animals into great wildernesses without having to be there,” says John Fryxell, an arctic ecologist at the University of Guelph…

  • Samsung headed for worst results in two years

    The South Korean company said today that it saw better business conditions in the third quarter, but it faces slowing market growth, intensifying price competition at the lower end and the looming threat of Apple’s next iPhone. While smartphones drove Samsung to record profits last year the market is maturing, with research firm IDC predicting global shipments growth will slow to 19.3 per cent this year from 39.2 per cent in 2013, while average sales prices will also drop. Despite the potential damage to its margins, some analysts said Samsung may have no choice but to slash prices for mid-to-low tier devices, where growth is stronger, to go after cheaper Chinese rivals such as Huawei Technologies and Lenovo Group in an effort to defend its market share. "The earnings deliver a harsh reality…

  • First city-wide Internet of Things network announced

    The project will be based on the Weightless communications standard and will be used to demonstrate the ability of a city-wide M2M infrastructure to cope with a large number of static and mobile sensors. The technology is being supplied and managed by BT and Neul who, working with Milton Keynes Council, will install a network of Weightless base stations to provide coverage across the city for low power, connected sensors to allow innovators to use the infrastructure as a test bed for commercial applications, new products and new services. “We see this exciting project as a means of establishing an open innovation environment to support the creation of M2M and IoT applications across a whole city,” said Alan Ward, head of corporate ICT practice at BT.   “This could include anything from intelligent…

  • News analysis: Electronics drones and satcoms search for MH370

    As you read this, the expected 30-day battery-life of the Malaysia Airlines MH370 black box pinger will have expired, making it more difficult to locate the device in the massive southern Indian Ocean where the Boeing 777-200 is believed to have ended. MH370 set off from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March, bound for Beijing carrying 239 people. The transponder, which provides ID and location data, stopped operating 40 minutes later, and the last voice contact was made as the plane left Malaysian airspace. The flight never reached Beijing, but what happened and why are matters that have been occupying investigators ever since. Even if the black box is found, technical information from the flight data recorder (FDR) would not provide all the answers if technical problems were not the cause. "Aviation experts…

  • Power-saving breakthrough in mobile mast design

    A signal amplifier designed by engineers at the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff works at 50 per cent efficiency compared with the 30 per cent now typically achieved, and the researchers have calculated the design could save roughly half the output of a mid-size 400MW power station if rolled out to just a fifth of the country’s 50,000 phone mast base stations. Currently, a 40W transmitter in a phone mast’s base station requires just over 130W of power to amplify signals and send them wirelessly to people’s mobiles, but the new design enables the transmitter to work effectively while using just 80W of power. Dr Kevin Morris, project leader at the University of Bristol, said: “This new amplifier design represents a step change in energy efficiency that could make a really valuable contribution…

  • Radar arrays precisely monitor ice shelf deterioration

    The radars have been placed on the ice shelf surrounding Pine Island by University College London (UCL) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists to record changes of the Antarctic ice in unprecedented detail. The ice shelves around Antarctica can be up to 1.2 miles thick, but preliminary trials show the new radar system can detect changes of as little as a millimetre – about the amount the Pine Island Glacier melts in just 30 minutes. “Although we’ve previously taken snapshots of the ice with radar, this is the first time year-round monitoring has been possible,” said Dr Keith Nicholls of the British Antarctic Survey. “Where changing ocean currents interact with the underside of the ice shelf, the rate of melting can change season by season, month by month, even over days or hours. The…

  • New radar technology to free-up radio spectrum

    The government has tasked the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) with investigating options that would allow it to release bandwidth in the current air traffic radar spectrum allocation – in the ‘S Band’ between 2.7 and 2.9 GHz – to help meet its aspiration to free up 500 MHz of public spectrum by 2020. In response, Cambridge technology firm Aveillant has been awarded a contract by the CAA to demonstrate the ability of its Holographic Radar technology to provide a spectrum-efficient alternative to S-band radar. At present each radar typically has its own frequency assignment, but Aveillant hopes to demonstrate a surveillance system that can enable all air traffic control radars in the UK to operate through a single frequency assignment, separate from the ‘S Band’. The firm’s radars use the L band…

  • New jamming devices block both GPS and Galileo

    Professor Brad Parkinson, the chief architect of GPS, will today tell a conference at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory in Teddington that the satellite based navigation now ubiquitous in industries as varied as aviation and maritime navigation, banking, and mobile phone operations needs to be made more resilient. His call follows news from the SENTINEL project, funded by The Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, of the first recorded seizures of second generation signal jammers from crime scenes in the UK that are considerably more powerful than any previously recorded, with ranges extending several miles. The devices are capable of disrupting not only the GPS service, but also various other positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) signal…

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    IET EngX

  • Tiny wireless heart monitor implanted in Briton

    David Baldock, 68, had the injectable Medtronic Reveal LINQ device inserted into his chest at the Eastbourne District General Hospital. It is injected close to the heart in a procedure lasting between two and five minutes using local anaesthetic, meaning the patient does not have to undergo a full operation. The device is primarily used to help pinpoint why a patient was suffering blackouts or an irregular heartbeat. Using WiFi technology, the mini-monitor tells cardiologists what their patient's heart is doing, leading to faster and more accurate diagnoses, experts said. Retired locksmith Baldock, from Uckfield, said: "All I felt was quite a bit of pressure as they inserted the device in my chest, and that was it. It was very straightforward. "It's a heart monitor so it just records the heartbeat…

  • Fund for broadband delivery pilots in remote areas

    The money will help pay for a range of pilot projects to be tested across the country, with potential technologies including using 4G mobile signal to deliver 'fixed wireless superfast broadband', using fibre direct to premises, and satellite technology. A government programme is under way to bring superfast speeds to 95 per cent of the UK by 2017, and is now focused on reaching the final 5 per cent of the most isolated communities. Culture secretary Maria Miller said: "Our nationwide roll-out of superfast broadband will benefit everyone from school children to business owners, parents to patients. An estimated 10,000 homes and businesses are gaining access to superfast speeds every week but now we need to focus on the hardest to reach communities. "If we want to ensure that all communities…

  • Twitter creator unveils people-based search service

    The Jelly smartphone app, backed by Biz Stone who was part of the team that created Twitter in 2006, lets users submit questions to the network of friends that they have on social services such as Twitter or Facebook. Users can send a text query or circle something in a photo they've taken to ask for help identifying the object or for more information about it. "Everyone is mobile, everyone is connected. So if you have a question, there's somebody out there that knows the answer," said Stone, CEO and co-founder of Jelly in a video on the company's website. Stone left Twitter in June 2011. Among the backers of the new company are Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, venture capital investor Reid Hoffman, as well as U2 frontman Bono and former Vice President of the United States…

  • Judge rules NSA data collection is likely unlawful

    The judgement on the so-called metadata counter terrorism programme was made yesterday by District Judge Richard Leon, appointed by Republican President George W Bush in 2002, raising "serious doubts" about the value of the scheme. "I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen," he wrote in a 68-page ruling. The Department of Justice said it was reviewing the ruling in a case brought by Larry Klayman, a conservative lawyer, and Charles Strange, described in court documents as the father of a cryptologist technician for the NSA who was killed in Afghanistan in 2011. The judge ordered the government to stop collecting data about the two plaintiffs, who were Verizon…

  • Network operators must adapt for M2M market

    Well-publicised predictions of 50 billion plus connected devices by 2020 are wide of the mark, according to Tom Rebbeck, research director at consultancy Analysys Mason, and if anything have harmed the sector by raising and then dashing investors’ hopes. But with Analysys Mason’s latest forecast showing that the number of M2M connections worldwide will grow by 29 per cent a year through to 2023, there are plenty of opportunities for cellular network operators to cash in on the rise of Internet of Things if they are prepared to diversify. “Connectivity is only a small part of the M2M market,” said Rebbeck, speaking at an even organised by Cambridge Wireless in London yesterday. “If operators are only going to get into connectivity they are only going to get a tiny sliver of the market.” Low…

  • Stories of Red Kites told by computers

    Data from the tagged birds is allowing sophisticated computer language programmes to write the story of their lives through daily and weekly blogs of how and why they explore the landscape around them. The Blogging Birds project , launched today, is part of a collaboration between computer and environmental scientists at the University of Aberdeen and conservationists at the RSPB. Several kites have been fitted with satellite tags that relay the kites’ position up to six times a day and this information is then enriched with information on weather, habitat and landscape to build a picture of the birds’ movements and home ranges. Pioneering programming called “Natural Language Generation” then allows computers to generate written language from this information, in the form of a blog post about…

  • Battery-free wireless brings Internet-of-things closer

    The new communication technique, which the researchers call “ambient backscatter,” takes advantage of the background TV and cellular transmissions that surrounding us everyday. University of Washington (UW) engineers built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect and harness a signal, as both a power source and a communication medium, before reflecting it to be picked up by other similar devices to exchange information. The technology could enable a network of devices and sensors to communicate with no power source or human attention needed. “We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium,” said lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering. “It’s hopefully going…

  • 'Shirt-button' devices track migrating house martins

    Birds that nest in the UK in the summer will be tracked to discover where they migrate to in the winter months, which is currently a mystery. The project follows a successful programme monitoring cuckoos fitted with the miniature geolocation tracking devices, manufactured by Biotrack, which has already established that cuckoos from the UK tend to migrate to Congo – and for longer periods than originally thought. In the past year, there have been several reports of long-established house martin colonies being abandoned, possibly due to the cool wet 2012 summer, so the Trust also wants to know where house martins are building their nests this year. “There are huge gaps in our knowledge of this wonderful little bird,” explained BTO spokesman Paul Stancliffe. “Do they abandon colonies one year…

    IET EngX
    IET EngX

  • eLoran stations to be rolled out across UK

    Following approval by the Department for Transport, seven differential eLoran stations will be installed to provide alternative position, navigation and timing (PNT) information to ensure that ships equipped with eLoran receivers can navigate safely in the event of GPS failure in one of the busiest shipping regions in the world. The GPS signals most ships rely on are vulnerable to both deliberate and accidental jamming, which is causing increasing concern because of the wide availability of GPS jammers online for as little as £30 that are capable of causing complete outages across all receivers currently on the market. The rollout, led by the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLAs) of the UK and Ireland, is the first in the world to deploy this technology for shipping companies operating both…

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