• Book review: ‘Land of Wondrous Cold’ by Gillen D’Arcy Wood

    If ever there was a geographical region that unites humanity’s twin obsessions with terrestrial exploration and the advancement of science, it is the continent of Antarctica. And if ever there was a book on precisely that relationship it is ‘Land of Wondrous Cold’ (Princeton University Press, £22, ISBN 9780691172200), in which Gillen D’Arcy Wood  describes the unfolding drama of the White Continent’s role in plate tectonics, climate change and species evolution, stretching back into deep-time history. Of course, we came to know of these phenomena largely due to the early exertions of human exploration, most notably in the 19th century, when the likes of James Ross, Dumont D’Urville and Charles Wilkes were simultaneously pushing back the frontiers of both geographical exploration and scientific…

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    IET EngX

  • Amazon analysis: Can the winner take it all?

    It came as a shock to Emily Cunningham and her colleague Maren Costa when they were fired on Good Friday. The two former Amazon user-experience designers had warned of the health risks for warehouse workers during the Covid-19 crisis and, in a petition to the CEO in late March, had demanded improved safety protocols, enhanced benefits and facility shut-downs during the pandemic. Their efforts were celebrated on social media but Costa wrote that they’d just been “fighting for our colleagues’ safety in the time of Covid”. The case is atypical because protest usually comes from lower-paid warehouse workers. Cunningham and Costa inspired Timothy Bray , senior principal engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS), to “quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistle-blowers who were making noise about warehouse…

  • Volunteers create more than 20,000 face shields for NHS staff

    As part of an initiative started by engineering enthusiasts, the Shield Force project in Edinburgh has been designing and making personal protective equipment (PPE) to donate to hospitals during the coronavirus crisis. What started with a handful of product design professionals using their 3D printers to help fight Covid-19 has now led to a pop-up factory with more than 200 people lending a helping hand. Based at Summerhall, the project has raised more than £33,000 to help produce the kit, with help from University of Edinburgh students, academics and other volunteers. “We thought about what we could realistically do – ventilators were too complex to produce,” said Costa Talalaev, director of prototyping company Maker-Bee. Because of this, the volunteers decided to make face shields and…

  • 3D-printed concrete piles could anchor floating wind turbines to seabed

    Winds off the coasts of the US could be used to generate more than double the combined electricity capacity of all the nation's electric power plants, according to estimates. However, building wind turbines offshore is expensive, requiring parts to be shipped at least 30 miles away from a coast. Engineers at Purdue University have been conducting research on a way to make wind turbine parts out of 3D-printed concrete – a less expensive material that would also allow parts to float to a site from an onshore plant. "One of the current materials used to manufacture anchors for floating wind turbines is steel," said Pablo Zavattieri, a professor in Purdue's Lyles School of Civil Engineering. "However, finished steel structures are much more expensive than concrete." Conventional concrete…

  • Facebook stops advertisers targeting ‘pseudoscience’ enthusiasts

    Other categories such as 'conspiracy theory' have also been removed while Facebook evaluates the list in light of recent claims relating to coronavirus on the platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media network would clamp down on coronavirus misinformation posts at the beginning of March although it has continued to allow advertisers to target people using various dubious terms in the six weeks since the pledge. According to The Markup, Facebook’s ad platform showed that 78 million Facebook users were interested in pseudoscience although it was not clear how many advertisers had actually paid for content using the keyword. While Facebook does offer a publicly accessible library of ads run on its platform, it does not display which groups are targeted by each ad. Recent theories…

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  • London Fashion Week sashays over to digital platform

    Fashion shows due to take place in Paris and Milan have been cancelled or postponed – along with every other major event for the next few months – due to the coronavirus pandemic. These cancellations and postponements are a further blow for the beleaguered fashion sector, which has been hit hard by Covid-19 with retail locations and non-essential manufacturing all put on hold across the globe. British high-street fashion retailers have been particularly badly affected, with Debenhams, Oasis and Warehouse all forced into administration. The fashion world has been waiting for a decision on London Fashion Week, which traditionally takes place twice a year: the menswear event in June and the womenswear event in September. Today, the British Fashion Council announced that the two events would…

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    IET EngX

  • Driverless taxis repurposed for online deliveries to cope with lockdown surge

    The cars are loaded up with goods from e-commerce platform Yamibuy and hand-delivered to customers by the safety driver, as current rules prevent driverless vehicles from being allowed on the roads without a human operator on board. Around 90 per cent of shoppers in the US are staying at home due to the pandemic, leading to surging demand for home deliveries. Pony.ai, which has backing from Japanese automaker Toyota, was valued at over $3bn in February, having first deployed its robo-taxi fleet in November 2019. Prior to the lockdown the fleet was taking around 150 rides per day in Irvine, which has a population of approximately 200,000 people. James Peng, cofounder of Pony.ai, said in an interview that the pandemic could help to accelerate driverless technologies. “As autonomous…

  • Fast fashion has ‘detrimental’ environment cost, scientists warn

    The fashion industry is one of the world’s largest industrial polluters, and yet it continues to grow, in part due to the rise of fast fashion. British people buy more clothes per person than any other European nation, with only a limited amount of used clothing being reused or recycled; less than one per cent of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing. The environmental impact of the fashion industry – particularly the fast fashion industry, which is based on a rapid cycle of cheap, mass-manufactured, disposable garments often made from artificial fibres – has been brought to mainstream attention in recent years. However, the fast fashion industry continues to grow and accelerate, largely driven by the popularity of budget online fashion retailers such as Asos, Boohoo…

  • Avid gamers to receive Covid-19 ‘stay at home’ alerts while playing

    The “Stay Home, Save Lives” message will be woven into Candy Crush Saga, DiRT Rally and Farm Heroes Saga to remind players of the importance of staying in. It is part of a joint effort by the Government and some of the UK’s leading games companies to try and halt the spread of Covid-19. The Government sees this strategy as a “creative, targeted, and immediate” tool to try and reinforce its stay at home message to a generation of young people who are likely to spend more time playing video games than the rest of the population. According to the Culture Department, approximately 37 million people in the UK play games. Meanwhile, there are around 2,277 active video game companies in the UK. How coronavirus ‘stay home’ message will appear in Codemasters’ DiRT Rally 2…

  • Petrol stations in rural places struggling to remain open

    The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) has warned that many petrol stations will have to close in the coming weeks, as sales of fuel dry up and their businesses become unviable. A recent Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) survey which covered nearly 60 per cent of all PFS across the UK - including supermarkets, oil company and independent sites - showed much lower levels of fuel demand. Petrol consumption was down by 75 per cent and diesel by 71 per cent, indicating that the Government’s “stay at home” instructions to combat the coronavirus pandemic are being heeded. The BEIS survey also confirmed that over 60 per cent of PFS had full storage tanks of both grades on site. This fuel would have been purchased by independent stations days or weeks earlier at much…

  • London Underground’s Jubilee Line to get 4G

    Mobile operators have been collaborating with Transport for London (TfL) on the project for some time. The pilot project will see the Eastern section of the Jubilee receiving a 4G makeover. Mobile coverage will be initially available on platforms and in tunnels between Canning Town and Westminster (which includes Canary Wharf) before being expanded to the rest of the Jubilee line by the end of the year. Passengers will be able to make phone calls, check for the latest travel information, and browse the internet uninterrupted during their journeys on this section of the Jubilee line. Ticket halls and corridors within stations are also covered by the pilot, except London Bridge and Waterloo stations where the signal will only be available on the Jubilee line platforms. London Underground…

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  • UK mobile operators sign £1bn deal to share 4G infrastructure

    Through the Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, EE, O2, Three and Vodafone will work together to deliver “strong 4G” across areas of the UK that lack sufficient infrastructure. The operators will work together by sharing existing infrastructure and expanding in areas with poor coverage. According to Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2018 report, 65 per cent of the UK landmass has 4G data coverage from all four operators, but 9.3 per cent of the UK had no 4G data coverage from any operator. The new agreement should make it easier to ramp up coverage to 90 per cent, while the burden of expanding the network to the remaining 9.3 per cent could be shared between operators. The deal means that network-combined coverage will reach 95 per cent of the UK by the end of 2025. The SRN will provide guaranteed…

  • Vodafone to use satellites to boost 4G coverage; O2 sets 2025 net zero goal

    Branded SpaceMobile, the low-Earth-orbit (LEO), low-latency satellite network is being developed by the Texas-based AST & Science and will be the first in the world to connect directly to standard smartphones. The firm said users can expect comparable data rates to networks running on terrestrial towers and they will seamlessly transfer between the two. In addition to its investment in AST & Science, Vodafone has agreed to contribute technical, operational and regulatory expertise in support of the global deployment of SpaceMobile. The technology could be particularly useful in rural areas, where setting up networks of broadcasting towers to provide coverage for just a small number of people can prove costly. For 5G, and to a lesser extent 4G, the radius of coverage from each tower is…

  • View from India: 3D bio printing set to revolutionise healthcare

    Bangalore-based Next Big Innovation Labs (NBIL) began in 2016 with the aim of impacting one billion people. Alok Medikepura Anil, co-founder and director, felt the vision could be fulfilled through 3D bio printing. “As a tool, 3D bio printing helps lower the time-to-market medicines and drugs in the market. It will make a difference to the lives of people. Otherwise, drugs are developed over 10 years. Consequently, life science and R&D companies spend over $2bn for their development,” Anil said. Efficiency will be seen in the early stages of drug development through 3D bio printing. 3D printing gives industries the ability to manufacture things at small scale and even with high levels of customisation. “In the pharma industry, 7,000 new drugs and 2,500 novel therapies are being developed…

  • Handheld 3D skin printer can heal burn victims in situ

    The Star Trek-like machine is in the early stages of development, but the team hope it will one day provide a way to treat patients whose burn injuries are too extensive to permit skin grafts. Researcher professor Axel Günther said: “Skin grafts, where the damaged tissue is removed and replaced with skin taken from another area of the patient’s body, are a standard treatment for serious burns. However, in cases where a patient has extensive full thickness burns - which destroy both the upper and lower layers of the skin - there is not always sufficient healthy skin left to use.” “While there are alternatives - including scaffolds using bovine collagen or engineered skin substitutes grown in vitro - none are ideal,” he continued. “Collagen scaffolds rely on tissues and cells surrounding…

  • Wallpaper-like surface could boost radio signals tenfold

    A radio’s signal strength is strongly related to its size; this means that increasingly miniaturised devices with limited space for antennas struggle to maintain reliable communication with other devices. This could prove a roadblock in the maturation of the IoT, as smaller devices suffer from poor signal. A team of researchers from CSAIL has  presented a system for improving radio signal [PDF] , which does not use signal amplification or emit any power of its own. Rather than using monolithic antennas, the system contains more than 3,000 tiny wireless antennas attached to a surface. These antennae - which can allow a signal to pass through or be reflected - are rearranged to maximise reception via an optimisation algorithm which relies on signal strength measurements from a receiver. …

  • View from Brussels: Here’s what the EU could have won

    The big concern in the corridors of power in Brussels is that Brexit essentially creates a dangerous competitor right on the EU’s doorstep, right at a time when the bloc is trying to compete against the likes of China, India and the United States. Over the next eleven months, their negotiators will likely try to convince the UK to sign up to the most important EU rules in exchange for a lucrative trade agreement that offers complete or near-complete access to the single market. In Brussels’ ideal scenario, the British government will take a deal of that nature and make its peace with being a ‘rule-taker’, thus nulling the threat of UK businesses undercutting their continental European rivals. During a teary press conference by the three presidents of the EU institutions on Friday, head…

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    IET EngX

  • All-electric Hummer pickup truck teased by GM

    Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that GM had purchased some ultra-expensive Super Bowl commercial airtime to promote its electrified Hummer in an advert featuring celebrity athlete LeBron James. The newspaper reported that the new Hummer line would be included within its GMC brand, rather than resurrect the Hummer brand, which was discontinued in 2010. GM has released a handful of short videos promoting the return of the military-style vehicle ahead of the Super Bowl advert, named “Quiet revolution”. The videos feature an electric pickup truck under the Hummer name (GMC Hummer EV) boasting 1,000 horsepower, 11,500 pound-feet (15,600NM) of torque, and capable of reaching 60mph (97km/h) in three seconds while producing minimal noise and zero emissions. The videos…

  • 6G and the reinvention of mobile

    US President Donald Trump’s “I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the US as soon as possible” tweet last February was bound to attract comment. It’s not very often that US Presidents make public calls for mobile communications to evolve faster. Trump’s tub-thump continued: “6G is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard.” The use of the word ‘is’ drew the most ire from the technologically-informed Twitterati, because 6G, as a tangible technology, is not. Commenters questioned whether the President knew what he meant by ‘6G’, when the mobile communications industry has yet to roll out the latest 5G networks and services. Also, very few of its experts had mooted the possibility of a next generation beyond 5G’s anticipated 10-15-year lifespan. This would suggest that…

  • Huawei woos app developers with cash and smart ads

    Since Huawei was placed on the US Entity List in May 2019, its future with Google’s Android ecosystem has been on shaky ground . The launch of its latest flagship Mate 30 range was severely impacted by the blacklisting, with many global consumers unwilling to invest in a high-end smartphone without familiar Google Mobile Services such as the Play Store, Google Maps and YouTube, despite its well-received hardware. While Huawei may continue to use the basic, open-source version of the Android OS, it has ramped up work on HarmonyOS, its own mobile OS , and is actively looking to attract developers from around the world to create apps for the Huawei App Gallery. The Huawei Developer Program has announced £20m in investment to support UK and Irish developers, with a £20,000 financial incentive…

  • ‘Star Wars’ bionic arm delights young amputee

    Kye Vincent, from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, began crowdfunding for the Star Wars-themed 'hero arm' after losing four limbs to meningitis when he was eight years old. The infection took less than 24 hours to spread through his body, which resulted in doctors amputating both of his lower legs, his right hand and part of his left hand. Image credit: Open Bionics “They didn’t have much of a chance of saving his limbs. Kye said he wanted to be a bionic boy, so we started fundraising,” said Kye’s mother Cheryl Vincent, who said that seeing her son with a hand again was very emotional. “I was full of pride, I could burst. I was so happy for him. From a very young age, he’s always loved Star Wars. And to have it on a prosthetic arm, it shows what he’s into,”…

  • Dating and fertility apps siphon data to advertisers

    A report by the council, ' Out of Control: How consumers are exploited by the online advertising industry'  [PDF], found that the apps were not just gathering highly sensitive data, but passing it on to many advertising and marketing companies without full user knowledge and consent in what could be violations of European data protection law. Finn Myrstad, director of digital policy for the Norwegian Consumer Council, told Reuters: “These practices are out of control and in breach of European data protection legislation. It is impossible for users to control this because the terms and conditions are really long and impossible to understand.” The popular apps investigated for the report are: period-tracking apps Clue and My Days; dating apps Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder; prayer aid…

  • Google to ditch cookies in Chrome

    Third-party cookies are typically used by advertisers to track where users go on the web so they can target ads at them based on their interests and preferences. Other web browsers have already started proactively blocking theses cookies, but Google said this could have “unintended consequences that can negatively impact both users and the web ecosystem”. Instead, Google wants Chrome and other browsers to implement a 'Privacy Sandbox' that will still allow firms to provide targeted ads to web users without being able to identify specific people. Google said it plans to “phase out” support for third-party cookies over the course of the next two years in a move designed to “fundamentally enhance privacy”. Defending its approach, Google said that ending any form of tracking would undermine…

  • FTC called on to investigate ad whitelisting

    Not all ad blockers are created equal; some ad blockers show users ads which they have not consented to see. This is because some companies pay large sums of money to have their ads whitelisted by ad blockers. Eyeo, which owns Adblock Plus (the world’s most popular free adblocker), has accepted fees to have non-intrusive ads whitelisted for Adblock Plus users since its 'Acceptable Ads' programme was established in 2011. According to a Financial Times report, companies which have paid for whitelisting include Amazon, Microsoft and Google. In 2015, the Acceptable Ads programme was opened to competing ad blocks, with AdBlock quickly joining the programme and automatically permitting whitelisted ad companies to track and target its users without their consent. Wyden has argued that this practice…

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