• 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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  • 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…

  • Facebook upholds politicians’ right to lie in online ads

    Since the 2016 US presidential election, the vast influence of political advertising – particularly using misleading and false statements – has become a prominent subject of debate. Discussions about how to ensure that political advertising is fair, truthful and transparent have intensified in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. In October 2019, Twitter announced that it would ban all political advertising . Weeks later, Google announced its plans to ban microtargeting of political adverts . However, Facebook has maintained that it will not remove or fact-check lies in lucrative political adverts, such as the false accusations made by the Trump campaign about Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden and his family in October last year. In an appearance before Congress last year, CEO Mark…

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  • YouTube disables advertising and data collection on children’s content

    The changes, which include limitations on data collection and advertising, are a step towards addressing  concerns from advocacy groups who complained the video service has breached the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which forbids tracking and targeting users aged 13 and under. As part of the changes to the site, YouTube said it will seek to better distinguish which content is intended primarily for children, relying on a combination of self-identification from creators and software. Furthermore, under the new rules that the video-sharing platform has introduced, such content cannot run with personalised advertisements. YouTube added it will assume any viewer of child-friendly content is underage, treating that data as subject to COPPA rules. It has also limited other…

  • Modern Michelangelo: scientists 3D print David’s microscopic double

    Michelangelo's original statue of David, which was completed in the early sixteenth century, is among the world’s most famous works of art. While the 5.17m original was sculpted from marble, many replicas since have been created in bronze, plaster and fibreglass. Now, ETH Zurich scientists have created a unique version of the famous statue by 3D printing a millimetre-scale David in pure copper. The researchers created two tiny sculptures: a 1mm David and a second one which is ten times smaller (merely the height of the other's pedestal). 3D printing such small structures can be troublesome due to the difficulty achieving the required resolution. ETH Zurich Image credit: Exaddon Both statues were created using a 3D-printing technique developed by ETH Zurich…

  • Google and Facebook ‘dominance’ bad for consumers, says watchdog

    In the UK, people spend a third of their time online using sites owned by either Google (such as YouTube) or Facebook (such as Instagram), rendering attention on these platforms extremely valuable to advertisers. According to the watchdog’s interim report [PDF] , Google accounted for more than 90 per cent (£6bn) of all UK revenue earned from search advertising in the UK in 2018. Meanwhile, Facebook accounted for almost half (more than £2bn) of display advertising revenue. Google paid approximately £1bn to be installed as the search engine on mobile services, with the “vast majority” of payments going towards Apple. The companies also strengthened their dominance through greater access to market data (such as through new search queries to train algorithms) and personal data collection for…

  • Economic output connects with mobile coverage

    UK districts with the largest gaps in 4G mobile coverage create much less value for the local economy, a new E&T analysis reveals. The findings are a result of a data analysis that evaluated local districts’ 4G outdoor mobile coverage as reported by the communications regulator Ofcom.  E&T compared local districts’ gross value added (GVA), the value generated by any unit engaged in the production of goods and services, with the areas of worst 4G mobile signal coverage with respect to ‘outdoor premises’. This is the most suitable measure, according to Ofcom, as it focuses on areas with people and buildings rather than unpopulated countryside. E&T found GVA in low-coverage areas is considerably lower than that for well covered districts. Graham Payne, founder of StrattoOpencell, with a background…

  • Calls to ban fossil fuel adverts as global carbon emissions increase more slowly

    The group said that BP frequently presents itself as “part of the climate solution” in its ads, which typically show wind turbines and other forms of renewable energy. But ClientEarth said that 96 per cent of the company’s annual spend is on oil and gas projects and it is one of the world’s biggest polluters. They advocate a “tobacco-style warning” which lets consumers know that claims the company is rapidly transitioning to clean energy are largely misleading. The environmental legal charity has triggered an official complaint under the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international set of rules governing corporate conduct. The complaint is being submitted to the Government’s UK National Contact Point, which is responsible for implementing…

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