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UN’s autonomous vehicle regulations advancing at a high speed

Fully autonomous cars are still years away, but the UN is working on internationally-agreed rules that will see “globally harmonised regulation on automated driving systems ready for mid-2026”. The UN World Forum for the Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations is a working party of the Inland Transport Committee of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which shapes the legal framework for inland transport. The forum has six permanent working parties each with their own specialism, one of which is the Automated/Autonomous and Connected Vehicles (GRVA) working party. UNECE held a press conference yesterday with speakers from GRVA, who presented international developments around regulating autonomous vehicles. Dmitry Mariyasin, deputy executive secretary of the UNECE, opened the…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
SpaceX wins $843m Nasa contract to deorbit ISS

SpaceX has been granted an $843m contract by Nasa to help deorbit the International Space Station (ISS) once it reaches the end of its operational life. Nasa currently plans to decommission the ISS in 2031 and instead support the creation of private Earth-orbiting space stations used by multiple customers. The ISS’s power, communication and life support systems are all designed to be repairable in orbit by astronauts or robotic operations. But while maintenance and upgrades happen all the time, the degradation of the station’s structure will eventually limit its time in orbit. SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the US Deorbit Vehicle to bring the ISS back down to Earth. As a large space structure, the deorbiting procedure needs to be carried out carefully to avoid the possibility…

E+T Magazine in Space
300-mile automated cargo conveyor belt to link Tokyo and Osaka

The Japanese government has launched plans for a Autoflow-Road conveyor belt system between Tokyo and Osaka that could carry the same amount of freight as 25,000 truck drivers every day. With Japan’s population falling at a rapid rate, there will be numerous impacts on the country in the coming years – not least of all the number of delivery drivers needed to move goods around. According to a recent study by Nomura Research Institute, the amount of delivery drivers in Japan is set to plummet from 660,000 in 2020 to just 480,000 by 2030. With online shopping continuing to escalate, however, there is a real possibility that the transport industry will be unable to meet freight demands. Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is proposing a project that will not only…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
Exam markers unable to detect AI answers in university papers

Experienced exam markers were unable to detect papers generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in 94% of cases and gave them higher grades than those written by real students, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of Reading used ChatGPT to generate exam answers that were submitted for several undergraduate psychology modules. They used ChatGPT-4 – the most advanced version of the popular AI platform – and submitted the answers using fake student identities. The team believes their blind study was the largest and most robust of its kind to date in trying to challenge human educators to detect AI-generated content. They said their findings should provide a “wake-up call” for educators across the world. A recent Unesco survey of 450 schools and universities found that less…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Rhino horns injected with trackable radioactive material to deter smugglers

The Rhisotope Project, a South African-based conservation initiative, is harnessing nuclear technology in the form of radioisotopes that are inserted into live rhino horns. This makes the horns easily detectable by existing nuclear security infrastructure at border posts across the world. Poaching of rhino horns is rife in southern Africa. According to the Rhino conservation charity Save the Rhino, in the last decade 9,415 African rhinos have been lost to poaching. Rhinos are poached for their horns, which are smuggled into Asia where they are highly prized for traditional and medicinal purposes. “Every 20 hours in South Africa a rhino dies for its horn. These poached horns are then trafficked across the world and used for traditional medicines, or as status symbols,” explained Professor…

E+T Magazine
Volkswagen and Rivian sign $5bn deal to share EV architecture and software

Volkswagen and Rivian have announced a tech joint venture that will see the two companies accelerate the development of electric vehicle (EV) architecture and software for use in both companies’ future EVs. There is currently stiff competition in the EV market. Large auto manufacturers that are attempting to shift from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to EVs are not only facing competition from established EV rivals such as Tesla, but also from low-priced Chinese EVs that are rapidly entering European and US markets. Amid all this competition, large auto manufacturer Volkswagen and EV start-up Rivian have announced they have entered a joint venture to create next-generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms to be used in both companies’ future EVs. According to Reuters, after the announcement…

E+T Magazine in Automotive Engineering
Plane pollution is putting 52 million Europeans at risk of serious health conditions

High concentrations of tiny particles released when aviation jet fuel is burnt pose a serious health risk to 52 million people living around Europe’s busiest airports. When jet fuel burns, particularly during take-off and landing, it releases ultrafine particles (UFPs), which are approximately 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. These particles are able to penetrate deeply into the human body and have been found in the blood, brain and placenta. Yet there is no regulation on safe levels of UFPs in the air and how exposure to them can affect human health. A new study by Transport & Environment (T&E), a Brussels-based NGO, found that a total of 280,000 cases of high blood pressure, 330,000 cases of diabetes, and 18,000 cases of dementia could be linked to UFP emissions among the 52…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
China’s Chang’e-6 mission returns to Earth with first ever samples from far side of the Moon

China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module has returned to Earth, successfully completing its historic mission of collecting the first ever samples from the far side of the Moon – making it the first country to do so. The Chang’e-6 probe’s re-entry capsule parachuted into a landing zone in a rural region of Inner Mongolia, touching down just after 2pm local time on 25 June 2024. Soon after the capsule landed, Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), announced the successful completion of the Chang’e-6 lunar mission. According to CNN, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the mission’s completion was a “landmark achievement” in China’s quest to become a space and scientific powerhouse. The US, China and the former Soviet Union have gathered samples from the near side of…

E+T Magazine in Space
US commits $850m to cut methane pollution from the oil and gas sector

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say that applications are open for $850m in federal funding for projects that will help monitor, measure, quantify and reduce methane pollution from the oil and gas sectors. Leaks of methane cause plumes of potent greenhouse gas to escape into the atmosphere and, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlighted in a report published last year, slashing it is imperative to limit global warming. While methane has 80 times the warming power of CO2 in the first 20 years after reaching the atmosphere, unlike CO2 it does not remain in our atmosphere for as long. This means that reducing methane emissions will have a significant impact in lowering global temperatures. In the latest update of the IEA’s Global Methane…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
Camera system can detect alcohol intoxication on the faces of drivers

A camera-based system that can identify drunk drivers just by analysing their faces has been developed by researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU). A series of videos were taken of people in a driving simulation who were in various levels of alcohol intoxication – sober, low intoxication and severely intoxicated. The team developed a machine learning system that uses discernible cues from standard RGB (red, green and blue) videos of the drivers’ faces to gauge the degree of alcohol-related impairment. These included facial features, gaze direction and head position. “Our system detects varying levels of alcohol intoxication impairment, with an overall accuracy of 75% for the three-level classification,” ECU PhD student Ensiyeh Keshtkaran said. “This not only benefits vehicles equipped…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Microsoft quietly shelves underwater data centre project

Microsoft has quietly shelved its underwater data centre project, dubbed Project Natick, according to an interview with the company’s head of cloud operations. The Project Natick trial was launched in 2013 to explore the possible benefits of data centres located underwater such as lower latency for its users and dramatically reduced cooling costs. Cooling in particular makes up a significant proportion of the energy used in a data centre – almost as much as the power used by the IT equipment. Due to the higher density of water and its ability to transport heat more effectively than air, deep-sea data centres are much more efficient than those on land. In the decade since the trial began, Microsoft deployed a prototype in 2015 and then a test system off the coast of Scotland in 2018. The…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Coalition of global economy leaders – Mission 2025 – urges governments to boost climate plans

Mission 2025, a coalition of global economy leaders, is urging governments to produce ambitious climate plans. It aims to rebut the view that moving faster to tackle the climate crisis is “too difficult, too unpopular or too expensive”. For many years, scientists have stressed that preventing global warming from exceeding 1.5°C is not an aspirational target but a scientific imperative. The upper threshold of the Paris Agreement is 2°C: any higher and the UN has warned that it would have a catastrophic impact around the world. In December 2023, global governments agreed at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels, but there have been signs that countries are slowing or even rolling back on climate action. The UN stipulates that governments are required to submit new national climate…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
BT Group rolls out energy-saving ‘cell sleep’ technology to over 19,500 EE mobile sites

BT Group has implemented energy-saving ‘cell sleep’ technology across its EE mobile sites nationwide, with anticipated energy savings of up to 4.5 million KWh per year across EE’s estate. Being the UK’s largest provider of fixed-line broadband and mobile services, BT Group’s networks account for around 89% of its total energy consumption. To increase network energy efficiency, BT has announced that it will introduce ‘cell sleep’ software across its EE mobile sites following successful trials in each of the UK’s home nations. This ‘cell sleep’ technology puts certain 4G LTE capacity carriers to sleep when the capacity is not needed. How it works is that the data from each site informs the statistical algorithms. Machine learning then predicts periods of low traffic for each site. The…

E+T Magazine in Telecommunications
Apple once again found in breach of EU’s ‘rulebook’ for online platforms

The European Commission (EC) has opened another non-compliance investigation against Apple. The tech giant’s App Store was found to be in breach of rules that prevent third-party developers from freely pointing customers to cheaper alternative options. Just three months ago, Apple was fined €1.8bn by the EU for promoting its music-streaming service over rivals. In August 2023, the EC’s landmark rules for online platforms – the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) – came into effect to rein in the power of giants such as Alphabet, Amazon and Meta. The DMA aims to curb anticompetitive behaviour and keep ‘gatekeepers’ from suppressing market competition. But the EC says that the App Store “prevents app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Mitsubishi robot sets Guinness World Record for solving Rubik's Cube in 0.305 seconds

Mitsubishi Electric has been awarded the Guinness World Record for the fastest robot to solve a puzzle cube. We often hear the expression ‘in the blink of an eye’ to describe something very quick. But how quick? According to Harvard University's bionumbers database, a blink takes 0.1 to 0.4 seconds. The Japanese company’s TOKUI Fast Accurate Synchronised Motion Testing Robot (TOKUFASTbot) has solved a Rubik’s Cube in 0.305 seconds, in quite literally less than a blink of an eye. The robot recently received the Guinness World Record for this achievement, beating the previous record time of 0.38 seconds, which was set by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology robot in 2018. By comparison, the human record for solving a Rubik’s Cube is 3.13 seconds, set in June 2023 by Max Park, a 21…

E+T Magazine in Control and Automation
Could large language models help run and maintain the energy grid?

This is the question researchers at Harvard University attempted to answer when examining the potential that large language models (LLMs) could bring to the energy sector. LLMs are a type of artificial intelligence that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate content having been trained using very large datasets, such as those that power ChatGPT. Having already found use cases across multiple industries, a team at Harvard’s John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has now published a study exploring the promise of LLMs to help run and maintain the energy grid. The research team, which included engineers from Houston-based energy-provider CenterPoint Energy and grid operator Midcontinent Independent System Operator, used GPT models to explore the…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Tarmac starts trials of all-electric 7.5 tonne tipper truck

In a UK-first, sustainable building materials and construction solutions company Tarmac has started trials on an all-electric tipper truck. Tarmac has a big operation in the UK, with 6,000 employees working across 350 sites. It has set itself the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 and reaching net zero before 2050. Part of this roadmap includes decarbonising operational equipment and vehicles. It was an early signatory of the EV100 global initiative, with a commitment to transition to net zero electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030. As such, in recent years Tarmac has been researching electric options for its vehicles. Last year it started operation of an all-electric battery readymix concrete truck, along with an electric bond coat sprayer. To add to this EV line-up…

E+T Magazine
Report reveals findings of a year that saw ‘record highs in an energy-hungry world’

A report published by the Energy Institute (EI) has revealed that 2023 saw record global energy consumption, with coal and oil pushing fossil fuels and their emissions to record levels, despite a record increase in renewable energy power. The EI, the chartered professional membership body for people who work across the world of energy, has released the 73rd annual edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy. This analyses data on world energy markets from the prior year. The report – co-authored with KPMG, a multinational professional services network, and Kearney, a global management consulting firm, with additional research undertaken by Heriot-Watt University – presents full global energy data for 2023. It found that in 2023 global primary energy use climbed to a record high…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
AI could save UK public sector workers 23 million hours per week – Microsoft study

Artificial intelligence (AI) could save public sector workers in the UK 23 million hours every week by eliminating basic administrative tasks, according to research commissioned by Microsoft. The study, Harnessing the power of AI for the public sector, suggests that the scale of administration required of the UK’s public sector is drawing workers away from delivering frontline services. It found that proper implementation of AI would save an estimated 5.93 million public sector employees four hours every week, equating to 23 million hours in total. The study, carried out by Dr Chris Brauer, director of innovation at Goldsmiths, University of London, makes various role-specific claims about the role that AI could play in the future. Doctors and nurses, for example, could save around…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Lab-grown burgers and cricket salads will be the norm by 2054, researchers predict

What will our dinner plates look like in 30 years? Consumer attitudes towards food ethics and sustainability could see insect proteins and lab-grown meats becoming the norm. That‘s according to the findings of the Co-op’s Responsible Retailing report with research conducted at the University of York. What we eat is a contentious issue. Meat and dairy farming contribute to a rise in the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, whereas vegan diets have come under fire recently as ‘fake meats’ have been shown to be an ultra-processed food and therefore linked to cardiovascular disease. The Co-op predicts that, in the next 30 years, diets will have a greater balance of protein, carbohydrate and fibre and more pulses or seeds, with the diversity of protein options increasing with both high-quality…

E+T Magazine in Biotechnology
Virtual reality programme to allow students to speak to AI Holocaust survivors

School students will be given the opportunity to “talk” to Holocaust survivors through a combination of AI and virtual reality (VR). Developed by the Holocaust Education Trust (HET), the Testimony 360 programme combines digital eyewitness testimony and virtual tours of historical sites associated with the Holocaust. Four Holocaust survivors were recorded, each answering hundreds of questions about their life stories in order to create the programme. Pupils can then ask their questions to a digital representation of the survivors, and the AI will interpret and play back the relevant clip. Each session takes about 2.5 hours and is open to all year 9-13 students. The VR headsets will also allow students to explore key sites linked to the survivor testimonies, including their pre-war home…

E+T Magazine in Computing
Amid AI boom Nvidia surges past Apple to become world’s most valuable company

US chipmaker Nvidia experienced another rise in share price gains yesterday, putting it in the top spot as the world’s most valuable company. During his keynote speech at the Computex tech trade fair in Taiwan at the beginning of this month, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said: “Today, we’re at the cusp of a major shift in computing. The intersection of AI and accelerated computing is set to redefine the future.” It’s a future the chipmaker is certainly betting on, having made numerous AI-related announcements this year, including its Nvidia Blackwell platform and the Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper superchip. It is a future its investors are also betting on as shown in the 3.5% surge its shares took yesterday, giving Nvidia a market value of about $3.33tn. This puts Nvidia in the top…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
Code First Girls teaches 200,000 women coding for free to help plug gender and tech skills gap

Code First Girls – a provider of free coding courses for women in the UK and around the world – has announced it has taught more than 200,000 women tech skills for free. Starting out in 2012 as a free, part-time course to get female graduates interested in coding, Code First Girls has evolved into a community of coders, instructors and mentors who provide free coding courses for women in the UK and globally. According to research by Tech Nation, only 26% of the tech workforce are women. The representation of women in IT roles has improved in recent years – from 15% in 2020 to 19% in 2023. But even if this trend continues, says BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, it will take another 283 years to match the 48% of women in the wider workforce. Trade association techUK estimates that…

E+T Magazine
Four European tech start-ups awarded funding from $1bn Nato Innovation Fund

The $1bn Nato Innovation Fund has directly invested in four European tech companies to help strengthen the defence, security and resilience of Allied governments. The Nato Innovation Fund was founded two years ago to finance deep tech start-ups in defence, security and resilience of Allied governments. The fund is backed by 24 of Nato’s 32 member states. “Enabling capital and support for strategic technologies is key to securing a safe and prosperous future for the Alliance’s one billion citizens,” said Andrea Traversone, managing partner of the Nato Innovation Fund. The fund has now revealed the four start-ups in Europe and the UK that have been allocated funding. They include: ARX Robotics: German defence tech start-up developing autonomous unmanned ground systems with scalable hardware…

E+T Magazine

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