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UK watchdog cautions over lack of competition in AI market

The UK’s competition watchdog has set out a list of principles designed to avoid any company obtaining a dominant position in the AI sector, and ensure that AI models are accountable and competitive. In its latest report, the CMA has focused specifically on foundation models – large-scale AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Meta’s Llama 2 that can be adapted to downstream customer applications, meaning that they are intended to be built on by developers of customer-facing apps and services. The regulator said that AI would bring many benefits, but warned against the risk of a proliferation of false information , fraud and fake reviews. In addition, the monopolisation of the industry by one or a few firms could lead to higher prices and worse-quality products. “It is essential that these…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Korean researchers develop AI-based pothole inspection tool

The system is designed to review primary pothole information detected by the pothole detection program operated by the Land Management Office. This is a mobile-based application used for detecting potholes. However, due to limitations in device performance, high-specification programmes cannot run on mobile devices. This means that what is flagged as a pothole by the systems is often not so, and instead correlates with shadows, lane markings and tires – a mistake that the new system aims to address. The solution developed by the KICT team aims to counter this tendency. Using AI tools, the researchers designed a system that can e xclude objects other than potholes from the primary pothole information transmitted to the server, effectively selecting the real ones. Once the training of the…

E+T Magazine in Road transport systems
UK’s water supply at risk from infrastructure underinvestment, Lords warn

In a letter addressed to environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, the Lords criticised the government’s “lack of leadership and deep-rooted complacency” following the committee’s inquiry into water regulator Ofwat. It also said the government was dismissive of its report and made claims that its recommendations were outside the scope of its inquiry, which was an attempt “to avoid parliamentary scrutiny”. The report looked at Ofwat’s recent performance , in particularly its monitoring of water firms and overuse of storm overflows, as well as its efforts to secure future water supplies. It said Ofwat needed to go further to hold water companies to account for environmental pollution as well as ensure that companies invest sufficiently in water infrastructure. An E&T investigation last year…

E+T Magazine in Water Supply
First companies awarded carbon storage licences in the UK

The UK has awarded 14 companies 21 carbon capture and storage licences in oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers in the North Sea and East Irish Sea, spanning 12,000 km². The locations could store up to 30 million tonnes of CO 2 per year by 2030, approximately 10 per cent of the UK’s annual emissions, which amounted to 341.5m tonnes of CO 2 in 2021. Shell, Perenco and Eni have all been awarded licences off the coast of Norfolk in sites that could form part of the Bacton Energy Hub. This would be a carbon storage, hydrogen and offshore wind project that could provide low-carbon energy for London and the south-east “for decades to come and help in the drive to net zero greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the NSTA. Other locations are at sites off the coasts of Aberdeen, Teesside…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
Tax private jets and fossil fuel firms to fund UK’s green transition, Oxfam says

The charity found that the government could have raised an additional £23bn last year with extra taxes on fossil fuel companies, frequent flyers and the extremely rich who use private jets. The money could then be used to help households reduce their carbon emissions and to fund greener forms of public transport. The report, Payment Overdue: Fair ways to make polluters across the UK pay for climate justice, shows that by targeting those who are most responsible for emissions, the government could quickly raise significant funds for climate action without burdening households that are already going through a cost-of-living crisis. While households faced surging energy bills and high inflation last year, oil and energy companies raked in record profits and are continuing to do so this year…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
Recruitment plans on hold as UK manufacturers experience sharp downturn

According to Make UK, despite a positive picture in the first half of the year, the sector is going into reverse. In March, it was reported that manufacturers were seeing a rebound in activity despite ongoing inflationary pressure. But Make UK, which represents 20,000 manufacturers across the country, has now cut its forecast for growth for 2023, with output set to fall this year as recruitment plans are reversed amid slowing orders. It said the findings diverge in the aerospace and chemical sectors, which continue to perform very strongly relative to other sectors. Aerospace in particular has benefited from a glut of orders for new aircraft over the last year, as well as a strong rebound in long-haul international travel. In response to the downturn, Make UK called on the chancellor…

E+T Magazine in Manufacturing
California sues oil companies over ‘misleading’ climate claims

California has filed a lawsuit against five of the largest oil companies in the world over a “decades-long campaign of deception” that led to climate change-related events such as storms and wildfires, which caused billions of dollars in damages and harmed thousands of residents. The five companies are ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP, as well as trade association the American Petroleum Institute (API). Attorney general Rob Bonta said: “Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades – that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change – but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment. Enough is enough. “With our lawsuit, California becomes the largest geographic area and the largest…

E+T Magazine in Fossil Fuels
Government unveils £1bn scheme to insulate the UK’s draughtiest homes

The £1bn scheme will be open to families in lower council tax bands with less energy efficient homes and will be offered upgrades such as roof, loft or cavity wall insulation. Those eligible for support include families in council tax bands A to D in England, and A to E in Scotland and Wales, with an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of D or below. The government already announced a £3bn package for British homeowners to make their houses more energy efficient and reduce the UK’s carbon emissions in 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. But according to the Public Accounts Committee, the scheme had an unrealistic timeline , “poor design”, and “troubled implementation”. Ultimately only 47,500 of the 600,000 homes originally envisaged received upgrades and only £314m…

E+T Magazine in Power Utilisation
Carbon credits ineffective at protecting global forests, research finds

Current rainforest protection carbon credit schemes are “not fit for purpose” and lead the door open to exploitation, an investigation conducted by 14 University of Berkeley researchers and funded by the non-profit Carbon Market Watch (CMW) has found. The researchers looked at the impact of rainforest carbon credits certified by Verra, which operates the world’s leading carbon standard. Their conclusions – first reported by The Guardian – stressed the need for a new approach to carbon offsetting that will better protect rainforest ecosystems, such as the Amazon and the Congo Basin. “An in-depth study of the main methodologies used by REDD+ forest conservation projects has exposed a series of shortcomings that allow project owners to stretch reality and create a vast quantity of carbon…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
UK’s largest steelworks given £500m to decarbonise, but 3,000 jobs could be lost

Port Talbot is owned by Tata Steel, which will also invest £725m in emissions-cutting efforts, but as many as 3,000 job losses are expected as part of the restructuring deal. Unions representing workers at the plant complained they had been shut out of negotiations. Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, said: “Government intervention in the steel industry is long overdue, but imposing a programme without proper worker consultation is unacceptable. “GMB has urged ministers and Tata Steel to have a longer-term view on the decarbonisation of steel. “It is not a just transition if thousands of jobs are sacrificed in the name of short-term environmental gains.” The carbon reduction plan will see a new electric arc furnace being installed at Port Talbot, which is currently the…

E+T Magazine in Manufacturing
MPs warn UK risks losing early advantage in self-driving vehicle technology

The cross-party Transport Commission said that regulations need to be rapidly modernised to tackle concerns about safety, legal liability and infrastructure ahead of proposals to allow SDVs to be fully deployed on British roads in 2025. “For the UK specifically, there may be a delicate balance to be struck between remaining at the forefront of innovation and keeping the wider public on board,” the Commission said in a report. Over the last decade, progress has stalled on autonomous vehicles on both sides of the Atlantic, despite predictions that they would be commonplace by now. While the technology already exists for autonomous vehicles to drive relatively safely on UK roads, legislation has held the technology back from hitting the mainstream. Last year, the government proposed changes…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Google agrees to pay $93m to settle location data lawsuit

Google has reached a $93m (£75m) settlement with the state of California, following allegations that the company violated the state’s data protection laws. The lawsuit was brought by California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, following a multiyear investigation into the company’s data “misleading” data policies. Location data is a key part of Google’s digital advertising business, which it uses in combination with the personal and behavioural data it collects to build detailed user profiles for ad targeting. It is among the most sensitive and valuable personal information Google collects, as even a limited amount can expose a person’s identity and routines and can be used to infer personal details. The investigations found that Google was “deceiving users” by collecting, storing and…

E+T Magazine in Cybersecurity
Climate group calls for a global geoengineering moratorium

The Commission’s latest report said the world will likely exceed the target to keep temperature rises within 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. “It depends on what we do,” said Pascal Lamy, the former chief of the World Trade Organization (WTO), who currently leads the Commission. To prevent it, the authors have called on governments to act now by phasing out fossil fuels, preparing for extreme weather events and fostering carbon capture and storage projects. The report also warned against controversial technologies such as geoengineering – large-scale interventions on the Earth’s climate systems with the aim of counteracting climate change. This term includes a wide variety of proposals, from r egrowing trees to placing mirrors in space or seeding clouds to reflect sunlight. The authors…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
China claps back at EU for car subsidies investigation

The EU has launched a probe into the state subsidies that could have allowed China to flood the European market with cheap EVs. The investigation was announced by the commission president Ursula von der Leyen during her State of the Union address to parliament on Wednesday 13 September. “Global markets are now flooded with cheaper electric cars,” von der Leyen said. “And their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies. This is distorting our market.” The next day, the Asian giant attacked the move, calling it an act of “ naked protectionism ” and vowing to protect the “ legitimate rights ” of Chinese automotive companies. “It is a naked protectionist act that will seriously disrupt and distort the global automotive industry supply chain, including in the EU, and it will…

E+T Magazine in Automotive Engineering
New UK projects grow nuclear sector workforce by 20 per cent in one year

The annual jobs map from the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) shows that the sector employs 77,413 people across the UK, a 20 per cent year-on-year increase. However, the NIA warns that the UK must train tens of thousands of additional workers to deliver the government’s 24GW nuclear target by 2050. The first project on course to be completed is the oft-delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point C. The Somerset power station is expected to start generating in 2028 after more than a decade of construction. It should provide enough electricity to power around six million UK homes as part of plans to decarbonise the grid. According to the NIA, Hinkley Point C is one of the biggest employers in the sector, with 9,500 people working at the largest construction site in Europe, up from 8,000 in…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
One of Europe’s fastest supercomputers to be built in Bristol for AI research

To be known as Isambard-AI, plans for the supercomputer have been backed by a £900m investment to transform the UK’s computing capacity and establish a dedicated AI Research Resource (AIRR). The facility will be used by a wide range of organisations from across the UK to study AI, including areas such as accelerating automated drug discovery and climate research. Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, project lead at the University of Bristol, said: “Isambard-AI will be one of the world’s first, large-scale, open AI supercomputers, and builds on our expertise designing and operating cutting-edge computational facilities, such as the incoming Isambard 3.” Science minister Michelle Donelan said: “We are backing the future of British innovation, investing in a world-leading AIRR in Bristol that…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Government grants £88m to ‘future proof’ the UK mobile network

The UK is investing £88m in research and development projects in the connectivity and telecoms sector to ensure the country is not “ overly reliant on any one form of technology”, the government has announced. The funding will be awarded to 19 projects through the Open Networks Ecosystem (ONE) competition. The initiatives were designed to develop and demonstrate Open Radio Access Network (RAN) solutions that could improve the connectivity in places with some of the biggest demand on mobile services, such as cities, airports and stadiums. The chosen projects include iconic sports and entertainment venues such as Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, the National eSport Arena, the Cambridge Corn Exchange and Shelsley Walsh motorsport venue. Other winning initiatives…

E+T Magazine in Telecommunications
Work begins on HS2’s longest ‘green tunnel’

The 2.7km Greatworth Tunnel is being built using a ‘cut and cover’ process, which involves excavating a cutting, building the tunnel and then burying it. The tunnel structure will be made from more than five thousand giant concrete segments made at a specialist pre-cast factory in Derbyshire and then assembled on-site by EKFB, HS2’s main works contractor. The modular approach to building the tunnel was taken instead of a traditional process of pouring the concrete on-site in order to boost efficiency and cut the amount of embedded carbon in the structure. Designed as an M-shaped double arch, the tunnel will have separate halves for southbound and northbound trains. Five different concrete precast segments will be slotted together to achieve the double arch, which is the height of two…

E+T Magazine in Railways
iPhone 12 sales halted in France over radiation fears

France’s wireless communications watchdog, the Agence Nationale des F réquences (ANFR), has temporarily blocked sales and could order a recall if radiation concerns are not addressed. The regulator took the decision after carrying out tests that showed the iPhone 12’s specific absorption rate for radio frequency exposure was 5.74W/kg. This is slightly higher than the limits imposed by European legislation: 4W/kg for a device held in a hand or pocket and 2W/kg for a device held in a jacket or bag. As a result, the ANFR said that Apple “ must immediately take all measures to prevent the affected phones present in the supply chain from being made available on the market”. “For phones already sold, Apple must take corrective action as soon as possible to bring the affected phones into compliance…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
UK may have broken environmental laws regulating sewage releases

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) accused the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), regulator Ofwat and the Environment Agency of breaking the law that regulates sewage releases. The OEP said there may have been “misinterpretations of some key points of law” that have allowed discharges to occur more often than permitted. In response, Defra said it did not agree with the OEP’s “initial interpretations”, but admitted that “ the volume of sewage discharged is completely unacceptable ” . Meanwhile, the EA and Ofwat welcomed the investigation. “ Water companies’ performance on the environment is simply not good enough,” an Ofwat spokesperson said. “We will keep pushing for the change.” The OEP said it began its investigation into the matter last June…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
English roads plagued with potholes as resurfacing works fall to five-year low

The RAC said that 2021/22 figures, based on government data, show that just 1,123 miles of all types of road were resurfaced compared with 1,588 in 2017/2018. This equates to a 29 per cent reduction in repairs (465 miles). The amount of surface dressing, a technique that extends the life of roads and helps prevent the need for full resurfacing, also fell: 3,551 miles in the last financial year compared with 5,345 five years ago – a 34 per cent drop. This tallies with RAC research from earlier this year that found a 39 per cent increase in the number of drivers falling foul of potholes on UK roads. Those findings suggest that in 2023, drivers are 1.6 times more likely to break down because of repeated wear caused by potholes than they were 17 years ago, when breakdown data started being…

E+T Magazine in Road transport systems
Apple bends to EU rules by adding a USB-C port to the iPhone 15

During its ‘Wonderlust’ event, Apple unveiled its four new iPhone and two new Apple Watch models, featuring better cameras, faster processors, a new charging system and a price hike for the higher-end model. The most significant announcement was Apple’s decision to equip the new iPhone 15 model with a USB-C charging port, in line with EU rules. EU law mandates that, by the end of 2024, all mobile phones, tablets, cameras and other small- or medium-sized electronic devices sold in the bloc will need to be equipped with a common charging port . The change was made to reduce hassle for consumers and help cut electronic waste by removing the need to buy a new charger each time a device is purchased. Apple – the only major smartphone maker that did not use USB-C – had historically opposed…

E+T Magazine
BAE Systems signs agreement to use Airlander blimp for defence operations

The Airlander 10 is a 44m-wide, 26m-high airship originally developed for the US government as a long-endurance surveillance aircraft. However, the US scrapped the programme as part of defence funding cuts, prompting HAV to redesign the aircraft for civilian purposes . HAV said Airlander could be used for “long-endurance airborne communications and surveillance” with the ability to carry up to 10 tonnes of logistics payload. Filled with helium, the blimp creates lower emissions than other aircraft and has the potential to stay airborne for up to five days while fitted with computing, communications, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment. Its ability to operate from any reasonably flat surface, including water, with minimal infrastructure, also offers significant mobility for defence…

E+T Magazine in Aerospace
Heat pumps outperform fossil fuel heating even in icy conditions, study finds

A heat pump takes heat at a low temperature from the air or ground and increases it to a higher temperature, before transferring it into homes for central heating and hot water. This heat extraction method means that the efficiency of heat pumps declines in colder temperatures. However, experiments from researchers at Oxford University and the Regulatory Assistance Project think tank have shown that, even at temperatures as low as -30°C, heat pumps still outperform fossil-fuel-powered systems. Heat pumps have emerged as a key tool in the global transition towards clean and reliable energy as they can be powered by renewables such as solar and wind, which are carbon neutral. However, concerns have been raised that their declining efficiency in cold weather presents a barrier to their adoption…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change

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