• Teardown: Samsung Galaxy XR headset

    Samsung revealed its Galaxy XR headset in October as a startlingly late rebuttal to Apple’s Vision Pro. First released in early 2024, Apple’s mixed reality headset was an attempt to do virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) ‘right’, with a device that pulled out all the stops and spared no expense doing so. While VR never hit anywhere near the heights that the tech sector might have envisaged in the mid-2010s, the Vision Pro was positioned as something that could finally realise the true potential of the technology. At £3,499, it would have to be damn good to convince the unconverted to fully embrace VR. But aside from the price, there were just too many compromises to justify the purchase – a bulky battery pack, excessive weight that could cause neck strain and the uncanny EyeSight…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Tata Group secures £380m UK support for major EV battery plant

    The government has confirmed it will give a £380m grant to Tata Group’s in-construction battery plant ahead of plans to open the facility in late 2027. Batteries from the gigafactory, which will be built by Tata subsidiary Agratas, are expected to supply Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing operations in the UK. JLR has been owned by Tata Motors since a $2.3bn all-cash deal was made in 2008. While construction has already started on the project, some earlier delays in the development of JLR’s EV line-up saw its initial launch date pushed back. The factory is designed to eventually produce 40 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery capacity annually, making it one of the largest facilities of its type in Europe. Tata Group originally confirmed construction on the plant…

  • OpenAI halts UK data centre plans over energy and regulation concerns

    OpenAI has paused plans to roll out a series of data centres across the UK, citing concerns over the cost of energy and regulations. The Stargate UK project was announced in September with the goal of giving Britain “sovereign compute capabilities” that would bolster the government’s strategy to rapidly deploy AI throughout the economy. The firm said the initiative would help to accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity and drive economic growth. OpenAI said it still saw “huge potential” in the UK’s AI sector but did not want to “move forward” until the right conditions, such as “regulation and the cost of energy to enable long-term infrastructure investment” were met. The firm has never made a profit because of the extremely high cost of running an AI platform and limited…

  • Britain tracks suspected Russian operation near vital subsea digital infrastructure

    Russia has been accused of conducting a “nefarious” month-long submarine operation over British subsea infrastructure including pipelines and internet cables. According to defence secretary John Healey, the operation involved three Russian vessels – two Gugi spy submarines and an Akula class submarine – that did not damage any key infrastructure. Russia initially deployed an attack submarine entering international waters in the High North, which includes the European Arctic and the surrounding areas of the North Atlantic. But military personnel believed the vessel was being used as a distraction, and after working with allies including Norway identified other Russian vessels above some subsea infrastructure. The Royal Navy then deployed a Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans, RFA Tidespring…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Talking robot dog could help to ease shortage of guide dogs for the blind

    A robot guide dog that can speak to its owners and determine the ideal route to their destination has been developed by a team of researchers at Binghamton University, New York State. Traditional guide dogs are considered one of the most difficult service dogs to train, with the process normally taking 1.5-2 years and often with a 50% failure rate, as the dogs must be calm, obedient and capable of independent decision-making to ensure their handler’s safety. There is currently a significant shortage of guide dogs globally. In the UK, blind people often have to wait up to two years before they can receive one. In a bid to alleviate the shortage, the researchers have been working for several years on training robot guide dogs that can lead visually impaired people by responding to a tug on…

  • UK approves Britain’s largest power-producing solar farm

    The 800MW Springwell Solar Farm has been granted approval as Britain breaks the solar power generation record with the sunny spring weather. Located on land between Lincoln and Sleaford, once complete in 2029 the vast Springwell Solar project will export enough renewable electricity to the grid to power over 180,000 homes a year. This is the equivalent of half the homes in Lincolnshire. This news comes as the UK officially breaks its record for the amount of power generated from solar farms across the country. On Monday 14.1GW of low-carbon electricity was generated at lunchtime, surpassing the previous high of 14GW in July 2025. This record was then broken the very next day with a new high of 14.4GW on Tuesday afternoon. Jointly owned by EDF Power Solutions UK, a subsidiary of French…

  • OpenAI calls for four-day working week with full pay amid AI workplace boom

    OpenAI has published a policy document to help ensure the economic benefits of AI are shared with human workers. The document – Industrial policy for the intelligence age: Ideas to keep people first – lays out a set of industrial and economic policy proposals designed to “ensure that AI is developed and deployed in ways that maximise the benefits for people while mitigating the risks”. As AI technology develops and becomes more ubiquitous, where does that leave human employees? Founded in 2015, San Francisco-based OpenAI, which owns the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, has always stated that it aims to develop “safe and beneficial” AI. But how will AI be safe and beneficial to humans’ livelihoods when OpenAI claims that AI systems are now capable of outperforming the smartest humans, even…

  • Road traffic shown to worsen heatwaves in cities, study finds

    Everyday vehicle use can play a measurable role in making cities warmer, potentially contributing to the ‘heat island’ effect that can see large metropolitan areas become unbearably hot during extreme weather events. A team at the University of Manchester developed a physics-based module that allows heat produced by urban traffic to be represented directly within the Community Earth System Model – one of the world’s most widely used global climate models for predicting how the Earth’s climate behaves. By adding urban traffic-related heat processes directly into the numerical model, the team were able to show how vehicles can measurably raise temperatures in cities and influence how heat moves between roads, buildings and the surrounding air. In Manchester, the results showed that traffic…

  • Floating data centres set sail as cargo ships find second life

    Old cargo vessels could be repurposed as floating data centres (FDC) following an agreement between shipping firm Mitsui OSK Lines and Hitachi Systems. Due to a combination of intense competition for land and limited local resources, data centres often face difficulties in finding locations that can support their demands for electricity, space and water. The recent agreement will see Hitachi converting second-hand vessels from Mitsui in a bid to ease the deployment of data centres during a period of rapid growth led by AI technologies. As well as side-stepping concerns over local infrastructure availability and environmental regulations, the firms estimate that FDCs will take approximately one year to come online, compared to up to three years with conventional, land-based data centre development…

  • UK deploys autonomous vessel to detect and destroy underwater mines

    The Royal Navy has taken delivery of its second remotely controlled mine-hunting vessel. Developed by French defence firm Thales, Adventure has been delivered to the Royal Navy’s base in Plymouth. It will now join its sister vessel Ariadne, which entered service in March 2025. This is the second vessel in the Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) programme, a joint UK-French initiative to assess and develop autonomous uncrewed naval systems that utilise sonar and AI to detect, classify and destroy naval mines remotely. Led by OCCAR (Organisation conjointe de coopération en matière d’armement/Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation) with Thales, the programme aims to replace legacy mine counter-measure vessels with uncrewed systems such as Adventure. A video of the MMCM sea trials…

  • Artemis II crew completes record-breaking lunar flyby ahead of Friday landing

    Four astronauts have successfully completed a seven-hour flyby of the Moon as part of Nasa’s Artemis II mission. The flight set the record for the farthest distance from Earth travelled by any human, reaching 252,756 miles and surpassing Apollo 13’s distance of 248,655 miles. The trip would see the Orion spacecraft lose contact with mission control entirely as it passed behind the Moon for a nerve-wracking 40-minute period. The crew came within about 4,000 miles of the Moon’s surface at the closest point, during which they could document terrain features including impact craters, ancient lava flows and surface cracks through photographs. They also noted differences in colour, brightness and texture, which provide clues that help scientists understand the composition and history of the lunar…

  • AI system could cut energy use by up to 100 times, researchers say

    A proof-of-concept AI system could cut energy use by around 100 times when compared with today’s large language models (LLMs), a team from Tufts University has said. AI currently consumes massive of amounts of energy because training and running LLMs requires thousands of specialised GPUs running continuously in data centres. In the US, it’s estimated that AI systems and data centres used about 415TWh in 2024, accounting for more than 10% of the country’s total electricity production. As reported in Science Daily, researchers at Tufts’ School of Engineering claim their proof-of-concept AI system is far more efficient as it relies on a hybrid approach called neuro-symbolic AI. The system combines traditional neural networks with symbolic reasoning, which is the use of human-readable symbols…

  • E+T Expert Engineering: Advanced nuclear technology PART 2: SMRs explained

    In part 1, we looked at the benefits of nuclear power in providing vast amounts of low-carbon energy. The challenge, however, is that building new nuclear power stations requires enormous investment and often takes more than a decade to construct. This is where part 2 comes in. A simple solution to the challenge is miniaturising the technology into small modular reactors or SMRs. Built in a factory as modular components, the modules are transported to and assembled on-site, radically reducing construction time. A single SMR could be used on its own to meet localised power demands or scaled up to many for larger demand.

  • £12bn plan to upgrade Scotland’s electricity grid kicks off

    A major five-year £12bn plan to upgrade central and southern Scotland’s electricity grid has begun, supporting the UK’s move towards an “all-electric future”. ScottishPower’s transmission business, SP Energy Networks, has officially started its rewiring programme in Scotland that will see 12 new major substations built and over 570km of transmission lines upgraded or replaced. The Scottish grid is under pressure. The renewable energy generated by onshore and offshore wind turbines is putting strain on the current grid, causing bottlenecks and curtailment. The volume of power available from wind turbines is sometimes curtailed (reduced or switched off at source) due to limited grid capacity to transfer the power. As such, generators are instructed by the system operator to turn down or switch…

  • Artemis II astronauts begin trip to the far side of the Moon

    Nasa has launched its Artemis II mission with the goal of conducting a manned fly-by of the Moon on the back of the super heavy-lift Space Launch System. The 10-day mission’s goals include testing the life support systems aboard the Orion capsule and its manual piloting controls. The crew will travel roughly 47,400km behind the far side of the Moon before using lunar gravity to ‘slingshot’ them back toward Earth. They are also verifying the ability of Nasa’s Deep Space Network to maintain high-speed communication and precise tracking as they reach a distance of more than 370,000km from Earth. Artemis II has been in the planning stages for several years, although the scope of the mission has changed several times amid fluctuating goals and long-term plans for Nasa. Originally, the astronauts…

  • Virgin Galactic raises ticket prices to $750,000 ahead of relaunch

    Virgin Galactic has ramped up its ticket prices for trips to suborbital space to $750,000 (£568,000) per person ahead of plans to relaunch commercial flights in the autumn. Founded over 20 years ago by Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s price for early adopters was a comparatively low $200,000 until 2013. Since then, it has been creeping up, costing $600,000 between 2023 and 2025 and now $750,000 for a seat on the new Delta Class fleet. Despite its long history, Virgin Galactic has only flown an estimated 23 paying customers to space since its founding and around 60 overall including researchers and service personnel. Its VSS Unity spacecraft only completed 12 spaceflights before it was retired in 2024, leading to a lengthy period of downtime for the service. VSS Unity was considered…

  • ‘Smart’ DNA drugs precisely target cancer tumours

    A ‘smart’ DNA-based system that precisely identifies cancer cells and releases drugs only at the tumour site has been developed by researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland. A major challenge in oncology today is targeting cancer cells without damaging healthy surrounding tissue. The research team at UNIGE has developed a ‘smart’ drug based on synthetic DNA strands that can do just that, in a process similar to two-factor authentication on a banking website. While there are currently methods capable of delivering drugs precisely to cancer cells – antibody-drug conjugates being the most promising – they face limitations such as poor tissue penetration, large size and restricted drug payload capacity. In comparison, UNIGE’s new DNA-based technology offers advantages…

  • Volvo’s hydrogen truck begins on-road testing ahead of 2030 launch

    Volvo’s hydrogen-powered trucks are currently undergoing on-road trials in northern Sweden’s harsh cold climate, ahead of a planned commercial launch by 2030. The trials aim to verify the vehicle’s hydrogen combustion engine, which is essentially a modified internal combustion engine designed to run on green hydrogen instead of diesel. The engine features high pressure direct injection (HPDI) technology, developed by Cespira, a joint venture between Volvo Group and Westport Fuel Systems. The technology allows engines to burn renewable fuels such as hydrogen or bio-methane while maintaining the power and performance of traditional diesel engines. The HPDI fuel system consists of a fully integrated “tank-to-injector” solution. It works by injecting a small amount of ignition fuel into the…

  • Return of direct ferry between Scotland and Europe edges nearer to reality

    The reinstatement of a direct ferry route between Scotland and France is closer to reality after a £3m commitment from the government. The new route will be launched 15 years after the last passenger service ended between the Scottish port of Rosyth and Zeebrugge in Belgium. It was discontinued in 2010 because of falling passenger numbers, competitive pressure from budget airlines and increased running costs. The route continued for a few years as a freight-only service, before that was also discontinued in 2018. The newly proposed service would operate from Rosyth and land in Dunkirk, offering both freight and passenger services. It would improve links between Scottish exporters and Dunkirk’s state-of-the-art rail terminal, which connects the port to major centres across the EU. The EU…

  • Unique skull vibrations could act as password for headset users

    In the future, headset users could log into platforms simply through the distinct vibration patterns of their skulls, according to a study. Tiny vibrations, generated by breathing and heartbeats, resonate through the skull in patterns unique to each person’s bone structure and soft facial tissues. A software security system developed by researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, detects these vibrations, enabling users to seamlessly log in to virtual and augmented reality platforms without the need to disrupt the immersive experience by taking off their headset to type in passwords or personal identification numbers. Yingying Chen, a distinguished professor and chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Rutgers School of Engineering and a corresponding…

  • Flexible hydrogel could power your wearables using just body heat

    A soft material that converts body heat into electricity could pave the way for self-powered wearable devices, according to a new study. Researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, found that a soft hydrogel was able to capture wasted heat and turn it into usable electrical power with “record efficiency”. Low-grade heat is widely distributed in industrial processes, the environment and even the human body, accounting for a significant share of global energy loss. In their research, the team investigated how efficiently a soft hydrogel material could convert this wasted heat into electricity using the thermal diffusion process known as the Soret effect. The hydrogel achieves this by controlling how charged particles move through a soft polymer network…

  • Heathrow’s plan for major increases to landing fees blocked by the regulator

    The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has rejected efforts from Heathrow to significantly raise its landing fees to fund a series of upgrades to the airport. While Heathrow Airport is privately owned and run, it is strictly regulated by the CAA as it has an effective monopoly on many international long-haul flights, which could lead to steep price increases without government intervention. With the current regulatory period coming to an end, the CAA has just published its initial proposals for the next period covering 2027 to 2031. While Heathrow wanted a 17% increase to landing charges (around £33 per passenger), the CAA set the cap on airport charges at between £27.20 and £30.50 per passenger. The airport is currently undergoing a £10bn transformation plan that will see the demolition…

  • External displays on driverless vehicles could reduce risk to runners and pedestrians

    Driverless cars could be fitted with external displays to help them communicate with vulnerable road users such as runners and cyclists. Researchers at the University of Glasgow and KAIST in South Korea have used augmented reality tech to explore how runners’ behaviour differs from walkers’ when crossing roads and junctions. They found that runners are much more likely to take risks when negotiating traffic than walkers and often took less time to process the road conditions around them. On several occasions, they were ‘struck’ by virtual vehicles in the team’s simulated road tests. The team suggested that displays of lights on the exteriors of cars called external human-machine interfaces, or eHMIs, could enable them to communicate their intentions more quickly and effectively. These…

  • Supply chain deal brings Rolls-Royce SMR a step closer to roll-out

    Rolls-Royce SMR has partnered with Swedish nuclear technology firm Studsvik AB to support its small modular reactor (SMR) programme, marking another step towards deployment. Studsvik, an established supplier of nuclear analysis software and specialised services to the international nuclear industry, is the latest in a string of collaborations Rolls-Royce SMR has signed over the past year as it moves towards commissioning its modular, ‘factory-built’ nuclear power plant. In a bid to kickstart what energy secretary Ed Miliband called the “golden age” of nuclear energy, the government confirmed last summer it was to invest £14.2bn in the upcoming Sizewell C nuclear plant, as well as a further £2.5bn for SMRs. It also confirmed that it had selected Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred bidder to…

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