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Former Samsung exec accused of leaking secret chip tech data to China

The defendant has been accused of violating industrial technology protection laws and stealing trade secrets between 2018 and 2019. The former Samsung executive was reportedly looking to use the illegally acquired data to build a factory in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian, just 1.5km from the Samsung chip factory in the city, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office said in a statement. The defendant has been charged of “wrongfully using” engineering data from the company’s semiconductor factory, as well as its floor plan, description of core production processes and design drawings. The prosecutors revealed that the plan to build the copycat factory fell through after the defendant's backer, purportedly an undisclosed Taiwanese company, cancelled a $6bn (£4.8bn) investment in the…

E+T Magazine in Security in the Modern World
Sponsored: The power of data in business longevity

Founded more than a century ago, Wareing Buildings in Lancashire, one of the UK's leading fabricators and constructors of steel framed buildings, prides itself on being a family business primarily focused on excellent customer service and continuous innovation. Operating for more than 110 years, they know a thing or two about business longevity and use technology to stay ahead of their competition. Their teams are early adopters of many of our Trimble technologies, being the most prolific users in the UK & Ireland of our Tekla PowerFab production management software. Leaning against a 1964 Ford Thames truck, once used by the company to transport their steel frames, Matthew Hastwell, Steel Detailer and Innovation Consultant, tells us about the transformation of their business since adopting…

E+T Magazine in Manufacturing
How to build a medieval castle today

It’s coming back to me now. I remember this clearing in a forest in rural France. I recall the peace and quiet, broken only by the tapping of masons’ chisels. This time too, I can hear the clip-clop of a cart horse, the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer. There’s still no roar of diesel engines, no creaking of cranes – not even the buzz of a circular saw. Some things have changed. I pass car parks full of retirees arriving on their day trips, school children streaming out of coaches. Back in 2001, it was more or less just me, in a quarry, chatting to a bunch of passionate but obsessed makers starting out on what seemed like a crazy and perhaps impossible dream: to build a full-scale 13 th -century castle from scratch, using nothing more than the tools, techniques and resources of the time. Now…

E+T Magazine
Energy efficiency improvements restricted to wealthy homeowners, Unison says

The union said that without a major rethink on financial help and incentives, the UK faces “painfully slow” progress on green homes and won’t meet its 2050 net-zero target. The report found that short-term policies and a complex array of “ever-changing support packages” have left millions of households with insufficient help to meet soaring energy bills. In July 2020, the government announced a £3bn package for British homeowners to make their houses more energy efficient and improve insulation efforts. The scheme offered households up to £10,000 to insulate their property, but it badly underperformed. The Public Accounts Committee called it a “slam dunk fail” after it failed to draw sufficient applicants and was closed after less than a year. Nevertheless, IPPR researchers said last…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
AI could solve the biggest archaeological mysteries

While relying on clever machines may lack the romance of crossing a desert by camel to discover unopened tombs or roaming through a jungle to discover an ancient temple, using artificial intelligence (AI) would have saved Indiana Jones the trouble of almost being crushed by a rolling stone, shot by mercenaries or being bitten by snakes while solving historical mysteries. So, saddle up and take a tour of how AI is taking on some of the biggest unsolved historical cases, from deciphering scrolls and secret languages to dating mysterious remains. In ‘The Last Crusade’, Indiana Jones reads an incomplete medieval stone tablet in Latin (with a little help from his father’s notebook) to reveal the location of the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, in real life, the solution doesn’t always present itself…

E+T Magazine in Vision and Imaging
Carbon price could pose $256bn credit risk for Canada's economy

University of Waterloo researchers have analysed the effects of Canada’s carbon price regime on the economy. Their findings indicated that, as carbon costs rise, high-emitting carbon industries could be placed at risk of default, facing a financial risk of $256bn (£203bn). The study called on financial lenders to consider carbon emissions a part of their credit assessment of Canadian companies. Over the past few years, Canada has established a national minimum tax on carbon pollution above a certain sector-specific threshold, with the goal of transitioning to a net-zero economy. The price of carbon s tarted at $20 per tonne in 2019, increasing to $50 in 2022. However, the University of Waterloo study has exposed the uncertainty the Canadian economy faces as a result of these measures…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
Fantastic innovations and where to find them

Energy security coupled with a global focus on decentralising the grid are profoundly shifting the way we generate, distribute and consume energy. Demand is growing for resilient, efficient, and sustainable power supplies, and operators are in desperate need of technologies and innovation that can help them deliver it. Responsibility for bringing to market the right solutions often falls at the feet of large technology companies. They have the commercial infrastructure and R&D capability needed to deliver the technologies required by those maintaining and improving grid reliability. That said, despite the size of a business, or the skill of the people within it, no company can claim to have all the right ideas at the right time. That’s why it is so important for established businesses and…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
After All: Trust nobody and nothing when driving in France

“It is of course a commonplace to say that France is diverse to the point of absurdity,” Fernand Braudel, France’s leading 20th-century historian noted in his book ‘The Identity of France’. Having recently completed a 2,000km coast-to-coast drive across that country, the purpose and the beginning of which were described in my previous column, I couldn’t agree more. France’s mosaic of landscapes is surprisingly versatile – from the vast plains of the north to the meadows of the Loire valley, the hills of Provence and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps. And yet, alongside this amazing variance, there exists one gratifying sameness – the never-changing uniformity of French national ‘autoroutes’. After several hours of driving, your fast-moving vehicle (in my case, a campervan converted Toyota…

E+T Magazine in Road transport systems
Taiwan deploys robotic vehicles to help tackle mosquito problem

In an effort to slow down the spread of the dengue disease, researchers at Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, have used robotic vehicles to identify and eliminate the breeding sources of Aedes mosquitoes - with great results. The study was carried out by a team at the Taiwan National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center. Artists rendering of experimental setups / Liu et al., 2023, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, CC-BY 4.0 Image credit: Liu et al., 2023, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, CC-BY 4.0 Dengue fever is an infectious disease caused by the dengue virus and spread by several mosquito species in the genus Aedes, which also spread chikungunya, yellow fever and zika. Due to Taiwan's rapid urbanisation process, its city sewers have become breeding grounds…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
London showcase illustrates tech literature’s virtues and shortcomings

Storytelling has always been shaped – although theorists would disagree as to what extent – by the medium it inhabits. The internet gave rise to great experimentation with the creative possibilities that it permitted for storytelling. Some of these experiments were great successes, growing into popular genres of their own, such as the evolution of multi-user dungeons to today’s MMORGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games). Some were thought-provoking, transgressive, but never caught on outside a certain community, like Dennis Cooper’s ‘GIF’ novels. Some retained centralised authorship, while others were collective and anarchic in their creation, such as the universe of the ‘SCP Foundation’, created by a community writing wiki entries for the fictional secret organisation. Significantly…

E+T Magazine
Windfall tax to stop if oil prices fall further, government says

The UK government has announced it will remove the 75 per cent windfall tax on oil and gas companies if the average price of oil falls to or below $71.40 per barrel for two consecutive quarters, and the average price of gas falls to under 54p. On Friday morning, Brent crude oil was trading at $75.38 per barrel. UK gas prices were at around 64p per therm. The windfall tax was put in place last year, as an attempt to mitigate soaring inflation and prices that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for many of the UK’s most impoverished households. In that time, it has raised £2.8bn to fund energy support schemes, and is expected to raise almost £26bn by March 2028. If the tax stops, North Sea oil and gas operators will return to making 40 per cent profits. Despite the tax, the rise in oil…

E+T Magazine in Fossil Fuels
Defibrillator implanted in heart attack patient for the first time

Funded by £1.8m from the British Heart Foundation (BHF), the device is used to shock the heart if it goes into cardiac arrest. Over 2,500 patients are due to be recruited across the UK for the trial in the next three years. Phil O’Donoghue, 53, was the first patient to be implanted with the new technology. He suffers from non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM), a common type of heart failure which can lead to abnormal heart rhythms, and sudden cardiac arrests are a possible cause of death in these patients. After being diagnosed with a heart condition during the first Covid-19 lockdown in May 2020, he said the diagnosis had a big effect on his day-to-day life. “I can’t do the things I want to do if it means exerting myself,” he added. “I had to change what I did at physically at work.”…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
High-tech helmet with liquid shock absorbers reduces brain injuries by a third

Games such aa American football pose a particularly high risk for injuries that can have devastating long-term consequences for individuals. Nicholas Cecchi, a PhD candidate at Stanford University and lead author of the study, said: “Concussion and repeated head impacts are still a major problem in contact sports and we believe that improved helmet technology can play an important role in reducing the risk of brain injury.” The team built a finite element model, used by engineers to simulate performance before manufacturing, of an American football helmet incorporating 21 liquid shock absorbers. This helmet was tested against simulations of the helmet performance evaluation protocol used by the National Football League (NFL) and its performance was compared to that of four existing helmets…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
View from Brussels: R&D’s EU penny-pinching problem

Budget season has begun in Brussels as the European Commission this week proposed its draft plan for 2024’s finances. As things stand, the bloc’s coffers will be provided with €189.3bn to fund its various policies and programmes. Where research and development is concerned, the Commission has allocated €13.6bn for R&D, with €12.8bn of that due to fuel the flagship Horizon Europe scheme. It marks a €400m increase on 2023 but a couple of caveats undermine that rise in fortunes. Firstly, inflation means that any real-world increase is severely reduced with some in the European Parliament, which will propose its own financing plan, saying it is actually a cut masquerading as an increase. Secondly, interest rate hikes mean that the EU will have to allocate more cash for repayments on its …

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
The tech helping debunk long-held archaeological beliefs

In recent years, airborne laser scanning technology lidar, which can penetrate thick foliage and vegetation, has led to the dramatic discovery of a vast, 2,000-year-old Mayan settlement hidden beneath a Central American rainforest, as well as medieval cities beneath Cambodian jungles, for example. After more than three decades of application, ancient DNA has helped rewrite human history and unlocked secrets of the evolution of language, migration, and even the origins of the Black Death. Rather than physically dismantling mummified remains, Egyptologists use close X-ray scanning to digitally unwrap artefacts, leaving them intact. Techniques such as mass spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence allow them to look at the composition without disturbing ancient objects. And to identify mysterious…

E+T Magazine
Sunak and Biden promise action on AI, data sharing, defence and green subsidies

The agreement is far from a trade deal. Instead, the US President and the United Kingdom's Prime Minister have focused on a series of targeted pledges covering artificial intelligence, critical minerals, clean energy and security concerns. Sunak described the agreement as a “new economic partnership for a new age". When asked whether the Declaration was an "acknowledgement of the failure" to strike a broader trade deal, he said it "responds to particular challenges and opportunities we face right now". The Atlantic Declaration could be seen as an effort to lessen the impact of the US' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes tax credits worth $3,750 (£3,000) for each EV manufactured in the US, or that uses components mined, processed or manufactured in the country. The text of…

E+T Magazine
Pinpointing lost treasures already in museums

‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ has its fair share of iconic cinematic moments, including Indiana Jones outrunning a giant rolling rock to escape a booby-trapped Peruvian temple with a golden idol, not to mention the special effects of spirits escaping from the opened Ark of the Covenant that were probably responsible for many children’s nightmares in the 1980s. But it is the final scene of the film that is perhaps the most thought-provoking, as the Ark – a “source of unspeakable power” – is sealed shut in a wooden crate and moved to a mysterious and expansive warehouse for ‘top men’ to study. The film finishes with a single figure wheeling the anonymised top-secret crate through row upon row of near-identical boxes, leaving us to imagine the other treasures stashed inside. The dusty shelves…

E+T Magazine in History of Engineering
Engineering should be made more visible in schools, poll of academics concludes

NMITE and the EPC worked together to conduct the survey of the nation’s engineering academics in advance of the EPC’s ‘Engineering Academics Network Annual Congress’, which NMITE is hosting in Hereford from 12 June. This three-day event will see engineering academics from universities across the UK come together to explore issues in education and engineering. Academics from 85 UK higher education institutions were involved in the survey, which was conducted over the course of the last month, drawing on the EPC's database of members. When asked what should be done to elevate the status of engineering, almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of respondents felt that engineering should be made more visible in schools, with one academic commenting: “Help to educate parents about what a fantastic career…

E+T Magazine in STEM Education and Skills
Letters to the editor: volume 18, issue 6

Infrastructure isn’t the only problem with EV charging A news story in the June 2023 issue of E&T, ‘Demand for electric vehicles slows as public chargers remain elusive’ , touches on the slow-down in demand for EVs in the UK due to lack of infrastructure. Having recently bought a Nissan Leaf, which I am pleased with, I have set about experimenting with my local charging network, with mixed results. Quite often you have to download an app, then get it to work. If you are desperate enough you can telephone a help line, where you will be greeted by some music and a voice telling you where you are in a queue. Success from this point onwards is still hit and miss. Supermarkets incentivise shopping by offering charging facilities in their car parks. A word of caution though: parking restrictions…

E+T Magazine
View from India: Triple train collision the worst in several decades

The crash, which took place on 2 June, involved two passenger trains and a stationary goods train. The Coromandel Shalimar Express, heading to Chennai, derailed. It was running at full speed and collided with a goods train on an adjacent track. Given its speed, many of its coaches flipped over on to a third track. Three of the coaches collided with the oncoming Bangalore Howrah Superfast Express on the third track. Over 288 people are feared dead and over 1,000 have been left injured as a result of the train tragedy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the railway accident site and the hospital where the injured underwent treatment. Modi has assured the public that no stone will be left unturned to provide all possible medical help to those injured. He said that the government stands…

E+T Magazine in Railways
UK will host global summit on AI safety, Sunak reveals

During a visit to Washington DC, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that Britain will host the first major global summit on AI safety this autumn. The conference will aim to provide a space for " key countries, leading tech companies and researchers" to consider the risks of AI systems and discuss how they can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action, the British government said in a statement. “AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better," Sunak said. "But we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure. “Time and time again throughout history we have invented paradigm-shifting new technologies and we have harnessed them for the good of humanity. That is what we must do again." The Prime Minister claimed…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Local councils unprepared for climate change, report finds

The Local Government Association (LGA) said that over 300 councils have declared a climate emergency, and many are assessing risks and developing plans. In particular, risks to residents' health from heatwaves is considered one of the greatest climate concerns for councils following record-breaking heatwaves last summer that led to thousands of excess deaths across the country. The LGA called on the government to enable urgent acceleration of local adaptation action as part of its forthcoming National Adaptation Programme (NAP). The NAP sets out the actions that government and others will take to adapt to the challenges of climate change in England over a five-year period. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are currently working on the third iteration of the…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
Children spend more time online than in the real world

The IET polled 1,000 parents whose children belong to Generation Alpha (children born after 2010), finding that 57 per cent of them spend the majority of their free time on online platforms, equating to one whole day (23 hours) every week. This figure is even higher when looking at 12 and 13-year-olds, of which 67 and 66 per cent spend most of their recreational time online. The research also highlighted the increasing amount of time that Generation Alpha children spend exploring virtual reality (VR) technology. According to the parents, two-thirds (66 per cent) of children have now used VR and a quarter (25 per cent) do so every week. These percentages show a rise in the popularity of the technology, with kids’ engagement with VR growing by 320 per cent in the past year alone, from…

E+T Magazine in STEM Education and Skills
Smoke from Canadian wildfires forecast to reach Norway

Scientists with the Norwegian Climate and Environmental Research Institute (NILU) used a forecast model to predict how the smoke will travel through the atmosphere. The smoke has already moved over Greenland and Iceland since 1 June and observations in southern Norway have recorded increasing concentrations of aerosolised particles, the independent research institution said. “We may be able to see some haze or smell smoke,” Nikolaos Evangeliou, a senior NILU researcher, said. “However, we do not believe that the number of particles in the air here in Norway will be large enough to be harmful to our health.” The US east coast has experienced hazardous levels of pollution from the wildfires burning in Canada. The smoke has affected millions of people, held up flights at major airports…

E+T Magazine in Air Pollution

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