Not only did Henry Ford make the motor car available to the wider public, he also invented the automated production line. Or did he? In fact, the Venetians had automated ship production several centuries before, floating one ship a day off the production line - and allowed them to rule to waves.
The crash of a commercial spacecraft on the surface of the Moon this month was due to problems with the vehicle’s laser range finder (LRF), Japanese firm ispace has said. As the Resilience lunar lander began its descent on 5 June, mission control suddenly lost all contact with the craft two minutes before it was scheduled for a soft touchdown. The proposed landing site for the mission was the far northern Mare Frigoris – a location chosen because it allows for continuous line-of-sight radio communication from Earth. But by the following morning, ispace issued an update saying that mission controllers had determined that it was “unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored” and had decided to conclude the mission entirely. After analysing the data from the landing sequence…
Aviation now contributes a greater share of total UK emissions than the entire electricity supply sector, putting future climate change targets at risk, a report has found. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which acts as an advisory body to the government, said that domestic emissions have now fallen by more than half (50.4%) compared with 1990 levels. The pace of reduction has more than doubled since the introduction of the Climate Change Act in 2008. But progress to date has been primarily driven by decarbonisation of the electricity system, with renewables replacing both coal and, increasingly, gas. Aviation is a much more difficult sector to abate emissions from and consumers have embraced more frequent air travel in recent years. Due to these factors, the sector now contributes…
To better understand how passengers may experience future travel by air taxi, Nasa researchers have carried out studies using a vertical motion simulator. Turbulence can severely affect a passenger’s experience of flying. As turbulence can cause discomfort, anxiety and motion sickness, airlines aim to avoid it as much as possible. With the possibility of our skies being filled with new types of aircraft in the future, including air taxis, Nasa has been conducting research to evaluate how air taxi motion, vibration and other factors may affect ride comfort. The future of air taxi transport depends on whether people will actually want to ride these aircraft. These studies have tried to assess what passengers will and will not tolerate. Nasa has said the data gathered from the research…
The UK government has launched its long-awaited industrial strategy, with businesses welcoming support through trade investment, skills training and lower energy prices. Published on Monday (23 June), the 10-year plan is intended to increase business investment and drive growth in the UK economy. At its launch, Jonathan Reynolds, business and trade secretary, said the strategy would “ensure the UK is the best country to invest and do business”. The strategy comes shortly after the recent spending review, where Rachel Reeves committed £39bn for affordable homes and £15bn for transport improvements across the North and Midlands, as well as an £86bn boost for science and tech R&D, £14.2bn to build Sizewell C, and £2.5bn for small modular reactors. The 160-page strategy white paper sets…
This article has been provided by Aly MacGregor, property executive at WSP Have you heard the one about an AI that couldn’t create an image of a bike with square wheels, since all its training data had bikes with round wheels? You could take that as a humorous illustration of AI’s limitations – or a cautionary tale of the limitations of human engineers. Most engineers I know take a degree of pleasure in demonstrating how clever they are, in this case outwitting AI. Yet, I question whether that’s the best demonstration of intelligence. After all, breaking a model isn’t necessarily that hard, if that’s your goal. We would be far smarter and better served to figure out new ways to use AI to address more meaningful questions. Instead of figuring out how to break a model, engineers should…
A nano satellite known as QUICK³ has been blasted into orbit to test components for use in future quantum satellite systems to be used for secure communications. The satellite, developed by a research consortium headed by Technical University of Munich professor Tobias Vogl, was launched into orbit with a booster rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Monday. The satellite, which is no bigger than a shoebox and weighs around 4kg, will test quantum communication components that will achieve fully secure data transmissions from the sender to the receiver. Unlike conventional communications through fibre-optic cables, the information transmitted by a quantum communication satellite is not contained in light pulses made up of many photons, but rather in individual, precisely…
Diverting food waste away from landfills and towards proper recycling methods could have a drastic impact on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, a Penn State University study has found. It’s estimated that almost a third of the food produced for human consumption is ultimately lost as waste – much of it goes to landfill, which results in harmful methane emissions and the loss of critical resources that could be repurposed for agriculture. The Penn State study assessed three food waste recycling methods for their environmental impact: composting, which breaks down organic waste while conserving valuable nutrients; anaerobic digestion, the process by which organic material is broken down and produces a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide known as biogas, which can be used as a renewable…
The financial impact of the recent cyber incident on Marks & Spencer (M&S) and the Co-op could be as much as £440m, according to estimates by the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC). In April 2025 UK retailers M&S and the Co-op both suffered a major breach. The cyber attacks not only significantly disrupted online and in-store services at both companies, but also resulted in personal customer data being stolen. The attacks were publicly claimed by representatives of the DragonForce ransomware-as-a-service operation. Scattered Spider, an affiliate collective, carried out the attacks using DragonForce’s tools. CMC – an independent, non-profit body categorising major cyber events – has performed an assessment of the financial impact of the attacks. It says it is treating the attacks as “single…
The Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile has released the first images taken using its 3,200-megapixel digital camera, the largest ever built for astronomy. A joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, the $810m facility is located on top of Cerro Pachón in the Andes in central Chile. The observatory features an advanced 8.4-metre telescope equipped with the enormous digital camera, enabling it to scan large swaths of sky with high sensitivity and in a short time. To put this in perspective, each image is so detailed that it would take hundreds of ultra-high-definition TV screens to display it in full. The camera features enormous filters that allow through different types of light, from ultraviolet to near-infrared. The telescope will later this…
Scientists have calculated that policies designed to reduce the proliferation of plastic bags across the US have led to decreases of up to 47% on shorelines. Plastic bags, which have low recycling rates, are among the biggest culprits of pollution in the ocean and often become litter when they blow away in the wind. Once there, they can entangle animals and break down into harmful microplastics. More than 100 countries have now instituted bans or fees on plastic bags in a bid to reduce their environment impact. The study from the University of Delaware and Columbia University found that plastic bag policies led to a 25% to 47% decrease in related pollution as a share of total items collected in shoreline clean-ups relative to areas without policies. This decrease grows in magnitude over…
The government will slash green levies to reduce the high cost of energy faced by British business. Electricity in the UK is more expensive than in many of its European counterparts, and while the market has seen some recent price drops, it’s still more costly than it was before the 2022 price spikes. This is largely because the UK is reliant on gas to provide a consistent base load energy supply, and the fuel has been subject to significant market volatility. British manufacturers in particular have been hit hard by the prices, while businesses looking to expand or modernise have faced delays when it comes to connecting to the grid. Last year, UK Steel highlighted how high energy prices had crippled domestic steel producers, which are paying as much as 50% more than competitors in France…
The ID. Buzz AD, the first fully autonomous production vehicle from Volkswagen (VW), is to be deployed in Europe and the US from 2026. Self-driving vehicles have rarely been out the headlines in recent weeks. In just the past week alone, Alphabet’s Waymo revealed it is to expand into New York City, Amazon’s Zoox has opened a robotaxi manufacturing plant and Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, with 11 vehicles. VW has now also entered the robotaxi fray, but with a slightly different offering. Its MOIA brand, a tech subsidiary of the VW Group, has unveiled the ID. Buzz AD – an autonomous production-ready version of its all-electric ID. Buzz microbus. The difference is that while MOIA supplies the “comprehensive end-to-end solution” – the electric vehicle, self-driving…
Miniature robots that can find and fix leaky water pipes autonomously without the need to dig up roads have been developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield. ‘Pipebots’ are miniature robots equipped with sensors that can travel through pipes and check for defects in underground infrastructure. The project, led by researchers at the University of Sheffield’s School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, with input from the universities of Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds, started over six years ago. The aim was to revolutionise how water infrastructure is managed to prevent water being lost through cracks and defective pipes. Professor Kirill Horoshenkov, Pipebots programme director and professor of acoustics at the University of Sheffield, said: “Leaky water pipes…
TikTok has been given another 90 days by the Trump administration to operate in the US after a law was passed last year that would force parent company ByteDance to sell the video-sharing platform. The ban was originally signed into law in April 2024, but TikTok owner ByteDance appealed to the US Supreme Court. In January, the court upheld the law saying that the app could not operate domestically unless it was sold to a US company because of concerns that ByteDance had links with the Chinese government. While the decision to uphold the ban was not a popular one with users of the platform, concerns about ByteDance’s close ties to the Chinese administration were not unfounded. Chinese national security laws require that all domestic firms hand over intelligence when requested by Beijing…
The government has unveiled plans to invest £725bn over the next decade in improvements to the UK’s infrastructure, including energy, transport, water and digital connectivity. Chief treasury secretary Darren Jones said the plan was needed to counteract “years of erratic decisions” from the previous government that has left the UK’s productivity falling behind countries such as France, Germany and the US. The package aims to ensure that taxpayer funds spent on infrastructure continue to rise “at least in line with inflation” and includes some previously announced policies such as the introduction of more nuclear energy in the form of small modular reactors and funding to support the upcoming Lower Thames Crossing. The primary focus of the announcement was on building up to 35 new hospitals…
The widespread switch-off of Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meters on 30 June will be replaced by a phased-out approach, the government has confirmed. As of 30 May 2025, statistics from the energy regulator Ofgem revealed that there were still 314,935 RTS meters that needed to be upgraded to a smart meter. This was despite the looming RTS signal switch-off date of 30 June. In the event of a switch-off, these affected households may find their heating or hot water provisions are disrupted. The government has now confirmed that instead of a complete switch-off on 30 June, there will rather be a “cautious and targeted” phase out to the RTS service. Miatta Fahnbulleh, minister for energy consumers, said: “We have stepped in to ensure that thousands of vulnerable consumers with RTS meters…
An EU court adviser has backed a €4.12bn competition fine against Google, dealing a blow to the tech giant’s chances of overturning it. The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has announced its advocate general Juliane Kokott has advised the court to dismiss Google’s appeal to overturn a €4.34bn anticompetitive fine imposed on the Alphabet-owned company in 2018. She said the reduced fine of €4.12bn set by the General Court in 2022 following an initial appeal by Google should be upheld. In 2018, the European Commission imposed a €4.34bn fine following findings by Brussels regulators that Google had “abused its dominant position”. The findings revealed that Google had used its Android mobile phone operating system to block rivals since 2011. The commission accused…
Amazon’s driverless taxi subsidiary Zoox has opened its first production facility for purpose-built robotaxis in the US and hopes to build more than 10,000 a year. Amazon bought the start-up in 2020 for $1.2bn (£890m) with the intention of eventually launching a service akin to Google’s Waymo. Waymo began taking rides for its first commercial service in San Francisco in 2021, while Zoox is gearing up to start public rides in Las Vegas later this year, with San Francisco to follow. The firm’s 220,000 square foot ‘state-of-the-art’ production facility is located in Hayward, California, and Zoox said it would be used for engineering, software integration, robotaxi assembly and storage components. The assembly line has also been designed to be adaptable to accommodate future design and feature…
Surgeons in Houston, Texas, have used robotic tools to perform heart transplant surgery on a patient without opening his chest. The minimally invasive surgery, performed at Baylor St Luke's Medical Center, reduced surgical trauma, blood loss and infection risk and increased recovery time for the 45-year-old patient. During the procedure, surgeons made small incisions in the upper abdominal wall below the diaphragm, eliminating the need to open the chest and break the breastbone. The robot was then navigated through the preperitoneal space in the abdominal wall to remove the diseased heart. The same route was then used to implant the donor organ. “Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially…
Generative AI services such as ChatGPT are major carbon (CO2) emitters due to their intensive energy usage, but a new study has found that some AI prompts could cause 50 times more emissions than others depending on what is asked. To answer user queries, these services use tokens. These are words or parts of words that are converted into a string of numbers that can be processed by the large language model (LLM). This conversion, as well as other computing processes, produces CO2 emissions. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has admitted that users saying “please” and “thank you” alone costs the firm “tens of millions of dollars” due to the extra energy usage of dealing with longer queries. Researchers at the Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences in Germany measured and compared CO2 emissions…
The Smart City movement began when the enabling digital technology allowed a level of communication that made lives better for those living in the urban environment. But some of the impetus was lost as the technology was taken for granted. However, recent developments appear to be allowing more tangible progress now - our cities could be getting smarter again!
Honda’s experimental reusable rocket has reached an altitude of nearly 300 metres before successfully touching down on its landing site. Although not known for its space aspirations, the auto giant Honda has for the past few years been developing a reusable rocket prototype under its research and development arm Honda R&D. Since 2024 its 6.3 metre-long reusable rocket has been undergoing engine combustion and hovering tests at Honda’s facility in Taiki, Hokkaido, Japan. On Tuesday the rocket successfully completed its first launch and landing test. Having reached an altitude of 271 metres, it returned and successfully touched down 37cm off its target landing point. The entire flight took less than 57 seconds. It enabled Honda R&D to test the technologies essential for a reusable rocket…
The HS2 railway project will face further delays beyond its expected 2033 completion date because of a “litany of failure”, transport secretary Heidi Alexander has told the Commons. HS2 has been beset by a string of failures and budget overruns over the last decade, including the cancellation of routes ending in Leeds and Manchester by the previous Conservative government. An HS2 board paper released in June 2024 anticipated that the project was now expected to cost between £54bn and £66bn in 2019 prices – a marked increase from estimates the previous November of £49bn to £57bn. “It’s an appalling mess, but it’s one we will sort out,” Alexander said in parliament. With regards to the report on the project by the new CEO of HS2 Ltd, she said: “Based on his advice, I see no route by which…
