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  • IET NorCal learns all about Dropbox

    On Saturday, April 29 th , Tom Manville gave one of the most interesting presentations that the IET NorCal committee has had the pleasure of hosting to date. About 20 people attentively listened to his one and a half hour discussion on the architecture and technologies behind Dropbox.   His talk started by highlighting the size of the data problem that the engineers at Dropbox work with. For example, Dropbox has about 500 million users by the latest count and those users had access to about 500 petabytes of storage in 2016; a significant increase from 40 petabytes in 2012. 500 petabytes is a 5 followed by 17 zero’s worth of bytes. To put that into perspective, that is enough storage to hold 14,000 times the amount of text held in all of the books in the Library of Congress. (It’s a lot!). …

    Allan Casey
    Allan Casey

  • The North West Electrification Programme - Crewe

    If you didn't make it along to the IET Railway  North West Electrification Programme event in Crewe, have a read over what you missed. The North West Electrification Programme The engineering team from Network Rail give an overview of the background to the programme, how the option development and designs has been progressed, and  what the next steps are for the programme. Background The electrification programme in the North West will see over 300km of lines electrified, improving connections between towns and cities in our region and beyond. The first two phases of electrification are now complete with passengers enjoying new electric services from Manchester Airport to Scotland, Liverpool, and between Huyton and Wigan with subsequent phases well underway.  The talk covered Phase 3, 4 and…

    Lynsay Callaghan
    Lynsay Callaghan

  • Surgical Robotics - 27th April

    [ View the story "Surgical Robotics" on Storify ]

  • Leadership Program 2017 Workshop #1

    The first workshop of the 2017 IET Leadership Programme took place on the 22nd of April. Following the tradition of years past MBTI was the first subject on the billet. The Curtin Engineering Pavillion was a peerless site for the subject, the space feeling modern and open, with various engineering project of the students littering the ground floor. Hazel, the presenter from AIM, gave an engaging speech to the students, artfully weaving into her talk the likes of Father Ted , Spongebob , and Monty Python . All were laughing as she related anecdotes regarding her INFP husband's exploits.   Each student determined their Myers-Briggs personality type by sessions end, and had gained an insight into the thought patterns of their peers. Unlike previous years, dominated as they were by STJs, a wide…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • New Book In The Control, Robotics And Sensors Series

    The latest edition to the Control, Robotics and Sensors series is the Control of Mechatronics Systems, due to be published this month: Control of Mechatronic Systems Author: Levent Guvenc, Bilin Aksun Guvenc, Burak Demirel and Mumin Tolga Emirler This comprehensive book will introduce advanced students, with only a basic background in control theory, to an array of techniques they can easily implement and use to meet the required performance specifications for their mechatronic applications. Publication date: May 2017 15% early bird discount*: £72.25 / $114.75 Price: £85 / $135 You can see all the books available in this series online  One of the books available is on Cyber-Physical System Design with Sensor Networking Technologies published in 2016 and authored by Sherali Zeadally and Nafaâ…

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • UEA Enterprise Centre Tour

    Thursday 4th May, 18:00-20:00 The Enterprise Centre, TEC Lecture Theatre, UEA, NR4 7TJ The Enterprise Centre is one of the UKs most sustainable buildings and is one of the region’s hub for entrepreneurs, innovators and businesses that are committed to building a low carbon future.  Led by a member of The Enterprise Centre delivery team, this presentation and tour will provide detailed insight into the design, construction and operational processes of this truly unique building. Located at the gateway to the University of East Anglia, this 3,400 m2 ground-breaking building was the first large scale building in the UK to achieve both Passivhaus Certification and BREEAM Outstanding, two of the most rigorous sustainable built environment standards.  Through the innovative use of natural and recycled…

    Alex Barrett
    Alex Barrett

  • A Vision for Energy Storage

    On  Wednesday 10th May, Mark Goudie will be delivering a talk for IET London at Savoy Place on "A Vision for Energy Storage."  It is going to be a great event and we hope to see you there.  You can find out more details online . Did you know that the IET Standards team are publishing a code of practice on electrical energy storage systems, which is due out later this year?  The code will give in-depth guidance and aims to review the underlying technical, operational and safety issues relating to the application of electrical energy storage systems in buildings and power systems.    The scope covers all types of electrical and electrochemical energy storage systems; integration into low voltage power systems; industrial, commercial and domestic applications and systems aligned with existing…

  • Field Robots, Cloud Networks And Next Generation Automation. (IET Bedfordshire And Hertfordshire).

    Focusing on the theme of field based technologies; I took opportunity to attend a coherent event hosted by the IET Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire network. Derek Long of Cambridge Consultants explained how the concepts of cloud can be delivered to automate the functions of warehouse activities using robots over a private network using unlicensed radio frequencies.  A few blogs ago, I attended a seminar that reviewed how edge technologies will need to provide scale, quality and immediate responses to effectively manage its field nodes in order for them to provide quality services. Keeping in line with the theme of field based technologies and cloud networks; this event described a working solution of robots, networks and next generation warehouse automation. The solution created by Cambridge…

  • Present Around The World (PATW) Competition Switzerland

    ...looking forward to see you at our next PATW event, to be held at the ETH Zurich - Building HG (Room D5.2), Ramistrasse 101, Zurich on Tuesday 9th May Presenters to arrive 17:00 to handle formalities, but members of the audience, general public are welcome from 17:15.  We aim to start presentations at 17:30 Here's a link to where you can sign-up (just so that we can get an idea of numbers for the catering): https://localevents.theiet.org/1d048a Jeff Chair - IET Switzerland

    Jeff Hunter
    Jeff Hunter

  • Review Of The European Robotics Forum 2017

    The IET Robotics and Mechatronics TPN was delighted to exhibit at the European Robotics Forum 2017 in Edinburgh last month. The conference took place over the course of three days and brought together end users, technology developers, service providers and academics from a cross section of industry, for three days of presentations and panel discussions. It was fantastic to be surrounded by the biggest and best innovators in European robotics and there was a strong sense of collaborative thinking and knowledge sharing. Many themes were discussed at ERF but we've picked 3 which we found most interesting:   Focus on Artficial Intelligence It seems that we have now reached a state where we (and potentially society) have accepted the fact that the capability for robots to ‘think’ and act with superhuman…

  • Young Professionals Sundowner

    Friday 4pm Engineers = Happy Hour! It does not take a genius to figure the above equation. The IET WA Young Professionals has organised its first sundowner for 2017 and we are thrilled to see many volunteers and in fact new faces who decided to join the party after work. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers, Ian Manton for organising the venue and the food, Irene Veliana for setting up all the marketing materials for social media and of course thanks to everyone who turned up to make the evening a great one. Personally I am so happy that I get to speak to some of the volunteers whom I haven't spoken to in ages, just because some of them have started their graduate position where they fly in fly out (FIFO) for work. It was definitely heartwarming to reconnect with old friends and forge new friendships…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Leadership Program 2017 Meet & Greet

    The 2017 YP Leadership Programme kicked off just before Easter this month with the Meet and Greet at the Rendezvous Hotel. Almost all 22 participants enjoyed a marvellous evening of food and companionship. Much of the core YP committee joined in, getting to know the new crop of young leaders. The Programme mentors were pleased that three Senior committee, Martin King, Walter Green and Gordon March, coming to wish us all well in the opening of the Programme. As ever Martin King was a standout, keeping the drink flowing, and putting everyone through strange social experiments.   The 2017 Leadership Programme is the biggest so far. Throughout the evening people flowed and chatted. Excitement abounded as the participants got to learn more about the Programme and the IET. At the midpoint, an introductory…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • The Hunt Is On For Scotland’s Future Cyber Crime Fighters

    Are you one of Scotland's  best young codebreakers?  Cyber Games Scotland is launching its 2017 competition during a week of dedicated digital skills events run by organisations across Scotland. Cyber Games Scotland is part of a wider drive to inspire more young people to pick a career fighting cyber crime. The Games will kick off in May with a week of virtual code-breaking challenges. The Scottish Government’s Cyber Resilience Strategy - launched in 2015 - aims to  make Scotland a world-leader in cyber resilience by 2020 . A key part of this strategy is to educate and train young people to raise awareness of the threat and inspire the future cyber security workforce.   Young people with an interest in cyber security once again have the opportunity to attend free National Cyber Security Centre…

    Lynsay Callaghan
    Lynsay Callaghan

  • IET Achievement Medals

    Nominations are now open for the 2017 IET Achievement Medals. Who will you nominate? The IET Achievement Medals recognise exceptional professional achievements and voluntary contributions to the IET. The range of awards covers engineers and technologists at all levels – from dedicated apprentices to influential leaders or researchers. Show a colleague how much you value them and their contribution to the profession and nominate them for a medal. The Medals are international in scope and are awarded by nomination only. Do you know somebody who you would like to nominate for one of these awards?  The IET Prestige Medals consist of the Faraday Medal , the Mountbatten Medal , the Mensforth Manufacturing Gold Medal and the JJ Thomson Medal for Electronics .  There are also up to five Achievement…

    Gemma Hadley
    Gemma Hadley

  • IET London Hammersmith group need your help!

    IET London Hammersmith group is run by volunteers. Engineers, just like you, who give just few hours of their time each month to further our profession and our institution.    These volunteers:-               plan, organise and deliver our events programme that we run throughout the year, with guest speakers talking on hot engineering subjects;               they prepare and manage our budget;               keep our web site up to date and arrange publicity for events;               advise on professional registration;               work with schools to encourage careers in engineering;               liaise with our universities and student groups;               help build relationships with engineering businesses throughout the Hammersmith area   There is always more to do and just a few hours…

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • Speaker Highlight - The 3rd Annual Future Of Medicine – The Role Of Doctors In 2027

    Dr Keith Grimes, GP and Digital Health Innovator    “Keith is a General Practitioner and CCG Innovation Lead with a passion for Digital Health. With 20 years’ experience of work within the NHS, he’s led award winning projects including MyLittleOne, a neonatal camera & tablet system, and Brighton & Hove Roving GP service. Current projects include ‘See What I See’, an evaluation of Google Glass for remote consultations, and ‘PREVENT ICU Delirium’, a ground-breaking project aiming to reduce Post-operative Delirium using Virtual Reality. A lifelong Geek & Gamer, he’s the founder of  ‘VR Doctors’: an online community dedicated to exploring Virtual & Augmented Reality in Health & Social Care, and the host of the ‘Curistica: Adventures in Digital Health’ podcast”   To keep up with our latest news…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Bloodhound SSC

    The talk on Tuesday 18th April at Brighton University was about Bloodhound SSC, the car designed to travel at 1000 mph! The slides used by Chris Rickard, who is part of the build team, contained photos and information that is available on the Bloodhound website ( http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/ ). The book about Bloodhound (and other items) are also available via the web site.

    David James
    David James

  • IoT Gone Wrong

    A couple of articles caught my eye recently – cases of IoT not going quite as they should!   Garadget  In the first case, it all started out so innocently. A user, by the handle, rdmart7, purchased a device called Garadget which allows users to open/close their garage door from their smartphone. He soon found it didn’t work and left an angry review on Amazon. He quickly received a reply from the creator of Garadget, Denis Grisak, who, unimpressed by rdmart7’s review, blocked his unit from accessing the servers. This meant of course that the device was rendered useless. There was a bit of back and forth before Garadget eventually restored access. The creator, Grisak was contrite after, admitting that he might have overreacted to the review.   The second story is one you might’ve seen – the case…

    Former Staff Member
    Former Staff Member

  • YRP Rail Week 2017 is coming

    In 2016 more than 70 companies and organisations joined together and delivered 157 events across the country for the first ever Rail Week. Young Rail Professionals have now launched Rail Week 2017 , which will take place from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 October . Rail Week is a pan-industry collaborative effort aimed at bridging the sector’s looming skills gap and inspiring the next generation of rail professionals. The week of rail-related activity will include a plethora of events, visits and talks to promote careers in our great industry.     YRP need your help to deliver this ambitious but essential campaign. Please start thinking about how you can support Rail Week, including: Hosting tours of your depots, labs, stations or project sites Organising a conference or evening lecture Visiting a…

    Lynsay Callaghan
    Lynsay Callaghan

  • Traffex 2017 Update

    I was disappointed not to be able to make Traffex at the NEC this year.  I've just been on the post event website and found these interesting podcasts that were recorded pre-during the event which I thought I'd share with the community.  To access these click here . The podcasts cover Smart Motorways, the Women in ITS Breakfast event, Traffic Light and Video Technology, How to set up a Radar amongst other topics. My colleagues from the IET.tv team and Anna Bonne our Transport Lead attended the event to undertake some filming and I'll share this with you here as soon as its available.

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie
    Deborah-Claire McKenzie

  • BREXIT: Opportunity or Threat to UK Innovation?

    IET Central London Evening Lecture Savoy Place, 12-Apr-2017 Speaker: Sir Vince Cable Important note: These are the author's personal recollections and interpretations, which are likely to suffer from errors and selectivity. There is no endorsement from the IET or Sir Vince Cable. Over 400 people packed the main Kelvin Lecture Theatre for this stimulating talk by the well known former LibDem MP, Sir Vince Cable. Ten months on from the momentous referendum result, whatever our individual preference, BREXIT is something we have to get on with making happen, even if the process and outcome are clouded by uncertainty. We now have a timetable to exit by March 2019; allowing six months for parliamentary and European ratification, this probably leaves eighteen months to sort it all out. Vince took…

    David Tabor
    David Tabor

  • Safety Critical Systems Course (SCS) 2017

    Back by popular demand, the IET’s 25th Safety Critical Systems Course will take place on 19 – 22 June 2017 at Wyboston Lakes in Bedfordshire. Delegates attending this course will learn how to interpret and apply IEC 61508 through tutorials, practical workshops and discussions, all are delivered by a host of safety critical system experts from industry and academia. Themes for the course include an introduction to IEC 61508, risk concepts & IEC 61508 standards, hardware architectures & safety assurance and software safety.   Programme There will be more than 20 sessions at SCS course, featuring leading industry experts from all around the UK. Course day modules will cover: Introduction to IEC 61508 Sils and hardware Management, operations and maintenance Competence and software safety   Speakers…

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • Sign up for our upcoming DropBox seminar on April 29th!

    Hi all, Have you ever wondered how Dropbox stores and serves your data? How do they provide a service that is both reliable and secure? In this talk, we give a brief history of Dropbox’s architecture and the DevOps model that supports it. We’ll present how we scaled a MySQL cluster to handle millions of requests a second. We’ll discuss how Dropbox, once one of the largest consumers of AWS S3, migrated user data to their own data centers. This will be targeted to people who have no background with cloud concepts, but are interested in examples of the cloud at scale. Our speaker, Tom Manville graduated from the University of Michigan with a MSE in Computer Engineering in 2013.  He initially joined Maginatics, which built a cloud-backed, locally cached, consistent filesystem.  Maginatics was acquired…

    Allan Casey
    Allan Casey

  • International Conference on Railway Engineering (ICRE) 2017, Hong Kong

    The Event ICRE17 returns to Hong Kong on 24-25th May 2017. Inheriting the success and rewarding experience from its precedents, the Organising Committee is both proud and delightful to announce that the forthcoming conference will be held on 24 to 25 May 2017 at Hotel ICON in Hong Kong followed by a technical visit on 26 May 2017. The International Conference on Railway Engineering (ICRE) is held every three years in Hong Kong with the objective to provide a forum for sharing knowledge and experience; promoting collaboration among practitioners; as well as revealing recent development and applications of new technologies in railway engineering. The organiser, Railway and Transport Section of the IET Hong Kong is composed of engineering professionals from disciplines of electrical, electronics…

    Lynsay Callaghan
    Lynsay Callaghan

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