ENGGtalks Newsroom

04 Nov 22

Chopper Rocket Chasers Played “Catch Me if You Can”

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Update 4 Nov. 2:45 p.m. EDT: Rocket Lab says its launch was successful, but booster recovery was not. It says it lost telemetry signals from the descending first stage during reentry. “As standard procedure, we pull the helicopter from the recovery zone if this happens,” a company spokesperson said.“If at…

02 Nov 22

Smart windows could provide green Wi-Fi alternative

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Smart windows could offer a low-energy alternative to Wi-Fi or cellular data transition by using light to send information. The innovative design features a glass system that would modulate the sunshine streaming through the window, encoding data into the light, which could then be detected and decoded by the electronic…

02 Nov 22

Britain bids farewell to fax

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The lifecycle of fax machines has come to an end, or so Ofcom seems to believe. The UK regulator has proposed updating the USO – a set of rules that ensures everyone in the UK has access to telecommunication services – to remove the requirement for telecommunications companies to provide…

29 Oct 22

AI-Generated Fashion Is Next Wave of DIY Design

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Could AI inspire your next ugly holiday sweater?As odd as it may sound, recent advancements in machine learning have made it possible. CALA, an “operating system for fashion” that helps designers sketch, prototype, and produce new products, is the first service to implement OpenAI’s DALL-E API. Its new generative AI…

27 Oct 22

Plastic-like material conducts electricity like metal

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The material has molecular fragments that are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well, which goes against all of the standard rules for conductivity. “In principle, this opens up the design of a whole new class of materials that conduct electricity, are easy to shape, and are…

24 Oct 22

View from Brussels: Crucial networks set for better protection

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Deep in the Baltic Sea, two gas pipelines – Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 – lie empty. NS2 had not shipped a single molecule to Germany from Russia thanks to Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of this year. At the end of September, the Danish and…

24 Oct 22

View from Washington: Xi pushes back and forward on US chip clampdown

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

At the end of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping made his first – though not entirely explicit – comments on the technology restrictions imposed by the Biden Administration around semiconductors, AI and supercomputing earlier this month. They came just hours before The…

20 Oct 22

Who Will Fix Hubble and Chandra?

Aerospace & Aeronautical

Elon Musk, step aside. You may be the richest rich man in the space business, but you’re not first. Musk’s SpaceX corporation is a powerful force, with its weekly launches and visions of colonizing Mars. But if you want a broader view of how wealthy entrepreneurs have shaped space exploration,…

19 Oct 22

Sondrel looks to long-term pursuit of custom silicon

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

October is not an auspicious month for stock markets. Thirty-five years ago, Black Monday put the brakes on what had been up to then a display of irrational exuberance for which the markets are notorious for good reason. And October was already famous for sudden drops to the point that…

19 Oct 22

Smart cities can beat the heat if stakeholders work together

Geotechnical & Environmental

The threat that climate change poses to those living and working in urban areas came to the fore this summer as the UK experienced a record-breaking 40°C heatwave. With warnings from the World Health Organisation that extreme temperature events are set to increase in frequency, duration, and magnitude, it’s crucial…