Optical computing where circuits are replaced by light beams is a step closer with nanoantennaes that can be tuned to emit and receive particular wavelengths and manufactured without complex methods. Optical computing could be faster than today’s computers,...

By Rob Coppinger | 02-05-2018

Wireless charging is becoming increasingly popular as a smartphone feature, but the technology has wider implications that will one day have a massive impact on industry at all levels. You spot the battery indicator on your phone is low, so you place the d...

By Christian Cawley | 30-04-2018

The clothes people wear will one day identify them to retailers as potential loyal shoppers with the help of video camera feeds, machine vision and biometric identification. The detection of clothing styles, the colour and type of jacket or blouse or trousers,...

By Rob Coppinger | 27-04-2018

For decades, Sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy, Nigeria, has been plagued by a lack of power generating capacity that has handicapped its development efforts. Now, a pioneering local start-up claims to have developed a solution in the form of its A2 300 and...

By Nnamdi Anyadike | 25-04-2018

According to many of the automotive and battery industry cognoscenti, all of us will be driving around in electric vehicles by the year 2030. Whether you believe that and whether you think there will be sufficient public charging points and electricity on nati...

Semiconductors | By Paul Whytock | 23-04-2018

As the UK agriculture and horticultural sector ponders its post-Brexit future and with the likely concomitant loss of Eastern European seasonal farm labour, the deployment of precision farming techniques and smart technologies now underway in the UK industry i...

By Nnamdi Anyadike | 19-04-2018

A humanoid robot with a skin that can detect its environment or a soldier with smart armour that harvests energy for anti-chemical weapon sensors are two possible applications for stretchable electronics. The stretchable electronics consist of a thin polymer p...

By Rob Coppinger | 18-04-2018

Public cloud computing and storage services are rapidly becoming the norm and overtaking the alternative strategy where companies build their own private cloud. Will this open more doors through which cybercriminals can infiltrate company networks? This questi...

Security | By Paul Whytock | 16-04-2018

For decades, the global oil and gas sector has lagged behind industry peers such as the automotive and aerospace industries in adopting and utilising new technologies. And this is despite the upstream sector operating in some of the most challenging environmen...

By Nnamdi Anyadike | 13-04-2018

Too often, we're told that the Internet of Things will revolutionise everything. IoT devices have been widely available for half a decade, yet there has yet to be any sign of IoT-enabled devices breaking through and fulfilling their promise. Sporadic use acros...

By Christian Cawley | 11-04-2018

The revolution in automotive drive transmission and engine technology is undoubtedly the most challenging and far-reaching change in vehicle technology since the development of the automobile. And it is increasingly going to have radical consequences for trans...

By Nnamdi Anyadike | 09-04-2018

For thousands of years, animals and plants have been used for clothing, from cotton to wool, to silk from silkworms. In the 20th and 21st centuries, other methods, such as genetic engineering and novel foods, have turned creatures’ bodily processes into factor...

By Rob Coppinger | 05-04-2018