Digital Issues

Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a flying battery! According to a company called Joby Aviation, in a few years you’ll be able to summon up an air taxi on your Uber phone app for trips of 25 miles or so. And you won’t have to feel guilty about the…

Talk of EV fires still smolders The latest figures from the National Fire Protection Association show that only about 20% of all vehicle fires arise from problems in the vehicle electrical system—most fires have something to do with the fuel system. Seeing as electric vehicles will do away with problematic petrol, you might wonder whether…

SAY GOODBYE TO CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIPS OFFICIALS ESTIMATE it will cost $50 billion to field the chargers needed for the expected number of electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2030. But it’s possible that spending every penny of this amount won’t prevent the extinction of the cross-country road trip. Here’s the logic behind that statement:…

MICROWAVES AND THE HAVANA SYNDROME The National Academy of Sciences recently released its conclusions about what sickened dozens of American Embassy diplomats in Cuba, a phenomenon dubbed the Havana Syndrome. Though the panel reached no definitive conclusion, it found pulsed RF (a.k.a. directed microwave energy) was the most likely cause. Panel members could not rule…

WELCOME TO OUR FIRST 5G HANDBOOK 5G is more than another wireless technology. It’s changed the radio, the access network, the spectrum, and the network core. It might even change our lives. That’s why EE World created 5G Technology World. We cover 5G technologies on engineering terms. The site launched in January 2020, just as…

Worst suspicions contirmed: The terrible security of internet routers Here’s the latest IDT security nightmare: All of the wireless routers through which most loT traffic passes are probably vul­nerable to botnets and other kinds of security breaches. That’s the conclusion of researchers at Fraunhofer FKIE in Germany who analyzed 127 different routers sold by seven…

Battery breakthrough fatigue For some cheap thrills, try Googling the words “battery breakthrough.” You’ll be presented with page after page of articles breathlessly chronicling one research result after another in energy storage. But you might wonder why, with so many earth-shattering developments, electric vehicles can’t travel 1,000 miles before needing a recharge. The reason: It…

Why lithium batteries won’t fill up landfills Consumers with an inclination toward sustainability have been bummed out over recent revelations that most of the plastics they have carefully separated, washed, and placed in recycling bins typically end up in the local dump. So it may come as good news that dead lithium batteries are increasingly…

Latest connected car feature: Germicidal lights A year ago, had you brought up the idea of adding germicidal lights to a connected car, you probably would have gotten back facial expressions suggesting you’ d lost your mind. Today, the same idea would be more likely to engender a lot of head nodding. Who knew a…

Will your good samaritanism in the pandemic buy you a lawsuit? IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE INDIVIDUALS voluntarily spending your time on technology to help abate the COVID 19 pandemic, consider the experience of the vacuum cleaner company Dyson in the UK. Company founder James Dyson estimates his firm spent about $25 million and…