Viewpoints

Helen Weedon, MD of the Satcoms Innovation Group, considers how the satcom industry can better engage with young people about the opportunities that exist. Recruitment within the satcom industry is a pain point for many operators, even for the biggest household names. Not enough young people are choosing to study STEM subjects and this skills shortage is already being felt ...

Amazon may be in a tight spot in its video streaming technology dispute with Nokia, but there are options, writes John-Paul Rooney, a consumer tech specialist at European intellectual property firm Withers & Rogers. News that tech innovator Nokia is suing Amazon in five jurisdictions – the UK, Germany, India, the European Unified Patent Court, and the US – for ...

Vehicle manufacturers have long dreamt of reducing weight by replacing heavy wiring looms with radio frequency technology. However, achieving this wireless nirvana is not as simple as it first appears, writes Sampson Hu, founder of UK antenna specialist Novocomms. One of the heaviest sub-systems in most vehicles, wiring harnesses can weigh in at around 150lbs, creating a major headache for ...

The robotic patents war is not over but disputes don’t have to reach court, writes Alexander Ford of Withers & Rogers, in the wake of the Ocado and AutoStore settlement. Following a three-year-long legal dispute over alleged patent infringement, Ocado and Norwegian robotic tech company, AutoStore, have reached an out-of-court settlement. But the robot patent war is far from being ...

Why not use IoT-enabled sensors, using the LoRaWAN standard, for ‘ultra-early’ wildfire detection, asks Carsten Brinkschulte, co-founder and CEO of Dryad Networks? Wildfires contribute approximately 20% of the world’s CO2 emissions, equivalent to the combined emissions of automobiles, airplanes, trains, and ships. Even more concerning, these wildfires trigger a chain reaction in our climate, intensifying global warming by increasing the ...

AI-enabled software for energy management systems can help the switch to EVs write Diego Black and Andrew Hey of Withers & Rogers. With energy demand set to climb as consumers switch to EVs in the run up to the UK ban on the sale of new ICE vehicles in 2030, software developers are harnessing the power of AI to track ...

Stewart Edmondson, CEO at UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF), shares his experience of supporting more than 750 undergraduates through the UKESF Scholarship Scheme. He considers how employers can de-risk their graduate recruitment process… Ash Madni, in his recent Viewpoint piece in Electronics Weekly (26 April 2023 edition), provided interview tips for graduate engineers. He said, “after three or four years ...

The rapid market expansion for robotics brings risks, writes Alexander Ford of intellectual property firm Withers & Rogers. Over the past decade, the robotics sector has been advancing at pace. Early-stage, experimental research projects have given way to major-scale R&D programmes aimed at finding new applications for robotics technologies in a variety of industry sectors. As it stands, we are ...

Ash Madni takes a personal look at some of the British companies that have shown an impressive ability to survive in tough economic conditions and still carve out a niche in the IC Design market. In the modern world of post British companies such as GEC, Plessey, Ferranti, STL, few can boast a history of Integrated Design activities that goes ...

Ash Madni considers hitting snags in electronics design – or what he calls “problem traps” – and shares some very experienced perspectives on how best to manage… So we’ve just started another exciting job in Analog IC design at a good company. We pat ourselves on the back and feel proud of ourselves until a design problem hits our desk. ...