Blog

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has just wrapped up. With 160,000 attendees, 3,800 exhibitors and almost 2.5m square feet of exhibit space, this is the largest electronics show in the world. The array of new products and technologies has been featured on virtually every media outlet from Good Morning America to the BBC. By Alan Grau, President and Cofounder, Icon Labs.

When referring to modern technology, companies bandy the word "smart" around a lot, especially when talking about energy efficient devices. We have smart meters, smart grids and even smart cities. In November 2015, for the first time in history, the National Grid resorted to paying large companies to turn off their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in an effort to keep the lights on in Britain. Here, Nick Boughton, the sale...

Electric rail might be the accepted standard of powering train journeys across the UK now, but it is still a relatively new system. To help electrical and transport professionals better understand the history of rail electrification, power quality specialist REO UK has put together an infographic outlining its journey. The infographic is available to download from the company website.

According to scientists and the internet, the Earth is 4.543bn years old. In comparison, humans have been around for a modest 200,000 years. The consensus is that we would like to continue our existence for as long as possible and anything that can be done to extend the life of our home planet should be trialled and tested. Here, Mark Proctor, Managing Director of European Automation, unveils his top five emerging environmental technologies to lo...

The human brain is a wonderful thing that works tirelessly from the day we are born until the day we die, only stopping on special occasions, like when presenting in front of large audiences. We’ve been studying the brain for many centuries, but we still know relatively little about the trillions of connections that make it work. Creating a road map of the brain is a bit like trying to map out the IIoT.

A 20 metre container could accommodate approximately 2,000 cases of wine, a small cafe or your company’s next switchroom. Industrial sectors are taking advantage of this versatility, and containerised electrical switchrooms are becoming a common sight. Here, Nick Boughton, Sales Manager, Boulting Technology, explains why the answer to complex electrical projects isn’t always adapting the system to fit the space.

Security experts billed 2015 as the ‘year of the healthcare hack’, with increasing numbers of medical systems attacked by cyber criminals targeting valuable personal data. While cybersecurity is commonly associated with software attacks, the healthcare sector is finding that the hardware it’s employing to improve patient care is creating backdoors.

President Obama famously said, "you'll see I wear only grey or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing because I have too many other decisions to make." In a world filled with information overload, the technology we use constantly asks us to make decisions. By Prabhjit Singh, Production Manager, Accutronics.

If we were to personify the variable speed drive (VSD), it would have to be the underrated middle child in the family. Motors would be the problematic first born - the result of parenting inexperience - and PLCs represent the youngest child, the know-it-all. Although often overlooked, the VSD is the apple of our energy efficiency eye. Here, Jonathan Wilkins, Marketing Director, European Automation, discusses the milestones in the history of the v...

First noted in the United Kingdom in the early 1900s, highly concentrated, localised industries, otherwise known as industry clusters, gave some of England’s towns the iconic nicknames they go by today. Stoke-on-Trent is widely referred to as ‘The Potteries’ due to its historic pottery industry and ‘The Black Country’, an area of the West Midlands, gained its title due to the excessive smoke and pollution caused by s...