This is only a preview of the July 2021 issue of Practical Electronics. You can view 0 of the 72 pages in the full issue. Articles in this series:
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Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, Net Work looks at some important backroom changes in the way eBay pays and
charges its users; plus the latest news from space and upmarket electric vehicles.
L
ast month, I mentioned some
changes that eBay has made
following its lengthy divorce from
PayPal. It’s the most radical shake-up
in many years and it affects all eBay
sellers who used PayPal for receiving
payments. eBay has grabbed the steering
wheel and created a payment chain
called ‘Managed Payments’, which sees
sellers waiting several business days or
more before funds arrive in their current
(checking) account. eBay has coined the
buzzword ‘Seller Onboarding’ to describe
the compulsory migration of private
and business sellers to this new regime.
eBay changes – for whose benefit?
We know that ‘Caveat Emptor’ means
‘Buyer Beware,’ but what about sellers? At one time it was simple enough
for private sellers to conveniently sell
off unwanted surplus items, or maybe
sell bulky furniture in ‘Local eBay’.
Countless small kitchen-table businesses and cottage industries sprang up on
eBay, selling their low-cost wares; and
of course more expensive items such as
cars, cameras, caravans and computers
costing thousands are offered as well.
First and foremost, eBay knows that
without buyers, it wouldn’t exist, so its
Buyer Protection Program goes to great
lengths to reassure buyers about their
safety and security (visit: http://bit.ly/
pe-jul21-ebay1). As eBay sellers know,
if a buyer checked out promptly using
PayPal, funds could arrive in the seller’s
PayPal account almost straight away
(minus a 2.9% + 30p PayPal fee). The
UK’s Faster Payments Scheme made it
quick and easy to transfer cash instantly into a current account, which was a
valuable lifeline for small traders and
private individuals. Residual PayPal
balances could pay for couriers such
as Parcelforce or My Hermes, or to buy
other stuff. Incidentally, some useful
tips and fraud prevention advice for
consumers are worth reading at: www.
fasterpayments.org.uk
Farewell to PayPal
After cutting ties with PayPal, eBay now
steers payments through the Dutchbased payment processor Adyen NV
(www.adyen.com). Many consumers
might not have heard of Adyen (Surinamese for ‘Start over again’, apparently),
but they provide high-end payment platforms, physical and virtual payment cards
and back-office systems for many wellknown international brands. However,
it now takes typically two business days
or more before eBay sellers receive cash
into their current account. Gone too is
eBay’s monthly direct debit in arrears,
Adyen is a high-end payment platform used by major brands. It’s now handling eBay
sellers’ payments instead of Paypal.
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in settlement of their fees; eBay now
deducts their fees immediately before
Adyen remits the balance.
As eBay tells its private sellers about
Managed Payments: ‘Fees and expenses will be deducted before you get paid,
and the remainder of your eBay earnings
will go directly to your bank account, not
your PayPal account.... [This means] No
more PayPal fees.’ What’s not to like? I
recently purchased a few items on eBay
without a hitch, using PayPal as normal,
but delivery took a day or two longer
than expected. To test eBay’s new sales
regime, I listed a private item for sale
timed to finish a week later, on a Friday
afternoon. Sure enough, it sold and eBay
confirmed it was ‘awaiting payment’; two
days later (Sunday night) eBay advised
that ‘the buyer has confirmed the payment’ and told me to post the item off.
Still no sign of funds arriving of course,
but not to worry, as eBay re-assured me
that payouts are ‘initiated within two
working days of order confirmation’. The
proceeds (less eBay fees) arrived in my
bank a couple of days after that, making
four calendar days in total including the
weekend. Bank holidays could extend
the delay even more.
eBay claims this timeframe is on a par
with credit card transactions, as seen
in business and commerce. That’s true,
but many private sellers trying to sell
humble bits and pieces on eBay won’t
be impressed. There’s another catch: although sellers now ‘avoid PayPal fees’
as eBay claims, eBay UK has increased
its private sale fees from 10% to 12.8%
plus 30 pence per item, plus a similar fee
on postage charges. (In fairness, eBay’s
fees on postages arose after some sellers
gamed the system by selling items at low
cost (means, low eBay fees) but hiked
the postage prices instead, because P&P
was free of eBay fees.) Consequently,
eBay’s new fees for private sellers broadly match the total fees that eBay would
have earned if they’d still owned PayPal
anyway. eBay is, however, so far maintaining its free listings offer for private
sellers which allows them to list up to
1,000 items free of initial fees.
Sellers have a choice of either signing
up (sorry, ‘onboarding’) or quitting using
Practical Electronics | July | 2021
the platform. That’s just how it is. Quite
a few small-time sellers and individuals may be deterred from using eBay,
especially when you consider the latest
T&Cs, discussed next.
A complicated business
eBay’s new ‘Seller Hub’ has also come
in for fierce criticism from many sellers. Instead of compact, at-a-glance web
summaries (or ‘Classic View’) of transactions and their status, bloated screens
full of flat-tiled drag n’ drop sections now
provide an in-depth analytical view of
items on sale: it’s mostly irrelevant for
small one-off or occasional sellers. It can
be customised and eBay says the new
hub enables them to utilise modern data
processing systems. Just as Google and
Amazon over-analyse data for the benefit
of high-end users with PhDs in computer
science, eBay is doing the same. I gave
up on it: for now, sellers can opt out of
the Seller Hub but will be nagged into
trying it again. The system for actually
listing items for sale in the first place has
also become mind-bogglingly complex,
with screens full of myriad options and
tick boxes now evident: selling on eBay
has become a jolly complicated process.
eBay’s new payment terms are spelt
out at http://bit.ly/pe-jul21-ebay2 in
turgid legalese that runs to 16 pages. The
terms throw up some contentious points,
particularly when things go wrong (for
the seller). Sellers have to sign up for
eBay’s ‘Money Back Guarantee,’ but this
is vulnerable to customer abuse, such
as buyers merely changing their mind
and falsely claiming an item was ‘not
as described’ and demanding a refund,
sometimes many months later. The seller
must then re-collect the goods at their
own expense or risk losing them (and
their money) altogether. eBay’s ‘Seller
Protection’ policy claims to cover sellers
against that sort of abuse and negative
feedback, as long as sellers ‘create good
buying experiences’, so sellers must
ensure their services tick all of eBay’s
boxes to begin with, to avoid the risk
of losing their goods and money due
to bogus claims made by buyers. The
policy is at: https://tinyurl.com/7t7xbb6m
Judging by forum complaints, some
sellers just write problems off to experience as eBay will often side with the
buyer anyway, some say, but it’s worth
remembering that if things goes wrong,
eBay ultimately gives itself permission
to reimburse buyers and claw this back
from your bank account directly, without
so much as blinking. eBay in any case
makes themselves the final arbiter in
any disputes – just as PayPal was – and
any disputes that do somehow make it
through a long-winded arbitration do so
at the seller’s expense, at least initially.
Practical Electronics | July | 2021
Chilling out: OneWeb and Hughes will test LEO satcoms to connect Arctic regions for the
US Air Force. Shown here, the OneWeb gateway in Svalbard, Norway, capable of 10,000
handoffs per second, is one of the gateways developed by Hughes that will orchestrate
handover and tracking of gigabits of data for NORTHCOM. Credit: OneWeb/Kongsberg
Satellite Services (KSAT).
Worst case, eBay also gives themselves
the right to lock accounts or freeze funds,
which can have devastating consequences for innocent sellers. Some businesses
cited crippling problems they suffered
due to eBay withholding funds (double
the amount necessary) as security to cover
a customer’s refund. It’s true that many
UK businesses face similar draconian
terms and risks from ordinary credit card
processing, including onerous PCI DSS
conditions. In Britain, start-ups with no
trading history can find it very difficult
to open a credit card merchant account
unless they pay a hefty security deposit
up front, such is the risk from fraud and
money laundering that the credit card
sector is grappling with. Services such
as Zettle (zettle.com, owned by PayPal)
or Square (https://squareup.com) may
be the only ways some traders can take
debit or credit cards.
Buyers using eBay won’t notice much
difference, but eBay’s changes are here
to stay, and sellers have no option but to
‘onboard’ them. It’s become more complex and time-consuming to list just a few
bits and bobs on eBay. It’s worth sellers
checking the Managed Payments terms
and Seller Protection Policy closely and
weighing up the risks, especially when
valuable private sales are concerned,
before deciding whether eBay is still
worth your time and effort. Remember
the phrase, Caveat Venditor – let the
seller beware!
OneWeb for all
It’s been a busy month, especially if
you’re in the business of launching
satellites or people into space. As Net
Work readers know, all eyes are on the
constellations of LEO (low-earth orbit)
satellites currently being assembled by
SpaceX, OneWeb and (eventually) Amazon’s Kuiper. SpaceX continues to enjoy
remarkable success with its reusable
boosters that return to earth (or land on a
ship-based platform) with pinpoint accuracy, to be recovered and made ready for
its next mission. Some SpaceX vehicles
will soon have been re-used ten times
and about 1,400 satellites are gradually getting in position to span the globe,
with the possibility of tens of thousands
more (literally) of them being lobbed up
in the future. Where available, you can
order or pre-order Starlink satellite-based
Internet at: www.starlink.com
SpaceX also celebrated a successful
launch and safe return of its stubby
Starship vehicle SN-15 following a
high-altitude flight test. After launching, it ‘bellyflops’ through the atmosphere
before righting itself for a vertical landing, see: https://youtu.be/z9eoubnO-pE
OneWeb progress
Six months after emerging successfully
from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being bailed out by the UK
Government and India’s Bharti Global,
London-based OneWeb (or WorldVu
Satellites Limited as they are properly
known) is focussed on opening its own
satellite-based broadband network before
the end of the year, offering services to
commercial, marine, aviation and governmental sectors. In April Arianespace
launched 36 more OneWeb satellites from
the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Federation, making 182 satellites so
far, with 466 of OneWeb’s so-called ‘First
Generation’ satellites still to go. This
mission brings OneWeb a step closer to
achieving its ‘Five to 50’ ambition, they
say, offering coverage to areas 50° latitude and above, by the middle of this
year. Several 3.5-metre ground-based
antennae would be grouped together at
gateway sites to allow access to multiple OneWeb satellites simultaneously.
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Virgin Galactic’s latest space vehicle called ‘Imagine’ starts ground trials this year. The
firm hopes to offer up to 400 flights a year to ‘private astronauts’.
OneWeb is also expected to partner with
telecoms providers and provide them
with a ‘backbone’ for a satcoms service.
There’s more encouraging news from
OneWeb: global satellite operator Eutelsat is investing some $550m and taking
a 24% stake in the network, subject to
regulatory approval. OneWeb’s ambitions
include a satellite constellation of just
over 6,000 so-called ‘Phase 2’ satellites,
a significant reduction from the nearly
48,000 units originally proposed. According to OneWeb’s FCC filings, their Phase
2 satellites will provide broadband internet to users anywhere on Earth, flying at
a much lower orbit than geostationary
orbit (GSO) satellites with a latency of
less than 50ms, which is comparable to
terrestrial networks, they state.
The US’s Hughes Network Systems
(www.hughes.com) is also a OneWeb core
investor; in May Hughes and OneWeb announced they had been selected by the
US Air Force Research Lab to trial LEO
satcoms services to connect the Arctic
region to sites located around the globe.
The field of satellite-based navigation
(collectively called GNSS, or Global Navigation Satellite System) may see OneWeb
becoming involved with building a new
network for the UK. Readers might recall
how, following Brexit, Britain was unceremoniously ejected from the EU’s
own Galileo satnav program, despite
the UK’s substantial investment in its
development. Galileo is intended to be
independent of the USA’s GPS system
and the UK has since been denied access
to high-accuracy Galileo signals used
by the military, for example. Last year,
the UK Government announced that
its Space-Based Positioning Navigation
and Timing Programme (SBPP) would
examine alternative ways of delivering
these critical ‘PNT’ services to United
Kingdom infrastructure. It is becoming
ever more imperative that a newly independent UK bolsters and safeguards
such systems to meet the new challenges
that are fast heading our way.
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Out of interest, at one time an alternative to GNSS was LORAN (LOng RAnge
Navigation), a hyperbolic radio navigation system with roots originating in the
Second World War and Britain’s GEE
(‘G’ for grid) aircraft direction-finding
system. LORAN gradually became obsolete, but modern electronics might one
day see Enhanced LORAN becoming
available as an Alternative Positioning
Navigation and Timing (APNT) system
that is ground-based and highly resilient. Military history or ex-Air Force
readers might enjoy some WW2 background to GEE and LORAN in the PDF
at: http://bit.ly/pe-jul21-gelo
Space Hopper
Amazon’s proposed Kuiper network
has received approval to launch about
3,200 satellites delivering broadband
services, but the service is ‘under construction’ and Kuiper is arriving late
to the show. Scanning through some
complex FCC rulings reveals that not
everything has gone in Kuiper’s favour:
a deadline has been set for Amazon’s
offshoot to launch 50% of their proposed network by mid 2026 and the
rest by 2029. Kuiper must also post a
surety bond for an undisclosed amount,
which will be forfeited if the FCC’s targets are not met, according to the ruling.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s founder, Jeff
Bezos, is focussing his Blue Origin rocket
venture on space tourism using his ‘New
Shepard’ (NS) module (named after Alan
Shepard, the first American to fly into
space, almost 60 years ago to the day).
Last covered in Net Work, March 2020,
Blue Origin’s VTOL vehicle will offer
tourists a straight hop up into sub-orbit
and down again, and the first excursion
is already planned for 20 July after a
succession of tests flights. The booster stage lands vertically, SpaceX-style,
while the passenger module parachutes
to Earth separately. You can observe
the latest test flight, callsign NS-15, at:
https://youtu.be/domwsgorRW0
If Blue Origin’s rocket launches and
bumpy landings aren’t for you, then
waiting in the wings, so to speak, is Sir
Richard Branson’s rival space agency
Virgin Galactic, ‘the world’s first commercial spaceline’, which has now completed
its first Spaceship III plane or ‘VSS’
(Virgin Spaceship) called ‘Imagine’. The
firm faces a number of funding and legal
challenges, but their latest mirror-finish
space vehicle begins ground testing this
year. Spaceplanes will be slung underneath a ‘flying catamaran’ carrier plane
before being released at 50,000 feet, when
the rocket-propelled spaceplane shoots
upwards into space, experiencing zero
G for a few minutes before returning to
land on a runway. A small fleet of Virgin
Galactic’s space planes hope to make up
to 400 flights taking ‘private astronauts’
from its spaceports into space every
year, they say. I got truly dizzy on my PC
trying to navigate their website (www.
virgingalactic.com) searching for more
information, but there’s an early promo
video at: https://youtu.be/_XiKFf9vpG4
Driving Polestar position
More exciting new electric vehicle (EV)
brands are making the news: the Polestar
marque has started to pop up discretely on British TV in the first shots of a
brand-awareness campaign, but this
low-profile marketing belies a high-quality
premium EV waiting in the wings from a
brand owned by Sweden’s Volvo (and in
turn, China’s Geely). The Polestar 1 is a
2.0 litre petrol/hybrid limited-production
car, but all eyes are on Polestar 2, a svelte
EV saloon with various battery and powertrain options. It will cost from £39,900
to £45,900. The BBC Top Gear Magazine
has named Polestar 2 the best all-rounder electric car for 2021, and the car has
been acclaimed as ‘Best of the Best’ by
Red Dot in the international design competition’s hotly contested Product Design
segment. As a sign of how the motor trade
is diversifying, buyers will have to order
exclusively online at www.Polestar.com,
but should be able to see and test drive
the Polestar 2 from September 2021 at
one of more than 40 ‘Polestar Spaces’ in
ten countries, the company hopes. Coincidentally, just as I finished writing this
paragraph, a Polestar 2 drove right past
my window, and it is indeed a sleek and
distinctive-looking machine.
At the other end of the motoring scale,
many Brits will have fond memories
of Austin J2 trucks and, later, Leyland
DAF panel vans, the latter becoming
‘LDV’ whose vans were a common sight
on British roads at one time. Admittedly, I wasn’t aware that LDV became
Russian-owned in 2006 and was ultimately killed off by the recession. Just
as Britain’s MG Cars was snapped up
Practical Electronics | July | 2021
www.poscope.com/epe
Polestar 2: a high-quality premium EV with Volvo parentage, heading our way later this year.
by China’s SAIC (see Net Work, December 2020), the same happened to LDV
in 2010. Judging by some recent Facebook pop-up ads, marketing of SAIC’s
‘Maxus’ brand of commercial vehicles
is now under way in Britain, including,
of course, two electric vans. See https://
saicmaxus.co.uk for information.
Chinese EV brand Nio is set to start
shipping EVs to Norway from September. Why Norway? The Scandinavian
country favours electric vehicle ownership with subsidies and free parking, and
more than 70% of all new vehicle sales
in 2020 were EVs, according to Statista.
Rival brand Xpeng has already started
sales in Norway with 100 G3 SUVs, as
reported in the March 2021 Net Work.
These cars may well be heading our way.
And finally
The car industry, as well as other sectors, continues to grapple with a global
shortage of semiconductor chips, caused
by a perfect storm of a huge surge in
demand for electronic gadgets during
Covid-19 lockdowns, a winter freeze-up
causing outages at the NXP semiconductor plant in Texas, followed by a fire at
the Renesas Electronics chip foundry
in Japan last March. The global chip
shortages could last until 2023, says
chip maker Infineon, as a number of
big names brands including Samsung,
Apple, and most major car brands are
hit by shortages. The semiconductor industry is desperately trying to plug the
gap by finding obsolete manufacturing
tooling that use old, obsolete wafer sizes.
The boardroom row at Nominet, the
UK domain name registry, rumbles on
(see Net Work, May 2021) after discontented members forced an Extraordinary
General Meeting in March to vote four
controversial directors out of office. The
remainder of the board then refused to
appoint the members’ preferred caretaker chairman, interpreted as a sign
of the contempt that the organisation
(still) holds for its smaller members,
despite Nominet having stated that
it ‘acknowledges that members have
made a clear statement with today’s
Practical Electronics | July | 2021
vote and will be working on a strategic change in direction.’
The Department for Digital, Culture,
Media & Sport (DCMS) told me that they
expect Nominet and its membership to,
‘work together on shaping the future
of the company... Nominet is a private
company that manages the .UK domain
space and its leadership is a matter for
its members’, said the DCMS. It provides
an ‘essential service’ that must satisfy
the Network and Information Systems
Regulations 2018 (NIS) and the DCMS
continues to engage with Nominet and
other parties hoping to resolve the current governance problems. A second
rebel EGM that could, if successful, boot
out the remaining board is a possibility.
If you’re following my trials of Internet-enabled home security cameras,
I’m happy to report that the Reolink
PTZ types (see Net Work, May 2021)
continue to perform very well, with
no particular problems experienced.
The Reolink app responds well on a
smartphone using 4G, which allows
up to four cameras to be monitored
and controlled remotely in a single
app. They are available on Amazon.
Finally, next month’s column marks 25
years of Net Work, which first appeared
in the August 1996 issue to welcome the
new-fangled Internet, explaining how to
connect a PC to a 14.4k modem or how
to install anti-virus software. Society has
since fully embraced the web, and the
Internet now plays an everyday and essential role in our lives. I always enjoy
reading readers’ comments and feedback
and the PE team is delighted to hear from
those who have stayed with us since those
early days: thank you all. Net Work has
moved on too, and tries to keep abreast
of topical trends in areas that are likely
to affect us either now or longer term.
I’d like to thank all readers for their
continued support and interest in Net
Work and, as always, remember that
I can be reached by email to: alan<at>
epemag.net – see you next month!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
- USB
- Ethernet
- Web server
- Modbus
- CNC (Mach3/4)
- IO
- PWM
- Encoders
- LCD
- Analog inputs
- Compact PLC
- up to 256
- up to 32
microsteps
microsteps
- 50 V / 6 A
- 30 V / 2.5 A
- USB configuration
- Isolated
PoScope Mega1+
PoScope Mega50
- up to 50MS/s
- resolution up to 12bit
- Lowest power consumption
- Smallest and lightest
- 7 in 1: Oscilloscope, FFT, X/Y,
Recorder, Logic Analyzer, Protocol
decoder, Signal generator
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