Net Work
Alan Winstanley
Our column of technical trends tries the worthy Google Lens app, highlights the good work
of Unilever in helping youngsters manage their online self-esteem, plus we have the latest
energy and space news.
A
friend from overseas sent me
a photo by WhatsApp of a striking
yellow flowering shrub that was
blossoming in their Mediterranean
garden. She asked me if I knew what it
was. One way of finding the specimen’s
botanical name might be to trawl
through search engines before hitting
some web pages dedicated to ‘yellow
Mediterranean flowers’ and comparing
them. Although I found some similar
matches, the results were inconsistent:
the flower could be anything, I mused,
and the mysterious Mediterranean
shrub defied recognition!
A smarter way of finding the answer
would be to use Google Lens. This underrated and underused app couples
Google’s Lens app uses a smartphone
camera to identify a work of art in a snip.
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a smartphone to Google’s AI and turns
it into a highly capable image recognition and translation device. It can scan
images stored in a smartphone’s gallery or it can use the phone’s camera,
in which case the app’s surprising capabilities come to the fore.
As a simple example, googling for
‘Mona Lisa’ turns up 1.2 billion search
results, but what if you’ve got a picture of Da Vinci’s masterpiece instead,
and want to know more about it?
Google Lens will capture the image
and search for near-enough matches in its database before returning
with search results to click through.
I opened Google Lens and navigated
to the WhatsApp image of the yellow
flower stored in the phone’s memory.
The screen’s curved corner icons can
crop the recognition area if needed.
Choosing the Search function from the
app’s horizontal sliding menu, Google
Lens ‘reads’ the image and returns any
likely matches. Back came an answer:
the shrub was clearly a Yellow Flax
(Reinwardtia indica)! It matched perfectly. Impressed with my supposed
expertise, my gardening friend then
sent a photo of a mystery bug on an
outdoor shrub, which Google Lens
identified as a scale insect. From
The mysterious Mediterranean flower,
recognised as Yellow Flax by Google Lens.
there, we could find advice for dealing with the infestation. The app can’t
be expected to always give accurate
answers, and having a good quality,
high contrast image can only help.
The app has more surprises up its
sleeve, especially when using the
camera to capture images. It will scan
Quick Response / QR codes and offer
to open a website URL, or the app can
try to recognise and answer written
‘Homework Questions’ or phrases.
Remembering that Google also has an
exceptional language translator, by
linking it with Google Lens the result
is a remarkable device that you can
aim at foreign text, and a good-enough
translation will appear in virtual real
time on the camera screen. It has to
be seen to be believed.
A recent practical application related to an electronic ballast that I’d
bought for a fluorescent tube repair.
Its cardboard carton bore Chinese text,
so out of interest, I fired up Google
Lens and hit the ‘Search with your
camera’ icon before pointing the
camera at the box. After selecting the
‘Translate’ menu function, the app
automatically detected Simplified
Chinese and translated it into English, confirming that the ballast has
‘abnormal protection function’ and is
‘suitable for T5/T6 fluorescent tubes’
(in case you’ve ever wondered, the
‘T’ number is a fluorescent tube’s diameter in eighths of an inch). There’s
more: Google Lens’s text-to-speech
recognition can also read out the
results in plain English: using the
‘Text’ menu option, the app read the
Chinese text out loud as well, much
to my mirth. Simply choose ‘Listen’
from the Text sub-menu.
It can be great fun to try Google
Lens with, for example, wildflowers
or photos of landmarks, or translating foreign print. More details are at:
https://lens.google/ and the free app
can be downloaded for Android or
Apple devices from your usual online
store. In theory, it’s also possible to
use Google Lens on a desktop PC using
an Android emulator, something for
power users to try.
Practical Electronics | June | 2022
An anti-virus dilemma
The turmoil unfolding in Eastern Europe
is rippling through to the anti-virus
software sector, with Kaspersky rapidly
falling out of favour in some quarters; its
anti-virus protection was banned from
US Government departments five years
ago, and the firm has now become the
first Russian company to be banned by
the FCC on the grounds of the potential
threats it poses to American national
security. Kaspersky claims that America’s move is entirely political, and the
firm has no connection with Russian
Government security services. Germany’s Information Security Office (BSI)
has also warned all users to analyse the
risks and consider de-installing Kaspersky products.
The privately owned Moscow-based
company’s anti-virus products are well
specified and very highly regarded,
frequently receiving top ratings for
safeguarding personal computers
against malware or unsafe e-commerce
links. In fact, the author uses Kaspersky on several PCs. The product has
a few idiosyncrasies, and it can be a
handful to configure and tweak into
operation, but it is constantly updated
The app’s text recognition and language
translation are impressive. Here, Simple
Chinese text on a carton is translated into
plain English in near real-time.
Practical Electronics | June | 2022
and provides robust protection for PC
or mobile users.
We’ve been in this dilemma before,
when Chinese smartphone maker
Huawei was added to the US Entity
List, to stop Huawei from becoming
embedded into national telecoms networks. Mindful of the 5G roll out,
Britain too – eventually – started the
lengthy process of ripping out Huawei
telecoms equipment from its infrastructure. Later generation Huawei phones
have been banned from accessing Google’s online services, but the author still
uses his excellent (pre-Trump ban)
Huawei smartphone; it updates itself
regularly enough, but for all I know it
could be relaying all my drivel directly to Beijing, or installing spyware in
my online banking app. Likewise, I
have no reason to think that Kaspersky
anti-virus updates are infiltrating my
network, but the fear and uncertainty
sewn means that ordinary consumers
and small businesses now face the
choice of either accepting any supposed
risk or swapping to another product.
Shrinking choices
Anti-virus software choices are becoming fewer all the time. Alternative
products include AVG, which has been
acquired by Avast (www.avast.com),
both brands hailing from the Czech Republic. Symantec AntiVirus originated
out of Norton’s products, resulting in
some messy and confusing co-branding down the years. Symantec is now
NortonLifeLock (www.nortonlifelock.
com), a conglomerate that is now attempting to acquire Avast as well. As
at mid-March, this £6bn merger had
been called in by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
for an in-depth investigation, as the
takeover deal may reduce consumer
choice. In 2021, the CMA took what
it called unprecedented legal action
against NortonLifeLock, after Norton
refused to comply with the authority’s
demands for information regarding
automatic renewals of anti-virus software. Following CMA intervention,
both Norton and McAfee undertook
to make the auto-renewal option more
transparent and easier to opt out.
When I last covered Kaspersky, I
mentioned how the product could be
bought, downloaded and activated automatically using an Amazon user’s
Software Library: the system was extremely slick and worked perfectly.
As alternatives, at the time of writing,
Amazon is offering Norton 360 Deluxe
2022 for 5 Devices, a one-year licence
with automatic renewal for just £9.99
(‘save £70.00 on RRP’), though, as we
all know, RRPs are meaningless. A
postal-activation version is also available for £10.99.
Norton’s sales patter claims that users
will, ‘Enjoy peace of mind knowing
that their subscription will not lapse’
while the product box-shot clearly
states that users ‘get an Email reminder
before renewal’ and that you can ‘cancel
subscription renewals at any time’ – if
you can remember. Check Amazon for
more details of the download version.
What about alternatives? Founded
in Romania, rival Bitdefender offers
Total Security 2022 for 5 Devices, with
a one-year Subscription for £19.99
via Amazon, with activation by post.
There’s also F-Secure Total from Finland, costing £59.99 via Amazon, or the
well-regarded TotalAV from UK-based
Protected.Net, which was on promotion for £39 from www.totalav.com/
ultra-deal when I checked.
In every case, be sure to download
either from (say) Amazon or from the
vendor’s own website. Beware of clicking through to fake websites, especially
when googling around for brand names
or sources. Also watch out for those automatic second-year renewals, which
could cost substantially more than an
introductory offer.
Dove shapes a youngster’s
self-esteem
Like many PE readers, I grew up
with the Internet in the days of the
DOS prompt and floppy disks, when
something called the ‘information superhighway’ was still evolving and the
world-wide web barely existed. Getting online was pretty difficult, slow
and expensive, and the cost and complexities of PC ownership, sending an
email or creating a web page meant
the Internet was far beyond the reach
of the mass market. Gradually, the Internet morphed into today’s medium
that brings us streaming content, social
media, online shopping, appliance
control and everything else that we
use all day, every day.
The accessibility of the web, especially
for younger people, means that it’s now
totally effortless to post quick videos or
photos on Tik Tok or YouTube, or share
them with friends on Facebook, or message people with WhatsApp, and so on.
There’s now a whole generation that has
never known life without the Internet,
which has brought with it a whole new
range of social malaise. Impressionable
young people may neither be equipped
nor discerning enough to handle the
pressure brought to bear by streaming
content, ‘news’ sites or social media,
and exposure to the relentless onslaught
of web content can affect the ability of
young minds to process it safely.
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A recent Ofcom study in the UK revealed that a third of
online users don’t know whether online content is true
or fake, and 6% believe that everything they see online is
true. (See more guidance at https://sharechecklist.gov.uk)
The Ofcom survey also highlighted the worrying trend of
youngsters (dubbed ‘Tik Tots’) using social media sites,
even if they were below the permitted age of 13.
In some cases, a relentless diet of celebrity glamour, social
media and peer pressure can damage a young person’s self-esteem, which is why Unilever’s Dove toiletries brand is offering
online resources to support parents and teachers who may be
confronted by younger people, predominantly girls, suffering from low confidence or self-worth. The Dove Self-Esteem
Project found that 85% of 509 girls aged 13-17 who used
social media in the UK agreed that they either downloaded
a [graphics] filter or used an app to enhance their identity.
The Dove project at Dove.com/confidence offers some very
worthwhile free downloads for parents and teachers, including The Confidence Kit, a 32-page guide for parents that helps
youngsters develop their own self-confidence and hopefully
dissuade them from wanting to glamorise their looks online.
Parents of younger children might in any case want to read
the Ofcom report and advice at: https://bit.ly/pe-jun22-ofc
Colour-coded energy
On the energy front, the UK Government is rapid-firing announcements about its ‘green energy’ plans which could
see Britain’s elderly generation of nuclear reactors replaced
with up to eight new ones, a lofty ambition that would take
until the middle of the century to materialise. The new
‘Hinkley Point C’ nuclear power station, started in 2018
and slated for completion by 2026, is the first to be built in
twenty years (https://bit.ly/pe-jun22-hpc) and a second one
in the pipeline – Sizewell C – will likely take at least ten
years to complete (see https://bit.ly/pe-jun22-szc). Britain’s
nuclear power and shale gas extraction plans have a troubled history of short-sighted policymaking decisions, but
the country is now betting the ranch on renewable energy,
including more solar power and offshore fixed and floating
wind turbines, while at the same time weaning the country off imported natural gas.
Regular Net Work readers will know how small modular
nuclear reactors (SMRs) have been floated as the fast-track
solution for bringing more nuclear power on stream. SMRs
can be built in factories, with sections transported by road
for final assembly on site. Rolls-Royce explains its own
SMRs in an interesting video at https://bit.ly/pe-jun22-rr
The idea of SMRs is not unique to Rolls-Royce though, and
a number of US rivals are jostling to get on board. Deliveries of the first SMRs are probably at least eight years away,
leaving consumers and industry facing energy uncertainty in the short to medium term. A rival US manufacturer,
Last Energy (www.lastenergy.com), is reportedly offering to
pilot an SMR in the UK by 2025, aiming to have ten of them
running by 2030. They also expect to build a 20MW pilot
plant in Romania. America’s NuScale is also scoping out
the UK and Eastern Europe (see Net Work, February 2022).
The production of hydrogen, the ultimate clean fuel but
energy-intensive to manufacture, is also on the radar. As
Balkan Energy News helpfully explains (https://tinyurl.
com/ydvf3tj8), ‘Last Energy suggests its mini nuclear plants
could be sited next to energy-intensive facilities to reduce
costs of infrastructure and transmission. The heat and electricity from an SMR can also be used to produce hydrogen
via water electrolysis... When the process is powered by
nuclear energy, it is called pink hydrogen. It is green hydrogen if electricity from renewables is used. Grey hydrogen is
produced from gas, but it is called blue hydrogen if carbon
dioxide emissions are captured and then stored or used for
a different industrial purpose.’
An entire spectrum has evolved to denote hydrogen’s
origins, including turquoise, yellow, brown and white
hydrogen – the colour code is listed by National Grid at:
https://tinyurl.com/y2twexb8
In a decade’s time we can expect to see SMRs popping up
all over the place, except in Scotland: the country’s largely separatist government intends to veto the building of
any nuclear power stations there. Ironically, the UK could
become a net exporter of energy to the EU, the economic
bloc that includes France which last year threatened to cut
off electricity to the Crown Dependency island of Jersey off
the coast of France (https://bit.ly/pe-jun22-jer), because of
a UK-France fisheries dispute.
Space stations
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion
capsule conducts a ‘wet dress rehearsal’ test at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
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All eyes are on the NASA Artemis moon mega rocket, the
monster truck of space travel, as it’s gradually readied for
its first test flight from Kennedy Space Center a few months
from now. March saw the arrival of the giant Artemis SLS
(Space Launch System) rocket and Orion crew capsule in
preparation for a ‘wet dress rehearsal’, the last major test
of a system’s integrity before an uncrewed launch later this
year. Space fans can follow it at: www.nasa.gov/artemis-1
On a neighbouring launchpad, Axiom Space’s Ax-1
mission successfully launched an all-private crew to the
Practical Electronics | June | 2022
Axiom Station will be the first commercial
space station; assembly starts in 2024.
international space station on a SpaceX
Falcon 9 on 8th April. Axiom Space
aims to construct Axiom Station, the
world’s first commercial space station
in coming years and naturally I hope to
report on progress in future columns.
See www.axiomspace.com for news.
In the satellite broadband sector,
SpaceX continues to launch more Starlink satellites into a LEO (low earth
orbit) and, as a nice gesture, has offered
to partner with smaller rival OneWeb
whose Soyuz-based launches from
Kazakhstan were collateral damage
of the Ukraine crisis (see last month).
The UK-based LEO operator is attracting a lot of interest and is backed by a
farsighted UK Government and India’s
Bharti Global, with Eutelsat now taking
a 23% share. Other investors include
South Korea’s Hanwha, Hughes Network Systems and Japan’s Softbank.
Amazon’s satellite broadband program – Project Kuiper – has been late
to the table, but its launch schedule
is now taking shape. Reports suggest
that, compared with Starlink, Project
Kuiper will use heavy lifter rockets
to place larger numbers of satellites
into orbit at a time, meaning fewer
launches would be needed. Amazon
is spreading its bets and initial deals
have been inked with Blue Origin
(owned by Jeff Bozos – see the March
2020 Net Work), Arianespace (18
launches over three years, the largest in its history) and 38 launches
with United Launch Alliance (Lockheed Martin / Boeing). Amazon says
the contracts cover up to 83 launches over five years, building capacity
for Amazon to deploy most of its
proposed 3,236-satellite constellation. It is the largest commercial
1455, 1457 IP65 and 1457-EMI
extruded enclosures
procurement of launch vehicles in
history, they add.
Last this month, the Fisker Ocean
electric SUV mentioned in May’s Net
Work received 40,000 reservations
and Fisker is opening pre-orders for a
limited-edition Fisker Ocean One in
July due to anticipated demand, the
company says. They added that many
reservation holders intend to purchase
the Ocean One launch edition or Ocean
Extreme models, both priced at £59,900
in the UK. Visit www.fiskerinc.com for
more information on the forthcoming
model. The spiralling asking prices for
EVs might see drivers simply leasing
them instead (or ‘subscribing’ as Volvo
now calls it).
See you next month for more Net Work!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
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n ze s
si
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Practical Electronics | June | 2022
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