Net Work March 2022

This month’s edition has a bumper Net Work column, starting by looking at Facebook’s earliest start-up days. A toe-curling 2004 CNBC interview with Mark Zuckerberg is still online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUNX3azkZyk. I follow up by exploring how Facebook sees us adopting the ‘metaverse’, a world where everyone communicates in a virtual 3D environment. That might explain Facebook’s  name-change to ‘Meta’. You can learn more about Meta’s visions, if you can spare an hour, by watching the Welcome PR video at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=282623437072819. As a sign of where things are heading, take a look and have fun building your own guest avatar at https://decentraland.org/.

Facebook’s namechange to ‘Meta’ also sees a drive towards adopting the ‘metaverse’ – or so they hope

A Privacy Checkup is a useful reminder of your data protection settings. Also choose ‘View As…’ option to see your Facebook pages as others (non-friends) would see it.

I also show this month how to run a Facebook privacy check-up on your account. One in six Brits surveyed by ThinkMoney had been scammed in Facebook Marketplace, says ThinkMoney at https://www.thinkmoney.co.uk/blog/the-facebook-marketplace-scams-you-didnt-know-about/.

All of this takes enormous networking and data processing power, and for any readers who might be interested, I wrote about the construction of Facebook’s first European data centre in Luleå, Sweden in Net Work, May 2016. It explained how an ‘ideal’ data centre would have an effective ‘Power Usage Effectiveness’ (PUE) of 1.0  (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_usage_effectiveness). Facebook has 37 million square feet of data centres around the world and is very proud of their ‘green’ credentials. A third data centre was due to come online in Sweden during 2021 and Facebook states that its global operations have now achieved ‘net zero’ using 100% renewable power, which is no mean feat. You can read more about Facebook’s data centres at https://datacenters.fb.com/

Net Work has covered the trends emerging in electric vehicles and this month’s column introduces the prototype EVs produced by no less than Sony. The practicality (or lack of it) of electric trucks is also discussed, with new trucks being showcased at January’s CES in Las Vegas. A Youtube video showcases Sony cars at https://youtu.be/P0cQQvvM5Qk.

Sony’s Vision S-02 concept EV (left) SUV and the earlier S-01 saloon (right) – Sony’s testbed for 5G and mobile telemetry might make it into production

Sony’s EV testing 5G in Germany in association with Vodafone

At CES 2022 American truck maker Kenworth exhibited their new electric semi (see https://www.kenworth.com/about-us/news/zero-emissions-kenworth-t680e-battery-electric-vehicle-debuts-at-2022-ces-in-las-vegas/)

I also mentioned developments in battery chemistry by Israeli firm StoreDot, who are working to produce Extreme Fast Charge (XFC) batteries that charge within 10 minutes, yet retain up to 80% of energy capacity after 850 cycles. Net Work speculates about the US small nuclear reactor (SMR) producer NuScale, which has set its sights on Europe, and I looked at a floating 75MW nuclear power station, in the shape of the Russian vessel Akademik Lomonosov, which is moored at the Arctic city of Pevek. The fascinating story of the Akademik Lomonosov can be found online at http://www.fnpp.info.

A floating Russian nuclear power station, the Akademik Lomonosov

Research and development continues in the field of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and China has also powered up its first SMR: According to the IAEA website, the Shidao Bay-1 200MW reactor has been ten years in the making and made its first grid connection on 20th December.  More details are at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shidao_Bay_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Two more 18V ‘bare’ tools from the ever expanding Ryobi range – note the ‘hybrid’ (mains/ 18V battery) soldering station on the left is for 110V a.c. only and there’s no sign of a 230V versiona rriving in Europe. The hot melt glue gun on the right docks onto an 18V battery, where it heats up again and builds up sufficient heat to melt a whole glue stick (see https://youtu.be/X0Nd-va_lwg) in between charging.

Lastly this month, there’s the Dremel 8260 12V Li-ion tool which they claim is their most powerful yet. A Youtube promo video at https://youtu.be/HbO-nVvvYeA drove me to distraction, unfortunately. It lists at $169.99 but has yet to arrive in the UK or EU.

Read this month’s Net Work to learn more!