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No Antenna Could Survive Europa’s Brutal, Radioactive Environment—Until Now
Marek Denko/Noemotion There’s no planned mission to send a lander to Europa, but this artist’s rendition gives a sense of…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Stratospheric Balloons Take Monitoring and Surveillance to New Heights
StoryTK Alphabet’s enthusiasm for balloons deflated earlier this year, when it announced that its high-altitude Internet company, Loon, could not…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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This Huge DIY Workbench Gives You a Hand
James Provost Finally, a bench that helps you build. As an avid experimenter and builder of random contraptions—and who isn’t…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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We Don’t Need a Jetsons Future, Just a Sustainable One
Alvaro Dominguez For decades, our vision of the future has been stuck in a 1960s-era dream of science fiction embodied…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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How the IBM PC Won, Then Lost, the Personal Computer Market
Mark Richards/Computer History Museum The IBM PC, introduced in August 1981, helped reassure corporate customers that personal computing was serious.…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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U.S. Mint Honors Game Developer Ralph Baer
UNITED STATES MINT THE INSTITUTE Gamers and coin collectors alike can now celebrate Ralph Baer’s contributions with an American Innovation…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Nothing Can Keep This Drone Down
When life knocks you down, you’ve got to get back up. Ladybugs take this advice seriously in the most literal…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Cuba Jamming Ham Radio? Listen For Yourself
As anti-government protests spilled onto the streets in Cuba on July 11, something strange was happening on the airwaves. Amateur…
July 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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From Spacecraft to Sensor Fusion
Randy Fields It’s easy to set up multiple video feeds in all kinds of locations. Merging those feeds together, combining…
July 20, 2021 by the lit pipe
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New AI-Based Augmented Innovation Tool Promises to Transform Engineer Problem Solving
You’re an engineer trying to work out a solution to a complicated problem. You have been at this problem for…
July 19, 2021 by the lit pipe
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GPUs Can Now Analyze a Billion Complex Vectors in Record Time
The complexity of a digital photo cannot be understated. Each pixel comprises many data points, and there can be millions…
July 16, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Cybersecurity Training Program Teaches How to Fend Off Attacks
iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE During the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many organizations to transition from office work to…
July 16, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Fluidic Fingers
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
July 16, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Battery Revolution Is Just Getting Started
Harry Campbell How I loved the Macintosh Portable, Apple’s first laptop, which I bought shortly after it was introduced in…
July 15, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Standards Take Online Gaming to the Next Level
iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE It’s no surprise that with people staying home more because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global online…
July 14, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Dextrous Robotics Wants To Move Boxes With Chopsticks
Hype aside, there aren’t necessarily all that many areas where robots have the potential to step into an existing workflow and…
July 13, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Mini-LED Is the Future of Big Displays
Dan Saelinger/Trunk Archive Asus’s ROG Swift PG32UQX is an unexpected revelation. This beefy 32-inch monitor, clad in gaudy plastic and…
July 12, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Adobe Cofounder Charles Geschke Dies at 81
Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/Getty Images Honorary IEEE Member Charles Greschke, cofounder of Adobe, presenting a drawing from the company’s computer software in…
July 9, 2021 by the lit pipe
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This Laser Scans Skies for Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases
In a world gravely threatened by greenhouse gas emissions, actually measuring those greenhouse gases can be surprisingly tricky. You might…
July 9, 2021 by the lit pipe
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For the First Time, Scientists Detect a Moving Photon Multiple Times Without Destroying It
The act of detecting a photon typically destroys it. Now scientists have for the first time nondestructively detected a single…
July 9, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Bellingcat Crowdsources Spycraft, Scales Up Sleuthing
Spies, gumshoes and hard-driving investigative reporters—no matter how amazing they may be at their jobs—all suffer one inescapable drawback: They don’t scale. …
July 8, 2021 by the lit pipe
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A Passionate Proponent of Professional Ethics for Engineers
Walter Elden THE INSTITUTE Since the 1970s, Walter Elden has been one of the staunchest supporters of providing professional ethics…
July 6, 2021 by the lit pipe
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A New Laser For More Efficient Communications
Novel devices known as topological lasers can prove more efficient at shining light than conventional lasers. Now scientists have created…
July 6, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Spot Meets BTS
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
July 2, 2021 by the lit pipe
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New AR System Alters Sight, Sound and Touch
There’s the typical pitter-patter sound that comes from a person drumming their fingers along a tabletop. But what if this…
July 2, 2021 by the lit pipe
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2022 U.S. Budget Funds New ICBMs—A Reckless Diversion?
With the Biden administration’s 2022 defense budget coming in at US $753 billion, it’s easy to get diverted by the megaton-sized sum that…
July 2, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Physicists Teach AI to Simulate Atomic Clusters
Physicists love recreating the world in software. A simulation lets you explore many versions of reality to find patterns or…
July 2, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Zebra Technologies To Acquire Fetch Robotics for $305 Million
A company called Zebra Technologies announced this morning that it intends to acquire Fetch Robotics for an impressive $305 million.…
July 1, 2021 by the lit pipe
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A Better Platform for Testing Circuit Boards
inspectAR uses a smartphone or a webcam. No AR glasses required. inspectAR is an electronics productivity tool uniquely adapted to…
June 30, 2021 by the lit pipe
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A Deep Dive Into IEEE’s Recent History
IEEE A plaque was placed in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia during the IEEE-Franklin Institute Centennial Technical Convocation in October…
June 29, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Legged Robots Do Surprisingly Well in Low Gravity
Here on Earth, we’re getting good enough at legged robots that we’re starting to see a transition from wheels to…
June 28, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Why Robots Can’t Be Counted On to Find Survivors in the Florida Building Collapse
On Thursday, a portion of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Florida (just outside of Miami) suffered…
June 26, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Raj Reddy Bets on Babel Fish, Gordon Bell Says No Way
Some three decades ago, a group of pioneering computer scientists—Gordon Bell, John Hennessy, Ed Lazowska, Raj Reddy, Andy Van Dam,…
June 25, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Household Skills
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
June 25, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Cryptocurrency Blockchains Don’t Need To Be Energy Intensive
Anders Wenngren Blockchain is a generic term for the way most cryptocurrencies record and share their transactions. It’s a type…
June 24, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Why Does the World Harbor So Many Different Voltages, Plugs, and Sockets?
Winston Struye/StoryTK Standardization makes life easier, but it is often impossible to introduce it to systems that have a…
June 23, 2021 by the lit pipe
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A Beginner’s Guide to Topological Materials
Emily Cooper The topological material tantalum arsenide generates tremendous current (small arrows) upon illumination. Ever since a new class of materials…
June 22, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Triumph of the Electric Motor
Harry Campbell Nearly 50 years ago, my dad bought an electric Black & Decker lawn mower to trim our quarter-acre…
June 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Pride in Tech: How Lotus Championed Gay Rights During the AIDS Crisis
COLLECTION OF THE COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM, 102792233 The Lotus Development Corp. sponsored the first Boston AIDS Walk, in 1986. How…
June 18, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Telexistence
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
June 18, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Inventor of the Black Box Was Told to Drop the Idea and “Get On With Blowing Up Fuel Tanks”
Marinco Kojdanovski/Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Gift of W Vinten Limited, 1992. This “red egg” flight recorder, built by…
June 18, 2021 by the lit pipe
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It’s (Still) Really Hard for Robots to Autonomously Do Household Chores
Every time we think that we’re getting a little bit closer to a household robot, new research comes out showing…
June 17, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Harnessing the Wild Power of AI Image Generation
AI has already shown off the capability to create photorealistic images of cats, dogs, and people’s faces that never existed…
June 16, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Introducing the New IEEE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Website
Shutterstock THE INSTITUTE To further promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the IEEE and the engineering profession, the organization has…
June 15, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Mac Is Selling Like Never Before Thanks to the M1 Chip
Harry Campbell The Mac is enjoying a year that any PC maker would envy. It kicked off 2021 by doubling…
June 14, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Drone Refueling
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
June 11, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Three Chips in One: The History of the BCD Integrated Circuit
STMicroelectronics THE INSTITUTE Integrated circuits have become the backbone of consumer electronics. They are used in medical equipment, household appliances,…
June 11, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The iPhone 12 Mini Makes Me Sick (Literally)
I’m a small phone person. I have narrow hands and jeans with tiny pockets. That’s mostly why I hung onto…
June 11, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Mars-bound Astronauts Might Raid This Zero-G Fridge
How do you pack food for a trip to Mars? This is not a trick question. As astronauts and space…
June 10, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Unitree’s Go1 Robot Dog Looks Pretty Great, Costs Just USD $2700
In 2017, we first wrote about the Chinese startup Unitree Robotics, which had the goal of “making legged robots as…
June 9, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Here’s What 6G Will Be, According to the Creator of Massive MIMO
Tom Marzetta is the director of NYU Wireless, New York University’s research center for cutting-edge wireless technologies. Prior to joining…
June 8, 2021 by the lit pipe
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SeKVM Makes Cloud Computing Provably Secure
Complex hypervisor software helps run cloud computers, but verifying its security is often thought to be nigh impossible. Now computer…
June 7, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: NASA Sending Robots to Venus
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. It’s ICRA this week, but…
June 4, 2021 by the lit pipe
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This Autonomous Drone is the First to Make Nighttime Offshore Deliveries
F-drones F-drones cofounders Nicolas Ang and Yeshwanth Reddy display their half-scale prototype, which is expected to start commercial deliveries later…
June 4, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Somehow This Robot Sticks to Ceilings by Vibrating a Flexible Disc
Just when I think I’ve seen every possible iteration of climbing robot, someone comes up with a new way of…
June 3, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Until We Get Rid of Fossil Fuels, Can Data Make Them More Efficient?
Steven Cherry Hi, this is Steven Cherry, for Radio Spectrum. A few months ago, we had on the show an…
June 3, 2021 by the lit pipe
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As Cars Become Mobility Services, Fujitsu and AWS Develop Automotive Cloud Computing Toolkit
As automakers explore a future as “mobility service providers,” new challenges in computing for these transportation services emerge as well. So Fujitsu and Amazon…
June 2, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IEEE President’s Note: New STEM Portal Offers a Chance to Give Back
Susan K. Land THE INSTITUTE Think back to what inspired you to become an engineer or technology professional. Perhaps it…
June 1, 2021 by the lit pipe
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MOXIE Might Be the Most Exciting Thing Perseverance Has Brought to Mars
Look, I know that the Perseverance rover has brought some flashy stuff to Mars. It’s got lasers, it’s got a…
May 28, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Digger Finger
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
May 28, 2021 by the lit pipe
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How Nanotech Can Foil Counterfeiters
University of Florida Tiny mechanical resonators produced the same way microchips are made can serve to authenticate various goods.…
May 28, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly
Ingenuity’s sixth flight on Mars took place this week, and we’ve just heard details from JPL on an “in-flight anomaly.”…
May 27, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Can a Robot Be Arrested? Hold a Patent? Pay Income Taxes?
Steven Cherry When horses were replaced by engines, for work and transportation, we didn’t need to rethink our legal frameworks.…
May 26, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Competition Seeks Sustainable Development Solutions
Tiregrid Tiregrid proposes using discarded tires as containment structures, such as this one in Medellín, Colombia, to reinforce embankments. THE…
May 26, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Build a RISC-V CPU From Scratch
James Provost The Pineapple One is a complete computer with input/output, memory, and a homebrew 32-bit RISC-V CPU. It’s a…
May 25, 2021 by the lit pipe
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3 Courses Take a Deeper Dive into 5G
iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE The rollout of 5G technology continues globally. As access increases, 5G is expected to impact health care,…
May 24, 2021 by the lit pipe
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This Fitbit for Your Water Meter Started as a DIY Project
I brush some dead leaves from the top of the slab of cement that covers my curbside water meter and…
May 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Intelligent Drone Swarms
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
May 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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What You Need to Know About Charging Before You Buy an EV
Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance/Getty Images One of the first questions people ask about electric cars is usually, “Where can I charge…
May 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Agility Robotics’ Cassie Is Now Astonishingly Good at Stairs
Bipedal robots are a huge hassle. They’re expensive, complicated, fragile, and they spend most of their time almost but not…
May 20, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Here’s How Google’s TPU v4 AI Chip Stacked Up in Training Tests
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the company’s latest AI chip the TPU V4 (Tensor Processing Unit version 4) is capable of…
May 19, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The 2021 Hackaday Game is Afoot!
Today the folks at Hackaday announced the 2021 Hackaday Prize, a hardware design challenge for DIYers, which this year goes by…
May 18, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Do You Believe in Science? Then Take This Pledge
Getty Images THE INSTITUTE Crises such as the coronavirus pandemic demonstrate the importance of scientific research and remind us how…
May 17, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Lasers Could Clear Space Junk From Orbit
Ever since humans started launching rockets into space, the amount of junk flying around Earth has been growing, to the…
May 14, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Pioneer of Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Electronics Dies at 80
Photo: UCLA Samueli Tatsuo Itoh Microwave and millimeter-wave electronics pioneer Life Fellow, 80; died 4 March Itoh led breakthroughs…
May 14, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Virtual Cat Petting
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
May 14, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Nanoscale Plasma Switch Goes From Zero to Kilowatts in Picoseconds
Strictly speaking, plasma shouldn’t form in an electrified air gap smaller than about 5 micrometers. But it does. Nanoscale science…
May 13, 2021 by the lit pipe
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In Mahle’s Contact-Free Electric Motor, Power Reaches the Rotor Wirelessly
Automakers outside China are scrambling to develop electric motor designs that use no permanent magnets, partly because the magnets require rare…
May 12, 2021 by the lit pipe
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High-Efficiency Solar Cells Power Satellites—Can They Come Down to Earth?
Following the arrival of a fresh fleet of robot explorers, the eyes of the space-watching world may be fixed on…
May 11, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Two Engineers, 60 Years Apart, Explore Aging Together
Photo: Kyle Hunt THE INSTITUTE The friendship between 88-year-old Pierre Thollot and 28-year-old Grace Hunt (née Watt) might…
May 10, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IEEE’s Natural Disaster Relief Program Expanding to India, Jamaica, Pakistan, Turkey, and Puerto Rico
Photo: IEEE MOVE The IEEE MOVE truck used to provide U.S. communities with power, phone service, and Internet access in…
May 7, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IEEE’s Natural Disaster Relief Program Expanding to India, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico
Photo: IEEE MOVE The IEEE MOVE truck used to provide U.S. communities with power, phone service, and Internet access in…
May 7, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Reconfigurable Optical Networks Will Move Supercomputer Data 100X Faster
Imagine being able to read an entire book in a single second, but only receiving the pages individually over the…
May 7, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IBM Introduces the World’s First 2-nm Node Chip
IBM has become the first in the world to introduce a 2-nanometer (nm) node chip. IBM claims this new chip…
May 6, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Next Frontier for Gesture Control is Teeth
Is totally unobtrusive control of my devices really too much to ask? Apparently, it is, because every device that I…
May 5, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Too Perilous For AI? EU Proposes Risk-Based Rules
As part of its emerging role as a global regulatory watchdog, the European Commission published a proposal on 21 April for regulations to…
May 4, 2021 by the lit pipe
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NASA Extends Mars Helicopter Mission, Will Scout for Perseverance Rover
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has been doing an amazing job flying on Mars. Over the last several weeks it has…
May 3, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Wearable Sensor Tracks How Much You Scratch
How much does it itch? That’s a question doctors often ask people with eczema and other itch-inducing ailments, but the…
April 30, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Getting Inked Up? Thank Thomas Edison
Photo: Science Museum Group Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+P. Copy, Paste, Print. Or maybe skip that last step and don’t print at…
April 30, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Building an AI That Feels
Illustration: Eddie Guy In the past year, have you found yourself under stress? Have you ever wished for help coping?…
April 30, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Underwater Manta Kites for Tidal Power Harvesting
It’s been a challenge to find sources of renewable energy that are as reliable as the grid would like them…
April 29, 2021 by the lit pipe
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For The First Time, Electronics Printed On Paper Can Be Fully Recycled
With a cocktail of carbon-based inks, engineers have made the first fully printable and recyclable electronic circuits on paper. The…
April 28, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IEEE Spectrum, Reimagined
If you’re a reader of the print IEEE Spectrum, perhaps you’ve noticed something different about the May edition. It has…
April 27, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Hack an Analog TV Into a Geek TV
Illustration: James Provost Old consumer electronics often have enough room for major upgrades. Like vinyl and cassette tapes, cathode ray…
April 23, 2021 by the lit pipe
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IEEE Women in Engineering Leads a Pledge to Make Speaker Panels More Gender Balanced
Illustration: iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE How many times have you been to an IEEE conference and didn’t see someone like you…
April 23, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Video Friday: Ingenuity on Mars
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a…
April 23, 2021 by the lit pipe
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The Cellular Industry’s Clash Over the Movement to Remake Networks
Photo: George Frey/AFP/Getty Images We’ve all been told that 5G wireless is going to deliver amazing capabilities and services. But…
April 23, 2021 by the lit pipe
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9 Standards for a More Sustainable Future in Honor of Earth Day
Photo-illustration: iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE From climate change and pollution to the depletion of energy resources, the global community is faced…
April 22, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Lasers To Lunar Arks: Cryopreservation Heats Up
When scientists in the 1950s tried to cool hamsters to 0 °C and rewarm them, it didn’t go great. In…
April 21, 2021 by the lit pipe
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Get Ready for the Next Front in the Net Neutrality Fight
Photo-illustration: Edmon de Haro You’re about to hear a lot about network neutrality again, now that the Biden administration is…
April 20, 2021 by the lit pipe
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