Huijia Lin proved that a master tool of cryptography is possible
A long-sought “holy grail” in cryptography is poised to change the way we protect sensitive information. Today’s standard encryption schemes take an all-or-nothing approach. Once…
Category: Technology
This robotic pill clears mucus from the gut to deliver meds
A mucus-wicking robotic pill may offer a new way to deliver meds. The multivitamin-sized device houses a motor and a cargo hold for drugs, including…
NASA’s DART spacecraft just smashed into an asteroid — on purpose
Mission control rooms rarely celebrate crash landings. But the collision of NASA’s DART spacecraft with an asteroid was a smashing success. At about 7:15 p.m.…
This environmentally friendly quantum sensor runs on sunlight
Quantum tech is going green. A new take on highly sensitive magnetic field sensors ditches the power-hungry lasers that previous devices have relied on to…
An AI can decode speech from brain activity with surprising accuracy
An artificial intelligence can decode words and sentences from brain activity with surprising — but still limited — accuracy. Using only a few seconds of…
This soft, electronic ‘nerve cooler’ could be a new way to relieve pain
A flexible electronic implant could one day make pain management a lot more chill. Created from materials that dissolve in the body, the device encircles…
50 years ago, Arecibo got an unprecedented view of Venus’ surface
Probing Venus’ mountains — Science News, February 12, 1972 Venus’ perpetually cloud-shrouded surface remains penetrable only by radio waves. A planetary radar group now reports…
Materials of the last century shaped modern life, but at a price
A 1920s science headline, “Ice cream from crude oil,” may best capture the era’s unbridled enthusiasm for chemistry. “Edible fats, the same as those in…
Sun Roasted Coffee on the Rise
The Big Picture features technology through the lens of photographers. Every month, IEEE Spectrum selects the most stunning technology images recently captured by photographers around…
Tech Leaders on 5G, Robots, and the Future of Work
What are today’s tech leaders concerned about? Trying to maintain strong cybersecurity for a hybrid workforce and protecting their systems from cyberattacks as more and…
Speculation in the Metaverse
In late November of 2021, a 6,090-square-foot (566 square-meter) parcel, located within the evocatively named “Fashion Street” district of an up-and-coming development called Decentraland sold…
The Secrets of Space Invaders
While the sound of footsteps slowly growing louder may be a sure sign of impending doom in any horror film, the pulse of video game…
How to Prevent Blackouts by Packetizing the Power Grid
Bad things happen when demand outstrips supply. We learned that lesson too well at the start of the pandemic, when demand for toilet paper, disinfecting…
AI Screens Out Robocallers
Last year, the US government got serious about snuffing out robocalls. Effective 30 June 2021, the FCC mandated that phone providers verify all callers’ IDs…
Video Friday: Apple Drone
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar…
How the Hall Effect Still Reverberates
Of the many physicists who didn’t win a Nobel Prize, Edwin Herbert Hall is among a select group for whom the failure seems a particular…
DARPA’s RACER Program Sends High-Speed, Autonomous Vehicles Off-Road
DARPA has announced the first phase of a shiny new program called RACER, which stands for Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency. I’m not…
How MIT’s Muriel Medard Pioneered the Universal Decoder
Network coding pioneer Muriel Médard calls herself a pathological optimist. The MIT electrical engineering and computer science professor’s positive thinking has led to new ways…
The Long Road to Today’s Cochlear Implant
“A bit of bedlam.” That’s how the physician Graeme Clark described the scene at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, on…
Cutting Carbon Emissions Is Harder Than the Glasgow Climate Pact Thinks
Three months ago the Glasgow Climate Pact (COP26) declared that by 2030 the world must cut total carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent relative to…
3D-Printed OLEDs Enable DIY Screens Nearly Anywhere
LCDs may be the mainstay of consumer displays, but when it comes to picture quality, including high contrast ratio, brighter colors, and wider viewing angles,…
Jay Last, a Father of Silicon Valley, Dies at 92
Jay Last Silicon Valley pioneer Life member, 92; died 11 November Last is considered to be one of the eight “Fathers of Silicon Valley,” according…
How Claude Shannon Helped Kick-start Machine Learning
Among the great engineers of the 20th century, who contributed the most to our 21st-century technologies? I say: Claude Shannon. Shannon is best known for…
How AI can identify people even in anonymized datasets
How you interact with a crowd may help you stick out from it, at least to artificial intelligence. When fed information about a target individual’s…
Water Scarcity Concerns Drive Semiconductor Industry to Adopt New Technologies
In these days of seemingly neverending chip shortages, more and greater varieties of semiconductors are in demand. Chip fabs around the world are now racing…
Meta Aims to Build the World’s Fastest AI Supercomputer
Meta, parent company of Facebook, says it has built a research supercomputer that is among the fastest on the planet. By the middle of this…
Rooftop Drones for Autonomous Pigeon Harassment
Feral pigeons are responsible for over a billion dollars of economic losses here in the United States every year. They’re especially annoying because the species…
Wi-Fi 7 Stomps on the Gas
Consumer technology is often a story of revolutionary leaps followed by a descent into familiarity. The first computers advanced so quickly that new models went…
AI Could Analyze Speech To Help Diagnose Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Typically, doctors use a combination of cognitive tests, brain imaging, and observation of behavior that can be expensive…
Letting Robocars See Around Corners
An autonomous car needs to do many things to make the grade, but without a doubt, sensing and understanding its environment are the most critical.…
Atari Breakout: The Best Videogame of All Time?
Breakout was the best video game ever invented, many designers say, because it was the first true video game. Before Breakout, all were games like…
How E Ink Developed Full-Color e-Paper
It was the end of 2008, October, right before the holiday shopping season. Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey released her highly anticipated Favorite Things list, with…
Medal of Honor Goes to Microsensor and Systems Pioneer
IEEE Life Fellow Asad M. Madni is the recipient of this year’s IEEE Medal of Honor. He is being recognized “for pioneering contributions to the…
Video Friday: An Agile Year
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar…
Spin Me Up, Scotty—Up Into Orbit
At first the dream of riding a rocket into space was laughed off the stage by critics who said that you’d have to carry along…
For Better Phone Cameras, Swap Glass Lenses for Silicon Chips
This week, startup Metalenz announced that it has created a silicon chip that, paired with an image sensor, can distinguish objects by the way they…
What You Need to Know About the FAA 5G Kerfuffle
AT&T and Verizon finally fired up vital components of their 5G networks in the United States on Wednesday. Mostly. The two companies had already agreed…
Taking Cosmology to the Far Side of the Moon
A team of Chinese and European researchers are planning to use the moon as a shield to detect otherwise hard-to-observe low frequencies of the electromagnetic…
Can Freight Train Cars Go Electric—and Self-Driving?
Moving freight by rail hasn’t changed a whole heck of a lot over the last several decades. And there are good reasons for this: trains…
A First: An AI System Has Been Named An Inventor
The South African patent office made history in July when it issued a patent that listed an artificial intelligence system as the inventor. The patent…
An elusive equation describing bird eggs of all shapes has been found at last
For years, scientists have tried to crack a mathematical mystery: Is there an equation that can perfectly describe each and every bird egg? Variable shell…
The Lies that Powered the Invention of Pong
In 1971 video games were played in computer science laboratories when the professors were not looking—and in very few other places. In 1973 millions of…
Video Friday: Guitar Bot
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar…
Learn About the Candidates Running for 2023 President-Elect
The IEEE Board of Directors has nominated Life Fellow Thomas Coughlin and Senior Members Kathleen Kramer and Maike Luiken as candidates for IEEE president-elect. IEEE…
Unitree’s AlienGo Quadruped Can Now Wield a Lightsaber
Unitree Robotics, well known for providing affordable legged robots along with questionable Star Wars-themed promotional videos, has announced a brand new, custom-made, 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm…
Physicists Spin Up Quantum Tornadoes
Shrink down to the level of atoms and you enter the quantum world, so supremely weird that even a physicist will sometimes gape. Hook that…
Semantic AI Tools Help Inventors Generate Ideas, Patents
This is a sponsored article brought to you by IP.com. Prospecting for technological opportunities, patenting novel inventions, and assessing a company’s competitive position require the…
Adhesives Gain Popularity for Wearable Devices
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Master Bond. Master Bond adhesive formulations provide solutions for challenging assembly applications in manufacturing electronic wearable…
Why IoT Sensors Need Standards
Sensors traditionally have been used for camera imaging, as well as communicating information about humidity, temperature, motion, speed, proximity, and other aspects of the environment.…
Labrador Addresses Critical Need With Deceptively Simple Home Robot
It’s not often that we see a home robot that manages to be both relatively affordable and realistically technologically achievable while also solving a clear…