Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new technologies. That was the idea behind the thunder house, which in the second half […]
On 20 April 1939, David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America, addressed a small crowd outside the RCA pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. “Today we are on the eve of launching a new industry, based on imagination, on scientific research and accomplishment,” he proclaimed. That industry was television. RCA president David […]
The importance of Wi-Fi as the most popular carrier of wireless IP traffic in the emerging era of IoT and 5G continues its legacy, and Wi-Fi standards are continually evolving to help implement next generation applications in the cyberspace for positioning, human computer interfacing, motion, and gesture detection, as well as authentication and security. Wi-Fi […]
As I write this month’s article, my house is a noisy, dusty construction zone. I am renovating my kitchen, which was originally built in 1964. Although I’m happy to be rid of some of the disastrous 1960s design missteps—seriously, only one electrical receptacle in the entire kitchen?—I was sad to part with a small piece […]
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2023: 29 May–2 June 2023, LONDON RoboCup 2023: 4–10 July 2023, BORDEAUX, FRANCE RSS […]
A Sea-Monster-Proof Internet The initial segment of what will be the first underwater fiber-optic link to skirt the North Pole, connecting Japan and Europe, will light up in early 2023. This stretch, called Iris, will link Iceland to Ireland. In subsequent years, the Far North Fiber project will lay down a cable through the Northwest […]
November marks the 50th anniversary of Pong. Why should we care? For starters, Pong is the first video game that millions of people welcomed into their homes to play on their own televisions. Pong kick-started a global video-game industry that is now worth upwards of US $300 billion. And Pong still has a place in […]
“We shall call such particles corpuscles,” announced the physicist J.J. Thomson, during a lecture at the Royal Institution in London, on 30 April 1897. “The atoms of the ordinary elements are made up of corpuscles and holes, the holes being predominant,” he continued. Thomson described his experiments with cathode rays to verify the existence of […]
When you’re baking a cake, it’s hard to know when the inside is in the state you want it to be. The same is true—with much higher stakes—for microelectronic chips: How can engineers confirm that what’s inside has truly met the intent of the designers? How can a semiconductor design company tell whether its intellectual […]
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