Global solar energy supplies are growing rapidly, with nearly 10 times as much solar capacity installed today as there was a decade ago. Leading the boom is the photovoltaic (PV) panel, which converts sunlight into electricity using semiconductors. But even as the glossy rectangles become increasingly cheaper and ubiquitous, solar PV alone can’t solve the […]
Maybe flow batteries aren’t always everything they’re cracked up to be. A new technology from Australia is certainly raising this prospect, offering a novel approach to stationary energy storage—whose packaging at least harkens back to the old, familiar car battery. Flow batteries use liquid electrolytes held externally in tanks and which circulate through the cells […]
I’m just going to come out and say it: Human cognition might have nothing whatsoever to do with computation. Yes, I am well aware that the computational theory of mind is a deeply entrenched one, starting with the work in the early 1940s of Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts in Chicago, and then later at […]
Steven Cherry Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum’s podcast, Fixing the Future. Like a lot of people, I’ve been thinking about trading in my car. The case, morally and even financially, for an all-electric car is becoming stronger and stronger. And yet, what about recharging? Can I get from Pittsburgh to New York’s […]
Automakers outside China are scrambling to develop electric motor designs that use no permanent magnets, partly because the magnets require rare earths, and mining rare earths causes pollution. It’s also partly because the mining is done in China, a formidable automotive competitor. These alternative motors turn the rotor using electromagnetic force alone; we’ve covered more than one such motor recently. One […]
.entry-content .tisubhead { color: #999999; font-family: verdana; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: -5px !important; text-transform: uppercase; } .tiopener { color: #0f4994; font-family: Theinhardt-Medium, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-right: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; } Photo: iStockphoto THE INSTITUTE Today there are millions of connected wireless medical devices powered by the Internet of Things as […]
The Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity landed on Mars in August of 2012. After a year of exploring Gale Crater, JPL engineers noticed some wear on Curiosity’s wheels, in the form of dents and small holes in the wheels’ 0.75mm thick aluminum skin. While not unexpected, the wear on the wheels kept increasing at a […]
Image: Turntide Technologies Turntide Technologies, a startup backed by Bill Gates and Amazon, originally pitched its new version of an old electric motor for use in rooftop HVAC systems. Now the company is going after bigger game: electric vehicles. CEO Ryan Morris mentioned the plan in an interview with CNN earlier this month. Now Eric Meyerson, vice president […]
Mars is more crowded than ever. With a successful arrival by the Perseverance rover in February, NASA alone is operating three orbiters, two rovers, and a lander on or around the planet. Other orbiters above the planet are being operated by the European Space Agency, Roscosmos, the Indian Space Research Organization, and others. The China […]
If you haven’t had time to read the AI Index Report for 2021, which clocks in at 222 pages, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. The massive document, produced by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is packed full of data and graphs, and we’ve plucked out 15 that provide a snapshot of the current […]