IEEE Spectrum- Boats Should Be Sleek—But Only Up to a PointIn comparison with Moore's Law, the nonsilicon world's progress can seem rather glacial. Indeed, some designs made of wood or metal came up against their functional limits generations ago The length-to-beam ratio (LBR) of large oceangoing vessels offers an excellent example of such technological maturity. This ratio is simply the quotient of a ship […]
- Insulator-Conductor Transition Points Toward Ultra-Efficient ComputingFor the first time, researchers have been able to image how atoms in a computer switch move around on fast timescales while it turns on and off. This ability to peer into the atomic world may hold the key to a new kind of switch for computers that will speed up computing and reduce the energy required for computer processing.The research team made up of scie […]
- Learn How the President-Elect Candidates Plan to Improve IEEEThe four candidates share their plans for increasing student membership; expanding science, technology, engineering, and math education programs; and attracting more members from industry. The annual IEEE election process begins in August, so be sure to check your mailbox for your ballot. To help you choose the 2022 IEEE president-elect, The Institute is pub […]
- Fast, Efficient Neural Networks Copy Dragonfly BrainsIn each of our brains, 86 billion neurons work in parallel, processing inputs from senses and memories to produce the many feats of human cognition. The brains of other creatures are less broadly capable, but those animals often exhibit innate aptitudes for particular tasks, abilities honed by millions of years of evolution. Most of us have seen animals doin […]
- IoT-ize Your Old Gadgets With a Mechanical Hijacking DeviceJust about every device you own is probably available with Internet connectivity. Whether or not every device you own actually needs Internet connectivity is up for debate. But if you want it, it's there—as long as you're able to afford it, of course. Connectivity usually comes at a premium, and it also usually involves buying a brand new whatever […]
- Video Friday: Android PrintingYour weekly selection of awesome robot videos Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far ( send us your events!): RO-MAN 2021 – August 8-12, 2021 – [Online Event] DARPA […]
- Intel: Back on Top by 2025?Intel has spent the last few years dealing with criticism that it had lost its lead against rivals in the race to put ever more and better performing transistors on each square millimeter of silicon. This week, Intel unveiled a roadmap that company executives say will put them at the head of the pack by 2025.Acknowledging that the naming convention for new s […]
- This New SiteFor visitors familiar with our old site, welcome to our latest incarnation, which makes it easy to go deep into a topic like machine learning, get a tutorial on the topological materials that could disrupt the semiconductor industry (when will the chip shortage end, anyway?), or scour the latest edition of Top Programming Languages (coming in August), for an […]
- A Circuit to Boost Battery LifeYOU'VE PROBABLY PLAYED hundreds, maybe thousands, of videos on your smartphone. But have you ever thought about what happens when you press “play”? The instant you touch that little triangle, many things happen at once. In microseconds, idle compute cores on your phone's processor spring to life. As they do so, their voltages and clock frequencies […]
- No Antenna Could Survive Europa’s Brutal, Radioactive Environment—Until NowEuropa, one of Jupiter's Galilean moons, has twice as much liquid water as Earth's oceans, if not more. An ocean estimated to be anywhere from 40 to 100 miles (60 to 150 kilometers) deep spans the entire moon, locked beneath an icy surface over a dozen kilometers thick. The only direct evidence for this ocean is the plumes of water that occasionall […]
- Boats Should Be Sleek—But Only Up to a Point
