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It can be a bit of a bumpy road from leaving a secure job in academia to launching a startup based on your research. That’s what IEEE Fellow Dalma Novak experienced. An expert in developing technology to transmit microwave and millimeter-wave signals over long distances using optical fibers, she left a tenured position at the University of Melbourne, in Parkville, Australia, to join a venture-backed U.S. optical network equipment firm. After two years, t

AI generated images are now seeping into advertising, social media, entertainment, and more, thanks to models like Midjourney and DALL-E. But creating visual art with AI actually dates back decades. Christiane Paul curates digital art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City. Last year, Paul curated an exhibit on British artist Harold Cohen and his computer program AARON, the first AI program for art creation. Unlike today’s statistical models, AARON was created in the 1970s as an

In the rocky terrain of China’s Sichuan province, a massive X-shaped building is quickly rising, its crisscrossed arms stretching outward in a bold, futuristic design. From a satellite’s view, it could be just another ambitious megaproject in a country known for building fast and thinking big. But to some observers of Chinese tech development, it’s yet more evidence that China may be on the verge of pulling ahead in one of the most consequential technological races of our time: the quest to achieve commercial nuclear fusion.

In the 1980s and 1990s, online communities formed around tiny digital oases called bulletin-board systems. Often run out of people’s homes and accessible by only one or two people at a time via dial-up modems, these BBSs let people exchange public and private messages, play games, and share files using simple menus and a text-based interface. Today, there is an uptick in interest in BBSs as a way to create idiosyncratic digital spaces away from the glare of large social-media platforms like Facebook,

As a computer scientist who has been immersed in AI ethics for about a decade, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the field has evolved. Today, a growing number of engineers find themselves developing AI solutions while navigating complex ethical considerations. Beyond technical expertise, responsible AI deployment requires a nuanced understanding of ethical implications.In my role as IBM’s AI ethics global leader, I’ve observed a significant shift in how AI engineers must operate. They are no longer just talking to other AI engineers about how to build the technology. Now they need to engage with those who understand how their creations will affect the communitie

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.ICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDON

Joseph Koepfinger Developed standards for electric power systems Life Fellow, 99; died 6 January Koepfinger was an active volunteer with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), an IEEE predecessor society. He made significant contributions to the fields of surge protection and electric power engineering. In the early 1950s he took part in a three-year task force studying distribution circuit reliability as a member of AIEE’s surge protective devices committee (SPDC), according to his ArresterWorks biography

For high-performance chips in massive data centers, math can be the enemy. Thanks to the sheer scale of calculations going on in hyperscale data centers, operating round the clock with millions of nodes and vast amounts of silicon, extremely uncommon errors appear. It’s simply statistics. These rare, “silent” data errors don’t show up during conventional quality-control screenings—even when companies spend hours looking for them.This month at the IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium in Monterey, Calif., Intel engineers

This article is best viewed on desktop. In 2006, IEEE Spectrum ranked patenting powerhouses in our first annual patent survey. The survey, conducted by the research firm 1790 Analytics, examined the number and influence of U.S. patents generated by more than 1,000 organizations. Semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology came out on top at the time, with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Broadcom rounding out the top five. Nearly 20 years later, every company on the top 10 list has been usurped. Once mighty companies have fallen in the ranks, others have come an

The XPrize Foundation today announced the winners of its four-year, US $100 million XPrize competition in carbon removal. The contest is one of dozens hosted by the foundation in its 20-year effort to encourage technological development. Contestants in the carbon removal XPrize had to demonstrate ways to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or oceans and sequester it sustainably.Mati Carbon, a Houston-based startup developing a sequestration technique called enhanced rock weathering, won the grand prize of $50 million.