spectrum.ieee.org

The America’s Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age report, published last year by the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Education, and Labor, identified a significant engineering and skills gap. The 27-page report concluded that the shortage of talent in essential areas—including advanced manufa

The biosphere transmits data 9 orders of magnitude faster than the technosphere. A new class of nanophotonic tools is beginning to close that gap.In this webinar, Prof. Dionne will present VINPix: Si-photonic resonators with high-Q factors (thousands to millions), subwavelength mode volumes, and densities exceeding 10M/cm². Combined with acoustic bioprinting and AI, they may enable detection of multiomic signatures — genes, proteins, and metabolites on a single chip — at previously unattainable rates, opening new possibilities for molecular communication systems and biochemical sensing for health and sustainability.Key Takeaway: Single-chip multiomics — VINPix arrays plus AI for simultaneous gene, protein, and metabolite detectionField-deployed biosensing �

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 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNAEnjoy today’s videos! All legged robots deployed “in the wild” to date were given a body plan that was predefined by human designers and could not be redefined in situ. The manual and permanent nat

Raquel Urtasun has spent 16 years in the self-driving space, long enough to navigate every metaphorical glorious hill and plunging valley. She took the trip from the early “pipe dream” dismissals, to the “we’re this close” certainty, and back again.The industry is now riding a new wave of optimism and investment, including at Waabi Innovation Inc., the autonomous trucking co

Engineering is so much more than solving problems or writing efficient code. It is about creating solutions that affect billions of lives and contributing to a profession built on innovation, responsibility, and collaboration. Although technical skills remain critical, what truly will accelerate the growth of the next generation of engineers is community and professional involvement.Learning from communitiesUniversity programs provide a strong foundation in theory and practice, but they cannot capture the complexity of real-world engineering. As an IEEE senior member, I believe professional communities such as IEEE can help bridge the gap by offering:Practical experience through

Every generation of mobile networks, from 1G to 5G, has rewritten the rules of how the world lives and works. The coming 6G revolution, by decade’s end, will represent a new direction still, toward a universal data fabric where millions of agents collaborate in real-time across the digital and physical worlds.The story of wireless connectivity is often told in speeds and standards—megabits per second, latency, and spectrum bands. But these generational shifts in device specs obscure a deeper pattern. Each generation, from 1G to 5G, rewrote the relationships between three elements: the D

In 2025 IEEE launched its first virtual career fair to help strengthen the engineering workforce and connect top talent with industry professionals. The event, which was held in the United States, attracted thousands of students and professionals. They learned about more than 500 job opportunities in high-demand fields including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and power and energy. They also gained access to career resources.Hosted by IEEE Industry Engagement, the event marked a milestone in the organization’s exp

This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!How to Keep Your Engineering Skills Sharp in an AI WorldEngineers today are caught in a strange new reality. We’re expected to move faster than ever using AI tools for coding, analysis, documentation, and design. At the same time, there’s a growing worry in the ba

There’s a moment in John Williams’s Star Wars overture when the brass surges upward. You don’t just hear it; you feel propulsion turning into pure possibility.On 16 March 1926, in a snow-dusted field in Auburn, Mass., Robert Goddard created an earlier version of that same feeling. His first liquid-fueled rocket—a spindly, three meter tangle of pipes and tanks—lifted off, climbed about 12.5 meters, traveled roughly 56 meters downrange, and crashed into the frozen ground after 2.5 seconds. A few witnesses, Goddard’s helpers, shivered in the cold. The little machine defied common sense. It rose th

In April of 2025, OpenAI released a new version of GPT-4o, one of the AI algorithms users could select to power ChatGPT, the company’s chatbot. The next week, OpenAI reverted to the previous version. “The update we removed was overly flattering or agreeable—often described as sycophantic,” the company announced. Some people found the sycophancy hilarious. One user reportedly asked ChatGPT about his tu