ENGGtalks Newsroom

08 Feb 24

Standards Matter for Cars, Plugs, WiFi—and AI?

Computer & Information Technology

Artificial intelligence holds much promise for innovation and progress, but it also has the potential to cause harm. To enable the responsible development and use of AI, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently released ISO/IEC 42001, a new standard for AI management systems. According to ISO, this standard “offers…

07 Feb 24

Momentary Fusion Breakthroughs Face Hard Reality

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

The dream of fusion power inched closer to reality in December 2022, when researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) revealed that a fusion reaction had produced more energy than what was required to kick-start it. According to new research, the momentary fusion feat required exquisite choreography and extensive preparations,…

06 Feb 24

Robotic Tongue Licks Gecko Gripper Clean

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

About a decade ago, there was a lot of excitement in the robotics world around gecko-inspired directional adhesives, which are materials that stick without being sticky using the same van der Waals forces that allow geckos to scamper around on vertical panes of glass. They were used extensively in different…

06 Feb 24

The Greening of Transportation

Civil, Structural & Architecture

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, approximately 15 percent of net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. To meet global climate targets, we must devise ways to get people and goods from point A to point B without burning fossil fuels. In this month’s special…

05 Feb 24

Nominate the Next Leaders of IEEE

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Volunteers are needed to serve as corporate officers, committee chairs, and members. IEEE is governed by volunteer members and depends on them for many things, including editing its publications, organizing conferences, coordinating regional and local activities, writing standards, leading educational activities, and identifying individuals for IEEE recognitions and awards. See…

04 Feb 24

Cool(ing) Ideas for Tropical Data Centers

Computer & Information Technology

Tropical climates could make racks of hot-running data servers even hotter. But researchers in Singapore are now testing ways to cool this trend, sustainably. The National University of Singapore in Queenstown (NUS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTUS), together with Singapore’s National Research Foundation and Infocomm Media Development Authority, as well…

04 Feb 24

Compact Spinning Tech Makes Thermal Imaging Bright

Civil, Structural & Architecture

Seeing heat, as a cutting-edge field of research today, is getting hotter. Purdue University researchers have merged the power of advanced surfaces (including metamaterials) with thermal imaging algorithms to create technology that could open new frontiers in machine vision and autonomous systems.Previously, such advanced surfaces had been used for imaging…

03 Feb 24

MIT and IBM Find Clever AI Ways Around Brute-Force Math

Computer & Information Technology

Since the days of Isaac Newton, the fundamental laws of nature—optics, acoustics, engineering, electronics—all ultimately reduce to a vital, broad set of equations. Now researchers have found a new way to use brain-inspired neural networks to solve these equations significantly more efficiently than before for numerous potential applications in science…

02 Feb 24

Video Friday: Agile but Safe

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

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. Cybathlon Challenges: 2 February 2024, ZURICHEurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May…

02 Feb 24

This Lockheed Martin Researcher’s Work on UAVs Saves Lives

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Kingsley Fregene wants to keep people out of harm’s way—so much so that he has ordered his life around that fundamental goal. As director of technology integration at Lockheed Martin, in Grand Prairie, Texas, he leads a team that is actively pursuing breakthroughs designed to, among other things, allow life-saving…