ENGGtalks Newsroom

18 Sep 23

New Techniques Can Identify Hard-to-Spot FPGA Fakes

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide semiconductor shortage raised new concerns about counterfeit chips. These include chips that are falsely marketed, misrepresented as recycled, or use old, fake, or just not-quite-right parts.Now, even as the chip shortage has begun to abate, some researchers are still tracking fakes…

18 Sep 23

Nvidia Still on Top in Machine Learning; Intel Chasing

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Large language models like Llama2 and ChatGPT are where much of the action is in AI. But how well do today’s datacenter-class computers execute them? Pretty well, according to the latest set of benchmark results for machine learning, with the best able to summarize more than 100 articles in a…

18 Sep 23

Hydrogen aviation startup ZeroAvia lands largest funding round to date

Computer & Information Technology

ZeroAvia, one of the leading zero-emission aviation companies in the world, just announced its largest financing round to date. The funding round was co-led by Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital, and NEOM. Other participants included Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Alaska Airlines, and the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund. No exact…

18 Sep 23

5 Big Ideas for High-Temperature Superconductors

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

In 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes plunged a mercury wire into liquid helium and noticed that the wire’s electrical resistance vanished. The wire had become a “superconductor.” The extremely low temperatures and high pressures needed to induce superconductivity limited its practical value for decades. But the 1986 discovery of…

18 Sep 23

European space startup chooses Indian rocket for Moon mission prototype launch

Computer & Information Technology

Europe’s dawdling on the Ariane 6 is becoming increasingly costly as the new era of space race exploration — and exploitation — heats up. The Exploration Company, based in Bordeaux and Munich, has just signed an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in service of its aim of…

17 Sep 23

MIT Looks Ahead to Hydrogen’s Aviation Future

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. As investment in hydrogen-powered flight expands, airports and air carriers today are realizing that it’s not enough to retrofit or design new planes for hydrogen power. So while researchers and companies large and small…

16 Sep 23

Linda Doyle Blasts Through Ireland’s Academic Glass Ceiling

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Linda Doyle has broken through Ireland’s academic glass ceiling. She is the first woman to be provost of the country’s top-ranked university, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin.Trinity’s provost is elected by faculty members and student representatives, not a board of trustees, as happens with American university presidents. The…

16 Sep 23

Why the Next Microgrids Will Be Well Connected

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. It was one of the deadliest and most damaging natural disasters to ever make landfall in the United States. Maria destroyed infrastructure and crops and initially claimed 64 lives. The aftermath was even more calamitous: More than 4,000 people are estimated to…

15 Sep 23

5G “Open” Standards Are in Play—Just How Open Are They?

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

At a June meeting of major cellular-industry stakeholders in Osaka, Japan, a course correction was under discussion that could jeopardize the industry’s quest for open standards. At issue, specifically, was what the telecom industry calls interoperability: The hope from companies operating cellular networks that they won’t be forced into buying…

15 Sep 23

MIT Makes Low-Power Underwater Communication Practical

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Underwater sensor networks could prove invaluable for applications as diverse as monitoring fish farms, hurricane forecasting, and detecting enemy submarines. Transmitting data through liquids is much trickier than sending it through air, however. Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a solution that could enable…