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In 2024, the technology sector saw yet more layoffs after massive cuts in 2022 and 2023. Though the pace was somewhat slower last year, more than 150,000 employees were laid off across hundreds of companies, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site started during the COVID-19 pandemic to track tech layoffs around the world. The largest single cut came in August, when Intel cut

Extreme weather events are increasingly impacting eastern and southern Africa, with Mozambique among the worst affected. In response, the country is overhauling its early warning system in collaboration with the Savona, Italy-based International Center for Environmental Monitoring Research Foundation (CIMA). Together, they aim to enhance the capacity for forecasting and responding to floods, droughts, and cyclones.At the heart of this initiative is the “situation room,” a central hub that monitors weather hazards in real time using the

Artificial intelligence is changing the way business is conducted. Organizations that understand where to deploy AI strategically—whether through process improvements, more effective data use, or elsewhere—are expected to outperform their competition and have greater growth and efficiency. In its annual report, “The Impact of Technology in 2025 and Beyond: An IEEE Global Study,” IEEE surveyed 350 global technology leaders including CIOs, CTOs, and IT directors. The survey revealed that more than half of the respondents ra

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.RoboCup German Open: 12–16 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANYGerman Robotics Conference: 13–15 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANYEuropean Robotics Forum: 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANY

About a year ago, Boston Dynamics released a research version of its Spot quadruped robot, which comes with a low-level application programming interface (API) that allows direct control of Spot’s joints. Even back then, the rumor was that this API unlocked some significant performance improvements on Spot, including a much faster running speed. That rumor came from the Robotics and AI (RAI) Institute, formerly The AI Institute, formerly the Boston Dynamics AI Institute, and if you were at

Shortly after the Trump administration took office in the United States in late January, more than 8,000 pages across several government websites and databases were taken down, the New York Times found. Though many of these have now been restored, thousands of pages were purged of references to gender and diversity initiatives, for example, and others including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) website remain down.

With NASA working on sending humans to Mars starting in the 2030s, colonizing the Red Planet seems more achievable than ever. The space agency is already leading yearlong simulated missions to better understand how living on Mars could affect humans.Because of the planet’s thin atmosphere, high radiation levels, and abrasive dust, people would need to live in specialized dwellings and use robots to perform outdoor tasks.With hopes of

China has managed to deliver a pair of satellites into lunar orbit despite the spacecraft initially being stranded in low Earth orbit following a rocket failure, using a mix of complex calculations, precise engine burns, and astrodynamic ingenuity.China launched the DRO-A and B satellites on 13 March last year on a Long March 2C rocket, aiming to send the pair into a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) around the moon. However, the rocket’s Yuanzheng-1S upper stage—intended to fire the space

At a time in American history when even the most intelligent Black women were expected to become, at most, teachers or nurses, Willie Hobbs Moore broke with societal expectations to become a noted physicist and engineer.Moore probably is best known for being the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in science (physics) in the United States, in 1972. She also is renowned for being an unwavering advocate for getting more Black people into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her achievements have inspired generations of Black students, and women especially, to b

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.RoboCup German Open: 12–16 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANYGerman Robotics Conference: 13–15 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANYEuropean Robotics Forum: 25–