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Wheelchair users with severe disabilities can often navigate tight spaces better than most robotic systems can. A wave of new smart-wheelchair research, including findings presented in Anaheim, Calif., earlier this month, is now testing whether AI-powered systems can, or should, fully close this gap.Christian Mandel—senior researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Bremen, Germany—co-led a research team together with his colleague Serge A

The rapid ascent of artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing has created a paradox: Industries are booming yet they face a critical shortage of skilled workers. Demand for data center technicians, fabrication facility workers, and similar positions is growing. There aren’t enough candidates with the right skill sets to fill the in-demand jobs.Although those technical roles are

A growing number of Nigerian companies are turning to kit-based assembly to bring electric vehicles to market in Africa. Lagos-based Saglev Micromobility Nigeria recently partnered with Dongfeng Motor Corporation, in Wuhan, China, to assemble 18-seat electric passenger vans from imported kits.Kit-based assembly allows Nigerian firms to reduce costs, create jobs, and develop local technical expertise—key steps toward expanding EV access. Fully assembled and imported EVs face high tariffs that put them out of reach for many African consumers, whereas kit-based approaches make electric mobility more affordable t

One morning in May 2019, a cardiac surgeon stepped into the operating room at Boston Children’s Hospital more prepared than ever before to perform a high-risk procedure to rebuild a child’s heart. The surgeon was experienced, but he had an additional advantage: He had already performed the procedure on this child dozens of times—virtually. He knew exactly what to do before the first cut was made. Even more important, he knew which strategies would provide the best possible outcome for the child whose life was in his hands.How was this possible? Over the prior weeks, the hospital’s surgical and cardio-engineering teams had come together to build a fully functioning model of the child’s

A technical examination of the sensing, motion control, power, and thermal challenges facing humanoid robotics engineers — with component-level design strategies for real-world deployment.What Attendees will LearnWhy motion control remains the hardest unsolved problem — Explore the modelling complexity, real-time feedback requirements, and sensor fusion demands of maintaining stable bipedal locomotion across dynamic environments.How sensing architectures enable perception and safety — Understand the role of inertial measurement units, force/torque feedback, and tactile sensing in achieving reliable human-robot interaction and collision avoidance.What power and thermal constraints mean for system design — Examine the trade-offs

Happy 80th anniversary, ENIAC! The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first large-scale, general-purpose, programmable electronic digital computer, helped shape our world.On 15 February 1946, ENIAC—developed in the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia—was publicly demonstrated for the first time. Although

Every time you unlock your smartphone or start your connected car, you are generating a trail of digital evidence that can be used to track your every move.In Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance, just published by NYU Press, law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson exposes how the Internet of Things has quietly transformed into a vast surveillance network,

As electronics demand higher energy density, one component has proved challenging to shrink: the capacitor. Making a smaller capacitor usually requires thinning the dielectric layer or electrode surface area, which has often resulted in a reduction of power. A new polymer material could help change that.In a study published 18 February in Nature, a Pennsylvania State University-led team reported a capacitor crafted from a polymer blend that can operate at temperatures up to 250 °C while storing roughly four times as much energy as conventional polymer capacitors. Today’s advanced polymer capacitors typically function only up to about 100 °C, meaning engineers of

Looming over the internet lasers and firestarting phones companies were touting at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month, was a more nebulous but much larger announcement: a pan-European cloud called EURO-3C.EURO-3C’s backers – Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, dozens of other European companies, and the European Commission (EC) – aim to fill a gap. U.S.-based cloud giants dominate in the EU,

In the fictional nation of Beryllia, the 2026 World Chalice Games were set to begin as the country faced an unrelenting heat wave. The grid, already under strain from the circumstances, was dealt a further blow when a coordinated set of attacks including vandalism, drone, and ballistic attacks by an adversary, Crimsonia, crippled the grid’s physical infrastructure.This scenario, inspired by the upcoming 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, was an exercise in studying how utilities can prevent and mitigate, among other dangers, physical attacks on power grids. Called GridEx, the exercise was hosted by the Electricity Information