spectrum.ieee.org

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.0/10 (1 vote cast)

News and features about the latest technology, engineering, and science advances including electronics, computing, energy, biomedical, robotics and more.

What It Takes to Preserve Floppy Disks

26 May 2026 @ 1:00 pm

Floppy disks are several decades old—many of the disks are degrading and the data stored on them is at risk of being lost. In response, Leontien Talboom, a technical analyst at Cambridge University Libraries and Archives, led a roughly year-long project preserving floppy disks called “Future Nostalgia,” which concluded in January.Leontien Talboom

Meet NASA Low Outgassing Standards With Adhesives for Aerospace and Optical Systems

26 May 2026 @ 10:00 am

This sponsored article is brought to you by Master Bond.Outgassing is the release of volatile substances from a cured adhesive over time. These released materials, which may include residual solvents, unreacted monomers, or other chemical species, can deposit on nearby surfaces, causing contamination that interferes with sensitive components.What Is Outgassing and How Is It Measured?The industry standard for measuring outgassing is ASTM E595, developed by NASA. This test exposes a cured sample to 125 °C at high vacuum (10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁶ torr)

IEEE TryEngineering OnCampus Program Expands to 7 Universities

25 May 2026 @ 6:00 pm

The OnCampus program, administered by IEEE Educational Activities, last year expanded its engineering experiences from two to seven universities.Part of TryEngineering, the program is held at universities around the world, offering preuniversity students hands-on opportunities to solve engineering problems.The IEEE Innovation Committee provided funding for the additional locations.New part

Reclaiming Social Engineering for Good

25 May 2026 @ 1:00 pm

“Social engineering” sounds like something out of a conspiracy thriller, charged with totalitarian control and fringe paranoia. More mundanely, it’s come to be associated with phishing and other scams, in which fraudsters manipulate people into disclosing personal information. Yet the concept is older and more benign: it is the deliberate shaping of human behavior, often at scale. It predates silicon—and became pervasive, and ungoverned, especially once its practitioners learned to hide it. Authoritarian regimes and more recently scammers and big companies have profited from it. To defend ourselves from bad actors, and to benefit from social engineering’s good side, we need to reclaim the name, and

AI with Model-Based Design: Virtual Sensor Modeling

25 May 2026 @ 10:00 am

This webinar presents a workflow offering end-to-end solutions for designing, training, validating and verifying, compressing, and deploying AI-based virtual sensor models to embedded processors within a single environment.HighlightsIntegrate AI models into Simulink for system-level simulation, verification, and simulation-based testingApply formal verification techniques to assert neural network behaviorCompress the AI model for memory footprint reduction and execution speedupGenerate library-free C code from AI models and performing PIL testsProfile code performance and evaluate design and model selection tradeoffsDesign and train AI-based virtual sensors using MATLAB

Developers: Get Your Medical Mobile App Verified By IEEE

21 May 2026 @ 6:00 pm

Patients who use mobile applications to manage medical conditions including depression and chronic pain might assume the apps have been evaluated by regulatory agencies to be safe and effective. But that isn’t necessarily the case.Most of the more than 55,000 medical apps that claim to diagnose or treat a condition—or ones that provide clinical decision support, known as “therapeutic” apps—have never been assessed by any trusted neutral bodies or regulatory agencies to evaluate them for technical soundness, ethical design, or clinical benefit. The apps often don’t comply with regional data security and privacy laws to protect people’s sensitive health information.Medical apps differ from traditional wellness apps, w

SEM-Guided Low-kV FIB Finishing for Leading-Edge Semiconductor Failure Analysis

21 May 2026 @ 10:00 am

Discover how the ZEISS Crossbeam 750 FIBSEM sets a new benchmark for precise TEM lamella prep, tomography, and advanced nanofabrication. This delivers better resolution, better SNR, larger usable FOV, and shorter acquisition times. Learn how uninterrupted FIB milling will reduce damage and rework, accelerate time to TEM, and increase first pass success—so your FA, yield, and materials teams make faster, confident data driven decisions.Join us to discover how the new ZEISS Crossbeam 750 with its see while you mill capability delivers precision and clarity—every time—for demanding FIB-SEM workflows. Designed for extremely challenging TEM lamella preparation, tomography, advanced nanofabrication, and APT‑ready lift‑out, Crossbeam 750 combines a new Gemini 4 SEM objective lens, a double deflector

The Future of Physical AI Isn’t Smarter Robots, It’s Smarter Interfaces

21 May 2026 @ 10:00 am

This sponsored article is brought to you by Wetour Robotics.A field technician on a wind turbine, harness clipped, both hands on a wrench, needs to send a command to the diagnostic device hanging at her belt. A logistics worker on a loading dock, gloves on, eyes on the pallet, needs to redirect a connected lift. A person using an assistive mobility device on a crowded street wants to nudge it forward without taking out a phone or speaking aloud. None of these moments call for a smarter robot. They call for a smarter way to be heard by the machines that already exist.The industry has been building from one sideThe past three years of Physical AI have been a story of remarkable

Will Robotics Have a ChatGPT Moment?

20 May 2026 @ 11:00 am

Over the next few decades, billions of autonomous, AI-powered robots will work alongside people in factories, perform tedious tasks in warehouses, care for the elderly, assist in unsafe disaster areas, deliver packages and food to our doorsteps, and eventually help out in our homes. Some will look like us, and many won’t. What is certain is that regardless of form factor, robots will all rely heavily on AI in order to deliver real-world value.In 2025, total investments in robotics companies reached a record US $40.7 billion, accounting for 9 per

Manchester Code Made Bits Behave

18 May 2026 @ 6:00 pm

In the late 1940s—when computer engineers were grappling with unreliable hardware and noisy transmission environments—a team of engineers inside a modest lab at the University of Manchester, England, confronted a problem so fundamental that it threatened the viability of digital computing itself. Machines could generate bits, but they could not reliably read them back.The inconsistent reading back of memory data did not initially present itself as a grand theoretical challenge. It showed up as something more mundane: inconsistent computing results.Engineers including