News and features about the latest technology, engineering, and science advances including electronics, computing, energy, biomedical, robotics and more.
Entrepreneurship Program Brings Incubator Ideas to More Countries
5 December 2025 @ 7:00 pm
Technology evolves rapidly, and innovation is key to business survival, so mentoring young professionals, promoting entrepreneurship, and connecting tech startups to a global network of experts and resources are essential.Some IEEE volunteers do all of the above and more as part of the IEEE Entrepreneurship Ambassador Program.The program was launched in 2018 in IEEE Region 8 (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) thanks Video Friday: Biorobotics Turns Lobster Tails Into Gripper
5 December 2025 @ 5:30 pm
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.ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNAEnjoy today’s videos! EPFL scientists have integrated discarded crustacean shells into robotic devices, leveraging the strength and flexibility of natural mAre We Testing AI’s Intelligence the Wrong Way?
4 December 2025 @ 11:30 pm
When people want a clear-eyed take on the state of artificial intelligence and what it all means, they tend to turn to Melanie Mitchell, a computer scientist and a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her 2019 book, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, helped define the modern conversation about what today’s AI systems can and can’t do. BYD’s Engine Flexes Between Ethanol, Gasoline, and Electricity
4 December 2025 @ 8:45 pm
The world’s first mass-produced ethanol car, the Fiat 147, motored onto Brazilian roads in 1979. The vehicle crowned decades of experimentation in the country with sugar-cane (and later, corn-based and second-generation sugar-cane waste) ethanol as a homegrown fuel. When Chinese automaker BYD introduced a plug-in hybrid designed for Brazil Cold Metal Fusion Makes It Easy to 3D Print Titanium
3 December 2025 @ 7:55 pm
CADmore Metal has introduced a fresh take on 3D printing metal components to the North American market known as cold metal fusion (CMF). John Carrington, the company’s CEO, claims CMF produces stronger 3D printed metal parts that are cheaper and faster to make. That includes titanium components, which have historically caused trouble for 3D printers.3D printing has used metals included aluminum, powdered steel, and nickel alloys MIT’s AI Robotics Lab Director Is Building People-Centered Robots
3 December 2025 @ 7:00 pm
Daniela Rus has spent her career breaking barriers—scientific, social, and material—in her quest to build machines that amplify rather than replace human capability. She made robotics her life’s work, she says, because she understood it was a way to expand the possibilities of computing while enhancing human capabilities.“I like to think of robotics as a way to give people superpowers,” Rus says. “Machines can help us reach farther, think faster, and live fuller lives.”Daniela RusEmployer MITJob titleProfessor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science; director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial IntelligenWhen to Leave a Toxic Team
3 December 2025 @ 3:50 pm
This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company Taro and delivered to your inbox for free!A word that frequently comes up in career conversations is, unfortunately, “toxic.” The engineers I speak with will tell me that they’re dealing with a toxic manageDe-Risk the Energy Transition with Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing
3 December 2025 @ 1:50 pm
Learn how hardware-in-the-loop testing validates protection schemes, renewable integration, and HVDC systems before deployment. Download this introduction to real-time power system simulation.In this white paper, you’ll learn:Why phasor-domain simulation can’t capture transient phenomena in inverter-dominated gridsHow real-time EMT simulation enables closed-loop testing with actual hardwareKey components of a hardware-in-the-loop testbedApplications across renewable energy, HVDC systems, microgrids, and protection schemesReal-world examples from multi-terminal HVDC links to traveling wave protectionHow HIL testing reduces risk, accelerates commissioning, and validates multi-vendor interoperabilityCapacity Limits in 5G Prompt a 6G Focus on Infrastructure
2 December 2025 @ 9:17 pm
When the head of Nokia Bell Labs core research talks about “lessons learned” from 5G, he’s doing something rare in telecom: admitting a flagship technology didn’t quite work out as planned.That candor matters now, too, because Bell Labs core research president Peter Vetter says 6G’s success depends on getting infrastructure right the first time—something 5G didn’t fully do.By 2030, he says, 5G will have exhWhy We Keep Making the Same Software Mistakes
1 December 2025 @ 7:52 pm
Talking to Robert N. Charette can be pretty depressing. Charette, who has been writing about software failures for this magazine for the past 20 years, is a renowned risk analyst and systems expert who over the course of a 50-year career has seen more than his share of delusional thinking among IT professionals, government officials, and corporate executives, before, during, and after massive software failures.In 2005’s “Why Software Fails,” in IEEE Spectrum, a seminal article documenting the causes behind large-scale software failures, Charette noted, “The biggest tragedy is that soft