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

IEEE President’s Note: Engineering a Modern Renaissance

1 March 2026 @ 7:00 pm

Consider a powerful parallel between the advancements made during the Renaissance and the developments made by today’s engineers.The Renaissance was a uniquely fertile era. Its ethos of curiosity and creativity fostered unprecedented collaboration across disciplines. Artists, scientists, philosophers, and patrons engaged in a shared pursuit of human potential, beauty, and advancements in art, science, and literature.But the Renaissance wasn’t just a cultural awakening. It was a systems-level transformation: a convergence of disciplines, minds, and methods that redefined what humanity could achieve. And in many ways, it mirrors the collaborative spirit we

Letting Machines Decide What Matters

1 March 2026 @ 11:00 am

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will have smashed billions of particles together. In all likelihood, it will have found exactly what it found yesterday: more evidence to support the Standard Model of particle physics.For the engineers who built this 27-kilometer-long ring, this consistency is a triumph. But for theoretical physicists, it has been rather frustrating. As Matthew Hutson reports in “

Xiangyi Cheng Is Bringing AR to Classrooms and Hospitals

28 February 2026 @ 7:00 pm

When Xiangyi Cheng published her first journal paper as a principal investigator in IEEE Access in 2024, it marked more than a professional milestone. For Cheng, an IEEE member and an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at

This Power Grid Pioneer’s EV Prediction Came 100 Years Too Soon

28 February 2026 @ 2:00 pm

Charles Proteus Steinmetz was a towering figure in the early decades of electrical engineering, easily the intellectual equal of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla—men he considered his friends. One of Steinmetz’s most significant achievements was to quantify and characterize the phenomenon of magnetic hysteresis—the behavior of magnetism in materials—and then devise a simple law that allowed for predictable transformer and motor design. He also established a revolutionary framework for analyzing AC circuits, which is still taught today in power engineering. And from 1893, he served as chief consulting engineer at General Electric at a pivotal moment for the young company and for the U.S. effort to expand its powe

Video Friday: Robot Dogs Haul Produce From the Field

27 February 2026 @ 6:00 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! Our robots Lynx M20 help transport harvested crops in mountainous farmland—tackling the rural “last mile” logistics challenge.

Bond Strength, Biocompatibility, and Beyond

27 February 2026 @ 11:00 am

Designing a medical device? This whitepaper helps you evaluate adhesive options for biocompatibility, sterilization resistance, and manufacturability — so you can make the right material decision early.What Attendees will Learn How to select between epoxy, silicone, cyanoacrylate, and UV/LED curable adhesives based on your device requirementsWhich adhesive systems meet USP Class VI and ISO 10993-5 biocompatibility standardsHow different sterilization methods, such as autoclaving, EtO, gamma, chemical immersion affect adhesive performance over repeated cyclesWhy integrating adhesive selection early in the design process reduces costly trade-offs between performance and manufacturabilityDownload this free whitepaper now!

This Startup Makes Access to Rehabilitation Facilities Easier

26 February 2026 @ 7:00 pm

When doctors in the United States refer patients to specialty or post-acute medical care such as physical therapy or long-term nursing care, nearly half never complete the process of finding help. Referrals stall in part because provider directories are outdated, insurance coverage is unclear, and much coordination still relies on phone calls and faxes.Carenector, a Denver-based startup launched in 2024, is working to improve the process with software that quickly connects patients with appropriate care providers while pro

New Path to Battery-Grade Lithium Uses Electrochemistry

26 February 2026 @ 5:00 pm

As electric vehicles roll off assembly lines, a bottleneck sits upstream: lithium refinement. Turning raw lithium into the compounds needed for batteries is expensive, messy, and energy intensive, but Mangrove Lithium, a Vancouver-based startup, has a better way. The company has developed an electrochemical refining process that converts lithium feedstocks into battery-grade lithium hydroxide.Converting raw lithium to lithium hydroxide typically requires roasting spodumene—a mineral from which lithium is derived—at high temperatures, and then leaching it with acid to convert it to lithium sulfate. That compound then needs to be converted

From Headsets to Hearing Aids

26 February 2026 @ 2:23 pm

This is a sponsored article brought to you by Audio Precision.Bluetooth started as a simple wireless connection between a phone and a headset. Since its inception, it has become the invisible scaffolding for music, calls, gaming, and hearing assistance across consumer and professional devices alike. Bluetooth’s evolution to support more use cases has been driven not by a single breakthrough but by a steady accumulation of radio innovations, codecs, transport schemes, and power management strategies that together enhance the user experience with wireless audio. Today, a new architec

How Stupid Would It Be to Put Data Centers in Space?

26 February 2026 @ 2:00 pm

What’s the difference between a stupid idea and a brilliant one? Sometimes, it just comes down to resources. Practically unlimited funds, like limitless thrust, can get even a mad idea off the ground. And so it might be for the concept of putting AI data centers in orbit. In a rare moment of unalloyed agreement, some of the richest and most powerful men in technology are staunchly backing the idea. The group includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang,