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High school sophomore Abigail Merchant has made it her mission to use technology to reduce flood-related deaths. The 15-year-old lives in Orlando, Fla., a state where flooding is frequent in part because of its low elevation.The changing climate is increasing the risk. Warmer air holds more water, leading to heavier-than-usual rainfall and more flooding, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Abigail MerchantSchool Orlando Science Middle High Charter, in FloridaGrade SophomoreHobbies

Artificial intelligence in 2025 was less about flashy demos and more about hard questions. What actually works? What breaks in unexpected ways? And what are the environmental and economic costs of scaling these systems further?It was a year in which generative AI slipped from novelty into routine use. Many people got accustomed to using AI tools on the job, getting their answers from AI search, and confiding in chatbots, for better or for worse. It was a year in which the tech giants hyped up their AI agents, and the general public seemed generally uninterested in using th

Last September, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) unleashed teams of robots on simulated mass-casualty scenarios, including an airplane crash and a night ambush. The robots’ job was to find victims and estimate the severity of their injuries, with the goal of helping human medics get to the people who need them the most.Kimberly Elenberg

As a college student, are you concerned that your knowledge alone won’t be enough to impress potential employers? Do you feel you lack the necessary hands-on technical skills to secure a job? Maybe you’ve thought of an engineering solution for a problem in your school or community but are unsure how to take the next step.I struggled to bridge the gap between classroom theory and real-world application. But when you combine academic knowledge with practical projects that solve a societal problem with technology, you can ace any interview.You don’t have to navigate the journey alone. Here are some lessons I learned as a student.Speeding up checkout lines and accounting processesI’m a cloud support engin

This year’s top semiconductor stories were mostly about the long and twisting trips a technology takes from idea (or even raw material) to commercial deployment. I’ve been at IEEE Spectrum long enough to have seen some of the early days of things that became commercial only this year.In chip-making that includes the production of the next evolution of transistor design—nanosheet transistors—and the arrival of nanoimprint lithography. In optoelectronics, it was the commercialization of optical fiber links that go directly into the processor package.Of course there were also great new technologies recently born, like growing diamond insid

Charging an EV at home doesn’t seem like an inconvenience—until you find yourself dragging a cord around a garage or down a rainy driveway, then unplugging and coiling it back up every time you drive the kids to school or run an errand. For elderly or disabled drivers, those bulky cords can be a physical challenge.As it was for smartphones years ago, wireless EV charging has been the dream. But there’s a difference of nearly four orders of magnitude between the roughly 14 watt-hours

Powering the AI data center boom dominated the conversation in the global energy sector in 2025. Governments are racing to develop the most advanced AI models, and data center developers are building as fast as they can. But no one is going to get very far without finding ways to generate and move more electricity to these power guzzlers.Spectrum’s most popular energy stories in 2025 centered around that theme. Readers were particularly interested in stories about next-generation nuclear power, such as small modular reactors and salt-cooled reactors, and how those technologies might support data centers. Readers also turned to Spectrum to learn about the strain all of this is putting on electricity grids, and new technologies to solve those problems.Despite the

Christina had tried dieting and exercise before. The weight always came off but then crept back on, especially after she gave birth to her son in 2022.She had hoped that a new class of weight-loss drugs might finally offer something different. Obesity treatments such as Wegovy and Zepbound had just arrived on the scene, helping people slim down with unprecedented ease. But the price tag of these GLP-1 drugs put them out of reach. Christi

The skies may have rained on this year’s big climate summit in Belém, Brazil, but engineers have invented plenty of exciting climate tech this year worth celebrating. Here are some of the year’s top IEEE Spectrum climate technology stories:1. Device Uses Wind to Create Ammonia Out of Thin Air

SummaryJoby Aviation is realizing Uber’s original “Elevate” dream, moving electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft from science fiction toward commercial reality.By 2026, Joby aims to inaugurate the world’s first integrated air taxi network—in Dubai—leveraging aggressive local infrastructure investment to bypass Western bureaucratic hurdles.The plan includes “vertiports” at strategic hubs like Dubai International Airport, creating the essential physical and digital ecosystem required for reliable point-to-point urban flight.While facing a cautious FAA in th