IEEE Program Helps Girls In India See a Future In STEM

Roughly half the world’s population is female, but the STEM fields don’t reflect that. The 2024 U.N. Global Education Monitoring Report on gender found that about 35 percent of STEM college graduates were women. The proportion hasn’t increased much in more than a decade.When it c … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 4 hours ago

We’re Squandering LEDs’ Potential to Save Our Night Skies

In the chill of a London spring night, under overcast skies, iconic Trafalgar Square opens around me. Admiral Nelson rises on his pedestal, the National Gallery rests behind, the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields sits nearby. From the 13th century, the site served as the Royal Me … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 9 hours ago

This Graduate Student Equips NASA’s Robots With Assembly Skills

Like many engineers, Sarah Downs says she knew she wanted to pursue a STEM career from a young age. As a teenager, she discovered robotics through her Tulsa, Okla., middle school’s First Lego League team, and she fell in love with the field, she says. Downs participated in the in … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 3 days ago

Digital Surveillance Reshapes Fishery Enforcement in Indonesia

In the eastern Indian Ocean, south of Java in the vast sea stretching toward Australia, a fishing vessel slightly alters its course while operating near the boundary of its authorized fishing ground. Nothing appears unusual on deck. Nets remain in the water. Engines maintain a st … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 4 days ago

When Career Risks Are Worth Taking

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 Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!Before we get into this week’s a … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 5 days ago

Notice to Membership

As of 21 June 2026, a Level 1 Expulsion has been imposed on IEEE Member Dr. Fei-Yue Wang, former editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles. In accordance with IEEE Bylaw I-110.5(D)(i), Dr. Wang is no longer a member of IEEE, and is permanently banned from a … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 5 days ago

The First Chatbot’s Multiple Personalities

ELIZA is remembered as the world’s first AI star, a kindly therapist in chatbot form that gently probed users’ worries. Even its creator, Joseph Weizenbaum, was surprised by the warm reception given to his experiment in human-machine interaction. For some, it heralded an age of a … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 5 days ago

How I Turned AI to the Dark Side

Summary Researcher Dave Kuszmar discovered multiple systemic vulnerabilities that let him bypass LLM safety and obtain dangerous instructions. These exploits worked across nearly all major LLMs revealing an industry-wide security problem. Kuszmar calls for slowing deployment, in … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 6 days ago

Panasonic’s PV-460 Camcorder Stabilized Shaky Videos

If you grew up in the 1980s or ’90s, you likely remember shaky home video footage, taken with a handheld camcorder, of family gatherings, vacations, and other events.Camcorders combined a camera with a video recorder. They included a rechargeable battery, a slot for a videotape, … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 7 days ago

Nokia’s 14 Years of Mobile-Phone Supremacy Ended in an Afternoon

In 2005, Nokia sold its billionth mobile phone, a budget-friendly device that went to a customer in Nigeria. By then, the company, based in Espoo, Finland, was making one of every three cellphones globally.But just nine years later, the mobile-device maker offloaded its entire ha … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 7 days ago

Building a Foundation Stack for General-Purpose Robots

This article is brought to you by X Square Robot.Large language models gave artificial intelligence a working recipe. Pretrain a large model on broad data, and general capability follows. Robotics has no such recipe. Robotics systems have long been assembled from separate percept … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 7 days ago

IEEE Remembers Pioneering Computer Scientist Peter G. Neumann

The computing community recently lost one of its enduring voices: IEEE Fellow Peter G. Neumann. The renowned computer scientist and respected risk analyst died on 17 May at the age of 93.For almost 70 years, Neumann shaped the computing field through his pioneering work on risks, … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 10 days ago

STEM Needs Leaders From Every Generation at the Table

Working in isolation, especially for leaders, is rapidly becoming an outmoded idea. The modern era is defined by rapid technological advancements and increasingly complex, collaborative global challenges. In this environment, leadership can no longer be approached as an individua … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 12 days ago

Inside the Race to Electrify Semi Trailers for Long Haul Freight

A semi-trailer that helps propel itself entered commercial road testing in late May, when a powertrain kit developed by Nivalis Energy Europe, headquartered in Luxembourg with engineering operations in Germany, was fitted to a trailer supplied by Amsterdam-based TIP Group. The se … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 12 days ago

IEEE Honors Robotics Pioneer Toshio Fukuda

Toshio Fukuda has been blazing trails for most of his career. He is considered to be one of the most prolific scholars in robotics, writing more than 2,000 research papers and authoring several books on the field. He’s an influential figure thanks to his pioneering work developin … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 13 days ago

IEEE’s Global Museum Brings Engineering History to You

Many IEEE members who collect historical engineering artifacts often offer them to the IEEE History and Heritage group, which includes the IEEE History Center, to display. To bring these artifacts to the public, the group created the IEEE Global Museum, which curates traveling ex … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 17 days ago

AI’s Volatile Power Use Quietly Tests Grid Limits

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure is typically framed as an energy problem. Data centers are projected to consume a growing share of global electricity demand: The International Energy Agency estimates they could account for 3 to 4 percent of total glo … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 17 days ago

Why Public Speaking Skills Are Worth Investing In

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 Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!You want to become a senior deve … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 19 days ago

Why Mentorship Is the Most Underrated Leadership Skill

I started my professional journey as an engineer before moving into product strategy and innovation leadership roles for several global technology organizations. Over the years, I have served as a mentor for a variety of programs including Products That Count’s strategic product … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 19 days ago

As AI Reshapes Global Energy Systems, Melbourne Leads Through Engineering Collaboration

This article is brought to you by Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) supported by Business Events Australia.As artificial intelligence accelerates global demand for compute, a parallel constraint is emerging with equal urgency: energy.From hyperscale data centers to electrified in … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 19 days ago

The Orbital Data Center Hype Machine Is Already in Orbit

“The lowest-cost place to put AI will be in space, and that will be true within two years, maybe three at the latest,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk told the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, as his company was preparing to go public.Later that month, SpaceX filed an ap … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 19 days ago

The History and Mystery of Fireworks

In the 1970s, American Fireworks, a family-run pyrotechnics company in Hudson, Ohio, used a “home run box” to offer quick and easy fireworks displays for the Cleveland Indians (now the Cleveland Guardians) baseball games.The red wooden crate had metal silos to store the rockets. … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 20 days ago

Poetry for Engineers: Nine Lives of Nikola Tesla

He was born into a storm, lightning split the summer sky, in avillage the world had not yet heard of.The midwife called it a bad omen, his mother called it a sign. Your firstlife began in a storm, under open sky.One winter night you ran your hand along a cat’s back, and thedarkne … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 20 days ago

The Lab Mistake That Might Revolutionize Computing

Today, you probably asked a question of a large language model, or accepted a connection suggestion on LinkedIn, or watched a recommended video on YouTube, or took a different route to work based on a traffic prediction from Google Maps. In other words, you probably used artifici … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 21 days ago

How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

In 1839, J.M.W. Turner painted The Fighting Temeraire. The old warship, once a hero of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, glides like a ghost across the canvas, towed by a small steam tug belching smoke on its final voyage to the ship-breakers. The image shows a clear moment of cha … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 21 days ago

This Senior Member Solves Complex Product Lifecycle Challenges

What do an instinct to fix things and the 1999 global panic over whether computers would survive the date change to 2000, known as the Y2K bug, have in common? Both helped shape IEEE Senior Member Ajay Prasad’s career.Prasad is an industry process director at Dassault Systèmes in … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 24 days ago

Why Does a Bank Need a Chief Scientist?

This article is brought to you by Capital One.After five years leading natural language understanding and eventually the entire Alexa AI organization at Amazon, Prem Natarajan made a nontraditional move: He became Chief Scientist at a bank. Not just any bank: Capital One, a finan … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 25 days ago

What it Means to Be a Mathematician When AI Does the Math

In the mid-noughties, when music by the Killers and Franz Ferdinand blared out of every pub and nightclub I passed, I spent my days and nights struggling through a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. My research focused on simulating how special light waves interact in liquid crystals … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 25 days ago

How IEEE Awardee Karen Panetta Became Bewitched by Engineering

When considering the 1960s sitcoms Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, both of which featured women with supernatural powers navigating life with mortals, most people wouldn’t connect them with pursuing an engineering career. But Karen Panetta did. The sitcoms’ main characters—Sama … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 26 days ago

Make an Origami Circuit Board

What could you do if you could make a circuit trace by just bending a piece of paper? How about bridging modern technologies and traditional handicrafts while providing opportunities for learning skills in both.As part of our interdisciplinary research into digital craftsmanship … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 26 days ago

AI Is Designing Radio Chips That Humans Couldn’t Even Imagine

SummaryRFIC design is a complex “dark art” that limits progress in wireless technologies like 5G, autonomous vehicles, and satellite communications.Princeton researchers use reinforcement learning and inverse design to rapidly create RFICs from scratch.Diffusion models rapidly ge … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 26 days ago

Home Broadband Is 5G’s Surprise  Killer App

5G telecommunications, according to industry hype when 5G first launched in 2019, was going to be all about buzzy applications like mobile augmented reality and autonomous vehicles. But the surprise plot twist came when replacing home cable internet turned into 5G’s most widely a … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 26 days ago

Why the U.S. Uses Only Half of Its Grid Capacity

By most accounts, the United States appears poised to fall woefully short of meeting new electricity demand over the next five years as data centers and domestic manufacturing proliferate.Ian MagruderIan Magruder is the founder of Utilize Coalition and previously served as direct … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 27 days ago

AI Is Learning to Read the Room

Imagine sitting down at your desk and logging in for a performance review, with an AI system analyzing the conversation. You’ve been working long hours, balancing deadlines, and your manager asks how you’re doing. You say you’re fine, and maybe even smile, but there’s a hint of h … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 27 days ago

Commemorating 70 Years of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the transformative, strategic technology of the early 21st century. It is significantly reshaping practically every aspect of our lives, including in ways that probably no one anticipated. Its rate of adoption and impact have been unprecedented when com … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 28 days ago

War Taught this Ukrainian Entrepreneur the Value of Resilience

Salome Mikadze-Struk is no stranger to adversity. The daughter of refugees, she built a software-development business as an undergraduate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and kept it running despite the outbreak of war in her native Ukraine. Now, she’s drawing on her experi … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

IEEE Rolls Out Large Language Models Virtual Training Course

Large language models have moved out of the research lab and into engineers’ daily workflow. LLMs serve as reasoning engines that can orchestrate complex tasks including identifying vulnerabilities in source code and transforming fragmented project discussions into rigorous techn … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

What Amazon’s Astro Taught Me About Giving Robots a Soul

In 2018, Amazon brought me in as the lead UX Sound Designer for Astro, their first consumer home robot. Astro used cameras and other sensors to map and navigate your home and workplace, and could proactively patrol, check up on loved ones, and transport small items using its buil … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

IEEE’s 2026 Education Week Events Emphasized Lifelong Learning

The rapid evolution of the global engineering landscape requires continuous education. For one week in April, the IEEE community focuses on its educational frameworks. IEEE Education Week, which just concluded its fifth year, provided a comprehensive overview of the resources ava … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

Behind the Scenes of a Technical Interview

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 Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!I’ve sat on both sides of the in … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

How Musicians Can Get Paid for Training AI

Musicians are accustomed to getting paid each time their creative work is used. Across vinyl/CD sales, streams, radio, cover versions, and those numerous niches like karaoke, there are agreements in place about what “use” means. Underlying this is a simple economic principle: The … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

The Secret to Marathon-Winning Humanoid Robots

On April 19, 2026, the Honor Lightning humanoid robot ran a half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating the human world record by 7 minutes and the best robot time from 2025 by almost two hours.How did they do it? Is there some magical technology or technique that unlocke … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

Engineering Is Critical to Boosting Food Security

Nearly 750 million people face hunger today, according to the U.N. World Food Program. And by 2050, global demand for food is expected to increase by 50 percent from 2010 levels, the World Resources Institute says.A smart agriculture special-issue report recently released by the … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

This 1976 University Experiment Spun Up the U.S. Wind Industry

A half century ago, a scrappy crew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst erected a wind turbine on Orchard Hill, the highest point on campus. It was a frugal production, cobbled together from the rear axle of a Ford truck, a donated generator and microcontroller, a steam pip … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

Award-Winning Researcher Trains Robots to Make Educated Guesses

Yen-Ling Kuo always wanted to understand how things worked. When she was growing up in Taiwan, reading the story of Michael Faraday in elementary school piqued her curiosity about the natural world. During that time, she was introduced to Logo, a computer program with a turtle cu … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

Why Orbital Data Centers Are Harder Than Silicon Valley Thinks

“Space computing, the final frontier, has arrived,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declared at the Nvidia GTC conference in March.Indeed, the idea of data centers in orbit has gone from science fiction to a serious spending category. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired xAI (also Musk’s) and … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

EPICS in IEEE’s Awards Honor Outstanding Students and Faculty

The EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) in IEEE program, administered by IEEE Educational Activities, has launched the Excellent EPICS in IEEE Contributor Awards. The recognitions honor the program’s outstanding students and faculty volunteers in Excellent Team Lead … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago

We Are Crowd-Sourcing the Panopticon

A man raises his phone as police move into a crowd. The video is shaky, loud, immediate. Within minutes, it is online. Within hours, it is everywhere. This is how accountability works now. Something happens, someone records it, and that footage can show what really happened, some … | Continue reading


@spectrum.ieee.org | 1 month ago