In the mid-1960s, Robert Kahn began thinking about how computers with different operating systems could talk to each other across a network. He didn’t think much about what they would say to one another, though. He was a theoretical guy, on leave from the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a stint at the nearby research-and-development company Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). He simply found the problem interesting. “The advice I was given was that it would be a bad thing to work on. They would say it wasn’t going to lead to anything,” Kahn recalls. “But I was a little h ..read more

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. RoboCup German Open: 17–21 April 2024, KASSEL, GERMANY AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024: 22–25 April 2024, SAN DIEGO Eurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCE ICRA 2024: 13–17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN RoboCup 2024: 17–22 July 2024, EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS Enjoy today’s videos! In the SpaceHopper project, students at ETH Zurich developed a robot ..read more

Xometry’s essential guide reveals the transformative power of artificial intelligence in supply chain optimisation. It lifts the lid on how machine learning, natural language processing, and big data, can streamline procurement and enhance operations efficiency. The guide showcases applications across various sectors such as healthcare, construction, retail, and more, offering actionable insights and strategies. Readers will explore the workings of AI technologies, their implementation in manufacturing, and future trends in supply chain management, making it a valuable resource for professio ..read more

For more than 50 years, Deep Space Station 43 has been an invaluable tool for space probes as they explore our solar system and push into the beyond. The DSS-43 radio antenna, located at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, near Canberra, Australia, keeps open the line of communication between humans and probes during NASA missions. Today more than 40 percent of all data retrieved by celestial explorers, including Voyagers, New Horizons, and the Mars Curiosity rover, comes through DSS-43. “As Australia’s largest antenna, DSS-43 has provided two-way communication with dozens of robo ..read more

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee recently announced that they have set a record for wireless EV charging. Their system’s magnetic coils have reached a 100-kilowatt power level. In tests in their lab, the researchers reported their system’s transmitter supplied enough energy to a receiver mounted on the underside of a Hyundai Kona EV to boost the state of charge in the car’s battery by 50 percent (enough for about 150 kilometers of range) in less than 20 minutes. “Impressive,” says Duc Minh Nguyen, a research associate in the Communication Theory Lab at King Abdullah ..read more

Stephen Cass: Hello and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrum podcast where we look at concrete solutions to tough problems. I’m your host, Stephen Cass, a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. And before I start, I just want to tell you that you can get the latest coverage of some of Spectrum’s most important beats, including AI, climate change, and robotics, by signing up for one of our free newsletters. Just go to spectrum.ieee.org/newsletters to subscribe. We’ve been covering the drone delivery company Zipline in Spectrum for several years, and I do encourage listeners to check out o ..read more

Boston Dynamics has just introduced a new Atlas humanoid robot, replacing the legendary hydraulic Atlas and intended to be a commercial product. This is huge news from the company that has spent the last decade building the most dynamic humanoids that the world has ever seen, and if you haven’t read our article about the announcement (and seen the video!), you should do that right now. We’ve had about a decade of pent-up questions about an all-electric productized version of Atlas, and we were lucky enough to speak with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter to learn more about where this robot ..read more

Yesterday, Boston Dynamics bid farewell to the iconic Atlas humanoid robot. Or, the hydraulically-powered version of Atlas, anyway—if you read between the lines of the video description (or even just read the actual lines of the video description), it was pretty clear that although hydraulic Atlas was retiring, it wasn’t the end of the Atlas humanoid program at Boston Dynamics. In fact, Atlas is already back, and better than ever. Today, Boston Dynamics is introducing a new version of Atlas that’s all-electric. It’s powered by batteries and electric actuators, no more messy hydraulics. It ex ..read more

As the history committee chair of the IEEE Lone Star Section, in San Antonio, Texas, I am responsible for documenting, preserving, and raising the visibility of technologies developed in the local area. One such technology is the Datapoint 2200, a programmable terminal that laid the foundation for the personal computer revolution. Launched in 1970 by Computer Terminal Corp. (CTC) in San Antonio, the machine played a significant role in the early days of microcomputers. The pioneering system integrated a CPU, memory, and input/output devices into a single unit, making it a compact, self-conta ..read more

One of the management guru Peter Drucker’s most over-quoted turns of phrase is “what gets measured gets improved.” But it’s over-quoted for a reason: It’s true. Nowhere is it truer than in technology over the past 50 years. Moore’s law—which predicts that the number of transistors (and hence compute capacity) in a chip would double every 24 months—has become a self-fulfilling prophecy and north star for an entire ecosystem. Because engineers carefully measured each generation of manufacturing technology for new chips, they could select the techniques that would move toward the goals of faste ..read more