Shockley's Robot Dream
IEEE Spectrum MagazineWilliam Shockley is well known for helping to invent the transistor, but his aspiration to replace human workers with robotic ones is mostly lost to history.
William Shockley is well known for helping to invent the transistor, but his aspiration to replace human workers with robotic ones is mostly lost to history.
With full-fledged cyberwar becoming an increasingly likely possibility in the 21st century, one cybersecurity scholar calls on nations to extend the rules of war to cyberconflicts.
Because GPS doesn't work well indoors, other radiolocation systems are vying to help you find your way around inside.
Here are four ways to smuggle messages through Internet services.
In an attempt to reverse paralysis in patients with spinal cord injuries, researchers are electrically stimulating the spinal neurons of their patients in hopes of allowing them to stand and walk again.
Node names help the chip industry advertise its progress, but they no longer mean what they used to.
The first full-size autonomous helicopter has shown the way for robotic medevac missions.
We could save energy in everything from smartphones to supercomputers by letting them make mistakes.
This September, augmented reality will transform sailboat racing into a thrilling televised sport.
New technologies aim to track firefighters in blazing buildings.
All is well for engineers in the Asia-Pacific tech job market, with software skills dominating job listings throughout the region.
The first of a controversial new class of guided-missle destroyers is nearing completion.
The Internet will break down without new biologically inspired routings.
Measuring and modeling the bird's effortless flight could inspire new drone designs.
Engineers aim to change silicon's central role in the heart of transistors.
Ironically, electric cars may prove worse for the environment than the vehicles they are meant to replace.
When it comes to technology and the future of food, the pessimists are wrong.
Fixed-microwave communications differ fundamentally from broadcast radio, and the strategies used to regulate their spectrum should differ, too.
Tracing the tortured legal trail of a simple smartphone patent reveals much about our intellectual property system.
This year's cars do more with less weight.
If electric vehicles could draw power from the streets, there's no telling how far they could go.
A low graduation rate and aging workforce are causing a "severe" shortage of technical professionals.
A Moscow-based computer-security firm led the world in tracking down the malware that sabotaged Iran's nuclear-fuel enrichment and inaugurated state-to-state cyberwar.
One reporter tries out a genome sequencing machine that may revolutionize medicine.
A young engineer, inspired by a journal article, built the little blue box that cracked the largest electronic network in the world.
IEEE Spectrum's annual Dream Jobs report profiles the engineers whose careers challenge stereotypes of the profession.
In its tenth annual January special issue, IEEE Spectrum looks at technology initiatives that will make news in the coming year.
New digital technologies could put over-the-air TV back in vogue.
Thirty years after the first spacecraft sent to explore the outer solar system started slowing unexpectedly, this abiding mystery of robotic exploration has finally been solved.
Wearable biometric sensors can help lift workers' spirits and create more effective teams.
Mathematicians can optimize a satellite's speed and fuel efficiency by sending it on a meandering path.
Bringing live sporting events to the home television in 3-D is one of the most interesting technical challenges facing TV production today.
Can a string of cars follow a lead vehicle driven by a professional?
Guided by magnetic forces, miniature robots could navigate the human body, performing delicate medical tasks with precision and ease.
We deconstruct the recommenders that enable online merchants to predict your preferences and prod you to purchase.
One reporter tries out the new health and fitness gadgets that enable a "quantified life."
Soldiers in the field should soon be able to recharge their batteries with a new technology that concentrates a lot of sunlight onto superefficient photovoltaic modules.
Despite signs of sluggish economies in China, India, and other Asian-Pacific countries, the job market for engineers and other technical professionals has been holding up well in the region.
While traditional satellites take years to design, assemble, and test, and they cost billions of dollars, there is a better way.
Our Pleistocene-era brains can't resist the seductive appeal of Internet-enabled virtual reality, says William Davidow, a distinguished engineer and venture capitalist.
With the help of customized software, touch screens, and tablet computers, a small group of bonobo apes in Iowa proves that language is not the exclusive domain of humans.
The world cannot soon shift to clean, carbon-free sources of energy, says Vaclav Smil, who is both a distinguished scientist and a historian of technology.
In this special issue, IEEE Spectrum analyzes the most sweeping changes to money since the invention of paper bills.
The kilogram is the only base unit in the International System of Units that's still tied to a physical artifact, but two ambitious efforts could soon change that.
If you are tired of Windows and OS X, then this open-source operating system may be for you.
Light-field cameras promise an imaging revolution.
This self-proclaimed "girly girl" runs one of Google's fastest-growing services.
Our annual list of technologically interesting cars shows a resurgence of that industry standard, the internal combustion engine.
Long relegated to the annals of computing history, the electromechanical relay has gotten a microscopic makeover, one that could pave the way to a future of ultralow-power chips.
Europe's down economy is having little effect on hiring qualified engineers.