Blogs

Attending an IEEE conference is an opportunity to learn about the latest advances in technology, meet some of the world’s leading researchers, and network with thought leaders and industry practitioners.Last year IEEE held nearly 2,300 conferences in 109 countries. The research from these cutting-edge events comprises more than 72 percent of the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.Not everyone can attend an international conference in person, though. To more broadly share some of the cutting-edge research that was conducted last year, IEEE Conferences, Events & Experiences, in collaboration with the IEEE China office, produced a new virtual series. Held in December, the IEEE Tech Frontiers event curated content from three leading gatherings: the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, and the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.Those conferences cover some of today’s most important technologies, such as power and energy, photovoltaic technology, and artificial intelligence, and they attract article submissions from all over the world. Conference organizers were able to highlight the hot topics and interesting elements of each event.Nearly 2,500 people attended the two-hour session, which was presented in English and Mandarin.“IEEE conferences are tech frontiers that provide scholars and engineers with a platform to exchange and learn about the latest developments so that we can have innovation and excellence,” Bin Zhao, president of the IEEE Electron Devices Society, said at the event. The IEEE Fellow served as the event’s champion and moderator.“We would like to help professionals build networks and connections,” Zhao said, “so that we have better capabilities to push our tech forward.”Conferences in China advance tech innovationIEEE Senior Member Yinghong Wen, chair of the IEEE China Council, kicked off the event.“IEEE China has continued to grow, and international events have played a key role in our growth,” Wen said. “International events are the best source from which we learn the latest tech breakthroughs and carry out international tech […]

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.European Robotics Forum: 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANYRoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILEnjoy today’s videos! In 2026, a JAXA spacecraft is heading to the Martian moon Phobos to chuck a little rover at it.[ DLR ]Happy International Women’s Day! UBTECH humanoid robots Walker S1 deliver flowers to incredible women and wish all women a day filled with love, joy and empowerment.[ UBTECH ]TRON 1 demonstrates Multi-Terrain Mobility as a versatile biped mobility platform, empowering innovators to push the boundaries of robotic locomotion, unlocking limitless possibilities in algorithm validation and advanced application development.[ LimX Dynamics ]This is indeed a very fluid running gait, and the flip is also impressive, but I’m wondering what sort of actual value these skills add, you know? Or even what kind of potential value they’re leading up to.[ EngineAI ]Designing trajectories for manipulation through contact is challenging as it requires reasoning of object & robot trajectories as well as complex contact sequences simultaneously. In this paper, we present a novel framework for simultaneously designing trajectories of robots, objects, and contacts efficiently for contact-rich manipulation.[ Paper ] via [ Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories ]Thanks, Yuki!Running robot, you say? I’m thinking it might […]

IEEE continues to raise its visibility as a trusted voice on mitigating the effects of climate change. Last year Saifur Rahman, the 2023 IEEE president, represented the organization in several sessions at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP29). Representatives from more than 200 countries attended the November event, held in Baku, Azerbaijan.Rahman, a power expert, is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech. In Baku he discussed IEEE’s efforts including helping to develop technologies that help mitigate climate change, teaching sustainable technologies to young engineers in developing countries, and publishing unbiased information.Then in December, IEEE and the International Telecommunication Union held a symposium on achieving climate resilience. Rahman was the event’s general chair. In addition to high-level representatives from U.N. agencies, there were representatives from other IEEE groups including the Power & Energy Society, the Standards Association, Young Professionals, and the organization’s Europe office.The event was held at ITU’s headquarters in Geneva on 12 and 13 December. Participants included engineers, industry experts, policymakers, researchers, and standards development organizations. Discussions were held around four key areas: research, technology, and standards; policy, regulation and implementation; education and skills development; and finance, trade, and development.IEEE’s climate action activities at COP29IEEE can serve humanity by promoting clean-tech solutions for climate sustainability, Rahman declared in his COP29 presentation.“Pragmatic and accessible technical solutions are urgently needed to address climate change,” he said. “As engineers and technologists, we are uniquely placed to provide technical solutions and offer a neutral space for discussion and action.”He highlighted several IEEE resources including the Climate Change website, which houses all the organization’s resources. The IEEE Xplore Digital Library’s climate change collection contains publications, conference proceedings, technical standards, and other research materials. The latest research and upcoming […]

A version of this post originally appeared in Refactoring, a Substack offering advice for software engineers. Most of us have encountered a few software engineers who seem practically magician-like, a class apart from the rest of us in their ability to reason about complex mental models, leap to nonobvious yet elegant solutions, or emit waves of high-quality code at unreal velocity. I have run into many of these incredible beings over the course of my career. I think their existence is what explains the curious durability of the notion of a “10x engineer,” someone who is 10 times as productive or skilled as their peers. The idea—which has become a meme—is based on flimsy, shoddy research, and the claims people have made to defend it have often been risible (for example, 10x engineers have dark backgrounds, are rarely seen doing user-interface work, and are poor mentors and interviewers) or blatantly double down on stereotypes (“we look for young dudes in hoodies who remind us of Mark Zuckerberg”). But damn if it doesn’t resonate with experience. It just feels true.I don’t have a problem with the idea that there are engineers who are 10 times as productive as other engineers. The problems I do have are twofold.Measuring productivity is fraught and imperfectFirst, how are you measuring productivity? I have a problem with the implication that there is One True Metric of productivity that you can standardize and sort people by. Consider the magnitude of skills and experiences at play: Are you working on microprocessors, IoT, database internals, Web services, user experience, mobile apps—what? Are you using Golang, Python, Cobol, or Lisp? Which version, libraries, and frameworks? What other software must you have mastered? What adjacent skills, market segments, and product subject matter expertise are you drawing upon? Design, security, compliance, data visualization, marketing, finance? What stage of development? What scale of usage? Are you writing for a Mars rover, or shrink-wrapped software you can never change? Also, people and their skills and abilities are not static. At one point, I was a pretty good database reliability engineer. Maybe I […]

The ADQ35-WB is a highly adaptable data acquisition module, offering a dual-channel configuration with a 5 GSPS sampling rate or a single-channel configuration at 10 GSPS. With an impressive 9.0 GHz usable analog input bandwidth, it is perfect for high-frequency applications!Register now for this free webinar!