IEEE Spectrum

Countries are gearing up to decide the fate of UTC

Internet giant buys 28% of the patents offered during its patent-purchase experiment

Heavy overnight power demand from Chile’s mines are spurring creative solar power projects that combine cheap photovoltaics with solar power towers optimized for energy storage

Elastic tongues help this robotic cube make lickey split jumps

Wrinkles in the surface of graphene contain band gaps that are produced structurally rather than chemically

A stretchy antenna can survive the bending and flexing of human body movements without suffering in performance

You can find it everywhere but in the country-comparison statistics

For the first time, objects can be moved and spun in midair using a single ultrasonic array

New studies find voice command technologies can distract drivers for nearly half a minute after use

The U.S. space agency plans to use tiny satellites and GPS signals to more accurately predict hurricane strength

A drone that can repair infrastructure sounds really cool, but it may not be realistic

Researchers calculate the maximum efficiency for using sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into fuel, and it's pretty good

Using a bright terahertz laser and different mode of operation charge-couple devices can see elusive terahertz radiation

DRAM is expensive and volatile. It’s also the future of cloud storage

A self-driving car sets a record by traveling 2,414 kilometers from the U.S.-Mexico border to Mexico City

Something resembling carbon nanotubes has been found in the lungs of kids, but it's not clear whether the substance is toxic

This week's best robot videos are here!

Don’t have solar panels on your roof? Use a neighbor’s

A Gen II Westinghouse pressurized water reactor, designed over a quarter century ago, will go online by the end of the year

Optical fibers made from silk could detect chemicals

An MIT engineer and historian argues that self-driving cars and other robotic systems should still keep humans in the loop

An MIT engineer and historian argues that self-driving cars and other robotic systems should still keep humans in the loop

Try to match failures and glitches with their reported causes

Can computers be creative?

Development makes it possible to encode information that is not based on binary logic

This robot harvests energy from water using a microbial fuel cell as an artificial stomach

Four titles for the thinking space pilot

It may not save the future, but it could save your life

When even more money and more time can’t prevent project disasters

Sophisticated weather simulations are making wind power more grid friendly

An ailing electric motorcycle startup files for bankruptcy after losing key engineers to Apple

New SQUID arrays take advantage of strength in numbers

A robot made of cables and tubes can get all up in your ducts

Just a handful of wireless ‘sniffing stations’ can pinpoint V2V and V2I cars

For the first time, solar thermal can compete with natural gas during nighttime peak demand

Experiments prove the theory: black phosphorous has opposite anisotropy in thermal and electrical conductivities

As technology evolves at warp speed, so must engineers

Will metamaterials improve optical chips?

Kamigami is a fast, durable, and easy-to-build hexapod that you can buy for under $50

Software that has proven itself as capable as many human data scientists could speed up the Big Data revolution

Biocompatible optical fibers could deliver light inside human tissue

The new laser center will house the most powerful laser on Earth

Jason Matheny, former leader of the Office for Anticipating Surprise, hopes to cast a wide net to help solve spy-agency problems

Utility-scale solar projects are poorly sited from an environmental perspective, say scientists

Getting a drone for the holidays? You may have to register it with the government

Deep blue lights could make smartphones, flat panel displays more energy effficient

Automated crowd-counting software can reduce the time needed from up to a week to just half an hour

Why and how we're looking back at a decade's worth of IT debacles

Trying to replace multiple systems with one can lead to none

Explore the many ways in which IT failures have squandered money, wasted time, and generally disrupted people’s lives