AT&T has expanded its Project AirGig internationally and added a second trial in the United States. Project AirGig piggybacks high-speed internet on power lines, utilizing license-free spectrum. “Project AirGig is part of our ongoing effort to accelerate internet connections to a gig or more through both wired and wireless solutions,” says Andre Fuetsch, president, AT&T […]
Photos of the Day: Photonics for Disaster Rescue Drones
Photonics21, a European community for photonics researchers, has announced the development of FLAIR (“Flying ultrA-broadband single-shot Infra-Red Sensor”) drones for testing air quality in extreme environments such as volcanoes or forest fires. “For the first time, a drone reaching altitudes of up to 4,000 meters (1,312 feet) will be able to detect fine traces of […]
Photos of the Day: Tidal Energy Generation
A floating tidal energy platform now in place off the west coast of Scotland marks a new era of experimentation for Sustainable Marine Energy Ltd., an English marine engineering company. The PLAT-I tidal energy system has a power rating of 280 kW and uses four SCHOTTEL Instream Turbines and a power conversion system on board. […]
Photo of the Day: Robot Cleans Clogged Los Angeles Pipes
Wei-Min Shen of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering has invented a robot to clean Los Angeles’ 7,000 miles of aging pipes. Those 7,000 miles are over 60 years old, and can leak and flood. Shen’s robot is sized to trawl through pipes – entering through fire hydrants – and quickly detect damage. It moves […]
SiFive, Microsemi Collaborate on RISC-V Development
SiFive, developer of the RISC-V based Freedom Unleashed (U500) platform, has partnered with Microsemi to build a development board featuring Microsemi’s PolarFire FPGAs. The deal was announced at the RISC-V Workshop hosted by Western Digital, Nov. 28 – 30. “[This collaboration] represents to me a movement of ways of thinking about how we’re going to […]
Apple TV Adds Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video will be available as an app on Apple TV starting tomorrow, Dec. 8, Amazon announced today. This comes shortly after Google broke ties with Amazon’s Fire TV, showing the fight between internet giants to dominate in both content and hardware. Amazon Prime Video will be available on the current generation of Apple […]
Building a Manta Ray Robot with Flapping Wings
This animal-inspired robot can swim through even rough water. Researchers at the National University of Singapore, including Chew Chee Meng, developed the robot with single motors replicating the flapping wings of a manta ray’s fins. Chew spoke to IEEE about the challenges of letting the robot move freely. Its propulsion also depends on the interaction […]
Fisker Returns with Autonomous Shuttle for Hakim Smart City Partnership
Electric vehicle manufacturer Fisker has partnered with Hakim Unique Group on electric, autonomous shuttles for use in smart cities. Fisker is undergoing a bit of a renaissance after relaunching. The intellectual property and design rights for its first car, the Karma, were sold to a Chinese auto parts company in 2014. Founder Henrik Fisker still […]
Microsoft-Sydney Partnership Miniaturizes Commercial Parts for Quantum Computers
Major electronics companies are jockeying to be the first to hit “quantum supremacy,” the point at which a quantum computer can perform beyond what is possible on any conventional computer. On Nov. 10, IBM announced a commercialized computer that can run 50 quantum bits, enabling it to simulate very complex problems. As the New York […]