Fixing the Future

May 15 2024 132
Fixing the Future Podcast artwork

Fixing the Future from IEEE Spectrum magazine is a biweekly look at the cultural, business, and environmental consequences of technological solutions to hard problems like sustainability, climate change, and the ethics and scientific challenges posed by AI. IEEE Spectrum is the flagship magazine of IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and the applied sciences.

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Never Recharge Your Consumer Electronics Again?

May 15 2024 26 mins  
Founder and CEO of Exeger, Giovanni Fili, talks with IEEE Spectrum editor Stephen Cass about Exeger's Powerfoyle flexible dye-based solar cells for consumer electronics, which can recharge devices even in indoor light, and how Exeger convinced major companies to incorporate its tech into their products.

The UK's ARIA Is Searching For Better AI Tech

May 01 2024 24 mins  
The United Kingdom has created a new government agency, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, similar to the United States' DARPA. ARIA's first foray is into creating new enabling technologies to make AI faster and more energy efficient, and the program director, Suraj Bramhavar spoke with Spectrum editor Dina Genkina about some of the new avenues that ARIA would be

Zipline's Droid Brings U.S. Commercial Drone Delivery Closer

Apr 17 2024 20 mins  
Zipline originally established itself delivering medical supplies in rural Africa. Now, Zipline cofounder and CTO Keenan Wyrobek talks with senior editor Stephen Cass about recent milestones in bringing commercial drone delivery to the United States, including the development of Platform 2 and its tethered mini-droid that makes precision drop-offs possible in urban areas.

Heat Pumps Go North

Apr 03 2024 12 mins  
Governments in America and Europe are pushing the deployment of heat pumps to reduce the energy demands of home heating and cooling. Spectrum's power and energy editor Emily Waltz talks with Stephen Cass about her reporting on new advances that will let heat pumps work in colder climates than before, expanding their range considerably.

The Cutting Edge of Integrated Circuits: Exploding Chips, How Meta's Stacking It Up For AR, and More

Mar 20 2024 29 mins  
IEEE Spectrum's semiconductor expert, Samuel K. Moore, talks with Stephen Cass about his visit to one of the key conferences in emerging integrated circuit technology, ISSCC. We talk about Meta's new 3D chip-stacking tech for faster AR, faster AI through in-memory computation, and security technology that can cause a chip to self-destruct if anyone tries to hack it.

Lean Software, Power Electronics, and the Return of Optical Storage

Mar 06 2024 36 mins  
In this March roundup, IEEE Spectrum's editor-in-chief Harry Goldstein and senior editor Stephen Cass talk about some of the highlights of Spectrum's recent coverage, including a plea for programmers to stop producing bloated programs, a new transistor that could help make how we handle electrical power smarter, and the potential return of optical discs as a high-density date stora

The Autonomous Research System Lets Robots Do Your Lab Work

Feb 21 2024 30 mins  
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recently released the open-source ARES_OS, a key software component of their Autonomous Research System. ARES_OS allows relatively simple robots to perform experiments, and develop new experiments based on the results. The AFRL's Benji Maruyama talks with IEEE Spectrum associate editor Dina Genkina about how he hopes the system becomes not j

Figuring Out Semiconductor Manufacturing's Climate Footprint

Feb 07 2024 25 mins  
The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a major expansion driven by the seemingly insatiable demands of AI, the addition of more intelligence in transportation, and national security concerns, among many other things. What this expansion might mean for chip-making's carbon footprint? Can we make everything in our world smarter without worsening climate change? Lizzie Boakes i

The Brain Implant That Sidesteps The Competition

Jan 24 2024 26 mins  
We've all seen impressive demos of prototype brain implants being used by paralyzed patients to interface with computers, but none of those implants have entered general clinical use. Biomedical device company Synchron is close to actually coming to market with its stentrode technology, promising less spectacular results than some of its competitors, but making up for that with eas

The Finnish Future of Sustainable Electronics

Jan 10 2024 23 mins  
The EU Sustronics program aims to make creating, maintaining, and recycling electronics more sustainable. Liisa Hakola is a senior scientist and project manager at the VTT Technical Research Center in Finland. She talks with IEEE Spectrum senior editor Stephen Cass about VTT's role in the EU's program, helping manufacturers to develop flexible, printed—and even compostable—elec