If rumours are true and this one should be, I started it, we have a special edition of the Weekend show where we talk about the evolution of the role of the CIO with two incredible CIOs as the CIO Association of Canada turns 20. Don’t miss it.  MUSIC UP Can HP make you love […]

The government of Canada has announced significant investments to improve connectivity in British Columbia and Alberta over the past two days. That includes combined federal and provincial funding of C$112 million to bring high speed internet access to more than 22,500 households in Alta. and another $37 million for 7,500 households in B.C.. The households, […]

The asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs after slamming into the Earth 66 million years ago is believed to have come from beyond Jupiter, a new study says.

A new species of Jurassic dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered by paleontologists in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.

NASA discovered the cause of a pulsating noise coming from a speaker on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft after astronaut Butch Wilmore reported the sound.

A coronal mass ejection could strike the Earth's magnetosphere this week and cause a geomagnetic storm due to conditions caused by the autumnal equinox.

Venomous Blue Sea Dragons are washing up on the sandy shores of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and National Park officials advise to admire them from a distance.

A spike in earthquakes at Mount Adams, a volcano in Washington state, prompted scientists to install additional monitoring instruments to assess the seismic activity.

Two pioneers of artificial intelligence have won the Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries and inventions that formed the building blocks of machine learning.

The Orionids meteor shower peaks on Monday, but will continue to light up the sky through Nov. 22, as debris from Halley's Comet enters Earth's atmosphere.

NASA reconnected with Voyager 1, which is located nearly 15 billion miles away from Earth, after a brief pause that triggered the spacecraft's fault protection system.

The spy writing star, whose series has become a huge television hit starring Gary Oldman, is to chair the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2025

It says these components will enable "the industry's highest DRAM bit density".

Its latest roadmap suggests that if you want white fans, you should wait for an announcement in Q1 2022.

Claims they are the world's fastest DDR5 memory kits, offer CL36-36-36-76 timings.

Using a laser-based detection system, archaeologists have discovered over 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures -- including a previously unknown Maya city named Valeriana -- in Campeche, Mexico.

The post Laser Mapping Reveals Previously Unknown Maya City with Stone Pyramids in Mexico appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, it provided scientists’ first close glimpse of this ice-giant planet.

The post Voyager 2’s Flyby of Uranus in 1986 was During Anomalous Solar Event, New Study Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

A new genus and species of ankylosaur has been identified from an articulated and partial skeleton found in 1986 in southern China.

The post Paleontologists Discover New Species of Ankylosaurid Dinosaur appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Jay-yi Nah is an underwater archaeological site dating to the Early Classic Maya period (250-600 CE) that focused on salt production for local use or perhaps local production for down-the-line trading.

The post Earliest-Known Maya Salt Works Discovered in Belize appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

The World Health Organization has declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern – a new variant of the virus has caused an outbreak in Central and West Africa and spread to Sweden

A new test spots Lyme disease faster than the existing go-to approach and, if approved, could reduce the risk of complications

Levels of certain cells, fatty molecules and proteins in the blood are different in people with chronic fatigue syndrome than in those without it, which could help doctors spot the condition sooner

ALS, the most common form of motor neuron disease, can take a long time to diagnose, but a blood test could help doctors spot the condition sooner

A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it

Dopamine was long thought to play a part in the placebo effect for pain relief, but a new study is questioning its true role

Snoring is often viewed as harmless, at least to the snorer, but we are now uncovering its potentially serious effects on cardiovascular health. And finding ways to stop is surprisingly challenging

The 2024 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has gone to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery that tiny pieces of RNA called microRNAs play a key role in controlling genes

Two more people in the US have tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, highlighting the need for expanded influenza surveillance to prevent a potential pandemic

New technologies will radically change the experience of living with and caring for someone with Alzheimer's, says Professor Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at Alzheimer's Society, UK

A chemical produced by gut bacteria could be the basis for a non-invasive test for endometriosis – and mouse experiments suggest it might also help treat the condition

Cases of prostate cancer are surging alarmingly around the world. Thankfully, we are developing more accurate tests that can catch the condition early

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a "Nominees for the People" forum to crowdsource 4,000 positions in the Trump administration to Make America Healthy Again.

President-elect Trump is nominating former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, he announced Tuesday in a social media post.

Despite his own isolationist musings, the first picks of President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration hail from a decidedly more traditionalist wing of the Republican Party.

President-elect Trump announced that he had picked real estate investor and campaign donor Steve Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested another illegal immigrant charged with child sex offenses, as the state's governor says police won't help the Trump administration.

Health officials in Saskatchewan Canada are urging customers of Domino’s Pizza in Martensville to watch for symptoms of typhoid fever. The restaurant’s customers may have been exposed to Salmonella typhi, also known as typhoid fever. Anyone who consumed food or drink from the Domino’s store at 717 Centennial Drive South... Continue Reading

Norwegian scientists are working on a project investigating the separate or combined effect and suitability of different methods to reduce the presence of Listeria in salmon and trout. The DeList project is funded by FHF, the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund, and will run until the end of January 2025. Several... Continue Reading

On Tuesday, three of nine ballot issues Denver voters had to decide dealt with animals and animal products. But nothing changed because all of them were slaughtered at the ballot  box. One of the ballot issues called for prohibiting any slaughterhouse from operating in the City or County of Denver. That... Continue Reading

Listings outpace demand in Toronto and Vancouver

Stocks have soared since Donald Trump was elected, but some say the run-up has more to do with bubbles than policy

Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth has been selected by President-elect Trump to serve as his secretary of defense. Hegseth served in the U.S. Army.

Just like Eli Manning in 2004, Deion Sanders said he would tell NFL teams his son, Shedeur Sanders, won't play for them if it's not the right fit.

President-elect Trump announced on Tuesday that Kristi Noem is his pick for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

As the philanthropic partner of IEEE, the IEEE Foundation expands the organization’s charitable body of work by inspiring philanthropic engagement that ignites a donor’s innermost interests and values.

One way the Foundation does so is by partnering with IEEE units to create memorial funds, which pay tribute to members, family, friends, teachers, professors, students, and others. This type of giving honors someone special while also supporting future generations of engineers and celebrating innovation.

Below are three recently created memorial funds that not only have made an impact on their beneficiaries and perpetuated the legacy of the namesake but also have a deep meaning for those who launched them.

EPICS in IEEE Fischer Mertel Community of Projects

The EPICS in IEEE Fischer Mertel Community of Projects was established to support projects “designed to inspire multidisciplinary teams of engineering students to collaborate and engineer solutions to address local community needs.”

The fund was created by the children of Joe Fischer and Herb Mertel to honor their fathers’ passion for mentoring students. Longtime IEEE members, Fischer and Mertel were active with the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society. Fischer was the society’s 1972 president and served on its board of directors for six years. Mertel served on the society’s board from 1979 to 1983 and again from 1989 to 1993.

“The EPICS in IEEE Fischer Mertel Community of Projects was established to inspire and support outstanding engineering ideas and efforts that help communities worldwide,” says Tina Mertel, Herb’s daughter. “Joe Fischer and my father had a lifelong friendship and excelled as engineering leaders and founders of their respective companies [Fischer Custom Communications and EMACO]. I think that my father would have been proud to know that their friendship and work are being honored in this way.”

The nine projects supported thus far have the potential to impact more than 104,000 people because of the work and collaboration of 190 students worldwide. The projects funded are intended to represent at least two of the EPICS in IEEE’s focus categories: education and outreach; human services; environmental; and access and abilities.

Here are a few of the projects:

• The Engineering Outreach at San Diego K–12 Schools project aims to bridge the city’s STEM education gap by sending IEEE members to schools to teach project-based lessons in mechanical, aerospace, electrical and computer engineering, as well as computer science. The project is led by the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society’s Kappa Psi chapter at the University of California San Diego and the San Diego Unified School District.
• Students from the Sahrdaya College of Engineering and Technology student branch in Kodakara, India, are developing an exoskeleton for nurses to support their lumbar spine region.
• Volunteers from the IEEE Uganda Section and local engineering students are designing and fabricating a stationary bicycle to act as a generator, providing power to families living in underserved communities. The goal of the project is to reduce air pollution caused by generators and supply reliable, affordable power to people in need.
• The IEEE Colombian Caribbean Section’s Increasing Inclusion of Visually Impaired People with a Mobile Application for English Learning project aims to ensure visually impaired students can learn to read, write, and speak English alongside their peers. The section’s members are developing a mobile app to help accomplish their goal.

IEEE AESS Michael C. Wicks Radar Student Travel Grant

The IEEE Michael C. Wicks Radar Student Travel Grant was established by IEEE Fellow Michael Wicks prior to his death in 2022. The grant provides travel support for graduate students who are the primary authors on a paper being presented at the annual IEEE Radar Conference. Wicks was an electronics engineer and a radio industry leader who was known for developing knowledge-based space-time adaptive processing. He believed in investing in the next generation and he wanted to provide an opportunity for that to happen.Ten graduate students have been awarded the Wicks grant to date. This year two students from Region 8 (Africa, Europe, Middle East) and two students from Region 10 (Asia and Pacific) were able to travel to Denver to attend the IEEE Radar Conference and present their research. The papers they presented are “Target Shape Reconstruction From Multi-Perspective Shadows in Drone-Borne SAR Systems” and “Design of Convolutional Neural Networks for Classification of Ships from ISAR Images.”

Life Fellow Fumio Koyama and IEEE Fellow Constance J. Chang-Hasnain proudly display their IEEE Nick Holonyak, Jr. Medal for Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technologies at this year’s IEEE Honors Ceremony. They are accompanied by IEEE President-Elect Kathleen Kramer and IEEE President Tom Coughlin.Robb Cohen

IEEE Nick Holonyak Jr. Medal for Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technologies

The IEEE Nick Holonyak Jr. Medal for Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technologies was created with a memorial fund supported by some of Holonyak’s former graduate students to honor his work as a professor and mentor. Presented on behalf of the IEEE Board of Directors, the medal recognizes outstanding contributions to semiconductor optoelectronic devices and systems including high-energy-efficiency semiconductor devices and electronics.

Holonyak was a prolific inventor and longtime professor of electrical engineering and physics. In 1962, while working as a scientist at General Electric’s Advanced Semiconductor Laboratory in Syracuse, N.Y., he invented the first practical visible-spectrum LED and laser diode. His innovations are the basis of the devices now used in high-efficiency light bulbs and laser diodes. He left GE in 1963 to join the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a professor of electrical engineering and physics at the invitation of John Bardeen, his Ph.D. advisor and a two-time Nobel Prize winner in physics. Holonyak retired from UIUC in 2013 but continued research collaborations at the university with young faculty members.

“In addition to his remarkable technical contributions, he was an excellent teacher and mentor to graduate students and young electrical engineers,” says Russell Dupuis, one of his doctoral students. “The impact of his innovations has improved the lives of most people on the earth, and this impact will only increase with time. It was my great honor to be one of his students and to help create this important IEEE medal to ensure that his work will be remembered in the future.”

The award was presented for the first time at this year’s IEEE Honors Ceremony, in Boston, to IEEE Fellow Constance Chang-Hasnain and Life Fellow Fumio Koyama for “pioneering contributions to vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and VCSEL-based photonics for optical communications and sensing.”

Establishing a memorial fund through the IEEE Foundation is a gratifying way to recognize someone who has touched your life while also advancing technology for humanity. If you are interested in learning more about memorial and tribute funds, reach out to the IEEE Foundation team: donate@ieee.org.

In 6G telecom research today, a crucial portion of wireless spectrum has been neglected: the Frequency Range 3, or FR3, band. The shortcoming is partly due to a lack of viable software and hardware platforms for studying this region of spectrum, ranging from approximately 6 to 24 gigahertz. But a new, open-source wireless research kit is changing that equation. And research conducted using that kit, presented last week at a leading industry conference, offers proof of viability of this spectrum band for future 6G networks.

In fact, it’s also arguably signaling a moment of telecom industry re-evaluation. The high-bandwidth 6G future, according to these folks, may not be entirely centered around difficult millimeter wave-based technologies. Instead, 6G may leave plenty of room for higher-bandwidth microwave spectrum tech that is ultimately more familiar and accessible.

The FR3 band is a region of microwave spectrum just shy of millimeter-wave frequencies (30 to 300 GHz). FR3 is also already very popular today for satellite Internet and military communications. For future 5G and 6G networks to share the FR3 band with incumbent players would require telecom networks nimble enough to perform regular, rapid-response spectrum-hopping.

Yet spectrum-hopping might still be an easier problem to solve than those posed by the inherent physical shortcomings of some portions of millimeter-wave spectrum—shortcomings that include limited range, poor penetration, line-of-sight operations, higher power requirements, and susceptibility to weather.

Pi-Radio’s New Face

Earlier this year, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup Pi-Radio—a spinoff from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering—released a wireless spectrum hardware and software kit for telecom research and development. Pi-Radio’s FR-3 is a software-defined radio system developed for the FR3 band specifically, says company co-founder Sundeep Rangan.

“Software-defined radio is basically a programmable platform to experiment and build any type of wireless technology,” says Rangan, who is also the associate director of NYU Wireless. “In the early stages when developing systems, all researchers need these.”

For instance, the Pi-Radio team presented one new research finding that infers direction to an FR3 antenna from measurements taken by a mobile Pi-Radio receiver—presented at the IEEE Signal Processing Society‘s Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers in Pacific Grove, Calif. on 30 October.

According to Pi-Radio co-founder Marco Mezzavilla, who’s also an associate professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan, the early-stage FR3 research that the team presented at Asilomar will enable researchers “to capture [signal] propagation in these frequencies and will allow us to characterize it, understand it, and model it... And this is the first stepping stone towards designing future wireless systems at these frequencies.”

There’s a good reason researchers have recently rediscovered FR3, says Paolo Testolina, postdoctoral research fellow at Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things unaffiliated with the current research effort. “The current scarcity of spectrum for communications is driving operators and researchers to look in this band, where they believe it is possible to coexist with the current incumbents,” he says. “Spectrum sharing will be key in this band.”

Rangan notes that the work on which Pi-Radio was built has been published earlier this year both on the more foundational aspects of building networks in the FR3 band as well as the specific implementation of Pi-Radio’s unique, frequency-hopping research platform for future wireless networks. (Both papers were published in IEEE journals.)

“If you have frequency hopping, that means you can get systems that are resilient to blockage,” Rangan says. “But even, potentially, if it was attacked or compromised in any other way, this could actually open up a new type of dimension that we typically haven’t had in the cellular infrastructure.” The frequency-hopping that FR3 requires for wireless communications, in other words, could introduce a layer of hack-proofing that might potentially strengthen the overall network.

Complement, Not Replacement

The Pi-Radio team stresses, however, that FR3 would not supplant or supersede other new segments of wireless spectrum. There are, for instance, millimeter wave 5G deployments already underway today that will no doubt expand in scope and performance into the 6G future. That said, the ways that FR3 expand future 5G and 6G spectrum usage is an entirely unwritten chapter: Whether FR3 as a wireless spectrum band fizzles, or takes off, or finds a comfortable place somewhere in between depends in part on how it’s researched and developed now, the Pi-Radio team says.

“We’re at this tipping point where researchers and academics actually are empowered by the combination of this cutting-edge hardware with open-source software,” Mezzavilla says. “And that will enable the testing of new features for communications in these new frequency bands.” (Mezzavilla credits the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for recognizing the potential of FR3, and for funding the group’s research.)

By contrast, millimeter-wave 5G and 6G research has to date been bolstered, the team says, by the presence of a wide range of millimeter-wave software-defined radio (SDR) systems and other research platforms.

“Companies like Qualcomm, Samsung, Nokia, they actually had excellent millimeter wave development platforms,” Rangan says. “But they were in-house. And the effort it took to build one—an SDR at a university lab—was sort of insurmountable.”

So releasing an inexpensive open-source SDR in the FR3 band, Mezzavilla says, could jump start a whole new wave of 6G research.

“This is just the starting point,” Mezzavilla says. “From now on we’re going to build new features—new reference signals, new radio resource control signals, near-field operations... We’re ready to ship these yellow boxes to other academics around the world to test new features and test them quickly, before 6G is even remotely near us.”

This story was updated on 7 November 2024 to include detail about funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

The IEEE Board of Directors shapes the future direction of IEEE and is committed to ensuring IEEE remains a strong and vibrant organization—serving the needs of its members and the engineering and technology community worldwide—while fulfilling the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

This article features IEEE Board of Directors members ChunChe “Lance” Fung, Eric Grigorian, and Christina Schober.

IEEE Senior Member ChunChe “Lance” Fung

Director, Region 10: Asia Pacific

Joanna Mai Yie Leung

Fung has worked in academia and provided industry consultancy services for more than 40 years. His research interests include applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, computational intelligence, and other techniques to solve practical problems. He has authored more than 400 publications in the disciplines of AI, computational intelligence, and related applications. Fung currently works on the ethical applications and social impacts of AI.

A member of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, Fung has been an active IEEE volunteer for more than 30 years. As a member and chair of the IEEE Technical Program Integrity and Conference Quality committees, he oversaw the quality of technical programs presented at IEEE conferences. Fung also chaired the Region 10 Educational Activities Committee. He was instrumental in translating educational materials to local languages for the IEEE Reaching Locals project.

As chair of the IEEE New Initiatives Committee, he established and promoted the US $1 Million Challenge Call for New Initiatives, which supports potential IEEE programs, services, or products that will significantly benefit members, the public, the technical community, or customers and could have a lasting impact on IEEE or its business processes.

Fung has left an indelible mark as a dedicated educator at Singapore Polytechnic, Curtin University, and Murdoch University. He was appointed in 2015 as professor emeritus at Murdoch, and he takes pride in training the next generation of volunteers, leaders, teachers, and researchers in the Western Australian community. Fung received the IEEE Third Millennium Medal and the IEEE Region 10 Outstanding Volunteer Award.

IEEE Senior Member Eric Grigorian

Director, Region 3: Southern U.S. & Jamaica

Sean McNeil/GTRI

Grigorian has extensive experience leading international cross-domain teams that support the commercial and defense industries. His current research focuses on implementing model-based systems engineering, creating models that depict system behavior, interfaces, and architecture. His work has led to streamlined processes, reduced costs, and faster design and implementation of capabilities due to efficient modeling and verification. Grigorian holds two U.S. utility patents.

Grigorian has been an active volunteer with IEEE since his time as a student member at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). He saw it as an excellent way to network and get to know people. He found his personality was suited for working within the organization and building leadership skills. During the past 43 years as an IEEE member, he has been affiliated with the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems (AESS), IEEE Computer, and IEEE Communications societies.

As Grigorian’s career has evolved, his involvement with IEEE has also increased. He has been the IEEE Huntsville Section student activities chair, as well as vice chair, and chair. He also was the section’s AESS chair. He served as IEEE SoutheastCon chair in 2008 and 2019, and served on the IEEE Region 3 executive committee as area chair and conference committee chair, enhancing IEEE members’ benefits, engagement, and career advancement. He has significantly contributed to initiatives within IEEE, including promoting preuniversity science, technology, engineering, and mathematics efforts in Alabama.

Grigorian’s professional achievements have been recognized with numerous awards from employers and local technical chapters, including with the 2020 UAH Alumni of Achievement Award for the College of Engineering and the 2006 IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer of the Year Award. He is a member of the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society.

IEEE Life Senior Member Christina Schober

Director, Division V

Katie Fears/Brio Art

Schober is an innovative engineer with a diverse design and manufacturing engineering background. With more than 40 years of experience, her career has spanned research, design, and manufacturing sensors for space, commercial, and military aircraft navigation and tactical guidance systems. She was responsible for the successful transition from design to production for groundbreaking programs including an integrated flight management system, the Stinger missile’s roll frequency sensor, and the designing of three phases of the DARPA atomic clock. She holds 17 U.S. patents and 24 other patents in the aerospace and navigation fields.

Schober started her career in the 1980s, at a time when female engineers were not widely accepted. The prevailing attitude required her to “stay tough,” she says, and she credits IEEE for giving her technical and professional support. Because of her experiences, she became dedicated to making diversity and inclusion systemic in IEEE.

Schober has held many leadership roles, including IEEE Division VIII Director, IEEE Sensors Council president, and IEEE Standards Sensors Council secretary. In addition to her membership in the IEEE Photonics Society, she is active with the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Sensors Council, IEEE Standards Association, and IEEE Women in Engineering.

She is also active in her local community, serving as an invited speaker on STEM for the public school system and was a volunteer at youth shelters. Schober has received numerous awards including the IEEE Sensors Council Lifetime Contribution Award and the IEEE Twin Cities Section’s Young Engineer of the Year Award. She is an IEEE Computer Society Gold Core member, a member of the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society and received the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.