Fixing the Future IEEE Spectrum

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 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 helping investigate.

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. 

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.

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.

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 storage medium.