Stephen Cass

5 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. The Pad-O-Matic turns random bytes from a electric noise source into convenient cryptographic one-time pads for unbreakable pen-and-paper communications. James Provost Like many nerds, I have an interest in cryptography rooted in the wartime exploits of codebreaker and Ur– computer scientist Alan Turing. So I’ve followed with interest IEEE Spectrum’sreporting on the burgeoning field of postquantum cryptography. These techniques are designed to

2 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. Simone Giertz is motivated by humor and undeterred by failure. Anna Bresnahan Simone Giertz came to fame in the 2010s by becoming the self-proclaimed “queen of shitty robots.” On YouTube she demonstrated a hilarious series of self-built mechanized devices that worked perfectly for ridiculous applications, such as a headboard-mounted alarm clock with a rubber hand to slap the user awake. But Giertz

3 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. Libi Rose works to make obsolete technology accessible to everyone. Stuart Bradford The Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL is where you can watch a magic lantern show, playStar Castle on a Vectrex games console, or check out the weather

5 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. In our goal of trying to estimate a programming language’s popularity, we realized that no one can look over the shoulder of every person writing code, whether that be a child writing a Java script for a personal Minecraft server, a mobile app developer hoping to hit it big, or an aerospace engineer writing mission-critical code for a voyage to Mars. Our

3 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. Welcome to IEEE Spectrum’s 11th annual rankings of the most popular programming languages. As always, we combine multiple metrics from different sources to create three meta rankings. The “Spectrum” ranking is weighted towards the profile of the typical IEEE member, the “Trending” ranking seeks to spot languages that are in the zeitgeist, and the “Jobs” ranking measures what employers are looking for.

5 min read Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum. With a handy radar cat detector that can see through walls, you too can avoid startling feral animals. James Provost You have a closed box. There may be a live cat inside, but you won’t know until you open the box. For most people, this situation is a theoretical conundrum that probes the foundations of quantum mechanics. For me, however, it’s a

4 min read The Meshtastic mesh network can be used to exchange text messages using a stand-alone communicator [left], or you can create more-complex IoT applications using a maker-friendly development board [right]. James Provost Oh me, oh mesh! Many journalists in this business have at least one pet technology that’s never taken off in the way they think it should. Hypersonic passenger planes, deep-sea thermal-energy power plants, chording keyboards—all have their adherents, eager to jump

Stephen Cass: Hello and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrum podcast where we look at concrete solutions to tough problems. I’m your host Stephen Cass, a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. And before I start, I just wanted to tell you that you can get the latest coverage of Spectrum‘s most important beats, including AI, climate change, and robotics, by signing up for one of our free newsletters. Just go to spectrum.ieee.org/newsletters to

Stephen Cass: Hello and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrum podcast where we look at concrete solutions to tough problems. I’m your host,Stephen Cass, a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. And before I start, I just want to tell you that you can get the latest coverage of some of Spectrum’s most important beats, including AI, climate change, and robotics, by signing up for one of our free newsletters. Just go tospectrum.ieee.org/newsletters to

Stephen Cass: Hello and welcome to Fixing the Future, an IEEE Spectrum podcast where we look at concrete solutions to tough problems. I’m your host, Stephen Cass, a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. And before we start, I just want to tell you that you can get the latest coverage from some of Spectrum‘s most important beats, including AI, climate change, and robotics, by signing up for one of our newsletters. These are free, and