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Monday, August 17, 2026

IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship Honors Teen Innovators

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/three-high-school-students-posing-with-their-individual-award-plaques-next-to-a-middle-aged-white-woman.jpg?id=67634200&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C156%2C0%2C157"/> About 16 percent of the global population—more than 1 billion people—live with some form of disability, according to the <a href="https://www.who.int/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World Health Organization</a>. Many of the disabilities affect independence and mobility.Three high school students working on inventions to help people with disabilities restore movement, translate thoughts, and navigate rough terrain had their work showcased at Regeneron’s <a href="https://www.regeneron.com/responsibility/fueling-stem-innovators/isef" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)</a>, held in May in Phoenix. Their projects earned them this year’s <a href="https://www.ieee.org/education/preuniversity/scholarship" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship</a> awards.IEEE President <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/maryellen-randall" target="_self">Mary Ellen Randall</a> presented the awards at a <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=HW1uGgQk_7U" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ceremony</a> held during the fair. They also received an IEEE President’s coin, which students said was a highlight of their experience.Hollie Tang won this year’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her <a href="https://isef.net/project/sftd046-tonguage-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wheelchair navigation system</a>. The award is payable over four years of undergraduate university study and includes a complimentary IEEE student membership.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/partap-sidhu-2a3561358/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Partap Sidhum</a>, the second-place winner, received a $600 scholarship for his mind-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton. Third-place winner <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinshung/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Calvin Shang Hung</a> received a $400 scholarship for his rough-terrain robot. Sidhum and Hung also got complimentary IEEE student memberships.Established by the <a href="https://www.ieeefoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Foundation</a> and administered by <a href="https://ea.ieee.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Educational Activities</a>, the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-presidents-scholarship" target="_self">Presidents’ Scholarship</a> recognizes high school students who demonstrate an exceptional grasp of electrical engineering, computer science, or another IEEE field of interest.<h2>Controlling movements with a tongue</h2> <img alt="An Asian-American high school student standing in front of her research poster about tongue-based HMI for motor disabilities." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b92a5c4100d9d27533604722317a5248" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="d6f87" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-asian-american-high-school-student-standing-in-front-of-her-research-poster-about-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities.jpg?id=67634203&width=980"/> Holly Tang won the 2026 IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her Tonguage project, which is a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface.Lynn BowlbyTang, a sophomore at <a href="https://wihs.hlpschools.org/" target="_blank">Wilson High School</a> in Hacienda Heights, Calif., secured the top prize for her <a href="https://isef.net/project/sftd046-tonguage-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tonguage</a> project: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Using tongue movements and a standard camera, the interface lets users control a computer and other digital tools as well as assistive technologies including wheelchairs. The tongue pad, one of the system’s core features, allows the user’s tongue to function as a directional cursor, while eye blinks serve as mouse clicks.Tonguage translates the person’s tongue and eye motions into actionable commands in several ways, such as the tongue’s position inside the mouth and continuous movement patterns. The system’s multimodality combines input from the tongue with other facial cues.The system includes a face-tracking feature for error prevention that verifies commands are coming from the intended user, disregarding anyone else who moves into the camera’s frame.That is a critical safety measure for a wheelchair-navigation application, Tang says.Accessibility was central to Tang’s mission. She built the system to run on relatively affordable, readily available laptop cameras rather than more costly specialized hardware.“Mobility conditions don’t discriminate,” she says. “They can affect anyone of any income, gender, and socioeconomic status.”Tang initially imagined Tonguage as a simple substitute for a keyboard and mouse. The more research she did, though, the more she realized that it could offer autonomy through applications such as wheelchair navigation, robotic arm control, and gaming, she says.“We’re so focused on trying to give people autonomy over just basic human tasks that we often leave out things like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the freedom to play games and enjoy entertainment as well.”Tang, who plans to pursue biomedical engineering, says a visit to a rehabilitation center solidified her purpose.“Including empathy in your technological solution is so important,” she says. “Empathy is hard to teach in a classroom, but it can be learned through experience, and through actually meeting people whose lives your work might change.”<h2>Mind-controlled exoskeleton </h2>Sidhu, a junior at <a href="https://www.bethpagecommunity.com/o/bhs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bethpage High School</a>, in New York, took second place for <a href="https://isef.net/project/robo024-mind-controlled-lower-limb-pneumatic-exoskeleton" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NeuroGait</a>, a mind-controlled, lower-limb <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/soft-exoskeleton-motor-free" target="_self">exoskeleton</a>. He says he was inspired by his volunteer work at a community center that lacked elevators. He saw individuals with mobility issues struggle to navigate the three flights of stairs.NeuroGait operates by reading the Bereitschaftspotential (BP), a faint electrical pattern that emerges one to two seconds before a person consciously initiates movement. Using a custom electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and a convolutional neural network (CNN), the system classifies intended movements and sends commands to a 3D-printed exoskeleton. Rather than rigid motors, the suit relies on pneumatic artificial muscles that Sidhu designed to mimic human anatomy.“The pneumatic artificial muscle in itself is so compliant that it’s able to adjust to the limitations of the human body,” he says.The technical specifications are striking: The CNN achieves a 99.9 percent accuracy in detecting a person’s intended movement, while the full system—from the brain’s signal to physical movement—operates at 95.2 percent accuracy, according to the results from 500 trials Sidhu conducted. Perhaps most impressively, Sidhu built the entire system for about $276, less than 1 percent of the $40,000 to $100,000 price tag of commercial exoskeletons, according to a <a href="https://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/medical-exoskeleton-market.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2025 revenue report</a> from Roots Analysis.He says he hopes to bring NeuroGait to the community center where the idea for the project began.He attributes his success to staying current with research from institutions and organizations such as <a href="https://bostondynamics.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Boston Dynamics</a> and <a href="https://www.mit.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT</a>.“To be successful in research,” he says, “you have to know what’s being done right now.”<h2>A spider-inspired robot </h2>Hung, a sophomore at <a href="https://ecgauchos.wccusd.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">El Cerrito High School</a>, in California, took third place for <a href="https://www.societyforscience.org/press-release/regeneron-isef-2026-special-awards-ceremony/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Math Into Motion: Robotic Hexapod for Hazardous Environments</a>. The six-legged robot is designed to traverse terrain too unstable for humans or conventional robotic systems.With only weeks before the science fair deadline for entries and no prior electrical engineering experience, Hung began with an idea inspired by his interest in spaceflight: an insectlike robot. He had spent years watching rovers such as <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Curiosity</a> and <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Perseverance</a> struggle on uneven surfaces, leading him to hypothesize that a hexapod design would be better for rugged ground.As the project progressed, the humanitarian applications for his robot became clearer, he says. Watching news reports of the earthquake that struck Türkiye in 2023, as well as conflicts around the globe, Hung adapted his robot for use in disasters. The hexapod’s stable tripod walking gait, in which three legs stay grounded while the other three move, makes it well suited for navigating in collapsed buildings to locate survivors or to carry sensitive supplies such as insulin in conflict zones.The current version moves using three mathematical techniques. Inverse kinematics converts a target leg position into the motor angles needed to reach it. Linear interpolation breaks each movement into a series of smaller steps for smoother motion. And Euclidean transformations translate the robot’s travel direction into instructions that each leg can follow, regardless of the way a leg happens to be facing.Hung taught himself how to design a printed circuit board. He also taught himself 3D modeling, coding, and soldering. Figuring out the complicated mathematical transformations to coordinate legs facing different directions proved to be the toughest hurdle, he says.After seven months of development and trial and error, a critical circuit board failure in his third version nearly ended the project, he says.“There was a really strong moment of ‘Should I just give up?’” he recalls.He simplified the design and rebuilt it from the ground up.“I just decided to double down,” he says. The fourth version of the robot was the first that successfully walked across his living room floor.He advises aspiring engineers that “if you find the right project and it truly becomes your passion, designing it almost starts to feel like fun, and that’s what carries you through.”As the three young innovators demonstrate, the future of engineering goes far beyond technical ingenuity. Much is rooted in empathy and a commitment to human welfare.Through initiatives such as the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, the IEEE Foundation showcases and nurtures bright minds poised to shape the next era of assistive technology and robotics.For Tang, Sidhu, and Hung, the ISEF stage is just the beginning. They can look forward to impactful careers dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Reference: https://ift.tt/MyoiBQC

Digital Signal Processing Pioneer Bede Liu Dies At 91

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/portrait-of-an-elderly-asian-man-softly-smiling-in-a-suit-jacket-and-tie.jpg?id=67609508&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C62%2C0%2C63"/> Bede Liu, a digital signal processing pioneer, died on 7 May. He was 91.Liu was widely regarded as one of the founders of modern digital signal processing, a field that applies mathematical algorithms to analyze, modify, and transmit signals including sound, images, and video.The IEEE Life Fellow taught electrical engineering at <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Princeton</a> for more than 50 years. From 1994 to 1997, he chaired the university’s <a href="https://ece.princeton.edu/front" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">electrical and computer engineering department</a>.Liu’s research aided the transition from analog to digital processing of sound, images, and video. His work helped establish many of the mathematical and engineering techniques that underpin modern communications, multimedia systems, and consumer electronics.Although little known outside engineering circles, his work is embedded in technologies used by billions of people. The low-power digital signal processors that make cellphone calls, streaming video, and Internet communications possible can be traced to research he conducted in the 1970s and ‘80s.Liu received the 2018 <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/award/ieee-jack-kilby-signal-processing-medal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal</a> for “sustained contributions to the analysis and the development of low-complexity realizations of digital signal processing algorithms.”“We stream music and video. We take photos with our phones, and we send them around. We don’t even think about it,” IEEE Life Fellow <a href="https://ece.princeton.edu/people/h-vincent-poor" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">H. Vincent Poor</a> said in an <a href="https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2026/06/24/bede-liu-pioneer-digital-signal-processing-and-beloved-mentor-dies-age-91" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">obituary for Liu</a>. “But it’s all because of the signal processing, image processing, and video processing that’s been developed over the years, as well as other technologies that have grown up beside it and enabled it, like semiconductors. The development of these processing advances was exactly what Bede was a major part of.” Poor is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton.<h2>An impactful scholar and teacher</h2>Liu was born in Shanghai in 1934. During his childhood, his family relocated to Taiwan amid the upheaval of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chinese Civil War</a>. His father, Henry Liu Sr., was an electrical engineer.Liu earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1954 from the <a href="https://www.ntu.edu.tw/english/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Taiwan University</a>, in Taipei. After graduating, he and his family moved to the United States. Liu and his father attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the <a href="https://engineering.nyu.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New York University Tandon School of Engineering</a>) together. They earned their master’s degrees in electrical engineering in 1956. Liu continued his studies at the school, earning a doctoral degree in electrical engineering four years later.In 1959 he was awarded a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/7-bell-labs-ieee-milestones" target="_self">Bell Labs</a> <a href="https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/institute/media/bell-labs-fellows/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fellowship</a> and worked at the company’s Murray Hill, N.J., location until he joined Princeton in 1962.“Liu was a highly impactful scholar and teacher—always thinking ahead of future needs and changing technologies,” said IEEE Life Fellow <a href="https://ece.princeton.edu/people/peter-j-ramadge" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Peter J. Ramadge</a>, a Princeton professor emeritus of engineering.Cellphones make use of a considerable amount of digital signal processing, Liu once noted. Many of the field’s advances, he added, involved making sophisticated processing practical on devices with limited computing power—which is the challenge that confronted generations of engineers designing portable electronics.Liu’s research contributions helped shape both the theory and practice of digital signal processing. With <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Peled" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Abe Peled</a>, a former graduate student, he authored the 1976 textbook <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Signal-Processing-Theory-Implementation/dp/0471019410" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Digital Signal Processing: Theory, Design, and Implementation</a>, which is a standard reference for engineers. Published before digital signal processing had fully emerged as a distinct discipline, it helped define the subject for practitioners and students around the world.Liu also published 250 technical papers and was granted 12 U.S. patents. His papers are available to read on the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/37087189074" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Xplore Digital Library</a>.The first patent granted to him and Peled was in 1976 for a hardware design that processed bits in parallel, rather than in sequence. The innovation greatly increased computing efficiency for data including sound and communication signals.Peled says Liu “demonstrated an openness to new ideas and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy of the EE department at that time—which leaned heavily toward more theoretical information theory.”<h2>A mentor to well-known engineers</h2>Liu’s influence extended beyond his own research. He advised 53 doctoral students, many of whom went on to distinguished careers in academia and industry, including leadership positions at <a href="https://about.google/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google</a> and <a href="https://www.ibm.com/about" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IBM</a>. One former student, computer scientist <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/bob-kahn-2667754905" target="_self">Robert Kahn</a>, helped create the architecture of the modern Internet. Kahn, an IEEE Life Fellow, received the 2024 <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/medal-of-honor-bob-kahn" target="_self">IEEE Medal of Honor</a>.“His former students were very successful,” Poor said of Liu, “and I think that’s a testament to his skill as a mentor.”“Liu was a highly impactful scholar and teacher—always thinking ahead of future needs and changing technologies.”—Peter J. RamadgeTogether with several Ph.D. students, Liu developed methods of filtering and compressing digital signals to mitigate errors and dramatically reduce the computation needed for signal processing.As digital signal processing moved from laboratories into commercial products, the impact of Liu’s ideas spread across industries. His research helped spawn the development of lower-cost and lower-power electronics and contributed to advances in mobile communications, multimedia technology, industrial automation, and biomedical imaging.<h2>A focus on media integrity and copyrights</h2>In the 2000s, Liu turned his attention to media integrity and copyright issues.“With the increasing accessibility of digital media source material, the protection of ownership and the prevention of unauthorized alteration has become an important concern,” he wrote in his 2002 book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Multimedia-Data-Hiding-Min-Wu/dp/0387954260" target="_blank">Multimedia Data Hiding</a>. The book, which he co-wrote with his former doctoral student IEEE Fellow Min Wu, discussed the theory, techniques, applications, and security of digital watermarking—hidden signals that could identify a genuine copy of a song, image or video to prevent unauthorized distribution or tampering.A Princeton team that included Liu, Wu, and another of his doctoral students uncovered serious vulnerabilities in watermarking technologies being considered by an industry consortium. They found that the standardization efforts were immature and would not protect against digital piracy.“Now nearly every copy of a Hollywood film given to a critic or theater carries a unique digital forensic watermark to prevent unauthorized redistribution,” said Wu.<h2>A force in the community</h2>Liu, an active IEEE volunteer, served on the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/board" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Board of Directors</a> in 1984 and 1985. He was the 1982 president of the <a href="https://ieee-cas.org/welcome" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Circuits and Systems Society</a>.He was a member of the U.S. <a href="https://www.nae.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Academy of Engineering</a>, an academician of China’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/136208a0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Academia Sinica</a>, and a foreign member of the <a href="https://english.cas.cn/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chinese Academy of Sciences</a>.Outside the classroom, he was recognized for his humility, humor, enthusiasm, and generosity. When thinking of Liu, IEEE Life Fellow <a href="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kenneth Steiglitz</a> says, cheer is the first word that comes to mind.Liu was “always ready with a positive remark, a quick smile or, maybe, some tips on the right way to cook a duck,” says Steiglitz, professor emeritus of computer science at Princeton.Liu encouraged his students to take on ambitious, unconventional projects, and he inspired students and colleagues with his adventurous spirit. Reference: https://ift.tt/e0XBbGz

Nvidia discloses $21B stake in SpaceX

Nvidia has disclosed that it owns nearly 123 million shares in SpaceX, further highlighting the chipmaker’s entangled financial relationships with some of its biggest customers. The $5.5 trillion company owned SpaceX stock worth nearly $21 billion at the end of June, according to an SEC filing on Friday. Elon Musk’s rocket conglomerate’s shares have fallen sharply since its June initial public offering, meaning Nvidia’s stake would now be worth $17 billion. The disclosure marks a huge pay-off on Nvidia’s investment in xAI, completed in January, shortly before Musk combined the AI lab with SpaceX.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/nvidia-discloses-21b-stake-in-spacex/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/nvidia-discloses-21b-stake-in-spacex/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/TleonjU

Friday, August 14, 2026

Digital Signal Processing Pioneer Bede Liu Dies At 91

Predict Antenna Coupling on Electrically Large Platforms Before Building Hardware

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/wipl-d-logo-with-stylized-antenna-arcs-above-the-text.png?id=26851692&width=980"/> Learn how full-wave simulation predicts very low antenna coupling on aircraft-sized platforms, and which three modeling techniques deliver accurate results with fewer computational resources.<a href="https://content.knowledgehub.wiley.com/efficient-and-accurate-prediction-of-cosite-isolation-on-large-platforms/" target="_blank">Download this free whitepaper now!</a> Reference: https://ift.tt/m9k7dsX

PBS station fears losing 50TB of data after being ghosted by cloud storage provider

After its cloud storage provider went defunct, a PBS affiliate decided to sue a data center provider to regain access to 50TB of TV shows, videos, and other data dating back 70 years. As reported this week by <a href="https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/?wallit_nosession=1">Current</a>, a trade newspaper covering public broadcasting, St. Louis affiliate Nine PBS filed a lawsuit against Iron Mountain Data Centers on July 28, seeking access to the data. In the litigation filed in Denver District Court, Nine PBS says that its cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), used one of Iron Mountain’s Denver data centers to store the channel’s data. However, OSS is being unresponsive, and Nine PBS says Iron Mountain has refused to release its data. The data in question includes the station’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, East St. Louis’ history, <a href="https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.earthsys.flood/the-great-flood-of-1993/">The Great Flood of 1993</a>, and over 11,000 files, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2026/07/29/st-louis-pbs-archives-denver-data-center-lawsuit/">The Denver Post</a> reported in July. The lawsuit claims that “most” of the data is “unique and irreplaceable,” according to the Post.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/pbs-station-fears-losing-50tb-of-data-after-being-ghosted-by-cloud-storage-provider/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/pbs-station-fears-losing-50tb-of-data-after-being-ghosted-by-cloud-storage-provider/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/6YlBOrw

OpenAI and Anthropic in price war as Chinese AI rivals gain ground

Leading US AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic are releasing cheaper models as they fight to retain cost-conscious customers who are switching to cut-price alternatives from Chinese rivals. The price war comes as rising AI bills push companies to curb usage and seek cheaper models, helping Chinese developers including Moonshot and DeepSeek make inroads with users from Silicon Valley to Europe. OpenAI recently said that it was slashing prices for GPT-5.6 Luna, its “fastest and most affordable model”, by 80 percent. Anthropic has launched Claude Opus 5, touting the system’s “frontier intelligence... at half the price” of Fable 5, the company’s most capable model.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/openai-and-anthropic-in-price-war-as-chinese-ai-rivals-gain-ground/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/openai-and-anthropic-in-price-war-as-chinese-ai-rivals-gain-ground/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/UTxGQAb