Fly, Robot Fly an Insect-Size Flier Has Finally Taken Wing

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THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS 03.08

FLY, ROBOT FLY AN INSECT-SIZE FLIER HAS FINALLY TAKEN WING. CAN RECONNAISSANCE SWARMS BE FAR BEHIND?

THE LADY AND THE LI-ION POWERING DARWIN’S PARADISE IF YOU LIKE THIS ARTICLE, YOU’LL ALSO LIKE…

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UPDATE

9 THE CHURCH OF MICROSOFT Future versions of Windows will be born in a chapel in Spain. By Justin Mullins

10 DUST-DEVIL DYNAMO

11 SILICON SLIVERS FOR FLEXIBLE CIRCUITS

12 A NEW LIGHT SOURCE FOR EUV

13 BLU-RAY’S EMPTY VICTORY

14 THE BIG PICTURE A sweet-looking satellite. 48 OPINION

7 SPECTRAL LINES Winged victory: a ﬂ y-size wing ﬂ apper lifts off from Harvard University.

8 FORUM Greenhouse-gas emissions stats and carbon cleanup come under scrutiny; should we keep publishing journals?

16 REFLECTIONS Globalization woes? Engineers can help!

34 12 By Robert W. Lucky DEPARTMENTS IN THE AIR: COVER STORY Wind power is 5 BACK STORY fueling growth in FLY, ROBOT FLY the Galápagos 21 6 CONTRIBUTORS Islands; the Don’t swat! The fi rst life-size robotic fl y took fl ight last year. Now this sweet smell of micro-aerial vehicle is showing just what it means to fl y like a fl y. 17 CAREERS success tickles By Robert Wood The wizards of the Foundry, in London, electronic craft the software that makes movie noses; a new superheroes fl y. By Susan Karlin light source 26 THE LADY 42 PEOPLE WHO revives extreme AND THE LI-ION READ THIS ARTICLE 18 BOOKS ultraviolet Two amateur historians revisit the lithography. Chemist, jazz singer, and soccer ALSO READ... USSR’s copycat spacecraft, aka the mom Christina Lampe-Onnerud is Amazon’s book recommendations Shuttleski. By James Oberg CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: SAN CRISTÓBAL poised to shake up the lithium-ion are usually spot-on. Soon your WIND PROJECT; MARK 19 HOOPER; WILLIAM battery industry. By Tekla S. Perry TOOLS & TOYS COTTON/COLORADO morning newspaper will choose This robo-photographer snaps photos STATE UNIVERSITY your news articles with the same and stitches them into gigabyte-size COVER: DAN SAELINGER 34 WIND POWER uncanny accuracy. By Greg Linden panoramas. By Corinna Wu IN PARADISE 48 E-NOSES 20 INVENTION How an ambitious wind-power Patents, copyrights, and other tricks SNIFF SUCCESS to protect the most slippery element project is helping protect one Printed organic semiconductors in your IP portfolio: software. of the most beautiful places on By Kirk Teska Earth: the Galápagos Islands. will enable electronic noses to become cheap and useful. By Erico Guizzo 60 THE DATA By Josephine B. Chang & The mineral makeup of cellphones. Vivek Subramanian By Samuel K. Moore

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THEINSTITUTE______AVAILABLE 7 MARCH ON THE INSTITUTE ONLINE MAKING A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Members in Ethiopia, Germany, Kurdistan, Pakistan, and Peru are improving communities with projects involving mentoring teachers, search-and-rescue robots [below], a ﬁ ber-optic network, and low-cost medical technology.

SCIENCE SEER: WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG Sir Arthur C. ______Clarke looks back COMING IN MARCH ON SPECTRUM ONLINE on his career. PHOTOS: LEFT: LUIS ENRIQUE ASCUI/GETTY 2008: A SRI LANKAN IMAGES; RIGHT: JACOBS UNIVERSITY ODYSSEY A few weeks after Sir Arthur C. Clarke celebrated his 90th birthday this past December, he received a visit from IEEE Spectrum contributor SUSIE WEE: Saswato R. Das. From a hospital bed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he PICTURE-PERFECT was recuperating from a back injury, Clarke talked to Das about his DIGITAL IMAGES 1945 paper on geostationary satellites; the concept of a space elevator, Read why Computerworld magazine which he fi rst outlined in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise; and says Wee’s work in imaging makes her his development as a science-fi ction writer. Read the article and listen one of “40 under 40” IT innovators to to the interview with this colossus of science fi ction. watch in coming years.

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BUILDING LASERS ON SILICON • Webcasts SEARCH LESS Researchers are making big steps • Radio The IEEE Xplore® digital library now toward bonding lasers onto silicon • News off ers new resources and better chips to combine the power of • Audio downloads search tools, such as online tutorials, microprocessors with light-speed • Podcasts technology surveys, application notes, communication. • Jobs and streamlined searching. • Career Accelerator Forum THE “OTHER” DARPA ARM • IEEE Xplore® digital library We take you to the Johns Hopkins • Interviews University lab selected by DARPA to • Opinions develop, by the end of next year, a bionic • More! arm that is wired directly to the brain.

IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2008 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent offi cial positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. Canadian Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, BOX 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS-IEEE Members: $19.50 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $205. POST MASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offi ces. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at W224-N3322-Duplainville Rd., Pewaukee, WI 53072-4195, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and the Society of National Association Publications.

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EDITORIAL

EDITOR Susan Hassler, [email protected] EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] SENIOR EDITORS Harry Goldstein (Web),[email protected]; Jean Kumagai,[email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. Ross (Resources), [email protected]; William Sweet, [email protected] SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS Steven Cherry, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), [email protected] ASSOCIATE EDITORS Erico Guizzo, [email protected]; Joshua J. Romero (Web),[email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Willie D. Jones, [email protected] SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine,[email protected] COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected] EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected] ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Ramona Gordon, [email protected]; Nancy T. Hantman, [email protected] IEEE SPECTRUM JOURNALISM INTERN Sarah Adee, [email protected] INTERN Francesco Ferorelli, [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Blau, Robert N. Charette, Peter Fairley, Alexander Hellemans, David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Of Giant Tortoises and Men Kieron B. Murphy, Michael Riordan, Carl Selinger, Seema Singh, John Voelcker

he Galápagos Islands, the hazy horizon, I knew this was ART & PRODUCTION

a cherished haven for a special place,” Guizzo says. “And SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Mark Montgomery T Laura H. Azran, Brandon Palacio nature lovers and a rareﬁ ed I can attest to its remoteness!” ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS ecosystem where Charles Darwin On the island, he watched a PHOTO EDITOR Randi Silberman drew inspiration for his theory of team of engineers struggle to get DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy Roy Carubia evolution, is not the place you’d the three 800-kilowatt turbines into EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER SENIOR ELECTRONIC LAYOUT SPECIALIST Bonnie Nani expect to ﬁ nd a multimillion-dollar operation. He also learned about WEB PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jacqueline L. Parker

cutting-edge engineering project. the many other challenges the WEB PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector So when IEEE Spectrum project faced as part of an eff ort to EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Associate Editor Erico Guizzo free the Galápagos from fossil fuels. Susan Hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine D. Berman, Jan Brown, learned that the Ecuadorian [See Guizzo’s full account, “Wind Raffaello D’Andrea, Stephen L. Diamond, Hiromichi Fujisawa, Kenneth Y. Goldberg, Susan Hackwood, Erik Heijne, Charles H. House, government, with help from the Power in Paradise,” in this issue.] David H. Jacobson, Christopher J. James, Ronald G. Jensen, United Nations and an international Guizzo also took some time to Mary Y. Lanzerotti, Ruby B. Lee, Tak Ming Mak, David A. Mindell, C. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew M. Odlyzko, Leslie D. Owens, consortium of utility companies, check out the local wildlife, including Barry L. Shoop, Larry L. Smarr, Harry L. “Nick” Tredennick III, planned to build three massive the famed giant tortoises [see photo]. Bill Weihl, Bas¸ak Yüksel

wind turbines on San Cristóbal, the “You can’t help feeling a bit like EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE

Galápagos’s easternmost island, his Darwin when you walk around this IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 ﬁ rst thought was: This I have to see. place and marvel at these other- Attn: Editorial Dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 Bureau: Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 328 7570 Guizzo contacted the organizers worldly creatures,” he says. Responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon the authors, of the project, and late last year he But as Darwin noted more than not the IEEE or its members. Articles published do not represent offi cial positions of the IEEE. Letters to the editor may be excerpted found himself on a 32-hour-long 170 years ago, the uniqueness of the for publication. journey—involving three planes, two archipelago’s ecosystem means it’s ADVERTISING CORRESPONDENCE

taxis, one bus, and a three-and-a-half- also extremely fragile. The survival IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 hour open-ocean boat ride—to reach of its distinctive plants and animals, Attn: Advertising Dept. +1 212 419 7760 the archipelago, some 1000 kilo- many of which are endangered, The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising. meters from mainland Ecuador. now depends on ﬁ nding ways to REPRINT PERMISSION “It was really tiring, but when protect them from foreign species— LIBRARIES: Articles may be photocopied for private use of patrons. A per-copy fee must be paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, I saw San Cristóbal emerging on including us. ❏ 29 Congress St., Salem, MA 01970. For other copying or republication, contact Business Manager, IEEE Spectrum.

CITING ARTICLES IN IEEE SPECTRUM COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS: IEEE Spectrum is a registered trademark owned by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics IEEE Spectrum publishes two editions. In the international edition, the abbreviation INT appears at the foot of each Engineers Inc. Careers, EEs’ Tools & Toys, EV Watch, Progress, page. The North American edition is identifi ed with the letters NA. Both have the same editorial content, but because of diff erences in advertising, page numbers may diff er. In citations, you should include the issue designation. For Refl ections, Spectral Lines, and Technically Speaking are trademarks example, the fi rst Update page is in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 45, no. 3 (INT), March 2008, p. 9, or in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 45, of the IEEE. no. 3 (NA), March 2008, p. 11. GUIZZO ERICO

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IEEE MEDIA STAFF DIRECTOR; PUBLISHER, IEEE SPECTRUM James A. Vick,[email protected] ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SALES & ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Marion Delaney, [email protected] RECRUITMENT SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Michael Buryk, [email protected] JOSEPHINE B. DAN SAELINGER, BUSINESS MANAGER Robert T. Ross MARKETING & PROMOTION MANAGER Blanche McGurr, CHANG is coauthor who shot the photos [email protected] INTERACTIVE MARKETING MANAGER Laura Book, of “Electronic Noses for “Fly, Robot Fly” [email protected] Sniff Success” [p. 21], says, “As LIST/RECRUITMENT MARKETING MANAGER Ilia Rodriguez, [email protected] [p. 48], which soon as I heard the REPRINT SALES +1 212 221 9595, ext. 319 describes the advances in printed words robot fl y I knew I wanted to DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATOR Faith H. Jeanty, [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES +1 212 419 7760 electronics that will finally make be involved in this project. I kept TELEPHONE ADVERTISING/SALES REPRESENTATIVE John Restchack +1 212 419 7578 e-noses cheap and portable. imagining a radio-controlled car ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Felicia Spagnoli SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Chang researched printed remote giving directions to this tiny Nicole Evans electronics at the University fl y. I mean, how do they even make ADVERTISING PRODUCTION +1 732 562 6334 Anthony Durniak of California, Berkeley. She something so small tick?” IEEE STAFF EXECUTIVE, PUBLICATIONS IEEE BOARD OF DIRECTORS now works with silicon semi- PRESIDENT & CEO Lewis M. Terman conductors at the IBM Thomas VIVEK +1 732 562 3928 Fax: +1 732 465 6444 [email protected] PRESIDENT-ELECT John R. Vig J. Watson Research Center, in SUBRAMANIAN, TREASURER David G. Green Yorktown Heights, N.Y. an IEEE member, SECRETARY Barry L. Shoop PAST PRESIDENT Leah H. Jamieson is coauthor of this VICE PRESIDENTS GREG LINDEN month’s feature on Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou, Educational Activities; John Baillieul, Publication Services & Products; Joseph V. Lillie, Member & Geographic lives in Seattle and electronic noses [p. 48] and an Activities; George W. Arnold, President, Standards Association; J. Roberto B. de Marca, Technical Activities; Russell J. Lefevre, works at Microsoft associate professor of electrical President, IEEE-USA Live Labs. In 2004, he engineering and computer sciences DIVISION DIRECTORS Giovanni De Micheli (I); Thomas G. Habetler (II); formed Findory.com, at Berkeley. He cofounded Matrix Curtis A. Siller Jr. (III); Edward Della Torre (IV); Deborah M. Cooper (V); Irving Engelson (VI); which sought to personalize the Semiconductor in 1998. John D. McDonald (VII); Thomas W. Williams (VIII); Frederick C. Mintzer (IX); William A. Gruver (X) fl ow of information. He worked at REGION DIRECTORS Amazon.com from 1997 to 2002, fi rst KIRK TESKA, who Howard E. Michel (1); John C. Dentler (2); William B. Ratcliff (3); Robert J. Dawson (4); David J. Pierce (5); Loretta J. Arellano (6); writing its recommendation engine teaches at Suff olk Ferial El-Hawary (7); Jean G. Remy (8); Enrique E. Alvarez (9); Janina E. Mazierska (10) and then leading the software team University Law DIRECTORS EMERITUS that developed Amazon’s person- School, in Boston, is Eric Herz, Theodore W. Hissey

alization systems. Linden makes the managing partner IEEE STAFF the case for recommender systems of Iandiorio & Teska, an intellectual EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & COO Jeff ry W. Raynes, CAE +1 732 562 5400, [email protected] in “People Who Read This Article property law ﬁ rm in Waltham, Mass. HUMAN RESOURCES Betsy Davis, SPHR +1 732 465 6434, [email protected] Also Read…” [p. 42]. He is the author of the book Patent PUBLICATIONS Anthony Durniak Savvy for Managers (Nolo, 2007). For +1 732 562 3998, [email protected] CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Sally Ericksen JAMES OBERG, this month’s Invention [p. 20] he tack- +1 732 562 5345, [email protected] EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES Douglas Gorham a 22-year veteran les the issue of software protection. +1 732 562 5483, [email protected] STANDARDS ACTIVITIES Judith Gorman of NASA mission +1 732 562 3820, [email protected] MEMBER & GEOGRAPHIC ACTIVITIES Cecelia Jankowski control, is a writer ROBERT WOOD, +1 732 562 5504, [email protected] and consultant author of “Fly, Robot CORPORATE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS Matthew Loeb, CAE +1 732 562 5320, [email protected] based in Houston. His latest Fly,” is an assistant BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Richard D. Schwartz +1 732 562 5311, [email protected] book, Star-Crossed Orbits: Inside professor of electrical TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES Mary Ward-Callan +1 732 562 3850, [email protected] the U.S./Russian Space Alliance engineering at MANAGING DIRECTOR, IEEE-USA Chris Brantley (McGraw-Hill, 2002), describes the Harvard and principal investigator +1 202 785 0017, [email protected] development of the International at the Harvard Microrobotics IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES & PRODUCTS BOARD John Baillieul, Chair; Tayfun Akgul, George W. Arnold, Duncan C. Baker, John T. Barr IV, George Cybenko, Gerald L. Engel, Marion O. Hagler, Space Station and the Russians’ role Laboratory. When not tinkering with Lawrence O. Hall, Jens Hannemann, Lajos Hanzo, Leah H. Jamieson, Hirohisa Kawamoto, Paul Kostek, Mary Y. Lanzerotti, Jose M. F. Moura, in making it possible. This month robot ﬂ ies, his group investigates the Adrian V. Pais, Roger D. Pollard, Saifur Rahman, Sorel Reisman, Suzanne M. Rivoire, Jon G. Rokne, W. Ross Stone, Robert J. Trew, Oberg weighs in on a new book on development of other “species” of Leung Tsang, Stephen Yurkovich, Amir I. Zaghloul

Buran, the Soviet space shuttle arthropod-inspired robots. Look for IEEE OPERATIONS CENTER [p. 18], which made its fi rst and only Wood’s robotic fl ies in New York’s 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08854-1331 U.S.A. Tel: +1 732 981 0060 Fax: +1 732 981 1721 fl ight in 1988. Museum of Modern Art this spring. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JOSEPHINE CHANG; TRACY SAELINGER; PEG SKORPINSKI; SKORPINSKI; PEG SAELINGER; CHANG; TRACY JOSEPHINE LEFT: TOP FROM CLOCKWISE LINDEN GREG OBERG; GRINNELL; JAMES ELIZA H ALEX HARRISON;

6 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG______

The hope is to build robotic ﬂ ies that could work in any situation in which it would be better or safer to send them instead of humans

LUCIEN BULL demonstrates the Ellington from Cambridge high-speed camera he invented in University, Michael 1903, the fi rst to record insect fl ight. Dickinson, now at Caltech, PHOTO: NMEM/SCIENCE & SOCIETY and Ronald Fearing from physics and science-based the University of California, medicine—and museums Berkeley, set out to describe and societies sprang up to the kinetics of insect fl ight. serve this public interest. Through ingenious exper- Photography had also iments with live insects permeated the 19th-century and dynamically scaled-up zeitgeist. British-born insect models, they man- Eadweard J. Muybridge aged to pin down some of became the fi rst to iso- the major mechanisms and late locomotion in his physical forces that propel a famous stop-action stud- fl y through its airspace. ies of humans and animals. Now the hope is to use Meanwhile, in France, physi- that know-how to build better ologist, inventor, and chrono- housefl ies: inexpensive, tiny Winged Victory: Fly-Size photographer Étienne-Jules robot fl ies that could work Marey, who discovered that together, lots of them, on Wing Flapper Lifts Off insect wings carve fi gure search-and-rescue missions, eights during movement, environmental monitoring, was inventing cameras and planetary exploration, mili- espite the fact that based Dumpster diet for fuel. devising experiments to tary surveillance, and in vir- D we’d likely drown in One of the fl y- enamored tease out the details of bird tually any situation in which our own waste if it among us is Harvard and insect fl ight. Some years it would be better or safer to weren’t for their enormous University’s Robert Wood, later, his assistant and suc- send a batch of robotic fl ies fondness for eating our author of this issue’s “Fly, cessor Lucien Bull invented instead of humans. garbage and excrement, Robot Fly,” in which he the stereoscopic spark-drum Professor Wood’s accom- flies don’t get any respect. recounts eff orts to build tiny camera, which took pictures plishment is remark- Not from most of us anyway, fl ying robots based on the at up to 2000 frames per sec- able, but much remains to who see only pests and dis- fl y’s native wing-fl apping ond. Bull used his invention be done before you’ll see ease vectors as we swat skills. His own robotic fl y, to make the fi rst-ever movies robotic flies buzzing over a with abandon whenever at 60 milligrams about the of insect fl ight (go to ____http:// fire or monitoring tornado they’re around. size of a chubby real fl y, is www.expo-marey.com/ damage in your neighbor- But there are a few the fi rst of this robot class to indexFR.htm to see exam- hood. Small doesn’t mean good scientists and engi- become airborne. ples of their work). simple. The obstacles fac- neers who reach for their The scientifi c study of Fast-forward to the late ing tiny robots’ flying and notebooks and video cam- insect fl ight has its roots 20th century: the world working in uncontrolled eras instead, amazed and in the second half of the went digital and cameras environments are as daunt- astounded by fl ies’ aeronau- 19th century. Queen Victoria and experimental methods ing as those faced by your tic wizardry. With a brain was on the throne, techno- improved significantly, pet AIBO. But as is often that’s home to several hun- logical innovation was in but questions about how noted, flies have had a hundred thousand neurons—we high gear, and the Industrial flapping-wing flight works dred million years or so to each house 100 billion in Revolution careered along at fly scales remained work out the kinks in their ours—a fl y can duck, dive, with it. Natural history and essentially wide open. evolutionary flight plans. hover, rotate, and fl y with fl ora and fauna worship were Then in the 1980s and Perhaps in another 10 we’ll easy accuracy and endur- all the rage—although they ’90s, an eclectic and far- be able to say the same about ance, despite having a lousy would soon give way to more fl ung cohort of research- their electronic counterparts. fi eld of vision and a carb- empirical disciplines like ers, among them Charles —Susan Hassler

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cycle (fuel-to- electricity) demonstration plant. The conversion effi ciency. If energy costs associated you start with a coal- with the oxygen- nitrogen ﬁ red plant and add an separation system are air-separator plant on especially high, and the front end, ﬂ ue-gas Vattenfall considers recycling fans and two it crucial to get those sets of cooler/condenser costs down in future systems in the middle, oxyfuel plants. With

and a CO2 gas-to-liquid the U.S. Department of compressor system on Energy’s cancellation of the back end, and then the FutureGen project—

truck the liquid CO2 a big coal- gasifi cation somewhere off -site and plant that would have Letters do not THE TRUTH EVALUATING pump it into the ground, generated electricity represent opinions of the IEEE. Short, BEHIND THE CARBON CLEANUP what is the resul- and yielded hydrogen, concise letters are NUMBERS illiam tant “womb to tomb” with the carbon dioxide preferred. They reenhouse-Gas WSweet’s article, effi ciency of the process captured and stored— may be edited for GTrends” space and clarity. [The “Restoring Coal’s Sheen” in kilowatts per hour? Schwarze Pumpe is more John Spencer Additional letters Data, January] states [January], missed a than ever the only game IEEE Senior Member are available online that Europe decreased question critical to Oreana, Ill. in town. Vattenfall and in “And More Forum” at http://www. greenhouse-gas emis- cleaning up the burning Alstom Power are to be spectrum.ieee.org. sions from 1990 to 2005 of fossil fuels—namely, William Sweet responds: commended because Write to Forum, while the United States what is the overall The total system energy this will be the fi rst IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th increased emissions. energy balance for balance—together with larger-than-laboratory- Floor, New York, NY This ignores the very the process described economic and carbon scale plant to evaluate all 10016-5997, U.S.A.; reason that 1990 was in the article? Every balances—is among the aspects of capturing and fax, +1 212 419 7570; chosen as the base- scheme needs to look key issues to be evaluated sequestering CO using e-mail, _____n.hantman 2 [email protected]. line year for the U.S.- at the total impact on at the Schwarze Pumpe the oxyfuel process. rejected Kyoto Protocol. In 1990, at the time of the fall of the Berlin IS JOURNAL PUBLICATION or so. At some point you may simply give Wall, Europe knew OBSOLETE? up—and miss an important new paper. that bringing the for- OBERT W. Lucky’s “Technical Further, copyright restrictions prevent mer Eastern bloc coun- RPublications and the Internet” your reading the full text of most papers tries up to Western [Refl ections, January] raises an important on the Internet. Societies like the IEEE European standards issue. Today the information in scientifi c off er publications on the Web, but they would result in a huge and professional journals can be charge fees aff ordable only by large decrease in all sorts submitted and transmitted electroni- libraries or businesses. of pollutants from the cally; the Internet makes printing and This problem can be solved very dirty smokestack shipping journal copies obsolete. The true neatly. All we need are the editorial industries prevalent function of a refereed journal, then, is to committees—those of currently existing during the Soviet era. fi lter information through a committee journals will do nicely—and Web pages. If you discount that of recognized experts. However, journal Members of the vital expert editorial cleanup, it is a sure bet publication is likely to reduce the number committees normally don’t charge for that Europe as a whole of people who will see your work. their services. The small cost of a Web would have had a net Much scientifi c work is now inter- page and a webmaster would be no increase in greenhouse- disciplinary, so you really need many problem for libraries and professional gas emissions over the subscriptions. You cannot very well societies. Libraries would save hugely same time period. subscribe to a dozen expensive journals. on subscriptions and storage space. Ken Javor If you have a suffi ciently large library Everybody would benefi t. IEEE Member

Huntsville, Ala. nearby, you must go there once a week Granino A. Korn IEEE Fellow, Chelan, Wash. IMAGES PILLITZ/GETTY CHRISTOPHER

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more online at www.spectrum.ieee.org

hit our desktops in the next few MODERN years. Those CPUs are expected GOTHIC: The Church of Microsoft MareNostrum’s to be made up of hundreds of pro- 10 000 processors The software maker tries to get ahead of the move cessor cores, so it takes a super- will be key to to hundreds of processor cores per chip in a deal computer with thousands of ﬁ guring out with the MareNostrum supercomputer processors to simulate them for how to program processors with software development. Which is hundreds of cores.

why Microsoft and the Barcelona PHOTO: ROLAND HALBE/ BARCELONA SUPER- he IBM MareNostrum to plan, this is where future gen- Supercomputing Center, which COMPUTING CENTER T supercomputer sits in a erations of Microsoft’s Windows runs the MareNostrum, struck Gothic-style chapel on the operating system will be born. a deal in late January to form a outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. It For Microsoft, MareNostrum’s joint research center dedicated may not be the world’s fastest— more than 10 000 IBM micropro- to solving the vast array of prob- although it is in the top 20—but cessors and 20 terabytes of mem- lems associated with program- it is certainly the world’s most ory are the ideal testing ground ming for multicore processors. beautiful computing machine for the software that will run To make ever more powerful [see “Solving the Oil Equation,” the kind of multicore and many- processors, the chip industry January]. And if all goes according core microprocessors that will once relied on simply shrinking

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a single processor core and at Microsoft Research ramping up its clock speed. who is involved in the But a few years into the new MareNostrum collaboration. century, it became clear that For example, when rendering this was a dead end: perfor- a scene from a computer mance was not improving game, the instructions can be fast enough, while power easily divided among cores consumption was acceler- by giving each a portion of ating out of control. The the scene to be rendered. solution was to put more With other tasks, things than one processor on the aren’t so straightforward. same chip and run them One problem is how to both at moderate speeds. give parallel computations Two- and four-core pro- access to shared data cessors are common now. “We without them all trying to know how to use these,” says access the same chunk of Andrew Herbert, manag- information at the same time. DUST-DEVIL DYNAMO ing director of the Microsoft The conventional solution esearchers at the University of Research Laboratory in is to lock the memory so RMichigan in Ann Arbor showed that Cambridge, England. The that only one computational question is how to make the thread has access to it at natural electric fi elds as strong as 160 kilo- best use of the hundreds a time. But lock-based volts per meter play a role in determining the of cores that will appear on programming is notoriously amount of dust that makes it into the atmo- chips in the next 10 years. hard to do in practice and sphere, where it can infl uence weather and Microsoft hopes to fi nd out can cause bottlenecks. by simulating the problem To cope with this problem, climate. Electric charge reduces the amount and various solutions one of the ideas Microsoft of wind needed to blow sand around and can on the MareNostrum. is testing in Barcelona is directly lift dust off the ground. Scientists fi rst For decades, computer transactional memory, which languages have been con- allows free-for-all access to noticed electricity’s infl uence when examining ceived and designed with the shared memory in the hope dust devils in the desert but had to develop a expectation that a sequence that each thread will want dif- new kind of electric fi eld analyzer to quantify it. of instructions will be exe- ferent pieces of data. If a con- More at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/dynamo cuted essentially one after fl ict arises, the transactions another. This approach involved are halted and makes sense when a cal- started again. “This is one of. One of the goals of the collaboration). He suggests culation is carried out on a of the hot topics in parallel MareNostrum project is to using cores with diff erent single micro processor. But computing,” says Harris. “explore a top-down approach architectures on the same when there are 100 pro- Transactional memory in which the software chip. “It may be that one cessors, how should this can be built into the hard- requirements determine type of architecture is best sequence be divided up? ware. Indeed, at February’s the hardware architec- for speech recognition Answering that question IEEE International Solid ture rather than the other and another for image is at the heart of the joint State Circuits Conference way round,” says Herbert. processing,” he says. research center’s mission. in San Francisco, Sun Such an approach could At this point, almost any “There are lots of good ideas Microsystems reported the lead to some radical depar- idea can be entertained, and out there which we want fi rst server processor uti- tures in design, says David Microsoft will surely try to explore,” says Herbert. lizing a type of hardware- Patterson, an IEEE Fellow many of them. The next few In some cases, it’s enabled transactional and expert on parallel years are “a rare opportunity easy to see how the work memory. Sun’s move is the computing at the University to reinvent computing can be divided, says Tim kind of thing Microsoft of California, Berkeley entirely,” says Patterson.

Harris, a computer scientist may want to see more (who is not involved in the —Justin Mullins NASA

10 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

A new record frequency for a CMOS oscillator and antenna. Researchers from the University of Florida, in Gainesville, reported more than doubling last year’s record. 410 GHz The achievement may lead to cheap terahertz security cameras that can see through clothes and packages.

centi meter per volt second Silicon Slivers for versus 85 cm2/Vs for Rogers’s CMOS circuits. The UIUC group’s Flexible Circuits technology also competes Printing CMOS on plastic with plastic circuits made from semiconductor ilicon circuits that bend reach speeds matching those nanowires, such as those Sand stretch recently took of silicon chips. Rogers says his under development at Palo an important step away group has built silicon circuits Alto, Calif.–based Nanosys. from the world of science-fi ction on plastic that switch at about Instead of etching off ribbons novels and Hollywood movies 500 megahertz, fi ve times as fast of semiconductor from a wafer toward the real world of medical as the clock in a 1995 Pentium as the Illinois group does, news devices and media players. microprocessor. “And there’s no Nanosys and its partners chemically brief A team of researchers at the fundamental reason you couldn’t synthesize silicon nano wires University of Illinois at Urbana- go much higher,” he says. by means of vapor deposition. EYE-PODS Champaign (UIUC) says it has The speed of these circuits The UIUC and Nanosys Researchers at printed silicon circuits onto plas- greatly outstrips those made approaches “are similar conceptu- the University tic in the form of the same CMOS using organic semiconductors, ally in that they take advantage of of Washington– Seattle and at circuits that dominate digital a key competitor in the plastic the fact that single- crystal silicon Sandia National logic today. The breakthrough electronics race. The main is a good material for charge trans- Laboratories, in brings researchers closer to problem of organics is inherently port compared with, say, organ- Albuquerque, have printing circuits on plastic that low charge-carrier mobility, the ics,” says Rogers. “And they both unveiled the latest advance in head-up approach the performance and metric describing the speed at use silicon structures small enough displays: a contact reliability of silicon chips. which charges move through so that they are fl exible and can be lens with an The team, led by materials a material. The best organics integrated with plastic.” But Rogers imprinted electronic science and chemistry professor have mobilities of about 1 square is convinced that making your own circuit and red LEDs. John A. Rogers, had earlier shown silicon when high- quality wafers Future versions will superimpose images that they could form circuits by are commercially available adds over the user’s view of transferring thin ribbons of silicon an unnecessary complication to the world and include onto glue-coated plastic using the manufacturing process. Citing wireless transceivers a patterned rubber stamp. But confi dentiality agreements with for two-way communication and the resulting devices used only Nanosys’s commercial partners, solar cells for power. n-type silicon, whereas CMOS the company’s cofounder and vice Now what’s to stop logic has both n-type and p-type. president of business development, future generations CMOS circuits are generally more Stephen Empedocles, declined to of students from power-effi cient, because current make direct comparisons between furtively scanning crib sheets when the should fl ow through them only the Nanosys and UIUC approaches. illicit notes are on when their bits are fl ipping. In Rogers’s technology is under displays built into any portable electronic device, development at Semprius, a their contact lenses? PHOTO: UNIVERSITY OF that means longer battery life. But start-up based in Durham, N.C., WASHINGTON-SEATTLE in the case of plastic electronics, of which he is cofounder. Besides CMOS is even more important, refi ning the manufacturing process, because it reduces the amount Semprius is working on making of heat produced—which, left silicon-based electronics that are unchecked, could melt the plastic. not only bendable but stretchable. Rogers’s research, which was That involves making the silicon reported in January in IEEE thin and then structuring “the Electron Device Letters, also showed material into a wavy shape so it that printed plastic circuits can becomes like the bellows on an accordion,” says Rogers. One application the company is PLASTIC POWER: Ring oscillators [top] and inverter circuits [center investigating is putting the stretchy and bottom] made of silicon ribbons circuits on spheres for electronic printed on plastic. eye–type imaging systems. PHOTOS: JOHN A. ROGERS/UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN —Willie D. Jones

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3.5 BILLION KILOMETERS The distance the Messenger spacecraft had to ﬂ y to get this image of Mercury [see “A Messenger Arrives at Mercury,” IEEE Spectrum, December 2007]. Features seen in Messenger’s photos lend weight to the theory that Mercury is shrinking as

it cools. PHOTO: NASA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY/CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON

A New Light Source for EUV Lithography Extreme ultraviolet laser off ers a new route to next-gen chips

new type of X-ray by IEEE Fellow Jorge Rocca, laser could give hope generated low-energy seed A A new tabletop extreme ultraviolet laser. to the semi conductor pulses of EUV light by fi ring LIGHTING THE WAY: industry as it struggles to a titanium-sapphire laser PHOTO: WILLIAM COTTON/COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY continue its march toward through a neon-gas cell. The miniaturization. This next- interaction between the kilowatt-class carbon- dioxide Colorado team. “Coherent soft generation chip- making laser and the neon generated lasers. The tin becomes X-ray light can be used to mea- tool was developed at the harmonics—low-energy a plasma and re radiates sure the properties of materi- National Science Foundation’s laser light at multiples of the some of the laser’s energy at als and directly write patterns Engineering Research Center original laser’s frequency. 13.5 nm. Cymer, of San Diego, with nanoscale dimensions. for Extreme Ultraviolet The harmonics were fed to Calif., recently reported It can also be used to look for Science and Technology, an amplifi er, which is really reaching a record 100 watts extremely small defects in located at Colorado State a plasma made by irradiating of light using that process, the masks that will be used to University, in Fort Collins. polished molybdenum or but only in short bursts. print the future generations The laser operates at wave- silver slabs with pulses from The problem with the of semiconductor chips.” lengths of 18.9 and 13.9 nano- another laser. The amplifi er existing EUV sources is that The new EUV lasers meters, the latter fi ne enough boosts the power only of the light produced is not demonstrated by Rocca’s for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) the desired wavelengths. coherent—that is, its waves group will prove valuable lithography, which will be Molybdenum amplifi ed the are not all in phase with to semiconductor industry needed to manufacture the 18.9-nm wavelength, and sil- one another, according to research right away, predicts generation of chips that are ver boosted the 13.9-nm wave- Stefan Wurm, who manages Wurm. In particular, he thinks to become available around length required for EUV. extreme ultraviolet strategy they’ll be used in develop- 2011. The Colorado team found Chip makers will begin at Sematech, the independent, ing and testing photoresists— a way to take a small “seed” to need EUV for state-of- nonprofi t semiconductor the polymers that harden of EUV light, also called soft the-art chips by 2011 or industry consortium respon- when exposed to light, thus X-rays, and amplify the seed 2012, when the features sible for helping the industry capturing the light’s pattern to produce a beam 400 times that make up transistors develop new chip-making on the chip. If chemists can as intense. Finding a suitable must be just 22 nm. On technologies. Coherent light reduce the amount of energy light source for EUV lithog- most advanced chips today, is better for most applications. needed to set resists, then raphy machines has proved they are 65 or 45 nm. “You reduce power if you EUV-light-source makers have much more diffi cult than The chief challenge in turn incoherent sources into an easier goal to attain for the expected, and though the getting EUV lithography coherent sources by fi ltering,” power level of their sources. Colorado laser is not yet pow- ready for its debut has says Wurm. And the lower The logical next step is to erful enough to replace the been the light sources the power, the longer it takes increase the energy of the out- light sources already in devel- [see “Plans for Next-Gen to form patterns on a chip. put pulses by increasing the opment, its tabletop size and Chips Imperiled,” IEEE “The most important energy of the seed pulse and optical quality could accelerate Spectrum, August 2007]. At aspect of this work is the the volume of the amplifi er, the development of EUV the moment, the leading light demonstration of an almost Rocca says. “More power will components and materials. sources generate EUV light by fully coherent soft X-ray make the lasers easier to use.” The Colorado group, led blasting droplets of tin with laser,” says Rocca, head of the —Saswato R. Das

12 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

commentary Blu-ray’s Empty Victory HD-DVD is beaten, but online movie rentals and the humble hard drive may claim the spoils By Steven Cherry

y now you’ve probably heard in the 1990s, a time when B the biggest news to come out of broadband was rare and January’s Consumer Electronics slow. As late as 2000, when Show (CES): Sony’s Blu-ray has Sony showed its fi rst beaten Toshiba’s HD-DVD in the high- prototype Blu-ray players, defi nition DVD war. Yet the real winner broadband penetration may be Apple. Or Netfl ix. Or Comcast. rates, including Japan’s and Until January, the major movie the United States’, were studios were evenly divided between under 5 percent. Counting the two formats. But then Time on consumers to download Warner, which had supported both, movies was unrealistic. announced at CES, in Las Vegas, that Today, however, through- it would no longer release its movies out the developed world, in HD-DVD. In Hollywood, where the broadband is used in at line between perception and reality least half of all households. can be thinner than a laser beam, this And while a high-def movie can that lets you buy or rent movies, was taken as a complete victory for take an hour to download even on a which get stored on your TiVo’s hard Blu-ray and, therefore, it was one. fast DSL connection, you can start disk. A review by the Web magazine It’s the very skinniness of blue lasers, watching within a minute; the data Engadget said, “If you already own thinner than red, that lets blue lasers fl ow continues in the background. a TiVo, then this is about as easy read data when it’s packed fi ve times And so when you look past as movie downloading can get.” as densely as it is on today’s CDs and the Blu-ray victory, the latest Older download services are still DVDs. Both Sony and Toshiba used this developments in digital movies are around, such as Movielink, Vudu, one scientifi c principle, yet they created all about downloads, not disks. and CinemaNow, which lets you buy diff erent and incompatible formats. The At MacWorld, which directly some fi rst-run movies, starting at incompatibility has frustrated movie followed CES, Steve Jobs announced $14.95, while they’re still in theaters. studios and electronics manufacturers a new download service for renting Finally, at CES, Panasonic and alike, which have watched consumers movies. As with music, Apple has struck Comcast showed a portable digital-video sit on the sidelines, uncertain what deals with the major movie studios. You recorder with its own screen. At home, disks—and players—to buy. Having sold can begin a show on your computer it’s like any DVR you might get from your us VHS tapes and then DVDs, studios or television and fi nish watching it cable company. But when you and the and manufacturers hope that now that on your iPod or iPhone. The service family go on vacation, just pull it out of Blu-ray has come out on top, we will buy started in February with 1000 movies, its docking station. It comes with a 12-volt our movie collections for a third time. costing US $2.99 to $3.99 each. car adapter, so the kids can watch in the But there’s every reason to think Apple’s biggest competitor may backseat and at the summer cottage. that Sony’s victory will be for naught. be Netfl ix, which has deals with all So do we really need to trudge out to Many of us won’t rebuild our video the same studios. Subscribers can Blockbuster, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart for collections yet again, and if we do, it view hours and hours of movies a disk? Or wait for the now- familiar red

JUNJI KUROKAWA/AP PHOTO won’t be with thin little platters. We’ll without paying anything more than envelope from Netfl ix? A lot of companies, simply download movies through their current monthly subscriptions. including Apple and Netfl ix itself, are our DSL and cable modems. Netfl ix relaunched the service in betting no. Sony and the other movie That might not have been appar- January with more than 6000 titles. studios, even though they get a cut from ent when Sony and Toshiba began Back in February 2007, TiVo and movie downloads, hope the competition work on next-generation DVDs back Amazon started a movie partnership is wrong. I don’t think they are. ❏

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the big picture

EYE CANDY No, this is not the electronic version of Candy Land. It’s the latest element in the U.S. Global Positioning System, deployed on 2 January. Built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force, the satellite payload has enhanced signal power and two military and two civilian signals. Ideally, it can pinpoint locations down to less than 1 meter. The tall candy-cane antennas handle UHF links to the ground; the squat Popsicle antennas, satellite- to-satellite UHF connections. The antenna cones are for the L band, a portion of the spectrum reserved mainly for military telemetry and geopositioning communications. PHOTO: LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.

14 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

A*SSTARTAR INVESTIGATORSHIPSINVESTIGATORSHIPS

Prestigious Research Award for young scientists and engineers

Starting 2008, the Singapore Agency for Science, Candidates are invited to apply in the following areas: Technology & Research (A*STAR) will bring together 6 • Cognitive Systems, including robotics physical science and engineering research institutes to • Meta-materials the iconic Fusionopolis (http://www.a-star.edu.sg/astar/ • Terahertz ______fusionopolis/index.do). We invite applications for the • Clean energy technologies (including fuel cells, organic A*STAR Investigatorships, which will support and PVs, bioenergy) promote the independent early career development of • Services Science (focusing on computational potential leaders in scientific and engineering research. approaches and computer systems to improve service Applicants should ideally have obtained their PhD within efficiency and catalyse service innovation) 24 months (and at most not more than 48 months) of the application date, and have demonstrated strong The A*STAR Investigatorship Selection Panel includes ability and creativity in research. the following: Professor Charles Zukoski, Chairman, SERC, A*STAR The awards support independent research for a The awards support independent research for a and Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Illinois duration of 3 years, renewable for a further 3 years. duration of 3 years, renewable for a further 3 years. at Urbana-Champaign The Investigatorships will be tenable at one of A*STAR’s prestigious science and engineering research institutes. Lord Ronald Oxburgh, member of the UK House of Lords A*STAR Investigators will select a mentor from A*STAR's Select Committee on Science & Technology and former research institutes but will conduct and publish their Chairman, Shell research independently. Dr Bernard Meyerson, Chief Technologist, Technology Group, IBM A*STAR Investigators will receive attractive remuneration, support for set-up costs, research funding, Professor Andrew Ortony, Department of Psychology, research staff and have access to state-of-the-art Education, and Computer Science, Northwestern University scientific equipment and facilities. Each A*STAR University Investigator’s laboratory would have a research Professor Richard Syms, Microsystems Technology, EEE allocation of up to US$500K p.a. Department, Imperial College

Applications will close on 31 May 2008. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to Singapore for interviews, which will include a scientific presentation at an open symposium. These are expected to be held in August 2008. It is expected that the awards will commence in 2009. Applicants are requested to submit their CVs, including 3 academic referees, and a 5-page research proposal (1 hard copy & 1 soft copy) to: A*STAR Investigatorships Agency for Science, Technology & Research, 30 Biopolis Street, #09-01 Matrix, Singapore 138671 Email: [email protected] www.a-star.edu.sg/astar_investigators

Agency for Science, Technology and Research

By ROBERT W. LUCKY U.S. Engineers and the Flat Earth

ou can hardly open a newspaper these days without Yseeing something about globalization, outsourcing, free trade, and economic competitiveness. Although the articles usually focus on policies and politics, many of the causes and consequences of globalization depend on technology and, hence, on engineers. In 2005, a committee of the U.S. National Academies addressed this issue in a widely disseminated report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, which argued that trends in high-tech manpower threatened the United States’ ability to compete in the global marketplace. While the report itself is quite voluminous, the chairman of the committee, Norman Augustine, has written a shorter version, entitled Is America Falling off the Flat Earth? [available as a free download at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12021.html]. The report concludes that high-quality jobs are necessary for both individual and national prosperity and that advances in science and engineering are needed to create such jobs. A similar conclusion is reached by Thomas L. Friedman in his best-selling book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), in which he says that “mathematics and even to consider engineering. My belief is that young science are the keys to innovation and power in today’s students think engineering takes math (which they dislike), world.” The phrase “fl at Earth” has become a byword that it’s hard, and that it’s not suffi ciently rewarding. for a world in which distance disappears, rendering a The other part of the competitiveness equation lies in worker in one country interchangeable with one in any our nation’s innovation ecology, which has changed in the other. That means engineering work will tend to migrate past generation. U.S. industry continues to provide funding to countries that bother to cultivate engineering. for the incubation and implementation of ideas, but it no If we accept these conclusions, then we must ask how to longer does any signifi cant basic research, having shifted this get more engineers and how to make them more productive burden almost entirely to the universities and the government. and innovative. The fi rst question is one I’ve heard discussed Although a number of studies have shown that society gains endlessly through the years: Why aren’t there more of us substantial returns for investment in research, industry has engineers? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a good answer to this become doubtful that it can capture any of those returns question, and in the United States the statistics are particularly for itself, at least within a period consistent with investors’ discouraging. As Augustine notes, in the past two decades the expectations. As a result, industry now spends three times as numbers of engineers, mathematicians, physical scientists, much on litigation in the United States as it does on research. and geoscientists graduating with bachelor’s degrees have In spite of the almost total dependence on government declined 18 percent. As a proportion of the graduating for funding engineering research, government investment students, the percentage decline is 40 percent. The number in the United States has been relatively stagnant for the of engineering doctorates awarded by U.S. universities past two decades. The principal supporter of university to U.S. citizens dropped by 23 percent in the past decade. research, the National Science Foundation, can fund Meanwhile, in the past two decades U.S. universities have only a small fraction of the proposals it receives. increased their production of lawyers by 20 percent. So we engineers are largely responsible for creating The solution to the dearth of engineers is said to lie in the fl at Earth, and we’re seen as the key to mitigating improving the U.S. elementary education system. Augustine, its bad eff ects and capitalizing on its good ones. But as an IEEE Fellow and former CEO of Lockheed Martin, notes, Augustine says, we in the United States are in danger of “It takes a lot of third graders to produce one engineer.” Yet falling off this fl at Earth. The trends are bad and look to by the time of high school graduation, only 15 percent of be almost irreversible, as the pool of engineers shrinks.

U.S. students have the necessary mathematical background Elsewhere on this ﬂ at Earth, the story is quite diff erent. ❏ MICK WIGGINS

16 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

“Where we’ve excelled is not only in making a very good estimation algorithm but actually making it usable” —Bill Collis, CEO of the Foundry careers

THE FOUNDRY team [left] helped to levitate Trinity [above], a character in the Matrix movies. PHOTOS: LEFT: MICHAEL YADA/A.M.P.A.S.; ABOVE: CORBIS SYGMA

Other motion-estimation packages exist, but they’re generally not as flexible, says the Foundry’s CEO, Bill Collis. “Where we’ve OSCAR- its two faded red couches “It’s really hard to know excelled is not only in WINNING offering the group their only exactly what, since we’ve making a very good respite from the flickering really just had our heads estimation algorithm but SOFTWARE screens. The company has down before then, during actually making it usable,” The folks at the been just too busy to spruce then, and ever since then.” he says. Collis accepted Foundry didn’t need things up. In the past year The Foundry team won the award with Robinson, a pretty face to win it opened a Los Angeles its award for a program senior software engineer an Academy Award sales office, doubled its called Furnace, a six- Ben Kent, and consultant staff, and ramped up year-old package that Anil Kokaram, a lecturer arry Potter is a product development. has seen service in such in electrical engineering Hposeur. His magic Hollywood took notice image-editing-nightmare at Trinity College, Dublin. powers come last year, awarding the assignments as the Lord Furnace subserves courtesy of the Foundry, fi rm a technical Oscar, the of the Rings trilogy, the several dozen functions. One a London-based software Academy of Motion Picture Harry Potter franchise, and tracks particular patterns house whose products Arts and Sciences Scientifi c the various Matrix films. of pixels as they move over enhance visual effects in and Technical Award (for Furnace tracks the a background—say, wires films. When a superhero this year’s winners, see the motion of objects from one suspending a superhero— flies past a backdrop, this 17 January entry in our blog frame to the next during so that editors can change firm’s software probably at http://blogs.______spectrum. postproduction, saving their color or wipe them away. trimmed away the wires ieee.org/tech_talk). Still, time, freeing artists from Another function, called holding him up. any Tinseltown glamour monotonous manual global motion estimation, The development work is checked at the door. work, and helping them to tracks an entire background. is done in a nondescript “Getting an Academy maintain better continuity. If you want to excise a third-floor office in the Award was recognition for The software license sells blurry item, the program center of the city. There, how well we were doing, so for about US $5000, but the will fi nd you the right bit of 37 staffers huddle cheek it has to have had an impact product can pay for itself in background to cut and paste by jowl facing banks of on the marketability of a matter of weeks by cutting over the object. Still another computer monitors, an the company,” says chief up to 40 percent of the labor function, called retiming, adjacent storage room with scientist Simon Robinson. needed in postproduction. enables fi lmmakers to

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 17

extend an image sequence joining forces with Collis, new versions of older ones. program from Digital by inserting artiﬁ cial an electrical engineer who Some are rewriting Keylight, Domain, in Venice, Calif. frames between real ones. suggested ways to combine a program acquired from “For a company of our size, Robinson, a computer motion-estimation and London-based Framestore we devote a huge amount scientist, and Bruno Nicoletti, image-processing algorithms. CFC, so that it can work of manpower and money to a software engineer, formed Kent, an electrical and with new applications while research,” says Robinson. the Foundry in 1996 to tackle information sciences performing its main job of “Luckily, customers don’t special-eff ects plug-ins. Their engineer, arrived in 2000 to manipulating elements from come here, so they don’t goal was compositing—the help translate those ideas footage shot on green or blue know that we’re living in a digital combination of many into a commercial product. screens. The ﬁ rm also has a shoebox. When we do move, images into one. They began Half of the employees are deal to enhance and market the decor will improve.” developing Furnace after developing new products or Nuke, a digital-compositing —Susan Karlin books

ENERGIYA-BURAN: COPYING NASA’S THE SOVIET SPACE SHUTTLE MISTAKES By Bart Hendrickx & Bert Vis; Springer-Praxis, 2007; 526 pp; US $69.95 The Soviet version of the ISBN: 978-0-387-69848-9 U.S. space shuttle was an engineering marvel but a fl y in space. Buran was controlled total waste by four Biser-4 computers running parallel software. The 130 kilobytes n 1988, the Soviet Union achieved of RAM had to be reloaded from tape I its fi rst and only space shuttle fl ight, units as new fl ight phases occurred. with the Buran (“blizzard” in English) The fl ight software’s development space plane. It fl ew two orbits of the problems appear to have closely Earth on autopilot and landed safely paralleled the U.S. experience. on a runway at its launch site, the Buran’s radio links operated Baikonur Cosmodrome, an impressive through line-of-sight VHF and UHF feat. However, its cost helped to bank- bands as well as centi meter waveband, rupt the Soviet space program just before or SHG (super high frequency), which the Soviet Union itself collapsed. Later, is managed by a set of geosynchro- the roof of the spaceship’s hangar fell in, dimensions of the project—the vehicle, nous relay satellites. Launched in the crushing it into scrap metal. its support infrastructure, the training 1980s, the satellites were also used by Now a pair of amateur European of the crew, and the planning of the the Mir space station. Following the space historians have published mission—are an integrated whole. Of collapse of the USSR in 1991, none were the fi rst full account of the proj- particular interest to IEEE Spectrum replaced, and the on-orbit payloads all ect, just in time for analysts in both readers are details never before made ceased operating within a few years. the United States and Russia to available about the spaceship’s power, The authors provide an excellent learn from the aff air as they look to guidance, and communications systems. transition to the post-Buran period, as develop new spacecraft for human The Buran was to carry four fuel Russian space engineers tried, with fl ight. There is a lot for them to cells (code-named Foton), compared little success, to salvage some of the learn: many misjudgments led the with NASA’s three. Like the U.S. shuttle, work done for this project. Symbolic Soviet Union to needlessly duplicate Buran could also carry extension kits of this is the fate of one of the Buran NASA’s shuttle program, which had for enough cryogenics to support test vehicles, which ended up as a itself been poorly thought out. longer missions. But Buran had one riverside restaurant in a Moscow park. The authors did their work big diff erence: it also carried chemical The program’s engineering was extremely well, relying on archives batteries for 24 hours of emergency probably the best in the history of the and interviews, mostly in Russian, power, in case the fuel cells failed. Soviet space program, but because and they have provided a bal- Because the fi rst fl ight lasted only the political and social underpinnings anced, technologically insightful, 3 hours, the fuel cells were not installed, were rotten, the engineering work was and well-illustrated narrative. All and so they never got a chance to tragically wasted. —James Oberg

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tools&toys

version was distributed to camera was pointing for THE GOLDEN TEMPLE, Robotic about 400 people around the each picture, enabling it to Gujarat, India, is stitched from world. The manufacturer, line up the images almost dozens of snaps, totaling Photographers 657 megabytes—enough detail Charmed Labs, in Austin, seamlessly—a big advantage to zoom in on a face in the crowd. The GigaPan takes Texas, expects to sell the over shooting panoramas The shoot was managed by the the tedium out of retail version for US $350. manually. The stitching GigaPan [below]; the even more shooting panoramas Programming is easy. process requires about half laborious quilting job, by the associated software. Four buttons allow you to a minute per picture, so a PHOTOS: TOP: MATT DEANS; BOTTOM: SCOTT TELSTAD/ ou don’t want to look pan and tilt the camera. panorama with a hundred GLOBAL CONNECTION PROJECT Yat the Grand Canyon You set the boundaries of images would take less than put while the GigaPan snaps through a keyhole— the panorama by making an hour to assemble. One away—the lighting may you want it in all its glory, in a the GigaPan point fi rst to with a thousand pictures change, people may move, panoramic view. That means the top left and then to the could take all night. and some objects may get cut taking a lot of overlapping bottom right corners of the You can share the resulting off . But in a way, those quirks photos and stitching them chosen scene. A two-line panoramas on the GigaPan can make the panorama together, one by one. LCD screen leads the user Web site (http://gigapan. more interesting, almost Now there’s a robot that through the process. The org).__ Visitors to the site can like a time-lapse exposure. can do the job for you. Called device then calculates how maneuver around inside The GigaPan is a cool the GigaPan, it’s a small gray many pictures are needed a panorama, zoom in for a toy with a grander purpose: box with a black frame that and asks the user to make closer look, and capture still to give people the means to holds your digital camera in sure the camera has enough frames to highlight interesting document the world around place on top of a tripod. Once memory to store them. After parts of the shot. Google them and put it online programmed, it automatically checking a few more camera Earth 4.2 also has a layer that for anyone to explore. captures hundreds of settings, the GigaPan moves features selected panoramas. —Corinna Wu photos that software over to the left and begins The camera is the later splices into a high- snapping away, using a lever only limiting factor. resolution, gigapixel image. to push the camera’s button. The more it can Chalk it up as one of the The robot takes the zoom in on a target, space program’s few genuine photos in an orderly grid, the more detail it spin-off s, the product of column by column. A really can capture in each NASA’s work on visualization big panorama—say, a shot. The current and image analysis for Mars 360-degree view of Paris GigaPan can’t hold missions. The commercial photographed from the top heavier single-lens developer is the Global of the Eiff el Tower—can take refl ex cameras, Connection Project, led by more than an hour to shoot. only the consumer- Carnegie Mellon University Later, your computer runs level, point-and- and the NASA Ames custom software developed shoot cameras that Intelligent Robotics Group, for the GigaPan to piece the most people have. with fi nancial support from images together. The software Of course, the Google. This past fall, a beta knows precisely where the world won’t stay

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The trade secret is encumbered with a lot of conventional wisdom that happens to be dead wrong invention

SOFTWARE way to perform the function. PATENTS 101 The “and improvements To protect your thereof” allowance in intellectual property, patent land would protect your refi nement. choose the best Next on the list of IP tool for each stage weapons is the trade secret, in its creation which is encumbered with a lot of conventional wisdom he four pillars of that happens to be dead Tintellectual property— wrong. Trade secrets do not patents, copyright, off er free protection, they trademarks, and trade do not provide a fallback secrets—all play roles in position, and they include protecting software. No several severe restrictions. wonder this is one of the They cannot protect function most slippery subjects for if it is publicly known—that an engineer’s lawyer. cut-and-paste function, for Luckily, the courts have instance, is not only not a established a framework that trade secret, it’s an advertised matches the way the real feature. Trade secrets can, world works (up to a point). however, protect design The framework begins by or code, provided that you considering three milestones It is in moving among one. The code doesn’t have take active (and sometimes in software development: these three levels that the to be inventive, new, or expensive) steps to invoke function, design, and code. disparity between patents and unobvious; technically, it a company-wide program At the highest level copyright becomes clearest. doesn’t even have to work. that will hold up in court. of abstraction stand the By law, copyright can never So in spite of the limits, The fi nal weapon is functions that software protect functionality. And, you are well advised to trademark, which has little performs. These functions there is a great uncertainty register a copyright for all to do with function, design, are often specifi ed formally. concerning even how much of important software code. or code but protects only the For the fi rst word-processing the software design copyright Patents, in sharp contrast, commercial name of the pro- program to include a cut- can reach. Older court cases are designed to protect gram. “Windows” is a trade- and-paste function, the touting ideas like the “look functionality, usually not mark; so are the names of the spec might have read: “The and feel” of a software by covering specifi c lines of software products advertised program shall allow a user interface and the protection code but rather by covering a in this magazine. Trademark to highlight a section of of “selection and arrangement” software “engine” that takes registrations are only text and move or copy that constituted attempts to certain inputs, manipulates moderately expensive and section of text elsewhere.” protect software design. them, and provides certain can be obtained fairly easily. Design refers to the plan Those cases have now mostly outputs. The bad news is The function, design, and by which the software will been discredited. Even the that patents are expensive, code demarcation should be carry out the functions— notion of copyright protection and you have to prove that kept in mind as we continue which in patent applications for the code is limited, because the functionality you want to to debate any meaningful IP often appears as a fl ow chart it doesn’t apply to code taken protect is new and unobvious. reform. Meanwhile, for any showing how the various from the public domain Patents can also protect important software product, subroutines, modules, or mandated by hardware software design. An example: the general consensus is that and algorithms interact. or software constraints. suppose someone else has all species of intellectual Finally, there is the The good news about a already invented the cut-and- property should be explored code—the instructions that copyright, though, is that paste function, but you have and their various levels carry out the functions it’s relatively simple and designed a faster or more of protection exploited.

according to the design. inexpensive to register intuitively comprehensible —Kirk Teska MABLY GREG

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FLY, ROBOT FLY Whether as rescue robot or flying spy, this micro-aerial vehicle could change how we look at the common housefly By Robert Wood

MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 21

ANATOMY OF A ROBOTIC FLY Airframe Actuator To be able to generate enough thrust to lift off the ground, the robotic ﬂ y’s body has to be extremely lightweight and its wings unusually strong. Still to come are a power source, sensors, and a microchip to

control ﬂ ight. PHOTO: DAN SAELINGER

Wing hinge

Transmission Airfoil

here is no more rewarding moment for robot- way through rubble-strewn passageways. They must icists than when they fi rst see their creations do so on their own because our most sophisticated begin to twitch with a glimmer of life. For me, rescue robots falter and often fail when they encoun- Tthat moment of paternal pride came a year ago ter even mild clutter. this month, when my artifi cial fl y fi rst fl exed We envision a very diff erent approach, in which its wings and fl ew. emergency personnel disperse thousands of paper clip– It began when I took a stick-thin winged robot, size fl ying robots throughout a disaster zone. The tiny not much larger than a fingertip, and anchored it machines would detect signs of life, perhaps by sniff - between two taut wires, rather like a miniature space ing the carbon dioxide of survivors’ breath or detecting shuttle tethered to a launchpad. Next I switched on the warmth of their bodies. Though some fl ies might the external power supply. Within milli seconds the smash into windows or get stuck in corners, others carbon-fi ber wings, 15 millimeters long, began to whip would slip through cracks and under fallen cross- forward and back 120 times per second, fl apping and beams. Perhaps only three members of the swarm twisting just like an actual insect’s wings. The fl y shot make their way to the survivors, where they perch straight upward on the track laid out by the wires and expend their remaining energy broadcasting their [see photo, “Winged Victory”]. As far as I know, this fi ndings to rescue workers. They may have onboard was the fi rst fl ight of an insect-size robot. radio-frequency transmitters to communicate short, The experiment was the culmination of nearly a low-bandwidth chirps, to be picked up by receivers decade of work that began in the laboratory of my installed around the perimeter of the site. Even if then-advisor, Ronald S. Fearing, a professor of elec- 99 percent of the robots are lost, the search mission trical engineering at the University of California, would still be a success. Berkeley, and later migrated to my lab at Harvard. Designing a robotic insect is more complicated than The little fl ying robot, we hope, will herald a new era simply shrinking a model airplane, however, because of practical small-scale robot design. the aero dynamics that govern fl ight are entirely dif- The insectlike robots that my colleagues and I at ferent on the scale of insects. The basics of insect- the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory are creating fl ight aerodynamics in diff erent patterns of airfl ow are intended to perform rescue and reconnaissance fi rst became clear in 1999, when Michael Dickinson, operations with equal ease. Once they can be fi tted a biologist then at Berkeley and now at Caltech, built with onboard sensors, fl ight controls, and batteries, a 25-centimeter replica of a fl y’s wing and simulated they will be freed from their tethers to the lab bench the viscosity of air on a small scale by submerging the to nimbly fl it around obstacles and into places beyond wing in a vat of mineral oil. It turns out that insects human reach. use three diff erent wing motions to create and control For example, when a severe earthquake breaks the air vortices needed to generate lift. the crust of the Earth and collapses buildings, rescue Using the results from Dickinson’s models, I workers must frantically search for survivors while and others in Fearing’s lab set out to replicate the

breathing air full of toxic particles and making their insect’s incredible wing motions. Part of the chal- SAELINGER DAN PREVIOUS PAGE:

22 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

lenge is that many systems contribute to the fl ight of a fl y, including eyes specially attuned to perceiving motion and powerful muscles that drive the wings to generate unsteady aerodynamic forces, on which the fl y’s maneuverability depends. Most insects control their wings by adjusting the amplitude of their wing strokes, the angle of attack, and the tilt of their strokes through tiny muscles in the thorax. Flies even have special sensory organs, called halteres, that sense body rotations during fl ight. These features are all key to fl ies’ remarkable ability to hover, fl y upside down, and land on walls and ceilings.

he main motivation for creating mobile robots is Tthat they can go where humans cannot—to exposed points on a battle fi eld, for instance. Today, mainly the military can use such robots, because they cost on the order of US $100 000 each. To bring robots within aero dynamic forces that can change magnitude dras- TINY FLY: the reach of law-enforcement and emergency-rescue ser- tically in a fraction of a second. Traditional aircraft Each prototype has a wingspan vices requires a totally new approach. We placed a great wings, by contrast, are subject to fairly steady fl uid of 3 centimeters deal of importance on our choice of materials, which fl ow. Because of this diff erence, the analytical tools and weighs ultimately had to be cheap and fairly easy to work with. that are used to predict the performance of an air- 60 milligrams, Durability was less important, because we envisioned a plane are of little use in predicting the fl ight dynam- not including robot that could be replaced for less than $10. ics of an insect, making our job more diffi cult. a battery and sensors. For We focused on the two-winged insects of the order Over hundreds of iterations, our robotic fl y has now, the fl y Diptera, which includes housefl ies, hoverfl ies, and followed its own evolutionary path to more and more is connected fruit fl ies. Flies are the most able fl yers on the planet, closely resemble the shape of a real fl y. We borrowed to an external they’re small, and they are naturally robust enough two basic principles from biology —the ratio of the power source.

to survive collisions. wing area to the body mass and the wingbeat fre- PHOTO: RANDI SILBERMAN Flies achieve their astonishing maneuverability quency. Still, we need not copy nature slavishly by by moving their wings through complex, three- putting up with limitations on invertebrate biology dimensional trajectories at frequencies that often that electromechanical devices do not share. Take, exceed 100 hertz. The upstroke and downstroke for instance, the elastic and structural properties of patterns are almost symmetrical when flies hover the insect thorax and wings. These body parts are but highly asymmetrical when they move forward made of chitin, a common poly saccharide, which or maneuver. Flies generate those large- amplitude, though tough is nonetheless substantially weaker high-frequency wing strokes by using indirect fl ight than carbon fi ber. muscles, so called because they deform a portion of Our fly has all the same primary mechanical the thorax rather than the wings themselves, induc- flight components of an actual fly: an airframe ing mechanical resonance in the fl y’s body. Smaller (exoskeleton), actuators (flight muscles), a trans- muscles connect directly to the wing hinge to mission (thorax), and airfoils (wings) [see dia- fi ne-tune the wing’s movements. gram, “Anatomy of a Robotic Fly”]. The function Because of the small scale, the airfl ow around a of each is simple. The airframe must provide a fl y is much more viscous than that around birds or solid mechanical ground for the actuators and fi xed-wing aircraft. For insects, fl ight is somewhat trans mission. The actuators power the thorax at like treading water. A fly’s wing motions generate mechanical resonance. The transmission maps actuator movements to the desired wing motions. Finally, the airfoils must remain sufficiently rigid WINGED VICTORY: The robot’s maiden fl ight last March to maintain their shape in a number of radically was a landmark in microrobotic research. As shown below, guide rails constrain the robot to fl y only upward for now. different aerodynamic conditions. PHOTO: ROBERT WOOD Our design takes due note of the physics of the

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TWIST AND FLAP: To insects, flying is a lot like treading water. Flies have layers of an electroactive material, which changes evolved complex mechanisms to regulate their flight, including performing its shape when an electric field is applied. Designing intricate flapping and twisting wing movements, which the robotic fly does 120 times a second. A clamp holds the robot in place to keep it from escaping these actuators to be as small and light as possible,

the camera’s lens. PHOTOS: ROBERT WOOD while keeping them strong enough to deliver suf- ficient power, was our first key accomplishment. The power density of our robot’s actuators comes minuscule. As the parts of a robotic device shrink, to more than 400 watts per kilogram, some four surface forces begin to dominate the dynamics of times that of an ordinary fly’s wing muscles. Our motion. Bearings become less efficient because a second breakthrough came when we successfully decrease in size means an increase in the surface-area- converted the actuator movements to bio mimetic to-volume ratio and thus in friction. However, just wing motions, using a four-bar linkage. Only after because we designed the robot didn’t mean we knew we made the transmission did we discover, to our how to make it, and mechanical components with great satisfaction, that its mechanism is remark- features of one micrometer are well below the reso- ably similar to a dipteran fly’s thorax driving its lution of standard manufacturing techniques. Nor wing movements. could we turn to processes employing microelectro- Our latest version weighs 60 milligrams, about mechanical systems, or MEMS, which use materials the same as certain dipteran fl ies, and can generate that are too fragile for the forces a robotic fl y must nearly twice its weight in thrust. That’s almost on par withstand. What is more, it takes a lot of time to turn with a real fl y, which typically can attain lift forces out a proto type with MEMS, and our design strategy three to fi ve times its weight. Our immediate goal is entails building a lot of prototypes. to get the fl y to hover, which is key for maneuvering in constricted environments. A hovering vehicle can turn itself in place and does not require forward OVER HUNDREDS OF motion to remain aloft. ITERATIONS, OUR ROBOTIC To achieve stable, untethered fl ight, we will need FLY HAS FOLLOWED ITS OWN to miniaturize and install three more things: sensors, controls, and a power source. A number of lab- EVOLUTIONARY PATH TO oratories and companies are developing a promising MORE CLOSELY RESEMBLE suite of sensors, inspired by biological sensory sys- THE SHAPE OF A REAL FLY tems, to enable the robot to stabilize its own fl ight and to control simple behaviors. My former advisor Ron Fearing’s work at the Biomimetic Millisystems My approach has been to develop a process based Lab, at Berkeley, has demonstrated bio-inspired instead on laser micromachining and thin materials, gyroscopes and sensors capable of detecting the usually carbon-fiber-reinforced composites, lami- horizon. Centeye, in Washington, D.C., has built nated to have precisely tailored stiff ness and com- vision sensors weighing less than a gram to help pliance. Using these fairly simple techniques, we can fl ying robots navigate. make a fl y prototype in less than a week. Control remains a challenge. A real fl y can make To build a joint, we make gaps in two thin, rigid rapid turns, called saccades, because it has a specialized sheets of carbon fi ber. We sandwich between them a neural system that allows for speedy responses. In a thin-fi lm polymer, which can bend repeatedly with- fl y, neural impulses from internal feedback sensors out losing its ability to flex. Four such joints, con- directly modulate the fl ight muscles—without process- nected in series by flat, rigid carbon-fiber links of ing from the central nervous system—to counter dis- various lengths, make a microscale transmission. turbances. We are studying practical ways to emulate With a proper choice of link lengths, the transmis- this system by using inputs from a number of attitude sion can amplify the small angular motions of one sensors that fi gure out the orientation of the fl y and link into larger movements of the opposite link. directly manipulate the actuators. To make actuators that mimic real flight muscles, Then there’s the question of getting a power source we add to the carbon-fiber-based composite a few onto the fly. A battery small enough to fit aboard

24 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

a robotic fly will have a much higher surface-area- tually be used as tools to study such insect behav- to- volume ratio than its macroscale counterpart, so iors; what we learn could then help us to design a greater percentage of its mass will be the packag- algorithms to enable swarms of simple robots to ing. We expect that scaled-down versions of today’s accomplish complex tasks. best lithium-polymer batteries will weigh about Even with basic control algorithms, however, 50 mg, accounting for half the fl y’s weight, and will we expect microrobots to be able to perform use- provide 5 to 10 minutes of fl ight. For more fl ight time ful roles as ad hoc mobile sensor networks. Search- we will have to increase the battery’s energy den- and- rescue operations, hazardous environment sity, make the propulsion more effi cient, or develop exploration and monitoring, planetary exploration, energy - harvesting techniques, perhaps by mounting and building inspections are just a few of the poten- tiny solar panels on the insect’s back or converting the tial applications for highly agile, insect-scale rescue fl y’s vibrations into electric current. robots. Smart sensors on wings are not a distant We’re now turning our attention to the robot’s dream: we predict that a fully autonomous robotic low-power, decentralized control algorithms. Again, insect will be flying in laboratory conditions within we begin with nature. Social insects use simple local five years. Five years beyond that, we could begin rules and minimal direct communication, yet they seeing these devices in our daily lives. ❏ achieve tasks of astounding complexity. For example, termites can produce a structure millions of times TO PROBE FURTHER For a video of Robert Wood’s their own size, even though no one termite has a microrobotic fl y and more on robotic-insect research, see blueprint for it. We believe that our robots can even- http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/morefl y.

NEXT-GEN UFOS? Insectlike robots have reached new milestones on the path to full autonomy, and the public has become more aware of them, as well. This past October, protestors in Washington, D.C., claimed they saw strange-looking, larger-than-life dragonflies hovering above the crowd. Were they actually flying robots? Probably not. But the mystery of their sightings hasn’t been resolved, and it has spooked the public enough to raise concerns about new frontiers in domestic spying. Indeed, a robotic insect would make the perfect spy, but there are other, benevolent uses. Swarms of small, agile robots could be great for all kinds of exploration, such as investigating other planets, penetrating hazardous environments, and monitoring traffic. What’s more, they would make great toys! —R.W. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: CARLYE D. LA POINTE/U.S. AIR FORCE; TIM MCCAIG; NASA

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THESE DAYS, our world increasingly Change, however, is about to in Cambridge, Mass., advising bat- Lampe-Onnerud runs on lithium-ion batter- come. And it’s going to come from a tery companies, doing market fore- is working 80-hour weeks, ies. Chances are good that pretty surprising agent: a 40-year- casts, and troubleshooting techni- meeting with Yyour phone, laptop, camera, old jazz singer, soccer mom, and cal and manufacturing problems. potential portable music and video research chemist named Christina She gave lots of speeches at con- customers players, radios, and game consoles Lampe-Onnerud. ferences, most of them saying the and investors, keep going only as long as there Since 2005, Lampe-Onnerud same thing: as lithium-ion makers overseeing the manufacturing are lithium ions churning around has quietly redesigned the lithium- squeezed more and more energy ramp-up in China, inside them. Lithium-ion batteries ion battery used in today’s laptop out of their batteries, they were and working with are getting into your power tools. computers. She started a com- also going to get squeezed on cost. members of Soon they’ll even be in your car. pany called Boston-Power, in Put those two trends together, she the company’s executive team So it’s a shame that after nearly Westborough, Mass., to build the told battery makers, and bad things around the world. four decades of intensive develop- novel batteries, collected nearly might happen. None of the manu- On a typical day, ment, lithium-ion batteries still US $70 million in investment, set up facturers became overly alarmed. she’s up at 5 a.m. leave plenty to be desired. They manufacturing lines in China and Then, in 2002 and 2003, battery to check in with fade fast—although their energy Taiwan that have so far cranked manufacturers indeed started hav- Boston-Power’s team in China; at capacity starts out higher than out tens of thousands of units, and ing problems with unpredictable 7 a.m. she reads that of any other kind of mass- expects to see her batteries in prod- failures—none of which, at this her e-mail, and market battery, it can drop more ucts shipping from major laptop stage, involved fl aming consumer then from 7:15 to than 25 percent per year in typical manufacturers later this year. And goods. Manufacturers addressed 8:30 she’s feeding the kids breakfast applications. And then there are the as if that’s not enough, she’s man- the failures, “but the solutions and getting them persistent reports of fl ameouts: just aged to get her batteries certified were always just patches,” she ready for school. this January, journalists gathered to carry the Swan label, indicating says. By 2004, Lampe-Onnerud From 9 a.m. to at a Korean hospital witnessed a they are environmentally friendly was tired of helping the industry midafternoon colleague’s laptop burst into fl ames. under the Nordic ecolabel program, slap on Band-Aids: “I wanted to it’s meeting after meeting. She and Remember the iPod that burned up the fi rst lithium-ion batteries ever to take a step back and think about Rick Chamberlain, in a man’s back pocket, or the Dell receive such a designation. the whole battery as one system.” Boston-Power’s laptop that went up in fl ames at a And she couldn’t do that within vice president conference in Japan? Their former ampe-Onnerud had her Arthur D. Little. of engineering, owners sure do. career-altering moment in 1999, So on Halloween 2004, she discuss a new L customer This is an industry ready for at the 40th Battery Symposium, cleaned out her office at Arthur at 10 a. m. change but not necessarily expect- in Kyoto. She ruffl ed a few feathers D. Little, said good-bye to her col- [above, left]. ing it, let alone striving for it. The there by pointing out in a talk that leagues, and went trick-or- treating big companies that domi nate the energy density of lithium-ion with her kids. The next day Lampe- lithium-ion production—Sony, batteries used for laptop computers, Onnerud dropped her children off Panasonic, Sanyo, Samsung, at 40 watt-hours per kilogram, was at preschool and then walked up and LG—are all selling batteries already getting uncomfortably close the stairs to her study, where she not much diff erent from the ones to that of your basic hand grenade. opened her laptop, took a deep they sold fi ve years ago. Only the That density, the amount of energy breath, and began to think about initial capacity of batteries has stored in a certain mass, had been lithium-ion batteries in a way no been increasing, at about 5 percent going up like a rocket as manufac- one else ever had before. a year. Today they are commodity turers competed fi ercely for a grow- Lots of people find their life’s products, manufactured in huge ing market. calling only after circuitous ado- quantities and sold at vanishingly At the time she was a partner lescent self-discovery. But not slim profi t margins. at consulting fi rm Arthur D. Little, many engineers find their way

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after rejecting opera singing and rization, while chemistry was lit- Lampe-Onnerud worked part- AROUND NOON, medicine. Christina Lampe grew erally the stuff of the world. With time for an MIT spin-off , Quantum Lampe-Onnerud meets with up enchanted with opera in her chemistry, “you had to see beyond Energy Technologies, where she senior scientist native Sweden. But her father, what the science was,” she says, concentrated on batteries and dis- Yanning Song Wolfgang Lampe, a power engi- and understand what the science plays, before moving in 1997 to to discuss test neer who was named an IEEE could make happen. Bell Communications Research results [opposite Fellow for his innovations in high- It came easily enough to her. (Bellcore), in Red Bank, N.J., as page, center], and then at 1:45 power transmission, encouraged Lampe began graduate studies at director of energy storage. The with members of her to make performing arts a Uppsala, focusing on copper depo- Bellcore gig was fun but short-lived. the company’s sideline and pursue a more tradi- sition on semiconductor wafers Executives at Arthur D. Little, the electronics group tional career in math or science. for her master’s work and analyz- management-consulting fi rm, had [opposite page, right]. At 2:15 she She did find science fun as a ing cathode materials for lithium- begun wooing Lampe-Onnerud gets an update child, playing with electronics and polymer batteries for her Ph.D. the day she left Massachusetts for on the production chemistry kits. By the time she was While completing her degree, she Bellcore. They called at least once scale-up from 12, she was concocting fi reworks in collaborated with a battery com- a month. They sent gift baskets. Phil Partin, a basement bathtub, slapping out pany called Danionics, in Odense, And finally they offered to hire associate director of product stray sparks with damp towels. In Denmark. Danionics patented the her with her husband and assign development high school she applied to and was synthesis of some of the vana- them to work together, something [above, left], accepted by a prestigious eight-year dium-oxide cathode materials she Bellcore wouldn’t do. then checks program in Sweden that would end worked on for her Ph.D. She left New Jersey in 1998 out testing in progress [above, with a medical doctorate. But dur- On the day Lampe was due to to become a partner at Arthur center]. On most ing her senior year of high school, defend her Ph.D. thesis, she pub- D. Little and stayed for six years, days she then in 1985, with memories of a recent licized the event; she was giving a working with companies, indus- rushes home to fun-fi lled summer in Oregon fresh live interview to a radio journal- try groups, and governments to greet her children in her mind, she instead accepted ist as she entered the room. “The help them understand the battery returning from school. From 3 a scholarship from a Swedish- thing that separates Christina market, defend battery patents, to 7:30 it’s family American association to go to col- from others is her ambition,” says and set energy policy. She contin- time, which lege in the United States. She spent Josh Thomas, the professor who ued her cathode research, now to involves music a year at Elmira College in New supervised her Ph.D. work. advance technology for Arthur D. [above, right] and play with children York, taking double the normal She could hardly have timed Little clients; companies credited Anna-Maria and course load and studying English her thesis better. When she got her her on several patents. Mattias [next literature, business, and various Ph.D. in 1995, commercial lithium- And then, as summer turned page, left]. sciences and working for one of the ion batteries were still fairly novel. to autumn in 2004, she realized chemistry professors as a lab assis- Lampe quickly became known as she was weary of having to think tant. In the spring, the students a lithium-ion cathode expert. Not about batteries in the ways her cli- voted Lampe “Miss Elmira.” that she fi xated completely on bat- ents wanted her to. She had two She went back to Sweden to teries: she also worked for the town children, aged 1 and 4, but she also finish her education at Uppsala of Uppsala, leading its 120-singer had child care. The family could University, but by this time she’d chorus, and married her high live on her husband’s income. She turned away from medicine for school sweetheart, Per Onnerud, even had an unrenovated carriage good. An Elmira chemistry pro- who was studying chemistry and house on her Framingham, Mass., fessor, Pierre-Ives Bouthyette, had math and playing jazz trumpet in property, which could be company convinced her that chemistry was a local band. headquarters. For a while. far more interesting than anat- After graduation, the two went For those last two months of omy. Anatomy was simply memo- to MIT as postdoctoral researchers. 2004, Lampe-Onnerud spent most

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PER ONNERUD, of her time in her study, fi guring change make a diff erence? It could. life; she also changed the chemi- Lampe-Onnerud’s out what her newborn company In the parallel laptop battery, cur- cal composition of the cathode husband, often puts the children should do. “You get an innovation rent is supposed to fl ow through the from pure cobalt to a cobalt-based to bed while euphoria going,” she says, and “you parallel paths at exactly the same rate. mixture; understandably, she she works in her barely need sleep.” Her husband But slight temperature diff erences or won’t give out the ingredients of home offi ce; here dealt with the children as much as tiny chemical imbalances between her secret sauce. Jim McDowall, [above, center] possible. Friends and neighbors the two paths force more current into business development manager she meets with him to prepare dropped off meals for the fam- one of them. Over time, the current at Saft Batteries and former chair for late-night ily. She drafted spreadsheets, one imbalance between the cells can go to of IEEE’s Stationary Battery conference calls sorting out technical issues in the an extreme that forces bits of lithium Committee, hypothesizes that with factories in battery industry, another looking metal to adhere to the anode. When she selected nickel-manganese- China and Taiwan. At 11 p.m. she’s at fi nancial opportunities. this happens, the battery is able to cobalt, a material that poten- back in her home She considered developing a store less energy than it is designed tially fades more slowly than offi ce [above, battery for active RFID. She con- to store, meaning a shorter computer pure cobalt. right]; this is when sidered implantable batteries for run time per charge. And because Lampe-Onnerud also spent some she can wrestle medical devices. She even thought lithium metal is highly reactive, those time optimizing safety systems and with scientifi c questions or think about batteries for hybrid cars, but scattered bits of metal can fuel a fi re if control circuitry. McDowall says strategically about she kept coming back to the lap- a short crops up and suddenly raises safety improvements typically her company. top market as the most interesting the temperature of the system. come at the expense of energy den- She gets to niche. She reviewed cases in which Wiring three cells in a series sity, but the extra 14 percent of vol- bed around 1 a.m. most laptop batteries had problems, and essentially eliminates that problem ume she picked up in the rectangu- nights. Thursday she found something interesting: [see diagram, “A Not-So-Simple lar design may indeed make up for evenings, what all those incidents had in com- Remodel”]. With only one path for any capacity loss. however, are mon was that people were jamming the current to travel, it’s easier to The Sonata can recharge faster diff erent. Lampe- too much energy into a confined control the fl ow of current, reduc- than traditional batteries, reach- Onnerud sings with and directs space. A laptop’s battery slot deter- ing the chance that lithium metal ing 80 percent of its capacity in the Stardust mines the boundaries of that space will be deposited, which would 30 minutes—because, Lampe- Show Chorus, but not the divisions within it. So compromise the storage capability. Onnerud says, the finely tuned a 20-member Lampe-Onnerud reorganized the Lampe-Onnerud’s batteries design means that more of the women’s jazz chorus. Thursday space within. And just as a simple don’t dramatically lose power in current entering the battery goes is rehearsal night. kitchen remodel can make a fami- their first six months or so and to charging it instead of heating ly’s life more effi cient, the reorgani- thus won’t need to be replaced as the table on which it sits. zation made all the diff erence. The quickly; they are designed to oper- And that is basically it. “I sim- solution, she says, looks simple now. ate at a minimum of 80 percent plifi ed the system and optimized At the time it was anything but. capacity for three years, the life of it,” she concludes. a typical laptop computer. After Michael Feinstein, who led raditional laptop batteries three years of regular use, a tra- Venrock Associates’ investment Tconsist of six cylindrical cells, ditional lithium-ion computer in the company (the size of the arranged as pairs wired in par- battery essentially has no capac- first round of investment is not allel, with three sets of parallel cells ity left; after a year of typical use, public), said that none of the design wired in series. Lampe-Onnerud users will fi nd that a battery that changes Lampe-Onnerud made sketched out a design with three once had a 4-hour capacity now were individually revolutionary. rectangular cells instead, each fi lling has a 2-hour one. But sometimes a group of evolu- the space of two cylindrical cells, all The change in form factor is tionary changes are better than wired in a series. Could such a simple only one reason for this longer one dramatic innovation.

30 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG______

“I’ve seen a lot of battery fi gured that by doing it herself, she tion out, immediately. She moved start-ups that do exotic things. could commercialize it faster. And into a nearby business park. She And to commercialize them takes a she thought it would be fun. Really. began fi ling for patents—15 are in brand-new factory, a huge amount Waiting in lift lines, she began call- the works so far. of capital. Christina made a whole ing friends in China, trying to line That month she also spoke series of incremental changes up a factory that would let her set with former Venrock partner involving the chemistry, the phys- up a pilot production facility. Feinstein. “She talked about the ical design, and the safety mecha- In January, she offi cially incor- safety features of her design,” nisms. When you add them all up, porated Boston-Power, with he recalls, “that if these batter- they make a big diff erence in per- money from two angel inves- ies failed they would just die, not formance and safety,” Feinstein tors. One was Anders Barsk, a explode. My reaction was, ‘That’s says. And, Feinstein points out, Swedish investor; the other’s nice, but you’d better have some- she was careful not to go so far identity is not public. She went thing else that diff erentiates you.’ A NOT-SO- that manufacturing would require to China, talked to manufactur- She also told me then that safety SIMPLE REMODEL: a major modification of existing ers, and signed a deal with Future issues were going to start causing Reorganizing production lines or that the battery Power, near Shanghai. By May problems for the industry, and my the traditional wouldn’t easily pass qualifi cation 2005, the samples coming off the reaction was, ‘Sony and Sanyo and lithium-ion tests by potential customers. line met U.S. standards for safety the rest are going to build products laptop battery Scott Chou, who led the first and Underwriters’ Laboratory that break? I don’t think so.’ ” pack for Boston-Battery’s investment round for Gabriel requirements. She built a labora- But they did. In June 2006, the Sonata into three Venture Partners, said he’d tory in her carriage house to test famous Dell laptop had a fl ameout rectangular cells been looking for a start-up doing the samples and hired Yanning during a conference in Osaka. Then connected in batteries for several years when he Song, a recent Cornell engineer- came reports of other battery fi res. a single series [bottom] instead heard about Boston-Power. He’d ing graduate, to work there. That Sony, the manufacturer of the fl am- of six cylindrical already rejected battery-technology lasted until September, when the ing Dell battery, recalled 10 million cells connected proposals that increased energy company that insured her home units that summer, and other bat- as parallel density but sacrificed longevity, realized that “a little testing in tery recalls followed. And venture pairs [top] changed the form factor and there- her barn” actually meant reac- capitalists who had already been made it easier to control the fore would have a tough time get- tive chemicals, heavy machinery, interested in Lampe-Onnerud’s fl ow of current, ting industry acceptance, or seemed and hundreds of batteries and little company were practically preventing to have safety issues. He passed on told her to get the battery opera- pounding at her door. problems that one battery that would vent sul- can reduce battery life. The fur dioxide gas when it failed. And redesign also then came Lampe-Onnerud. added 14 percent “Christina offered safety first,” more volume Chou said. “Things were not too [light blue] for radically different, which meant energy storage. ILLUSTRATION: BRYAN that the product was safe and relia- CHRISTIE DESIGN ble and had a fast time to market. But they were radically improved.”

t this point, a typical inven- Ator might have taken this new Traditional design, built some prototypes, laptop and tried to license the design to battery pack—cylindrical established battery manufacturers. As the winter of 2004 arrived, cells Lampe-Onnerud was thinking she might do that. But the Christmas holidays were approaching, and for Unused volume Lampe-Onnerud, that meant family time. She and her family went to New Hampshire to ski. Even on the slopes, she didn’t stop thinking about her design. Riding in a chairlift, she announced Sonata laptop to her husband, “I have decided to battery try to be part of the manufacturing pack—rectangular process.” It would be easier for her to license the design, she reasoned, cells after proving that the battery was builda ble and popular. She also

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 31

IN TYPICAL USE, A YEAR-OLD SONATA BATTERY PACK CAN POWER A LAPTOP FOR 4 HOURS, COMPARED WITH ABOUT 2 HOURS FOR A YEAR-OLD TRADITIONAL BATTERY

She took money from Venrock ever someone does something for explained. These days, savvy com- CHRISTINA Associates, Gabriel Venture them. Handwritten thank-you mercial customers attempt to return LAMPE- Partners, and Granite Global notes. Even to reporters. laptop batteries for replacements ONNERUD (IEEE Member) Ventures as her first investors; just before the warranty expires. more investment firms contrib- o far, tens of thousands HP tests the returned units to verify TITLE: Chief uted later for a total to date of of Sonatas have rolled off that the batteries have truly failed executive offi cer, S Boston-Power $68 million. Boston-Power’s fi rst produc- to perform as expected; if a cus- Once she got her new company tion line in Shenzhen, China; the tomer uses the laptop extensively GOAL: To cram funded, her husband left Arthur D. company is in the process of bring- on battery power, it could indeed as much power as possible into Little. The plan was for him to care ing up a second line in Taiwan. fail before a year, in which case HP a battery without for the children and the household Meanwhile, additional laptop- pays for the replacement. Because blowing it up while she focused on her business. battery recalls, like the Apple recall of the slim margins in today’s “That lasted fi ve months,” Lampe- late in 2006, and an industry-wide computer industry, such returns BIRTHPLACE: Ludvika, Sweden Onnerud recalls. She then told battery shortage exacerbated by a cannibalize profits. With a long- him that if he really wanted to help fi re in Panasonic’s Osaka factory in lasting battery, Wozniak said, HP EDUCATION: her, he should contribute his tech- September 2007, mean that Boston- would be able to off er an extended B.Sc. Chemistry, 1990; Ph.D. nical talents. Now he’s chief tech- Power’s entrance into the market this warranty that includes the battery; Inorganic nical offi cer of the company. year couldn’t be at a better time. today’s extended warranties don’t. Chemistry, Lampe-Onnerud expects at Wozniak also said that in the 1995, both oday Boston-Power has least three major laptop manufac- future, the Sonata battery’s abil- from Uppsala University, T40 employees, many of turers to begin shipping units this ity to fast-charge—that is, get to Sweden whom have had a decade or coming year with Sonata batter- 80 percent in half an hour—could more of experience at places like ies installed. And Boston-Power is also be a plus for the laptop man- FIRST JOB: Chorus director Duracell, Eveready, Dell, and negotiating with companies that ufacturer, but it would take a new IBM’s ThinkPad division. Boston- sell replacement batteries directly to generation of computers with 15 PATENTS: Power is no Facebook, staffed by consumers. (Volume prices to man- design tweaks to take advantage COMPUTER: 20-somethings and their dogs; ufacturers have not been made pub- of that feature. HP laptop these are people with gray hair lic but are reportedly on par with Sonata also passed HP’s safety CAR: Volkswagen and long track records. They don’t today’s premium batteries sold to tests, Wozniak said, but “safety Passat play foosball all day and pull all- business customers.) In typical use, isn’t something we can sell; it is nighters. It’s the kind of com- a year-old Sonata battery pack can expected as a given.” AFTER HOURS: Directs, sings, pany where people know their power a laptop for 4 hours, com- If HP does order Boston- and records with jobs inside and out, they do them pared with about 2 hours for a year- Power’s batteries, purchasers of the Stardust quietly, and then they go home to old traditional battery. HP laptops this year may not know Show Chorus, their families for dinner. that they are among the fi rst to get a 20-woman ow good a cappella group; But it’s no sleepy little tech are the batteries? Sonata batteries. “We’ll do a blind dances classical shop, either. The corporate cul- John Wozniak, Distinguished launch,” Wozniak says. “The cus- ballet and H ture reflects Lampe-Onnerud’s Technologist at Hewlett- tomer won’t know what battery choreographs vibrant personality and love of Packard, has been overseeing is in the product.” The company music. She selected Sonata as the testing of sample batteries, run- will then be able to calculate from name for Boston-Power’s first ning them through charge and data on product returns whether battery—which is bright blue, by discharge cycles at diff erent tem- the Sonata is lasting longer than the way, because that’s her favor- peratures and under various con- its competitors. ite color. The conference rooms at ditions. HP requires that all batter- Lampe-Onnerud dreams that the company are labeled Harmony ies it ships with laptops retain at Boston-Power will soon emerge and Symphony; she plans to least 80 percent capacity after 300 as one of the world’s leading bat- name the company’s next bat- cycles; Sonata batteries met that tery manufacturers and that the tery Salsa. Employees are a lit- mark. Most traditional batteries choices she made to make her prod- tle more dressed up than those can’t go much past it, but Boston- uct environmentally friendly, and at typical start-ups; jeans and Power claims that Sonatas can go to emphasize safety and longevity T-shirts are not the norm here. to 800 to 1000 cycles and still retain instead of sheer power, will set a Lampe-Onnerud usually wears a 80 percent of capacity; Wozniak is new path for the industry. If that suit, always with heels, often with still testing that claim. happens, Lampe-Onnerud says, pearls. For her, dressing down is If it proves true, Sonata batter- she’ll call this venture a success. a denim skirt. People are polite ies, even with the slight premium “And then,” says Lampe- to one another and to outsiders. on the price that analysts predict, Onnerud, “I will become a singer.” They send thank-you notes when- could save HP money, Wozniak Diana Krall, look out. ❏

32 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

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“The archipelago is a little world within itself.… Both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the ﬁ rst appearance of new

beings on this earth” —Charles Darwin, THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE

WIND POWER IN PARADISE How an international team of engineers brought wind power to the Galápagos Islands By Erico Guizzo

gentle breeze blows across the harbor of San Cristóbal, the easternmost island in the Galápagos archipelago. Sea lions bask on the beach under the equatorial sun, and blue-footed boobies dive for anchovies in the APacifi c waters. A round brown fi nch swoops down from a prickly-pear cactus, fl utters in midair for an instant, and then lands on my head. Tens of thousands of tourists come to the Galápagos Islands each year to get close to its extraordinary fauna—to snorkel with hammerhead sharks, hang out with giant tortoises, and have their scalps inspected by Darwin’s fi nches. The archipelago’s exquisitely unique creatures gave Charles Darwin a good deal of inspiration for his theory of evolution when he visited in 1835. Nature-loving visitors now fl ock to the islands in hopes of seeing what Darwin saw.

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 35

the project managers. “We hope it will be a model for other islands in the Galápagos and elsewhere.”

n a serene afternoon last OSeptember, I head to the highlands of San Cristóbal with Jim Tolan, an American engineer who, along with Vintimilla, manages the project. “The place we’re going, it’s called El Tropezón Hill. I think that means ‘big stumble,’ so watch out,” Tolan quips as we hop into a Chevrolet pickup. “Oh, and grab your rain jacket.” We drive up a dirt road, and the coast’s arid, volcanic landscape metamorphoses into steep, grassy hills dotted with Miconia robinsoniana, a leafy shrub with purple ﬂ owers that you won’t ﬁ nd anywhere outside the Galápagos. A dense white mist suddenly engulfs our vehicle. The blue sky disappears, as do the road and the hills. It’s like riding through a cloud. Tolan explains that this is the garúa season: cold winds and ocean currents cool the air, and a heavy fog and drizzle—the garúa— forms in the highlands. We park, and only after I get out of the truck do I realize we’re

standing next to a steel tower as tall as a 15-story building, topped by a three-bladed rotor. Two iden- tical towers perch nearby. Erected SINKING SHIP: Ironically, the influx of eco- group of United Nations offi- a month ago and now beginning In 2001, the Ecuadorian minded tourists now threatens cials, power engineers, and gov- operation, they are state-of-the- tanker Jessica this island paradise. In partic- ernment representatives came art wind-power turbines imported ran aground near ular, the huge demand for elec- together to devise an energy from Spain. Through the dense San Cristóbal, tricity to power hotels, shops, scheme for the islands, based on fog, I can barely make out the the Galápagos’s and restaurants, as well as the renewable energy. blades—each about the length of easternmost island, spilling homes of permanent residents, To realize their goal, they had a jumbo 747 wing—but I can hear more than half has placed an enormous burden to overcome unexpected technical them turning with a thunderous, a million liters on the islands’ power grid, which and logistical hurdles, ease envi- cadenced whoosh. of fuel. until recently relied entirely on ronmental concerns about their The presence of massive wind PHOTO: MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP/GETTY IMAGES diesel generators. In 2007, about project’s potential impact on the turbines in the Galápagos may 5 million liters of diesel fuel had fragile ecosystem, and cut through sound incongruous, but as any visi- to be shipped in from the main- the inevitable bureaucratic red tor quickly realizes, the islands are land to keep the generators run- tape. There were moments when no longer the deserted paradise ning, and demand is growing even the project’s leaders feared it that fi rst captured Darwin’s imagi- 10 percent each year. would never happen. But this past nation more than 170 years ago. Seven years ago, after a tanker fall, the team fi nally installed three Today the archipelago, which con- ran aground and spilled more enormous wind turbines in the San sists of 13 main islands and numer- than half a million liters of fuel Cristóbal hills, capable of supply- ous islets and rocks, is home to more into San Cristóbal’s harbor, the ing half the island’s electricity. than 20 000 people, most of whom government of Ecuador, which “This is one of the biggest work in tourism or subsist on fi shing governs the islands, intensified wind-diesel hybrid projects in the and farming. An additional 120 000 efforts to free the Galápagos world,” says Luis Vintimilla, an visit annually, and that number con-

from fossil fuels. A like-minded Ecuadorian engineer and one of tinues to swell each year. HOSKING/ALAMY; DAVID REINHARD DIRSCHERL/ALAMY; FLETCHER/ALAMY; R. THOMAS WIND PROJECT; CRISTÓBAL SAN LEFT: FROM PAGES: PREVIOUS TEAM/NASA/GSFC RESPONSE LAND RAPID DESCLOITRES/MODIS JACQUES IMAGES; GREGORY/GETTY STUART IMAGES; CRALLE/GETTY GARY

36 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

One result of all this human It’s more like being in a spaceship. tifi er converts the ac to dc, which activity is a higher demand for Looking up, I see a pair of legs then goes into an inverter for con- electricity. The diesel genera- belonging to José Moscoso, the version back to ac at the desired tors on the four inhabited islands site’s operations manager; below frequency of 60 hertz. Finally, a burn some 13 600 L every day. The me is Tolan. At the top of the lad- transformer boosts the voltage to fuel for the generators, and also der, we unhook our safety har- 13.8 kilovolts. for cruise ships and automobiles, nesses and squeeze through an Moscoso opens a small hatch arrives by oil tanker from main- opening to get inside the nacelle, in the ceiling of the nacelle and land Ecuador. Over the past the turbine’s uppermost structure, takes a peek outside. How’s the decade, the number of tankers which houses the generator and view? “Está toda nublada,” he says. coming to the islands has jumped holds the blades. Powerful motors “It’s all cloudy.” Tolan tells me that from a few per year to a few per can rotate the nacelle so that the on a clear day you can see almost month now. For years, conserva- blades always face the wind. Made the entire island and the deep blue tion experts dreaded an oil spill. of fiberglass and polyester resin, Pacifi c all around. “It’s a million- On 16 January 2001, it happened. the 29.5-meter-long blades sweep dollar view,” he says. “To the That night, the Ecuadorian an area of 2700 square meters in south, there’s nothing but ocean tanker Jessica took a wrong a single rotation, the equivalent of from here to Antarctica.” turn near San Cristóbal’s har- six basketball courts. bor, rammed into a reef, and The three blades spin at rela- s we leave El Tropezón, ran aground, leaking more than tively low speeds of up to 25 rev- ATolan recalls how he fi rst got 500 000 L of diesel and bunker olutions per minute. A gearbox involved with the project. He’d fuel. The spill dirtied sea lions ups that rotation to between been working as a project manager and tortoises and killed a handful 750 rpm and 1650 rpm, to drive at Industry & Energy Associates, a of pelicans and seagulls. Only a the 800-kilowatt generator, the consulting fi rm in Portland, Maine. sudden change in ocean currents, heart of the machine. “That’s In 2001, Paul Loeff elman, director BIG, NOISY, AND SMELLY: which washed the oil out to sea, what makes everything possible,” of environmental public policy at San Cristóbal prevented the spill from becoming Tolan says, pointing to a massive American Electric Power, the e8 uses three an even bigger ecological disaster. piece of steel and iron the size of a member company chosen to lead 650-kilowatt The incident served as a Volkswagen Beetle. “The flow of the San Cristóbal project, called him diesel generators wake-up call. Not long after, the air becomes the fl ow of electrons.” up. Would he be interested in build- to produce electricity. The Ecuadorian government decided to The generator produces altering a cutting-edge wind farm on a island’s new invest in renewable energy for the nating current whose frequency tiny island located 1000 kilometers wind system archipelago, and it teamed up with depends on how fast the wind is out at sea, where 85 percent of the will reduce the United Nations Development blowing and turning the blades, land consists of protected national the amount of diesel burned Programme and the e8—an inter- he explains. The electricity then park? Sure, replied Tolan, always by 950 000 national consortium of electricity fl ows into a cable that runs down up for a challenge. liters per year. companies that supports energy the tower. Near the bottom, a rec- To navigate Ecuadorian laws PHOTO: ERICO GUIZZO projects in the developing world— to launch the US $10.8 million San Cristóbal Wind Project. The goal of the project is to build a 2.4-megawatt wind system that will supply 52 percent of San Cristóbal’s annual electricity needs, on average. It might not seem like much, but that means reducing the amount of diesel burned by 950 000 L and preventing 3000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being dumped into the atmosphere every year. “More important, it should reduce the number of tankers coming to the island,” Vintimilla says, “and so, the risks of another spill.”

’m inside wind turbine No. 1, I ascending a narrow ladder that stretches upward for 50 meters. Inside this giant white-walled tube, with the ﬂ uorescent lights ﬂ ickering, I almost forget I’m in the Galápagos.

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HEAVY METAL: and energy policies, Loeffelman factoring in such details as how together, but in September 2006 Workers used picked Vintimilla, a former direc- many construction cranes you’d construction finally commenced. ﬁ ve cranes and several tor of Ecuador’s energy regulation need to rent and how much After a groundbreaking ceremony large trucks to agency. Tolan, a 47-year-old detail- you’d spend relocating Miconia attended by project stakeholders transport and oriented, straight-talking New York plants from the site—and concluded and San Cristóbal’s mayor and assemble the City native who graduated from the that the project would achieve a bishop, Tolan ordered the wind wind turbines’ U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in diesel reduction of about 50 percent turbines from Madrid-based Made 29.5-meter blades and Kings Point, N.Y., and Vintimilla, a at a cost of some $10 million. Tecnologías Renovables and told massive tower 60-year-old mild-mannered engi- “Everyone was asking me, ‘Jim, Santos CMI, an Ecuadorian contrac- parts, some neer widely respected in Ecuador, what did you do?!’ ” Tolan recalls. tor, to start construction at the wind weighing made a formidable team. He had to explain that the typi- site, which is in a cattle-grazing area more than 30 metric tons. Vintimilla’s first major task cal costs for a big wind project in outside the national park.

PHOTOS: DIEGO AÑAZCO was persuading the government the United States—$1000 to $1500 First, though, a pier in San to establish regulations for wind- per kilowatt—didn’t apply to the Cristóbal harbor got a 10-meter power projects, as San Cristóbal’s Galápagos, where transportation extension so that it could receive would be the country’s ﬁ rst. Then and environmental-related the 5000-metric-ton barges that there was the issue of ownership. expenses brought the cost per would transport the wind tur- The plan was that the e8 would kilowatt to $3500. bines and construction equip- establish a trust entity to manage Tolan and Vintimilla also had ment. The first barge delivered the project and gradually transfer to address concerns from the local three concrete mixer trucks and a control to Elecgalápagos, the local community. Wouldn’t the turbines million kilograms of cement, and electrical utility. “We had to do so disﬁ gure the pristine landscape and workers began building the tow- many reports for so many differ- hurt tourism? The project managers ers’ massive foundations. ent people,” Vintimilla says. convinced local leaders that the Tolan planned the schedule so In the meantime, Tolan visual impact would be minor, that construction happened early pored over the engineering and because the towers wouldn’t be in the year and not during the financing details. A 2001 study visible from town. Moreover, they garúa season. But he couldn’t antici- had estimated that a wind sys- argued, the idea of renewable energy pate everything. On vacation in tem capable of reducing diesel in the Galápagos would appeal to Quebec City in April 2007, he was generation by 98 percent would environmentally conscious visitors, awakened at 3 in the morning by a cost $5.4 million. To Tolan, those who might even want to go see the phone call: the ship sent to the port numbers looked far too optimistic. towering turbines. of Ferrol, in Spain, to retrieve the What’s more, since that initial wind turbines wasn’t big enough study, annual electricity demand t took five years for all to accommodate the 30-metric-ton on San Cristóbal had grown from I the pieces—feasibility studies, nacelles below deck. Would it be 4950 megawatt-hours in 1999 to business and financing plans, okay to put them above deck, sub- 7150 MWh in 2006. Tolan recalcu- environmental licenses, and power- jecting them to the salty weather of lated the project’s cost—this time generating permits—to come a North Atlantic crossing? Tolan

38 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

said no. He wanted another ship. Tecnologías Renovables, are test- That’s why San Cristóbal needs The transportation delay added ing the wind turbines’ control sys- to keep the diesel generators run- to a further delay at Ecuadorian tem. They have spent most of the ning. The diesel system works as customs, but in July 2007 a sec- last week inside this modest build- a reference, maintaining the volt- ond barge finally arrived in San ing, in a substation operated by age and frequency across the grid. Cristóbal with the three turbines Elecgalápagos, working from dawn And when there’s enough wind, and five cranes to install them. until late into the night. They haven’t the turbines can reduce the diesel Getting all that to El Tropezón was a had time to tour the island—or even generation to 25 percent of its maxi- dramatic operation, with 30-wheel to take a siesta after lunch. mum capacity—sometimes one or trucks slowly parading through The San Cristóbal system is a two diesel generators can even be town, the gigantic turbine parts wind-diesel hybrid. The electric- shut down. strapped to their backs. Workers ity generated by the wind turbines The Galápagos system differs ran just in front of the trucks, lift- and by three diesel generators con- from conventional wind-diesel ing up low-hanging wires with verges at this substation before hybrids in its use of an innovative sticks, clearing people from side- being transmitted to town. control scheme developed by Made. walks, and even temporarily mov- The wind energy arrives at the In most conventional hybrids— ing a stone monument that stood in substation through a 12-km-long in places like Alaska, Australia, and the way. transmission line. The 20-year old Vietnam—the wind turbines are For the final phase of con- Caterpillar 650-kW diesel genera- always producing as much power struction—erecting the 51.5-meter tors are located on-site, inside a as they can. If generation surpasses towers—two tubular pieces plus concrete metal-roofed building. demand, excess power is stored in the nacelle were lifted into place by Exhaust stacks belch their sulfu- batteries; conversely, if wind speeds a 400-metric-ton Mantiwac crane, rous fumes into the air, and you drop too much and generation falls whose own assembly required two have to wear earmuff s because the below demand, the system turns to smaller cranes. With El Tropezón engines are so loud. backup batteries. covered in thick fog, workers radi- Though smelly, noisy, and pol- The Galápagos hybrid doesn’t oed careful instructions to the crane luting, the diesel generation is use auxiliary batteries, which are

operator, who after many hours suc- reliable. Outages happen only spo- costly and add complexity to the INTO THICK FOG: ceeded in positioning the turbine radically. Still, why not replace the system. Instead, the turbines auto- At the height of parts precisely, so that all the bolts diesel system entirely with wind matically reduce or increase their the construction lined up. By August 2007, the three power? The problem here as else- power output according to demand. phase, workers braved foggy and turbines had been erected. where is that the supply of wind They do this by adjusting the angle rainy conditions varies quite a bit. When it’s very of their blades. At the point where in the highlands wo Spanish engineers look windy, Tolan says, 80 percent of it attaches to the central hub, each of San Cristóbal intently at color-coded graphs the grid energy might come from blade can rotate, powered by a to build the T foundations on a Dell laptop screen. wind. “But when there’s almost no hydraulic actuator, by small angles and erect the Cristóbal Carrión Pérez and wind, we might put in very little— up to 90 degrees. The rotation wind turbines. Alvaro Ginel, engineers with Made or nothing.” changes the way the blade’s surface PHOTOS: DIEGO AÑAZCO

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bines’ increases and decreases in theory scattered before his eyes. power output as smooth as possible. With the high-noon sun beat- The task should take another week ing down, Tolan and I set out to or so, and then the turbines can go retrace Darwin’s first steps on into commercial operation—and the San Cristóbal. The spot where the Spanish will get some downtime. naturalist is believed to have gone ashore is a tiny bay on the south- rriving aboard the H.M.S. western part of the island. Tolan ABeagle, Charles Darwin landed warns me to beware of the mas- on San Cristóbal, then called sive, dark-furred male sea lions, Chatham Island, on the morning which charge if you get too near. of 17 September 1835. The crater- I tell him I’m more worried about ridden, sultry, and seemingly life- the marine iguanas, the sharp- FORMIDABLE is exposed to the wind and thus less coastline didn’t impress the toothed reptiles that look like min- TEAMMATES: controls the turbine’s overall rota- 26-year-old naturalist. “Nothing iature dragons ready to take a bite Project managers Luis Vintimilla tional speed. Each turbine has its could be less inviting than the fi rst out of your foot. “Nah,” Tolan says, [above] and Jim own PLC, or programmable logic appearance,” he wrote in his jour- “they’re vegetarians.” Tolan [top right] controller. The PLCs talk to each nal, fi rst published in 1839 and now For an engineer, Tolan has had worked around other through a fiber-optic cable known as The Voyage of the Beagle. to learn quite a bit about Galápagos the clock to keep and also monitor the diesel sys- But as he ventured inland, Darwin wildlife. Take the Galápagos petrel. the construction of the three tem. If lots of people turn on their was surprised by what he found. Tolan gets just as excited talking turbines on air conditioners, for instance, the On San Cristóbal, Darwin about this gray-and-white seabird schedule. diesel generators put more power encountered for the fi rst time the as he does about power inverters. PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SAN into the grid. The PLCs notice this archipelago’s most famous inhabi- The petrel nests in shallow bur- CRISTÓBAL WIND PROJECT; ERICO GUIZZO (2) change, and if there’s enough wind, tants, the giant tortoises. “These rows in the humid highlands of tweak the angle of the turbine huge reptiles, surrounded by the San Cristóbal and other islands blades, speed up their generators, black lava, the leafl ess shrubs and and is one of the archipelago’s many and produce more power to bring large cacti, seemed to my fancy endangered animals. Invasive spe- the diesel generation back down. like some antediluvian animals,” cies like rats and cats eat petrel “The three turbines monitor each he remarked. Darwin went on to chicks, and cattle destroy their nests. other and coordinate their power fi nd much more as he explored the In the last 60 years, the petrel popu- outputs,” says Carrión Pérez. “All other islands during his fi ve-week lation declined 80 percent. the three brains talk to each other, tour, including 13 types of finch Studies have shown that wind but there’s no central brain.” with a “perfect gradation in the turbines and transmission lines can On the computer screen, he and size of the beaks,” each adapted to kill birds, although there’s no agree- his colleagues are fine-tuning the a diet of plants, fruits, or insects— ment on whether the number of control algorithms to make the tur- the clues for his breakthrough dead birds is signifi cant compared

40 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

with the number of birds killed by has involved “a lot of work and “It’s not the size [of the project that other causes such as high-rise build- resources and money,” Tolan says. matters], but the example. San ings and house cats. But in the case “But, hey, anything for the birds.” Cristóbal is the fi rst wind project in of an endangered bird, even a few all of Ecuador. This is a lesson that dead ones are too many. So Tolan he environmental chal- all the country will benefi t from.” convened the Petrel Committee, Tlenges that the Galápagos face With their work on San Cristóbal composed of bird experts from local will get only more complicated. nearly completed, Tolan and and foreign organizations, to inves- The risk of oil spills remains, and Vintimilla are already envision- tigate whether the Galápagos tur- as more people fl ock to the islands, ing the next steps. Their idea is to bines would make the petrel’s life they will inevitably introduce more fi nd ways of using the excess wind even more diffi cult. invasive species. According to the power the turbines could produce at The committee ruled out two Charles Darwin Foundation, there night, when grid demand is lower. potential sites for the turbines were 112 invasive species of plants One way to harness that energy is to because petrels liked to nest in and animals on the islands in 1990; use special refrigerators that make those spots. The group zeroed in today there are more than 10 times ice at night and use no energy dur- on El Tropezón after it found no as many. ing the day. Another possibility is active nests. But they also had to Three wind turbines will not to introduce electric scooters and make sure that petrels didn’t fly in themselves solve such prob- electric cars whose batteries could through the area. The birds are lems. Experts say the islands need be charged at night. tricky to monitor because they stay a better socioeconomic model that But these are plans for the future. out at sea, hunting for food during makes the local communities part Today, sitting on the balcony of the the day, and returning home only of the conservation process. The Miconia Hotel overlooking the after sunset to feed their chicks. United Nations and the Ecuadorian island’s harbor as the barks of sea So the committee dispatched government are both investigating lions echo in the background, Tolan a team of graduate students, ways to do that, including limit- and Vintimilla prefer to reminisce equipped with night-vision gog- ing the number of tourists without about what it took to make the proj- gles and microphones. The stu- hurting the economy. But in terms ect happen. “In 2004, we installed dents hunkered down on El of reducing the archipelago’s and the fi rst wind-metering tower, and BIRD WATCH: Tropezón and spent their nights the country’s reliance on fossil I felt something was starting to hap- The organizers of the San looking and listening for petrels. fuels, renewable energy will play pen,” Vintimilla says. “Now, when Cristóbal Wind After six months, they concluded an ever more important role. I see the spinning of the blades, it’s Project chose that few birds fl ew where the tow- “Any measure that we take to a big emotion.” ❏ the location of ers were to be installed. diminish the amount of oil circu- the turbines carefully to avoid As we return to town at sunset, lating between the islands or from TO PROBE FURTHER For addi- areas where Tolan and I meet Francisco Cruz the continent to the islands is a tional photos and more background the endangered at the Calypso, a colorful bar and good measure,” says Cecilia Falconí, information on the wind-turbine Galápagos petrel restaurant on the promenade off an officer at the United Nations project, go to http://spectrum.ieee. fl ies and nests. PHOTO: SAN CRISTÓBAL Charles Darwin Avenue. Tolan Development Programme in Quito. org/mar08/galwind. WIND PROJECT has hired Cruz, a bird expert who used to work at the Charles Darwin Foundation, to continue to monitor the site. Cruz is also one of the owners of the bar, a business he started with money he earned through his bird work. He calls the investment “petrel dollars.” As we munch on a plate of patacones—fried mashed plantains— and sip Pilsener beer, Cruz reports that he and his assistants have found one dead bird. “Not a petrel— something smaller,” he says. “It appears it was dead before the turbines were built.” Tolan says the Petrel Committee wasn’t just aiming to avoid killing birds; it also saw an opportunity to improve their chances of survival. Profits from the wind project are fi nancing a 20-year program to try to keep rats, cattle, and cats out of the nesting areas. Saving the petrel

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THE RECOMMENDATION SYSTEMS THAT SUGGEST BOOKS AT AMAZON AND MOVIES AT NETFLIX WILL SOON BRING YOU PERSONALIZED NEWS BY GREG LINDEN PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ARTICLE ALSO READ…

he newspaper, that daily chroni- from the pulp-and-ink papers that spawned cle of human events, is undergoing the them. Editors still manually choose and lay most momentous transformation in its out news stories. Often, the front page changes Tcenturies-old history. The familiar pulp- only once a day, just like the print version, and paper product still shows up on news- it shows the same news to all readers. stands and porches every morning, but online There’s no need for that uniformity. Every versions are proliferating, attracting young read- time a Web server generates a news page, for ers and generally carving out a sizable swath of example, in response to a reader’s clicking on the news business. In the United States alone, a link, it can create that page from scratch. An 34 million people have made a daily habit of online news site can change minute by minute. reading an online newspaper, according to the And it can even generate diff erent front pages, Newspaper Association of America. essentially producing millions of distinct edi- It’s just the beginning. Online news will tions, each one targeting just one person—you. inevitably grow at the expense of its traditional Unless and until they do so, online newspapers counterpart because the Web not only lowers will become increasingly irrelevant as the sto- production and distribution costs, it also opens ries that are important to you get buried in an up newspapers to entirely new formats. Even Internet already ﬁ lled with absurdly more infor- run-of-the mill Web servers with access to a mation than any one person can use. reasonable supply of news stories can generate The most interesting and important way to thousands of diff erent versions of a news paper. customize a site is to create a page of stories based Yet so far, few newspaper sites look different on your unique interests culled from informa-

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CUSTOM-MADE: Google’s “Personalize this page” feature lets you create new categories of news, which then show up in the same left-hand menu that contains its standard categories. In this example, a fan has created a category for news about his favorite musician, Peter Gabriel. Note that Google’s algorithms are imperfect; the second news story contains the words Peter and Gabriel, but the story is not about the musician.

tion about your past reading behavior. There’s already a model Many readers still feel loyalty to their hometown newspaper and for that—the recommendation systems used by Amazon, TiVo, know it is likely to contain news relevant to them, but they are and Netfl ix. Using information on past purchases, movie rat- increasingly reluctant to wade through all its articles to fi nd the ings, or items viewed, these systems steer consumers to items few that matter to them. Personalized news recommendations from among the thousands or millions they have on offer. can be a lifesaver to newspapers that are drowning in the sea of Newspapers can and should borrow this idea. information that washes over us all. It could transform the industry. Based on articles viewed, these systems could highlight the ones they think a reader would t may seem a small step from recommending products fi nd most interesting, even presenting them in order, with the to recommending information. In fact, doing so is actually most interesting article fi rst. No longer would readers have to quite complex. Stand at the entrance of a Wal-Mart or look at skim pages of news to fi nd what they needed. No longer would I Amazon’s home page and the shiny world of each one’s wares reporters have to battle for the limited space on the front page. seems limitless. But it’s not. It is fi rmly bounded by the con- In their uphill battle to stay relevant, newspapers will fi rst straints of time and warehouse space. A sprawling Wal-Mart have to catch up with other news sites that already customize store typically has about 100 000 items; Amazon carries a few their front pages in one way or another. Aggregators such as million. The world of information, on the other hand, is mea- Google News, My Yahoo, and Netvibes allow a reader to confi g- sured in billions of pages and petabytes of data. Processing data ure the layout of his or her personal page so that it highlights the on this scale can require a supercomputer-scale infrastructure most popular or highly regarded news. These sites also cluster well beyond the means of a city newspaper. news by topic or category and let readers focus on the articles that Recommender systems also face what is known as the cold- interest them the most. Such innovations are useful, but they still start problem, which stems from the diffi culty of rating any item fall short of what’s needed. My Yahoo, for example, requires users that either has not yet attracted the notice of recommenders or to confi gure the page themselves and to make changes when their has attracted only those about whom nothing is known. For interests do, instead of accurately inferring those changes from example, before a new movie is previewed by critics, no one whatever has attracted the user’s attention lately. at all has seen it, so no one can recommend it. Within weeks, Google News is the best of the bunch, a popular news site though, enough people will have contributed opinions to help that does use software to automate the prioritizing and lay- many others decide whether to see it. But a news article doesn’t ing out of stories. It changes rapidly, clusters stories that focus have weeks to attract attention, only hours. Often, by the time on the same event, allows users to customize the site, and rec- a fair number of people have read the article, it may well have ommends news based on past reading habits. But news sites faded into irrelevance. As we’ll see, one of Findory’s goals was could do even better by automatically learning what news sto- to ameliorate the cold-start problem. ries each reader wants and using that knowledge to “print” To understand how a really successful recommendation millions of personalized editions of the newspaper. system for news might work, fi rst consider those being used Such features aren’t far off —they were actually part of a news now at sites like Amazon and Netfl ix. One of the fundamen- aggregation Web site called Findory.com, which I ran between tal characteristics of these systems is that they learn not just 2004 and 2007. Findory built a unique, personalized front page from your behavior but also from that of other customers. The for each reader, based on what he or she had read in the past. In underlying assumption is that there are other people out there so doing it showed a way by which newspapers could recom- who are like you and that those people have found and enjoyed mend information much as Amazon recommends books. things you haven’t yet seen. These algorithms search over Web- Newspapers constitute a US $55 billion business in the United site logs, ratings, and purchase transactions to discover people States, yet that business is invariably described as troubled. with interests similar to your own. Then the algorithms look

44 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

up the items those people liked and recommend them to you. a trade dispute on European Union farming subsidies, while Suppose that many people who buy the textbook Managing a British newspaper might have a very diff erent view. Another Gigabytes also buy Lucene in Action; the algorithm will conclude advantage of clustering is that it can either eliminate or call that the books may be similar, particularly if the people who explicit attention to duplicate articles, such as when two news- buy Managing Gigabytes buy Lucene in Action much more fre- papers run the same Associated Press wire story. quently than the general population does. Even if the books But the task of clustering news stories on the same event are on diff erent topics and the texts of the books are not similar, encompasses several subchores, some of them fairly diffi cult. purchases in common reveal books with similar appeal. People One of them is simply defi ning what we mean by “same event”— who buy books on information technology may, for instance, an ill-defi ned, surprisingly hard problem. For instance, sto- also tend to buy science fi ction. ries about the escape of a tiger from the San Francisco Zoo More generally, if the recommendation system can find last December included articles on how the animal may have users who have bought many things you have bought, then gotten free, how it killed a visitor, how it mauled two other it will bring to your attention things these other people have people, how it was itself killed by police offi cers. Are they all bought that you have not. This kind of algorithm is often the same event? referred to as collaborative or social fi ltering because it uses Google News tackles this problem by using a technique called the preferences of like-minded people in the community to fi l- hierarchical agglomerative clustering. Basically, it puts news arti- ter and prioritize what you see. cles with similar phrasing together into distinct piles. It starts Because it’s so diffi cult to apply recommendation algorithms by analyzing the content of articles to fi nd those that share key- to information, sites have tried to personalize news in other words or key phrases; articles that have enough language in ways. One of the largest customizable news sites, My Yahoo, common are assumed to be covering similar topics. The arti- launched in July of 1996. A user chooses cles in each pile are connected based on the from hundreds of modules—including TO CLUSTER NEWS strength of their similarity. To visualize news, weather, sports scores, and stock STORIES, WE these connections, imagine a treelike struc- prices—and picks the layout of these mod- ture where the articles are the leaves. If we ules on the page. User-customized sites are HAVE TO DEFINE grab a branch from the tree, the many leaves simple to build, easy for readers to under- “SAME EVENT”— on that branch are all similar articles—that stand, and take advantage of the ability AN ILL-DEFINED, is, articles about the same general event. of online news sites to show a different Thus a group of leaves near one another on front page to each reader. By customiz- SURPRISINGLY HARD a branch of the tree constitutes a cluster. ing, readers can emphasize the news most PROBLEM This tree is constantly changing. As more important to them. and more stories accrue on a general event, Unfortunately, most readers don’t. Research at Yahoo has the threshold for determining whether any two of those stories are found that most users do not customize their front pages and about the same aspect of that event becomes higher. The clusters that most who do don’t bother to update those pages to refl ect may shift, with articles jumping out to new groups or old groups their changing interests. that are splitting or combining. The groupings adapt to the news available, which is always changing. oogle News, arguably the leading site when it If the ideal result is a newspaper featuring the news you comes to personalized news, goes several steps fur- want to see, these clustering and ranking strategies can take ther, automating things as much as possible. For you only so far. They can determine whether a new development G example, it uses a technique called implicit person- in a story you’ve been following is something that might inter- alization to recommend diff erent content to each est you. But they can’t make a logical leap—for example, recog- reader, based on the reader’s past behavior. It’s an innovation nizing from your previous interest in articles on the search for that suggests a way forward for the news business. But fi rst, extraterrestrial intelligence that you would be fascinated by the consider how Google News accomplishes two other seemingly discovery of an Earth-like planet in another solar system. simple automation chores: ranking and clustering stories. To make this kind of inference requires fi guring out an indi- Google is, of course, famous for its method of ranking search vidual reader’s interests and accurately recommending new results. In the case of news, it forms an understanding of which articles based on those interests, just as Amazon and Netfl ix stories are generally the most interesting and important and recommend books and movies. Toward this end, rather than continually updates a reader’s personal home page with that in showing top stories of general interest, the Google News rec- mind. Google News collects millions of articles from thousands ommendation engine attempts to fi gure out what each read- of sources, so it would be out of the question to use a staff of edi- er’s top stories should be. The recommender analyzes the past tors to lay out the front page, as most news sites do. Krishna clicks of all readers, the past clicks of the current reader on the Bharat, who led the development of Google News, says that its Web site, and the currently available news stories and then gen- algorithm ranks stories according to the authority of the news erates a list of news stories that may be of interest. source, the timeliness of the article, whether the article is an Because of the enormous number of articles and users on original piece, where the article was originally placed by the Google News, traditional clustering methods were impractical. editors on the source Web site, the apparent scope and impact So Google tested three more advanced algorithms for generat- on readers, and the popularity of the article. ing news recommendations: MinHash clustering, Probabilistic Google News also clusters stories on the same news event. Latent Semantic Indexing (PLSI), and covisitation counts. Clustering gives readers the benefi t of diversity, which is par- MinHash and PLSI are both essentially clustering methods. ticularly useful to readers of international news. For example, That is, they try to group similar items or users. MinHash a French paper might take a profarmer stance when covering works by randomizing a numbered list of all possible articles.

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It then fi nds the fi rst of those articles the reader has seen and Once all the users are lumped into clusters and the list of gives it a numerical value, called the index, which is simply its covisited articles is built, the job of fi nding articles of interest position in the randomized list. As it turns out, the probability to any one user is mostly a matter of data lookups. Google News that two users will have the same index is equal to a statistical fi rst looks up the clusters for that reader and his or her recently measure of their commonality—the items they have viewed clicked articles and then creates a list of candidate recommen- in common—which is called the Jaccard similarity coeffi cient. dations by using the most popular stories in the clusters and Given two sets of things (say, magazine articles that two peo- the covisited articles. It then ranks the candidates to determine ple have read), the Jaccard coeffi cient equals the size of their which will be used for the recommendations. intersection (here, the articles both people have read) divided In a presentation at the 2007 International World Wide by the size of their union (the articles that either of them has Web Conference, Abhinandan Das and two of his colleagues read). The upshot is that by grouping users with the same index at Google reported that they were able to generate 38 percent value, MinHash can fi nd clusters of similar users. more click-throughs with such news recommendations than PLSI is another clustering technique that determines the with a standard list of popular news stories. In other words, similarity between users. To visualize its operation, imagine a the recommendations very clearly helped readers fi nd news massive, largely unpopulated matrix where the rows are arti- of interest to them. cles and the columns are readers. You as a reader will have an entry in this matrix on every row that contains an article you’ve oogle was not alone in coming up with a sys- read. PLSI attempts to reduce this matrix to a form that can con- tem for implicit news personalization. A number of cisely, albeit approximately, model all combinations of possible companies have worked on the problem, including users and items. The technique introduces a variable that cap- Gmy own (which proved to be more successful as a tures the relationships between items and users. This variable research project than as a commercial operation). allows you to capture in an algebraic formula the co-occurrences Findory built a unique front page of news for each reader. We between items and users—the articles they have in common— aggregated news and blog articles from thousands of sources and in eff ect forms groups of like-minded users and groups of around the world and learned each reader’s interests from past similar items. These groupings produce the clusters. behavior. Unlike other sites, Findory completely automated The third method that Google News uses, covisitation, is the routing of news articles to individual readers; there was no a collaborative fi ltering algorithm that looks at all the people manual customization. A user could change his or her Findory who’ve read a given article and then computes the chances that profi le only by reading news articles on the site. they will also have looked at other articles. This is similar to the When a reader fi rst came to Findory, the Web site started well-known “Customers who bought X also bought...” feature by showing a generic, or default, front page of news, mostly the on the Amazon Web site. popular news stories of the day. At the fi rst click on an article, For each news story and for each reader who clicked on it, Findory started to change. Reading an article was treated as Google looks at all the other news stories that the reader has an expression of interest in that news event. As the clicks con- clicked on. Pairs of stories that have a lot of readers in com- tinued, the front page drifted further away from the default, mon are considered covisited. Because all the covisited articles quickly fi lling with articles picked for that reader and build- are precomputed from historical data, computation on the Web ing a personalized front page. site’s database—massive though it is—turns out to be relatively For example, if a reader came to Findory and clicked on an quick and effi cient. article on the U.S. dollar, Findory might add articles on the stock

46 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

market, oil prices, and the Japanese yen to his or her front page. that the article was useful and interesting grew, and Findory If the user then clicked on a news article about the value of the would recommend it more broadly. U.S. dollar, related articles would be added to the Findory front Findory could be thought of as a social network. Each page, perhaps an article on the euro, another on the Chinese reader was joined to others by common interests. When a export market, and a third on the price of oil. reader found interesting news, the article was shared with Findory’s software learned which categories of news and just those other readers. which news sources each reader frequented. For example, if a Findory, unlike explicit social networks, did all connec- reader often looked at business stories from The New York Times, tions and sharing implicitly. Readers were matched to other not only would a prominent link to the Times appear but the busi- readers quietly, behind the scenes. There are two benefi ts to ness section would also be moved to the top of the page, pushing this scheme. The fi rst is that it maintains privacy—you don’t down other categories, such as entertainment or health news. know which readers the system considers similar to you. The Findory’s software also made it easy to relocate informa- second is the way the system is able to reach beyond your net- tion that the user had found once before. A 2007 study by work, beyond people you know, to fi nd experts in the commu- Jaime Teevan and three other researchers showed that as nity whom you have never met. many as 40 percent of Web search queries are repeats. So Findory kept a history of articles that a user had read recently. ewspapers will hardly be the last step in per- It took only a couple of clicks to return to a story a reader had sonalization. The ultimate goal will be to personal- seen a week before. ize all information. We are deluged by information; The core of Findory’s implicit personalization of the site was Nwe are saturated in it and overwhelmed by it. It is its recommendation engine. We used a hybrid algorithm that a problem that will only get worse. combined statistics on what people read with analyses of the In a world of personalized information, incoming messages content of articles. The fi rst part of the algorithm looked at cor- would be prioritized by the importance of the contact and the relations in reader behavior. Like the Google News covisitation cost of an interruption. All sites, not just newspapers, would algorithm, Findory’s algorithm built a database of “Readers organize and order articles according to your interests. Search who clicked on X also clicked on Y.” When a reader came to engines would learn from your behavior, adapt to your inter- the site, Findory retrieved all the articles that the reader had ests, and focus on what you need. Ordinary programs, such as read, looked up other articles that tended to interest the readers e-mail and spreadsheets, would bring to the surface relevant who read those same articles, and then reranked and recom- information just when you need it, even without an explicit mended those articles. query. Even advertising would be helpful and relevant. Unlike Google News covisitation, Findory’s hybrid algorithm Building this world of personalized information will require didn’t ignore the content of an article. The second part of the solving problems in machine learning that are particularly hybrid collaborative fi ltering supplemented the data on what hard, given the crushing amounts of data. Computer software articles readers click on with an analysis that primarily looked will have to scour billions of documents, petabytes of data, and at sources, keywords, and key phrases to fi nd articles with simi- billions of actions by users, learning not only what each person lar content, on similar topics, or about similar events. For exam- may want but also how and when to bring helpful information ple, if a new reader came to Findory and read an article on a to the surface. This software may reside on our desktops, living new DSL technology , an article on wireless broadband might beside us like a friendly and knowledgeable assistant, burning be shown because other readers who read that article on DSL spare processor cycles in the background to seek out and bring also found the wireless broadband article interesting. An arti- back information we need. Or the software may be located on cle on cable modems might be featured, just because it was new the Internet cloud, tearing across the supercomputing clusters and matched on broadband during content analysis, and a story owned by Google and others, digging through vast volumes of on Internet movie downloading could be shown, both because data and ferreting out the knowledge buried there. Either way, of reader behavior and because it mentioned broadband. the computing power needed will be staggering. Such content analysis addresses the cold-start problem. All information sources—including news, messages, adver- Without it, there is no way to tell who might want to read an tising, contacts, and Web documents—should be prioritized article on that tiger that escaped from the San Francisco Zoo; based on relevance and need. Recommendations and person- with it, you could make the educated guess that it would appeal alization can help by learning from your behavior, adapting to to people who live in the Bay Area who have a penchant for ani- your interests, and providing relevant information instead of mal stories, police stories, and so forth. leaving you to make a tedious search on your own. ❏ Here’s how it worked. When a news story first entered Findory, of course no one had read it yet. So Findory fell back to TO PROBE FURTHER The paper by Abhinandan Das and his col- analyzing the content in order to fi nd related articles. In addi- leagues, “Google News Personalization: Scalable Online Collaborative tion, to further acquire click data, Findory would randomly Filtering,” is available at http://www2007.org/paper570.php. Also show new articles to some readers to gather more information worth reading is another paper from the same conference, “A Large- about them, a process known as exploration. scale Evaluation and Analysis of Personalization Search Strategies,” The goal of Findory’s recommendation engine was to use by Z. Dou et al., at http://www2007.org/program/paper.php?id=495. readers to help other readers. When a reader had read an Two noteworthy papers from other conferences are L. Shih and article, Findory automatically shared that article with other D. Karger’s “Using URLs and Table Layout for Web Classifi cation readers—that is, Findory interpreted clicking on an article as Tasks” (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/shih04using.html) and an expression of interest in it. Readers with interests similar to “Information Re-Retrieval: Repeat Queries in Yahoo’s Logs,” those of the current reader may thus have been interested in it by J. Teevan et al. (http://people.csail.mit.edu/teevan/work/ too. As more people clicked on that same article, the evidence ______publications/papers/sigir07.pdf).

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 47

48 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

ELECTRONIC NOSES SNIFF SUCCESS

E-NOSES WILL SOON BE UBIQUITOUS, THANKS TO PRINTED ORGANIC SEMICONDUCTORS BY JOSEPHINE B. CHANG & VIVEK SUBRAMANIAN

everal hundred years ago, village doctors in rural electronic noses and printed electronics are exploiting these China diagnosed diabetes by the characteristically materials, which can be sensitive to the chemicals that make sweet smell of a patient’s breath. Today hospitals use a up odors and are also capable of producing electrical signals. Sbattery of blood tests and laboratory analyses to make E-nose developers are concentrating on honing the sensing prop- that same diagnosis, but doctors may soon be sniffi ng erties of conducting polymers, while the printed-electronics their patients’ breath again. This time the doctors will have elec- people are investigating ways of using these materials to fab- tronic noses small and cheap enough to carry in their pockets. ricate ultralow-cost electronics. Combining the fruits of these This e-nose will be the culmination of decades of work at two separate eff orts will fi nally bring e-noses into our super- countless laboratories, where researchers have sought to cre- markets, homes, and daily life. ate a tiny, cheap, automatic sniff er that would let wine bottles monitor the aging of their contents, allow meat packages to fl ag he human nose is an astounding organ, with millions spoilage, and enable mailboxes to check for bombs. Imagine bar-Tof odor sensors of hundreds of diff erent types. They let an room coasters that double as Breathalyzers, bumper stickers that average adult detect 10 000 diff erent odors, which are usu- monitor car emissions. Until now, it’s been just so much sci-fi . ally a complex mixture of vapors, or what chemists call volatile E-nose technology has quietly advanced during the past organic compounds. Some arise from chemical concentrations two decades. Commercial models equipped with sensor arrays in air down in the parts-per-trillion range. A normally func- came to market in the mid-1990s, and today they’re used to dis- tioning person can tell the diff erence between fresh milk and tinguish wines, analyze food fl avors, and sort lumber. Benchtop milk that’s gone bad or walk into a house and notice that it’s a systems are also used in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics, pie that’s baking, not a turkey, merely by sniffi ng. and packaging industries, while smaller, portable units are used Volatile organic compounds shape the aroma and taste of to monitor air quality. most foods and can act as keen indicators of freshness and But these noses cost in the range of US $5000 to $100 000. A quality. But a fresh-cut orange, say, or a piece of Swiss cheese coming convergence between e-nose technology and advances may release hundreds of these chemicals. As far back as the in printed electronics will fi nally bring the price down—way 1950s, researchers built sensors that could detect and quantify down. Within a decade we’ll see e-noses that cost tens of dollars the sprawling assortment of chemical components of an odor. and appear in smart packaging for high-end items like phar- But these sensors were diffi cult to design and had limited use. maceuticals or as part of intelligent or interactive appliances— Even today, most of these basic chemical sensors operate on MARK HOOPER picture a refrigerator that knows when milk has gone bad. a lock-and-key strategy, in which a targeted sensing mecha- Prices could easily drop to under a dollar by 2020. nism picks out one specifi c kind of molecule from the dozens The secret? Conducting polymers. Developers of both or more in an odor.

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 49

Your typical e-nose consists of a sampling system, a gas-sensor array, and a signal processor coupled to a pattern-recognition system of some sort. The sampling system brings vapor-laden air into the sensor array; in a laboratory setup it might have a fan that blows air across the array in an action reminiscent of human sniff - ing. The nose might allow a vial of air to be released inside it; perfume makers capture samples this way. Or it might work passively, simply because the array is exposed, like the sensor in a smoke detector. In the sensor array, each of the sensors responds to a broad range of gases, with much duplication; multiple sensors will respond to the same gas, but not in the same way, and not to all the same gases. To identify specifi c odors requires the signal processor to analyze the array response with pattern- recognition algorithms; in today’s expensive electronic noses, a microprocessor uses a large set of stored algorithms to sort through patterns. In the future, however, single-purpose noses looking for a simple change— food gone bad, for example—could use application-specifi c integrated circuits for analysis. Much like that of the human nose, this type of odor recognition is more fl exible and more powerful than what is possible with a lock-and-key sensor, which can detect only a single compound, say, carbon monoxide. Such a sensor would have a hard time tell- ing the diff erence between Grandma’s apple pie and Mom’s. But it may be possible to train an array-type e-nose to In 1982, Krishna Persaud and George Dodd at the University discriminate between them and all other apple pies. of Warwick, in Coventry, England, put together the fi rst sen- And unlike systems based on lock-and-key sensors, elec- sor array for odor recognition—that is, a collection of electronic tronic noses can be enormously fl exible. Rather than develop- sensors, each of which responded in diff erent ways to a range ing one nose for wine monitoring and a diff erent one to detect of volatile chemicals. Persaud and Dodd used oscillating semi- bad fish, the same piece of hardware could be trained sepa- conducting transducers that changed frequency when they rately for diff erent tasks. Imagine an electronic-nose system detected certain compounds. shipped with standard pattern-recognition libraries. Load up In 1988, Julian Gardner, also at the University of Warwick, one for the refrigerator and the system will sniff for spoiling dubbed this approach the electronic nose. Rather than catalog- foodstuff s; load up a diff erent one for the garden and the sys- ing the chemical compounds of an odor, an e-nose identifi es com- tem searches instead for the telltale odors of snails and other plex odors by using pattern-recognition strategies similar to those pests. And what if you want the e-nose to learn the diff erence of the human olfactory system, albeit with diff erent sensing mech- between Grandma’s apple pie and Mom’s? Well, chances are anisms. Given a glass of wine, the average person knows from the the manufacturers will have never met Grandma or Mom or smell alone what the liquid is. But only a serious oenophile might sampled the output of their ovens. But they may have included be able to break the odor down into its constituent parts: alco- software for generating new pattern-recognition libraries. If so, hols, acids, and esters. The human nose has hundreds of diff erent you would hook up the nose to the training system, introduce it types of odor sensors, whose response patterns are processed by to one apple pie at a time, and fi nd out if the pies generate dis- the brain, which then searches its memory for matches to stored tinguishable responses in the array. If they do, then generate response patterns. An electronic nose uses far fewer sensors; a new library, load it up, and you’ve got a personalized apple-

commercial systems have around 10 to 50 sensing elements. pie connoisseur. MARK HOOPER

50 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

In training a nose, it is not necessary to fully understand ent ways with many diff erent vapor molecules. Most organic poly- the chemical diff erences between good wine and bad wine or mers are electrically insulating, but by tweaking the structure, between two pies; it is enough that the nose knows. So to teach designers can produce some electrically conductive polymers by a nose, a developer simply presents, say, 10 samples of wine making it easy for charge to travel along the carbon backbone of gone bad and 10 samples of good wine and asks the system to the molecule. fi nd a pattern that represents the diff erence and to use that to For a gas sensor to actually “sense” an odor, it must translate distinguish good from bad in the future. a response—which is often a subtle chemical interaction between the sensor and the odor—into an output that can be easily inter- n 1998, the University of Warwick’s Gardner along with Philip preted, such as a color change. Conducting polymers excel at this I Bartlett, of the University of Southampton, predicted that “the translation because the chemical interaction between an organic next decade should see the cost of electronic noses fall dramat- polymer with a vapor molecule can change the polymer’s elec- ically” and that they would “be used not only in industry but trical characteristics, resulting in an electrical response that is also in everyday life.” It didn’t happen. Today commercial prices cheap and easy to detect. for electronic noses are the same as they were in 1998, typically In the early 1990s, scientists fi rst demonstrated that a variety about $10 000. Even simple consumer products like handheld of conducting polymers, each with diff erent electrical character- Breathalyzers and carbon monoxide monitors, which usually istics, could be integrated on a single substrate using a process target only a single compound and are therefore much simpler, called serial electro deposition. In this process, the manu facturer sell for $50 and up. repeatedly dips a substrate into a chemical solution containing Electronic noses have been expensive up to now because the chemical building blocks of the sensing polymers. Then they use diff erent technologies—electronic circuitry for signal an electrical bias is applied, which induces the molecules to processing and pattern recognition along with multiple chem- polymerize. Polymerization is the process by which many iden- ical sensors that have to be separately wired together—and so tical small chemical building blocks, called monomers, come can’t easily be mass- produced. In many cases, a personal com- together to form long chains. puter runs the signal-processing software; the sensing appara- By slipping low concentrations of diff erent chemicals into tus is simply plugged into it. These patched-together systems the mix during polymerization, scientists can modify the have limited uses and aren’t suited for high-volume, low-cost characteristics of the fi nal polymer. Using this method, only consumer markets. one type of material can be deposited at once, so manufactur- Researchers have tried to integrate the sensors into the cir- ers must repeat the process multiple times to get diff erent poly- cuitry—that is, to make them on a single chip with traditional mers onto the same substrate. semiconductor-manufacturing techniques typically using the While conducting polymers are potentially soluble, the major- CMOS process. This is theoretically possible, as sensors are normally made out of metal oxides USING ELECTRONIC-NOSE technology, a label of the future sniff s a fi ne wine, like tin, copper, nickel, or cobalt oxide; these monitoring the evolution of its contents as it ages. The device, manufactured can be deposited on a wafer. However, a typical by printing conducting polymers on a fl exible substrate, will use a sensor array and pattern-recognition algorithms to diff erentiate between young wines, CMOS chip has 20 to 40 layers; add in 50 sen- mature wines, and spoiled wines. Developers will generate a reference library sors, each with a slightly diff erent composition of patterns by exposing the nose to a vast variety of wines at each of the requiring separate deposition steps, and you’ve diff erent stages and having it look for distinctions among the stages. doubled the complexity. In addition to the cost ILLUSTRATION: BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN of these extra steps, each layer also introduces defects that hurt yield and therefore raise the THE RELATIVE concentrations cost of each device. And you couldn’t manufac- of alcohols, acids, esters, tannins, and other components of wine ture these chips in a multipurpose factory: intro- vapor evolve as the wine ages. ducing exotic materials into that environment could hurt yields of traditional chips made on the same line, so you’d have to build your own THE LABEL looks for THE LABEL sensor responses matching produces a very expensive manufacturing line. The hur- those in a library of wine- readout of dles for a CMOS e-nose, therefore, are not read- response patterns. wine statuses, ily surmountable and have stalled the progress indicating, for of low-cost electronic noses for years. instance, whether Advances over the past few decades in the it is young, mature, perfect capabilities of conducting polymers, how- for drinking, ever, have given e-nose researchers new hope. or spoiled. These materials can be deposited from a solution, enabling them to be cheaply and easily painted or printed onto substrates. These are organic polymers, which are long mole cules with carbon backbones. Carbon, with its four valence electrons, has an enormous capacity for chemical interactions with ODOR MOLECULES in the other materials. This capacity makes organic wine vapor interact with an polymers ideal for sensing applications because array of gas sensors, eliciting they can be designed to interact in many diff er- an electrical response.

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 51

ity of conducting polymers used for sensing today are tain odors. At a suffi ciently high raisin density, ran- not. The advantage of going to soluble polymers is that domly adjacent raisins would begin to form complete manufacturers already have tools for laying soluble paths through the pudding to allow charges to perco- polymers on a substrate cheaply, reliably, and quickly. late through. Carefully adjust the raisin density to rest They print them the same way an inkjet printer quickly near this threshold and you can expect any expansion deposits various colored inks to make color printouts. or contraction of the pudding to strongly affect the THE AVERAGE human being is Printing allows the placement of many types of diff er- number of percolation paths through the pudding. able to recognize ent materials next to one another on the same substrate. There are two different types of “raisins” that approximately 10 000 diff erent In printed sensors, then, additional sensor materials developers use to form these soluble, conductive odors. can be incorporated by adding extra print heads; addi- polymer composites. One is carbon black, which tional process steps are not required. Processes like is made up of conductive carbon particles small these have jump-started the emerging fi eld of printed enough to suspend easily in a soluble polymer solu- electronics, with the fi rst new products, like e-books by tion. The other is polypyrrole, a common soluble, Sony and Amazon, just now reaching consumers. Also, conductive polymer. printing is compatible with roll-to-roll processing, in which sheets of substrate are continuously processed, esearchers are testing methods of using these MOST DOGS’ as opposed to processes such as electrodeposition, in polymer composites to print sensor arrays along noses are R approximately which small samples of the substrate must be dipped with support circuitry on an integrated circuit chip. 100 000 to 1 million individually into diff erent batches of solution. The roll- Electronics manufacturers have been developing tech- times as sensitive as a human’s. to-roll method speeds up manufacturing considerably, niques for printing organic electronics for a decade at least, which brings down the cost. focusing on printed displays, memories, batteries, organic Printing polymers doesn’t completely solve the thin-fi lm transistors, and photovoltaics. Printed electron- manufacturing problem for e-noses, however. It is very ics in some of these applications are nearing their last rare to fi nd the properties of conductivity, sensitivity stages of development before commercialization. Although to vapors, and solubility in a single organic polymer many of the organic conductive materials used in these material. To get around this, researchers can incorpo- applications are similar to those used in e-nose research, SALMON USE their rate conductive non-sensing materials into a soluble, no developer has yet reported printing organic electron- sense of smell to sensing—but nonconductive—polymer. Visualize a ics for low-cost gas-sensor arrays. identify and return to their home- pudding with raisins in it. Conductive raisins are sus- In 2006, researchers at the University of California,

stream waters. pended in a pudding that swells in the presence of cer- Berkeley, reported using an array of integrated print- (3) ISTOCKPHOTO

May 12 & 13, 2008 Greater Boston Area, Mass., USA 2008 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE TECHNOLOGIES FOR Stay Connected HOMELAND SECURITY Spend less time worrying and more time communicating with an IEEE Email Alias With Technical Assistance From: An @ieee.org email address shows you’re part of a Department of Homeland Security, community of innovators. The IEEE Email Alias gives Science and Technology Directorate you an @ieee.org address while forwarding mail to your real account — and scanning for viruses at Visit the conference website for more information: the same time. www.ieeehomelandsecurityconference.org It’s free with your IEEE membership. Sign up today at www.ieee.org/alias

52 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

able organic semiconductors to diff erentiate between basic classes of electrical changes in response to a particular vapor. As of odors, such as acids, alcohols, amines, and thiols; for example, designers can also create standard resistors, capacitors, and this sensor array was able to distinguish wine from vinegar. In transistors using organic electronics, they could incorporate October 2007, researchers at MIT announced that they had suc- sensing and signal processing into a complete e-nose package cessfully printed barium carbonate, which can detect a range of that could be manufactured cheaply. gases, onto a silicon chip. This is yet another printable sensing It will take perhaps a decade more to increase the perfor- material that could enable printed gas-sensor arrays, though it mance, yield, and reliability of organic electronics in order to has yet to become part of a working e-nose system. make a cheap electronic nose a reality. Sensitivity, selectivity, The main hurdles to wide commercial use of these organic and reproducibility of printable sensors all need improvement. polymers involve their instability and short lifetimes. For odor Applications with lower cost margins, such as monitoring sensing, a stronger chemical interaction between the sensor perishable items at the grocery store, will require aggressive and the vapor improves the sensitivity of the sensor. However, refi nement of ultralow-cost printing techniques. More critical the stronger the interaction, the more likely that the interaction applications, like disease diagnosis, would require stringent will not be completely reversible. Put another way, the complete improvements in accuracy and reliability as well as rigorous reversibility of the sensing interaction prolongs sensor lifetime, fi eld testing. But once the technology is ready, printed electron- because the sensor is not permanently changed by the odors. ics could do for e-noses what the printing press did for books: The most stable organic materials are the ones that do not it could allow them to go from rare to ubiquitous in the blink interact with the environment at all. But no interaction means no of an eye…or the sniff of a nose. ❏ sensing, of course. So gas sensors based on organic electronics must balance chemical sensitivity with resistance to degradation. TO PROBE FURTHER To learn more about printed electronics, Fortunately, there are a multitude of ways to tweak the proper- visit http://www.printedelectronicsworld.com. ties of organic electronic materials to fi nd the balance. Because For more information about electronic noses, see Electronic the carbon atoms in the backbone of these substances bond easily Noses: Principles and Applications, by J.W. Gardner and P.N. with other materials, researchers can tack on or take off atoms of Bartlett, Oxford University Press, 1999. oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur, for example, and change the shape, For a description of the printable organic semiconductor sensor electrical response, or other properties of the polymer. array demonstrated at the University of California, Berkeley, see Making such changes has let researchers build electronic cir- “Printable Polythiophene Gas Sensor Array for Low-cost Electronic cuits that are sensitive to various gases. “Chemiresistors” change Noses,” Josephine B. Chang, Vincent Liu, Vivek Subramanian, Kevin resistance in response to certain vapors, “chemicapacitors” Sivula, Christine Luscombe, Amanda Murphy, Jinsong Liu, and Jean change capacitance, and “chemitransitors” exhibit a variety M. J. Fréchet, Journal of Applied Physics 100, 014506 (2006).

_____

ALaRI - University of Lugano MATERIALS AND DEVICE ENGINEERING Masters in Embedded Systems Design AT HIGHLY RANKED UNIVERSITY an international environment combining technology and business Chaired Research Professor to lead program in Materials Science and Professor of the Practice to lead an undergraduate program in Engineering Physics at Tulane University for Fall 2008. Master of Science with two tracks of study The Jung Chair, to be responsible to build a new PhD research program in Materi- - Design & Research als Science, have a vision of 21st century engineering, have strong publications, - Business Projects and must be prepared to bring in research grants. PhD in Engineering required. Contact Prof. Fred Wietfeldt ([email protected]). Master of Advanced Studies The Professor of the Practice will serve as student advisor and instructor for Individually tailored programs: full-time or part-time solutions our senior design requirement and summer industrial experience. Access to US industrial groups and strong interest in teaching required. Contact Prof. Jim McGuire ([email protected]). Master's programs start Tulane University is ranked in the top fi fty major US research universities by both in September 2008 US News & World Report and by the American Association of Universities (AAU). We are rebuilding our longstanding program in engineering to develop synergy in Scholarships and Accommodation engineering and science by overlapping engineering and science in both research and teaching, combining fundamentals of science with practical experience. Appli- cants should be prepared to work with applied quantum scientists. This is an excep- tionally collegial group, eager to establish leadership in science and technology. ALaRI - University of Lugano - Via G. Buffi 13 - 6900 Lugano - Switzerland Review of applications has begun and will continue until the positions are fi lled. ph. +41 58 666 4709 - fax +41 58 666 4647 Tulane is an Equal Opportunity/Affi rmative Action employer.

Further information can be found at: http://www.physics.tulane.edu. www.alari.ch [email protected]

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 53

FACULTY POSITIONS Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Southern Illinois University Carbondale The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering invites applications for three faculty positions, at the rank of Assistant Professor, one in each of the following three areas: (a) Microelectronics with emphasis on Digital VLSI Circuit Design I:CJG:"IG68@;68JAINEDH>I>DC EGD;:HHDG"G:H:6G8=:G (b) Software Systems with emphasis on Real-Time Embedded Systems, >CI:A:8DBBJC>86I>DC Embedded Software or 8dbeZiî^dc/9H%-"%& Software Engineering (c) Communications and Networking. Lî]^ci]Z[gVbZldg`d[îhwcZg\^Z!BVig^VjmZi IaXdbbjc^XVi^dch :BI XZcigZÉh higViZ\^X gZhZVgX] Applicants must have a Ph.D. degree (at the time of appointment) in Electrical En- egd\gVbh!i]Z>chiîjicVi^dcVaYZaVgZX]ZgX]ZhX^Zci^ÒfjZ gineering, Computer Engineering or a related fi eld, a demonstrated ability for excel- >CGH!VldgaY"gZcdlcZYjc^kZghînXZcigZlî]egd\gVbhVi lence in teaching and potential for high quality research documented by technical Wdi]\gVYjViZaZkZahB#HX#VcYE]#9#!^h^ckî^c\XVcY^YViZh publications. Individuals currently working toward their Ph.D. degree and expect- idVeean[dgdcZiZcjgZ"igVX`[VXjainegd[Zhhdg"gZhZVgX]Zg ing to graduate by August 15, 2008 will be considered for interview. Department provides support and excellent opportunities for the development of new faculty. edhî^dc^ci]Z[daadl^c\VgZVh/ Consideration of applications will begin on March 16, 2008 and will continue until // CZildg`h0 position is fi lled. Effective date of employment is August 16, 2008. // L^gZaZhhXdbbjc^XVi^dch0 Applicants should submit a resume, a list of three references, a statement regarding // Dei^XVa$e]didc^XhXdbbjc^XVi^dch0 the specifi c area of interest and Statement of Goals to the Chair of the Search Com- // HeZZX]egdXZhh^c\!^bV\ZegdXZhh^c\! mittee, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mail Code 6603, South- bjai^bZY^Vh^\cVaegdXZhh^c\# ern Illinois University Carbondale, 1230 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, Illinois 62901.

SIUC is an afﬁ rmative action/equal opportunity employer that strives to enhance its ability to develop a diverse EA68:D;:BEADNB:CI faculty and staff and to increase its potential to serve a diverse student population. All applications are >CGH"wcZg\^Z! BVig^Vjm Zi IaXdbbjc^XVi^dch! BdcigVa welcomed and encouraged and will receive consideration. FjWZX

LDG@>C<A6CCGH# National with (1) Control and (2) Power related specialties/ Sun Yat-sen applications are most preferable. 6aa Veea^XVi^dch lâa WZ igZViZY XdcÒYZci^Vaan# >ciZgZhiZY Applicants should have a Ph.D. degree in electrical Veea^XVcih h]djaY [dglVgY V XdbeaZiZ Xjgg^Xjajb kî² University engineering or other related fi elds. Responsibilities Wn Z"bVâ VcY gZ\^hiZgZY bVâ! V Xden d[ i]Z^g ( bdhi Department include effective teaching at the undergraduate and gZegZhZciVi^kZejWa^XVi^dch!V&id'eV\ZYZhXgêi^dcd[i]Z^g of Electrical graduate levels, and establish a strong research gZhZVgX]^ciZgZhih!VhlZaaVhi]ZcVbZhVcYVYYgZhhZhd[ Engineering program that involves supervision of graduate (gZ[ZgZcXZhWZ[dgZBVn&*!'%%-!^cY^XVi^c\XdbeZiî^dc students and acquisition of research grants. FACULTY 9H%-"%&id/ Applicants should send, before March 31, 2008, (a) 9^gZXidg RECRUITMENT a curriculum vitae, (b) transcript (for fresh Ph.D. >CGH"wcZg\^Z!BVig^VjmZiIaXdbbjc^XVi^dch applicants), (c) three recommendation letters, (d) publication list, (e) reprints of selected papers, (f) a statement on teaching and -%%!YZAVCGHVY]ZgZhidi]Zeg^cXêaZd[ldg`ZfjVaîn# >cVXXdgYVcXZlî]8VcVY^Vc^bb^\gVi^dcaVlh!8VcVY^VcXîôZchVcY URL: http://www.ee.nsysu.edu.tw EZgbVcZcigZh^YZcihlâaWZ\^kZceg^dgîn[dgi]^hedhî^dc# NSYSU has been named by Ministry of Education (MOE), Taiwan, R.O.C. as one of the top seven research-intensive universities in Taiwan since 2002. It is also one of the 12 universities at Taiwan that have just been awarded the total 5-year, 50-billion NT$ special development fund from MOE. The EE department is consistently ranked among 5 of the best EE programs in the nation, and is the only university in Taiwan with full scholarship support program for International Master of Electric Power Engineering. ______

54 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008WW______W.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

IBM Systems and Technology Group (STG) is looking for Exceptional Talent in the areas of Compact Modeling, ASICs and Processor Development for its facility in Bangalore, India.

IBM Systems and Technology Group (STG) in shape manipulation, basic layout edit- DEFECT CHARACTERIZATION ENGINEER: sibilities include Development, reviews, veri- is the world’s premier hardware and sys- ing skills on industry standard layout edit- Monitor, analyze and drive improvements in fi cation and interfacing with customers. tems development organization and has ing tools, and experience with tools such random and systematic defect densities, line sustained its technology leadership posi- as Mentor Calibre, SVRF, or Cadence Vir- resistivity centering and variability. Interface LOGIC DESIGN/VERIFICATION LEAD: Devel- tion over the years of silicon revolution. tuoso. Hands-on experience needed with with Process Integration Development. opment and verifi cation of Architecture, The sustained leadership is a testimony to CAD tools, good scripting skills, testing High level design and front end RTL de- the IBM core values of innovation, dedica- methodologies. Software skill require- FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERIZATION ENGI- velopment of ASIC/ Processor modules. tion, trust and customer satisfaction. IBM’s ments are C, Java, Perl, Scripting lan- NEER: Analyze product level data from fab- Responsibilities include leading a team of semiconductor technologies include SOI, guage such as Kornshell. ricated chips and suggest improvements to Logic design and verifi cation engineers, Bulk CMOS, RFCMOS, HV CMOS, and SiGe yield/performance /design. Interface with reviews, interfacing with customers and HBT BiCMOS Technologies. The IBM STG OPC/ORC DEVELOPER: Develop software internal and external customers to com- managing requirements, schedules and centre at Bangalore is responsible for Pro- infrastructure using physical verifi cation municate status, drive changes. deliverables. cessor development, ASIC methodologies, tools, interact with integration, design Qualifi ed candidates for all charac- EDA development, compact models (e.g. teams to provide optical proximity cor- terization positions, should have a basic PROCESSOR CUSTOM LAYOUT ENGINEER: spice models), process design kits (PDK), rections on design patterns and improve understanding of semiconductor device Design and verifi cation of full custom leading edge computational lithography, manufacturability. Fix ORC/MRC issues as physics and operation, solid programming layouts for processor modules. Responsi- functional characterization support, design they arise. In-depth knowledge of reticle skills and familiarity with data analysis and bilities include development of full custom and modeling for nanoscale devices. For enhancement techniques with exposure to characterization methods with a BS/BTech, layouts and interfacing with circuit design more information about IBM’s leadership 65nm, 45nm technologies. Develop OPC MS/MTech or PhD degree in Electrical En- teams in multiple geographies. in semiconductor technologies, please visit runset coding, optimization, regression and gineering or Computer Science, Material www.ibm.com/chips. testing. Interface with lithography, integra- Science or Physics. Sr. PROCESSOR CUSTOM LAYOUT ENGINEER: tion, design teams. Experience with Men- Design and verifi cation of full custom lay- tor Calibre SVRF, Cadence Assura, and/or outs for processor modules. Responsibili- Opportunities Cadence Virtuoso, software skills such as For all below positions qualifi ed candidates ties include leading a development team COMPACT MODELING ENGINEER: Develop C / C++ coding, shell / TCL / Perl scripting, should have an MS/M.Tech. or Ph.D. de- of custom layout engineers, reviews, in- compact models for active and passive object oriented programming a plus. gree in Electrical Engineering or Computer terfacing with circuit design teams in mul- (both FEOL and BEOL) devices in advanced For both Dataprep engineer and OPC/ Science and relevant domain experience. tiple geographies and managing require- CMOS, mixed signal, and RF technologies. ORC developer positions, qualifi ed candi- ments, schedules and deliverables. Work closely with device engineers to defi ne dates must possess a Degree BS/BTech or NANO KERNAL ENGINEER: Analyze and devel- parameter targets. Defi ne test programs for MS/MTech in Computer Science, Electrical op nano-kernel for validating new advances PROCESSOR SEMI CUSTOM LAYOUT ENGI- DC and RF device measurement and char- Engineering or related fi elds. in IBM processors. Responsibilities include NEER: Design and verifi cation of layouts acterization. Use software such as ICCAP to development, testing, validation and perfor- for processor modules using semi custom extract parameters for BSIM, PSP or other ATOMISTIC/QUANTUM EFFECTS MODELING mance analysis of processors and nano-ker- tool fl ow. Responsibilities include develop- models. Qualifi ed candidates must possess ENGINEER: Involves theoretical under- nal used for the hardware validation. ment of macro layouts, interfacing with a MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering or standing of quantum effects in 22 nm scale circuit design and tool development teams Physics and strong knowl edge of semicon- devices; these include carrier transport, SRAM/ IO DESIGN R&D ENGINEER: Develop in multiple geographies. ductor devices. geometry and material dependent band- circuit designs for SRAM, Register fi les structure calculations, role of metal and and IO blocks. Responsibilities include Sr. PROCESSOR SEMI CUSTOM LAYOUT EN- PARASITICS EXTRACTION ENGINEER: Create high-k material interfaces, and related phe- development, verifi cation and interface GINEER: Design and verifi cation of layouts input fi les for different technology stacks, nomena to enable development of 22 nm with the other geographies for ASIC/ Pro- for processor modules using semi custom BEOL ground rules and determine effects scale devices. cessor development. tool fl ow. Responsibilities include leading a of parasitics on device and circuit perfor- development team of semi custom layout mance. Job includes mapping LVS to PEX TECHNOLOGY CAD ENGINEER: Involves the CELL LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER: engineers, reviews, interfacing with circuit layers, creating and building test struc- improvement and development of an IBM Develop BLAS, LAPACK and Mathemati- design and tool development teams in mul- tures to verify accuracy of the PEX decks proprietary tool for the simulation of lead- cal library routines for the Cell Processors. tiple geographies and managing require- as compared to a reference 3D EM solver. ing edge semiconductor devices. In par- Responsibilities include development, veri- ments, schedules and deliverables. MS/MTech or PhD in Electrical Engineer- ticular, physical and numerical models for fi cation, analysis and performance optimi- ing or a related area required. Candidates carrier transport infl uenced by e.g., chan- zation of library routines. ASIC DEVELOPMENT LEAD/ MANAGER: De- should have knowledge of electromag- nel materials, strain, high-k materials, and velopment of EDA processes and method- netic theory, experience in Cadence de- crystallographic orientation will be devel- IP MAINTENANCE LEAD: Enhancement and ologies for ASIC development. Respon- sign system or other standard tools and oped and implemented. maintenance of existing ASIC and Processor sibilities include leading and managing a Perl/Shell scripting. Candidates for Atomistic modeling and IPs and porting them to new and evolving development team of ASIC fl ow develop- Technology CAD positions should have technologies. Responsibilities include lead- ment engineers, reviews, interfacing with DESIGN AUTOMATION ENGINEER: Needed a strong background in semiconductor ing a team of IP maintenance engineers, customers and managing requirements, candidates both in DRC and LVS areas. physics, quantum effects in nano-devices, interfacing with customers and managing schedules and deliverables. DRC/LVS Engineer will develop Design Rule numerical programming, and computer requirements, schedules and deliverables. Checking (DRC) and Layout vs. Schematic programming in mixed language environ- CHIP PD LEAD/ MANAGER: Development of (LVS) decks in EDA tools to match IBM’s ment and possess a PhD/MS in Physics/ IP TEST LEAD: Testing of existing ASIC and complete ASIC from net-list to GDS II. Re- leading edge technologies. Implement Tvf Materials Science, Electrical Engineering or Processor IPs and porting the verifi cation sponsibilities include leading and manag- or Tcl macros in the code. Develop code Computer Science. platform to new and evolving technologies. ing a development team of ASIC physical for proximity effects, T-Lines, PC/RX cor- Responsibilities include leading a team of design engineers, reviews, interfacing with ner rounding etc. BS/B.Tech or specialized DEVICE CHARACTERIZATION ENGINEER: Ana- IP test engineers, interfacing with custom- customers and managing requirements, diploma and minimum 5 years industry ex- lyze electrical test data to monitor and drive ers and managing requirements, schedules schedules and deliverables. perience required. improvements in device performance, line and deliverables. centering, and variability. Responsibilities Please address your queries/resumes to DATAPREP ENGINEER: Function in roles include statistical and exploratory analysis LOGIC DESIGN/VERIFICATION ENGINEER: Neha Pareek. Email: [email protected]. such as a Boolean Developer, Infrastruc- of test data, overall ownership of the test Development and verifi cation of Architecture, __com. Please quote ‘IEEE Spectrum’ in the ture Developer, and/or Layout Test Engi- plan including selection of key test struc- High level design and front end RTL develop- subject line along with the position you neer. Candidate should have experience tures and setup. ment of ASIC/ Processor modules. Respon- are applying for.

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor/Professor in Multimedia Content Creation including Computer Graphics and/or Computer Music

School of Engineering and Advanced Technology Wellington A new academic vacancy in the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology (SEAT), Massey University Wellington campus is available for a qualified candidate to support the development and delivery of the Multimedia Systems Engineering major of the four-year Bachelor of Engineering with honours program. Closing date: 30 March 2008 Reference number: A035-08B Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor/Professor in Multimedia Signal Processing and Multimedia Communications

School of Engineering and Advanced Technology Wellington A new academic vacancy in School of Engineering and Advanced Technology (SEAT) Massey University Wellington campus is available for a qualified candidate to support the development and delivery of the Multimedia Systems Engineering major. Closing date: 30 March 2008 Reference number: A036-08B

For further information and to apply online, visit: http://jobs.massey.ac.nz

______

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN The University of Dublin

www.tcd.ie/vacancies Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research The Technical SENIOR RESEARCHER University of (C.T.V.R.) Denmark is one WITH MANAGER DUTIES FOR of the leading technical research Research Professor in DEVELOPMENT OF SMART ELECTRIC and educational POWER TECHNOLOGIES institutions in Northern Europe Network Architecture with 6.200 students, The Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research works Department of Electrical Engineering seeks 4.500 employees actively in both optical and wireless networking, and to increase a senior researcher for smart sustainable and a yearly our competence in network architectures we are initiating a turnover of electric power systems and future electric Research Professorship in Network Architecture. technologies at our Center for Electric DKK 3.1 billion. The successful candidate will be engaged in the current re- Technology. The position implies research examination of internet architecture and will be actively in a selected ﬁeld based on the applicant’s As of January 1, 2007 DTU has exploring its likely successor. The appointee will be expected to personal proﬁle and interest as well as a merged with the avail of selected Science Foundation Ireland programmes tailored special assignment regarding management Danish Institute for for this position, to establish a research team and to quickly of the centre. Food and Veterinary establish an international research presence in this field. It is Research, Risø further expected that the post-holder will work within the Centre Further information may be obtained from National Laboratory, for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research the Danish Institute Professor Jacob Østergaard, e-mail: (http://www.ctvr.ie/) and will play a key leadership role in its [email protected] for Fisheries ______Research, the Emerging Networks strand. The full text of the announcement can be Danish National For further information on this Centre please see www.ctvr.ie Space Centre and seen on DTU’s homepage. the Danish Transport A full job description and application details for this position are Research Institute. available at www.tcd.ie/vacancies Application deadline: 17th March 2008 at Closing date will be no later than 12 noon on Monday, 12.00. 31st March, 2008. Further details www.dtu.dk/vacancy Trinity College Dublin is an equal opportunities employer.

56 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

A Faculty Position in Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering 3D technology to give our The Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering invites applications from outstanding candidates future a whole new dimension? to fi ll one tenure-track faculty position at all ranks in the fi elds of System-on-Chip (including digital, analog, RF and bio-electronics), EDA and embedded >> Let’s turn tomorrow into today. systems. An earned doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent degree in a closely related fi eld is required. Qualifi ed candidates should have a strong commitment to research, and to teaching graduate courses. Screening begins from now and Een gsm die je nooit meer hoeft op te laden? the due day of applications is March 17th, 2008. Visit http://www.ntpu.edu.tw/college/ ______e6/ee/www/indexc.html for further information. Applicants should submit: (1) a curriculum vitae, (2) samples of recent publications, (3) photocopy of Ph. D. diploma (fresh Ph. D. should provide it by June 1st, 2008), (4) two recommendation letters, (5) transcripts of all post graduate work (for assistant professorship applicants only), and (6) statement of research, to the following address: Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering National Taipei University 151 University Rd., Sanshia, Taipei County (237) IMEC’s roadmap for 3D technology development explores the TAIWAN possibilities to interconnect active devices in different 2D planes, a E-mail: [email protected] choice that also affects system design in a signifi cant way. TEL: +886-2-8674-6474 IMEC’s 3D research program aims to understand and exploit novel 3D FAX: +886-2-2673-6500 technologies and to limit 3D integration cost. Both the 3D technology and design subprograms are based on the requirements for functionality, cost, testability and power of actual advanced systems, School of Electronic, as they are studied by research groups at IMEC. Information and Electrical Engineering (SEIEE) Are you ready to work on groundbreaking projects like these? Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) Then join IMEC, Europe’s largest independent research centre in nanotechnology and nanoelectronics. FACULTY POSITIONS Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) School of Electronic, Information and Electrical Engineering is seeking applications for faculty positions at all ranks with emphasis on the Associate For our challenges in 3D technology development, Professor level. The School has fi ve Departments which we welcome m/f colleagues for these functions are Automation, Computer Science and Engineering, • Program Manager 3D SoC Design Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, and Information Measurement Technology and Instruments, • Manager Back-end-of-line respectively, and every Department is looking for new faculty members. Qualifi ed candidates with recent Furthermore, we are looking for the following colleagues m/f Ph.D. degrees are especially encouraged to apply and • Product Manager will be hired directly at the Associate Professor level if successful. Annual salary is highly competitive among all • Research Engineer MPSoC the Chinese Institutions which ranges between 120,000- 180,000 RMB for Associate Professor, and 220,000 to 250,000 for Full Professor and commensurates with Inspired by the idea of a high-tech job at IMEC? experience and qualifi cation. Apply now online at www.imec.be/jobs Further information about the School can be found at or send your CV with a cover letter to ______http://www.seiee.sjtu.edu.cn. Applications including IMEC, Recruitment Team, Kapeldreef 75, curriculum vitae and contact information of three 3001 Leuven (Belgium). Any questions? references should be sent electronically to: Contact us by calling +32 16-28.83.64. Prof. Xiaofan Wang Associate Dean School of Electronic, Information, and Electrical Engineering The Shanghai Jiao Tong University IMEC welcomes each talent - 800 Dongchuan Road regardless of nationality, age, Minhang, Shanghai 200240 gender, background, handicap, The People’s Republic of China religion or sexual inclination. e-mail: [email protected] Applications will be reviewed until all the positions are fi lled. www.imec.be/jobs

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 57

® My profession. Call for Faculty My organization. Position available (Security, Privacy, Networking): My IEEE. The position is based at Carnegie Mellon CyLab Japan in Kobe, Japan. Responsibilities include teaching core technical courses for the Masters of Science in Information Technology - Information Security track (MSIT-IS) program, as well as leading and participating in research projects related to initiatives of Carnegie Mellon CyLab. Candidates must demonstrate strong commitments in teaching, a strong technical background, and a proven research track record evidenced by a publication history in networking, security and/or privacy.

Position available (Networking, Security, Mobility): The position is based at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley campus in Moff ett Field, California. Responsibilities include teaching core technical courses for the Information Networking Institute Pittsburgh-Silicon Valley Masters of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program, as well as leading and participating in research projects related to initiatives of Carnegie Mellon CyLab. Candidates must demonstrate strong commitments in teaching, a strong technical background, and a proven research track record evidenced by a publication history in networking, security and/or mobility.

Please visit www.ini.cmu.edu or www.cylab.cmu.edu for detailed descriptions and application information.

Full Professor Telecommunication Engineering

The University of Twente invites applicants for a Full Professor Telecommunication Engineering. The successful candidate has demonstrated competence for independent research and leadership of international standing and has a strong commitment to teaching. He/she will establish a comprehensive, advanced research and teaching agenda. Candidates must have excellent management skills and be able to provide leadership at group, faculty and university level. Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant field.

The research area of the group is radio communication with a new focus on short range radio communication and the system aspects in the physical layer of communication systems. Application areas are in-door networks (sensor networks) and e.g. automotive communication systems. Technical solutions can be found in digital signal processing, RF or optical technology. Discover The research challenges are on topics like scalability, dependability, security, (energy) efficiency and low cost achieved by (cross-layer) system optimization. The research of the group is embedded the benefits in the CTIT (Centre for Telematics and Information Technology) (http://www.ctit.utwente.nl/), which is the largest academic ICT research institute in the Netherlands. There is an intensive of IEEE cooperation between the 3 Dutch Technical Universities. Short Range Radio is a research focus of the University of Twente, receiving additional funding. membership.

The group is currently responsible for teaching of 3 undergraduate courses and several graduate courses. The graduate courses will develop according to the new research focus. For more detailed information, please contact the head of the department of EE, Professor dr. ir. J. van Amerongen (e-mail:[email protected]), telephone +31 (0)53 489 2791. Information about the group can be found at: http://www.el.utwente.nl/te/ Join today Applicants should address written applications (vacancy number 5012/08/007) preferably by www.ieee.org/join email to the chairman of the selection committee: Prof. dr. ir. A. J. Mouthaan, Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, P.O Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands, e-mail:[email protected]. Applications should be received before 10. April 2008. In several areas women are still under- represented. Therefore we particularly invite women to apply. If you feel qualified, but need to shift your present focus to fit the vacancy and see it as a challenge to be so within a few years, we are happy to discuss with you the option of a 4-year tenure-track position.

58 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008 ______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

ieee spectrum classiﬁ eds

Ph.D. students wanted in Engineering and Public Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe’s leading telecommunications company, is expanding its corporate research and Policy (EPP): Topics include assessments of: 1) social development centre – Deutsche Telekom Laboratories – in Germany’s vibrant capital Berlin in collaboration and economic vulnerabilities of major disruptions in GPS service; 2) use of demand side management to with the Technische Universität Berlin. increase power system reliability and assist integration of intermittent renewables; 3) energy saving potential Deutsche Telekom Laboratories’ mission is to explore and develop new information and communication of and RF emissions from effi cient DC power supplies; technologies that lay the foundations for Deutsche Telekom’s future products and services. 4) efficient video displays; 5) climate change and water desalinization. Contact Granger Morgan, EPP, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories comprises a technology-oriented Strategic Research Laboratory and an Carnegie Mellon. [email protected]. application-oriented Innovation Development Laboratory. As a joint venture between a company at the cutting edge of information technology and a leading German research university, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories offers an unprecedented combination of academic freedom, practical focus, and the resources of a major corporation. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories are housed on the Sign me up! main campus of the Technische Universität Berlin with about 30,000 students and several research institutes working in various areas of information and communication technology. Our Strategic Research Laboratory already includes around 50 senior research scientists and doctoral candidates, and has several openings for highly qualiﬁ ed Senior Research Scientists in the broad areas of ■ Security (network and systems security) ■ Networking (network architecture, wireless networking, network application, network services) What’s New @ IEEE ■ Systems (virtualization, mobile operating systems) 10 FREE NEWSLETTERS TO CHOOSE FROM ■ Human Interface (quality and usability evaluation, interaction design, multimedia interface technologies, multimodal interactive systems)

SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Successful applicants will have recently completed a doctoral degree, e.g., in computer science, electrical www.ieee.org/whats-new engineering, or other disciplines related to the areas mentioned, and be enthusiastic about the unique opportunity to conduct leading-edge research with immediate impact on the products and services of a major telecoms company. Applications will be considered until the positions have been fi lled. Please send your application no later than by March 14, 2008. Outstanding candidates will be invited to give a presentation and have interviews with members of the Recruiting Committee in Berlin. The next symposium is planned for the weekend of March 28- 29, 2008. Please consult our web site www.laboratories.telekom.com for possible date changes. Technische Universität Berlin and Deutsche Telekom AG envisage to ensure equal opportunity for men and women, applications from female candidates with the advertised qualifi cations are explicitly solicited. Provided qualifi cations are equal, persons with disabilities will be preferred. Application materials should include, in a single pdf fi le in this order, (a) cover letter, (b) one-page statement of research objectives, (c) curriculum vitae, (d) list of publications, and (e) contact information of at least three individuals who may serve as references. Power Applications shall be submitted to the attention of Prof. Anja Feldmann or Prof. Sebastian Möller by using the TO THE PEOPLE upload function in the Jobs & Careers section at www.laboratories.telekom.com or by email to

Prof. Anja Feldmann, Ph.D. or Prof. Dr. Sebastian Möller IEEE Member Deutsche Telekom Laboratories Digital Library Email: [email protected] ■ Access any IEEE journal or conference proceeding ■ Over a million full-text documents ■ The latest online research Looking For An IEEE ■ 50 years of selected archived titles Conference In Your Area? Power up. Learn more at: www.ieee.org/ieeemdl Access the hundreds of meetings currently listed in the IEEE Conference Database.

>> Search Now www.ieee.org/conferencesearch

______WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • INT 59

By SAMUEL K. MOORE

critical are found in cellphones. The ones Supply Risk, Scarcity, and Cellphones to worry about, says Graedel, are diffi cult to ﬁ nd substitutes for and are produced ALE UNIVERSITY industrial ecologist industry ﬁ nds itself highly dependent on only as by-products of something else, YThomas E. Graedel likes to point some substances whose supply is more so their own supplies are constrained. out in his lectures that when you hold a precarious than we’d like. Graedel was Gallium and indium fall into that category. cellphone, you’re holding half the periodic part of a U.S. government committee that Graedel has also been examining the fact table of elements in your hand. The looked at the “criticality”—the combination that a more affl uent global population number of minerals used in electronics of importance and supply risk—of a may cause even common minerals like has ballooned over the years, and now the number of key minerals. Some of the most copper to become scarce. ❏

Price per kilogram, US $ World production Reserve base COPPER N Importance in use (annual average) (metric tons) Supply risk (metric tons) Use: Wires, cables, and general infrastructure N Top suppliers: Chile, United States, Indonesia, Peru 8 20 Projected scarcity: Copper is extensively mined and has a huge reserve base, but recent 6 analysis has found that for the world popula- 15 940 000 000 tion to attain North American affl uence by 2100, 4

more copper would be required than exists in 2 the Earth’s crust. 10 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

GALLIUM Use: LEDs, lasers, solar cells, and RF circuits 600 80 Top suppliers: China, Germany, Kazakhstan, 60 Japan, Russia Projected scarcity: Gallium is a by-product of 500 40 Data not available Data not available the production of other, more important metals, before 2005 and so its supply is entirely dependent on the 20

demand for those other metals. 400 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 20060.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

HAFNIUM 250 Use: Insulator in cutting-edge chips Top suppliers: Australia, South Africa 200 Data not available Data not available Data not available Projected scarcity: Even though it is found in the abundant mineral zircon, hafnium is rarely 150 reﬁ ned, and there is little production data available. Because its use is so new, it’s hard to say when it 100 might become scarce. 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

INDIUM Use: Transparent electrodes that control the 1000 500 pixels in LCD displays 800 Top suppliers: China, Canada, Japan 400 600 Projected scarcity: The price of indium 6000 400 has shot up recently. Unless new resources 300 are found and recycling improves, indium 200

could be scarce by 2020. 0 200 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 20060.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

TANTALUM Use: High-performance capacitors in 80 2000 cellphones and cars Top suppliers: Australia, Brazil 150 000 Projected scarcity: Tantalum will probably not 70 1500 be scarce until after 2030. But a U.S. government report notes that suppliers can easily hold capacitor

makers hostage to price increases. 60 1000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 20060.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

TIN 15 300 000 Use: Main component of lead-free solder Top suppliers: China, Indonesia, Peru 12 Projected scarcity: It’s mined extensively and 250 000 Data not available 11 000 000 has a huge reserve base, so even if lead solder is 9 eliminated worldwide and the world population’s

affl uence grows, tin will not become scarce. 6 200 000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

SOURCES & NOTES: Price, production, and reserve base data are from the U.S. Geological Service’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2007 and 2006 Mineral Yearbook. The criticality index is from the U.S. National Research Council’s report Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy (November 2007). Analysis of copper and tin are from “Metal Stocks and Sustainability,” by R.B. Gordon et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 31 January 2006, pp. 1209–1214. Projected scarcity of tantalum and indium were determined by dividing the reserve base by 2006 production. PHOTO: NOKIA

60 INT • IEEE SPECTRUM • MARCH 2008

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Over one million people around the world speak MATLAB. Engineers and scientists in everything from aerospace and semiconductors to biotech, financial services, and earth and ocean sciences use it to express their ideas. Do you speak MATLAB? Image Credit: SAO, NASA, JAXA/ISAS, NAOJ ©2007 The MathWorks, Inc.

Solar Image taken by the X-Ray Telescope: supplied courtesy of Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

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