ELECTRICITY FOR 3D PRINTING’S IBM’S MEDICAL YOUR BIOCHIP ALL IN INDIA NEW FRONTIER AI DEBACLE DOPPELGÄNGER Bringing power Making metal parts Where are It’ll test drugs so to the powerless for 5G phones the Watsons? you don’t have to P. 06 P. 09 P. 24 P. 44 FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER | 04.19 The year’s hottest wheels belong to the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, the new “King of the ‘Ring” P. 32 starting at AWGs $4,980 per channel 2.4 GSa/s, 16 bit, 750 MHz 4, 8 and more channels <50 ns trigger latency Typical Applications Semiconductor testing, quantum computing, phased-array radar design & test, Boost your lidar, spectroscopy, NMR lab's performance Impedance starting at Analyzers $11,270 DC to 5 MHz, 1 mΩ to 1 TΩ 0.05% basic accuracy Compensation Advisor and Confidence Indicators Typical Applications High-Q dielectrics, capacitive sensors, supercapacitors, PV materials, component characterization Lock-in starting at Amplifiers $6,210 Up to 600 MHz Scope, FFT, FRA, Sweeper, Imaging tool Optional: AWG, PID, PLL, Boxcar, Counter, AM & FM Typical Applications AFM, LVP, CARS, SRS, SNOM, graphene, optical PLL, THz, pump-probe, RFID, MEMS, NEMS, gyros, NDT, MRFM LabOne® Software All instruments are equipped with LabOne®, the Zurich Instruments control software, providing a wealth of features, efficient workflows and ease of use. Access your instruments from any web browser or integrate it into your LabVIEW, MAT- LAB, Python, C, and .NET programs. Intl. +41 44 515 0410 USA 855-500-0056 (Toll Free) [email protected] www.zhinst.com Zurich Let's discuss your application Instruments Start the conversation today CONTENTS_04.19 TOP 10 TECH CARS: 2019 The technologies behind EVs and autonomy are trickling into everyday cars. By Lawrence ULrich Page 32 24 IBM WATSON, HEAL THYSELF Artificial intelligence may revolutionize medicine, and IBM aimed to lead the charge. But creating an AI doctor proved harder than anyone expected. By Eliza Strickland 44 A MEDICAL MINI-ME Chip-scale copies of living organs are helping scientists discover new drugs and could one day help doctors pick the perfect treatment for what ails you. By Yu Shrike Zhang 06 NEWS 14 RESOURCES 21 OPINION IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2019 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. Volume No. 56, Issue No. 4. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official 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: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $399. POSTMASTER: 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 offices. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at 120 Donnelley Dr., Glasgow, KY 42141-1060, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of the Association of Business Information & Media Companies, the Association of Magazine Media, and Association Media & Publishing. IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment, and bullying. For more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/ On the cover and this page Illustrations for IEEE Spectrum by Ben Fearnley whatis/policies/p9-26.html. SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | APR 2019 | 01 BACK STORY_ THE IEEE APP: Your mobile gateway to IEEE. EVEN A NON-MILLIONAIRE DESERVES A GREAT CAR nother day, another supercar. Lawrence Ulrich, our automotive contributor (that’s him, next to the US $525,000 Lambo) has driven more exotic automobiles than he can Download now recall. But he swears that he gets almost as big a kick from driving the latest electric cars or any other model that brings and get IEEE at new and exciting technology to the masses. your fingertips. “Any car that costs six figures is supposed to be amazing, and A there have been plenty of letdowns,” says Ulrich. “So one of the best things about my job is discovering a car that’s brilliantly designed and executed, but that regular people like me can afford.” He points to the Honda Insight Hybrid, in this year’s Top 10 Tech Cars, as a prime example of advanced technology and affordability. Ulrich lives in Brooklyn these days, but he hails from a three- generation family of Detroit autoworkers, including a grandfather and namesake who worked the metal presses—and had the missing fingers to show for it. Ulrich himself did time on a production line in the early ’80s, back when Detroit’s offerings were at a low ebb in terms of design, quality, and technology. The business has come back since then, in Detroit and around the world. The cars are better, and so is the manufacturing. These days, any global automaker—well, perhaps not Tesla—can routinely churn out 400,000 or even 500,000 cars a year from a single factory, using as few as 3,000 workers. “The same technology that has given us the most trouble-free, best-performing, most technically advanced cars in history continues to make human workers redundant, at least in terms of factory assembly,” Ulrich says. “It’s a sad irony, but there’s no going back.” ■ 04.19 CHARLIE MAGEE CHARLIE CONTRIBUTORS_ EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected] ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] Felicia Spagnoli, [email protected] EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, DIGITAL SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Mark Anderson Harry Goldstein, [email protected] Nicole Evans Gyimah, [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] Anderson, an IEEE Spectrum contributing editor, EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD, IEEE SPECTRUM says the first and only time he ever used a 3D SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Susan Hassler, Chair; Steve Blank, David C. Brock, Sudhir Dixit, Mark Montgomery, [email protected] Shahin Farshchi, Limor Fried, Robert Hebner, Jason K. Hui, printer was at a local maker’s event, where his SENIOR EDITORS Grant Jacoby, Leah Jamieson, Mary Lou Jepsen, Deepa Kundur, kids used one of the available machines to print Stephen Cass (Resources), [email protected] Norberto Lerendegui, Steve Mann, Allison Marsh, Sofia Olhede, out a plastic doodad. “It wasn’t anything useful,” Erico Guizzo (Digital), [email protected] Jacob Østergaard, Umit Ozguner, John Rogers, he recalls. Now that the novelty of 3D printing Jean Kumagai, [email protected] Jonathan Rothberg, Umar Saif, Takao Someya, is wearing off, manufacturers are focusing on Samuel K. Moore, [email protected] Maurizio Vecchione, Yu Zheng, Kun Zhou, Edward Zyszkowski Tekla S. Perry, [email protected] mainstream uses, Anderson says. He writes Philip E. Ross, [email protected] EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD, THE INSTITUTE about recent progress in 3D-printed metals for David Schneider, [email protected] Kathy Pretz, Chair; Qusi Alqarqaz, John Baillieul, Philip Chen, this issue [p. 9]. Shashank Gaur, Susan Hassler, Hulya Kirkici, Cecilia Metra, DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR Brandon Palacio, [email protected] San Murugesan, Mirela Sechi Annoni Notare, Joel Trussell, PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Randi Klett, [email protected] Hon K. Tsang, Chonggang Wang ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Erik Vrielink, [email protected] SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR MANAGING DIRECTOR, PUBLICATIONS Eliza Strickland, [email protected] Michael B. Forster Lucian Copeland NEWS MANAGER Amy Nordrum, [email protected] EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE Copeland is a design consultant and hardware- ASSOCIATE EDITORS IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, startup veteran. In this issue, he describes how he Willie D. Jones (Digital), [email protected] New York, NY 10016-5997 built the SPUDwrite, an electronic-paper-based Michael Koziol, [email protected] TEL: +1 212 419 7555 FAX: +1 212 419 7570 typewriter [p. 14]. When he’s not building what SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] BUREAU Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 752 6661 COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected] he calls “silly toys,” he’s cataloging the hardware EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected] DIRECTOR, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, and software foundations of rapid prototyping MEDIA & ADVERTISING Mark David, [email protected] ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT and the maker movement. And perhaps his toys Ramona L. Foster, [email protected] ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Naylor Association Solutions, are not so silly: Copeland confirms that the first CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Evan Ackerman, Mark Anderson, Erik Henson +1 352 333 3443, [email protected] draft of his article was, in fact, written on the Robert N. Charette, Peter Fairley, Tam Harbert, Mark Harris, REPRINT SALES +1 212 221 9595, ext. 319 SPUDwrite. David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Prachi Patel, Morgen E. Peck, REPRINT PERMISSION / LIBRARIES Articles may be Richard Stevenson, Lawrence Ulrich, Paul Wallich photocopied for private use of patrons. A per-copy fee must EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE INSTITUTE be paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, 29 Congress Kathy Pretz, [email protected] St., Salem, MA 01970. For other copying or republication, Ben Fearnley ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE INSTITUTE contact Managing Editor, IEEE Spectrum. Joanna Goodrich, [email protected] COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS IEEE Spectrum is a Fearnley is a 3D illustrator based in New York DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy registered trademark owned by The Institute of Electrical and City. For the cover, he turned the Lamborghini EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER Roy Carubia Electronics Engineers Inc.