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Boeing steps up focus on computational frontiers

Boeing computing
Boeing’s new Disruptive Computing and Networks organization will focus on using artificial intelligence, quantum communications and computing, neuromorphic processing and other cutting-edge technologies for aerospace applications. (Boeing Illustration)

Boeing is raising its profile on computational frontiers ranging from artificial intelligence to quantum communications by setting up a new organization called Disruptive Computing and Networks, or DC&N, to put those technologies to work in aerospace.

The new organization will be based in Southern California and operate as part of Boeing’s Engineering, Test & Technology unit. Charles Toups is moving over from his post as vice president and general manager of Boeing Research & Technology to lead DC&N as vice president and general manager.

Boeing’s shift aims to stimulate innovations in secure communications, AI and complex system optimization. The move signals that the high-tech worlds of aerospace and advanced computing are increasingly converging, said Greg Hyslop, Boeing’s chief technology officer and senior vice president of Engineering, Test & Technology.

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‘Interscatter’ tech opens new data frontiers

Image: 'Interscatter' contact lens
University of Washington researcher Vikram Iyer holds up a contact lens that’s been fitted with interscatter electronics. (Credit: Mark Stone / University of Washington)

Contact lenses and brain implants that can transmit data may sound like science-fiction gizmos  but researchers at the University of Washington are turning them into science fact, thanks to a technological trick they call interscatter communication.

The technology relies on super-low-power devices that can reflect wireless transmissions such as Bluetooth signals, transforming them into data-carrying Wi-Fi signals in the process.

Such devices require mere millionths of a watt to work, and can be shrunk down to the size of a computer chip. The technique is described in a paper to be presented next week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s SIGCOMM 2016 conference in Brazil.

The researchers developed interscatterers shaped like contact lenses and brain implants as test cases.

“Wireless connectivity for implanted devices can transform how we manage chronic diseases,” Vikram Iyer, a UW electrical engineering doctoral student, said today in a news release. “For example, a contact lens could monitor a diabetics blood sugar level in tears and send notifications to the phone when the blood sugar level goes down.”

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Five science tales that aren’t April Fool’s jokes

Image: Elasmotherium
A painting by Heinrich Harder (circa 1920) provides a view of Elasmotherium, a horned animal that went extinct tens of thousands of years ago. (Credit: Heinrich Harder via Wikipedia)

Unicorns are real! Scientists propose cloaking device to protect Earth from aliens! Glow-in-the-dark skin grown in lab! Those may sound like April Fool’s headlines, but they’re actually amped-up twists on real-life science. Check out five recent scientific revelations that take a walk on the weird side.

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