Category Technology/Electronics

Wireless Receiver Blocks Interference for Better Mobile Device Performance

A cellphone has a blue shield which blocks red interference.
Caption: A new receiver can block up to four times more interference than some similar devices.
Credits:Image: MIT News; iStock

The growing prevalence of high-speed wireless communication devices, from 5G mobile phones to sensors for autonomous vehicles, is leading to increasingly crowded airwaves. This makes the ability to block interfering signals that can hamper device performance an even more important — and more challenging — problem.

With these and other emerging applications in mind, MIT researchers demonstrated a new millimeter-wave multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) wireless receiver architecture that can handle stronger spatial interference than previous designs. MIMO systems have multiple antennas, enabling them to transmit and receive signals from different directions...

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New Security Loophole allows Spying on Internet Users Visiting Websites and Watching Videos

New security loophole allows spying on internet users visiting websites and watching videos
The “SnailLoad” loophole is based on combining the latency of internet connections with the fingerprinting of online content. Credit: IAIK – TU Graz

Internet users leave many traces on websites and online services. Measures such as firewalls, VPN connections and browser privacy modes are in place to ensure a certain level of data protection. However, a newly discovered security loophole allows bypassing all of these protective measures.

Computer scientists from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communication Technology (IAIK) at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) were able to track users’ online activities in detail simply by monitoring fluctuations in the speed of their internet connection...

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How Nvidia became an AI Giant

NVIDIA
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

It all started at a Denny’s in San Jose in 1993. Three engineers—Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem—gathered at the diner in what is now the heart of Silicon Valley to discuss building a computer chip that would make graphics for video games faster and more realistic. That conversation, and the ones that followed, led to the founding of Nvidia, the tech company that soared through the ranks of the stock market to briefly top Microsoft as the most valuable company in the S&P 500 this week.

The company is now worth over $3.2 trillion, with its dominance as a chipmaker cementing Nvidia’s place as the poster child of the artificial intelligence boom—a moment that Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, has dubbed “the next industrial revolution.”

On...

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Researchers ‘Crack the Code’ for Quelling Electromagnetic Interference

FAU Center for Connected Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence highlighted in 'Nature Reviews'
Equipped with a breakthrough algorithmic solution, researchers have “cracked the code” on interference when machines need to talk with each other—and people. Credit: Alex Dolce, Florida Atlantic University

Florida Atlantic Center for Connected Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (CA-AI.fau.edu) researchers have “cracked the code” on interference when machines need to talk with each other—and people.

Electromagnetic waves make wireless connectivity possible but create a lot of unwanted chatter. Referred to as “electromagnetic interference,” this noisy byproduct of wireless communications poses formidable challenges in modern day dense IoT and AI robotic environments...

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