IEEE Spectrum April, 2011 - 3

volume 48 number 4 north american

4.11

spectrum.ieee.org
avaiLabLe 1 apriL

Don't Just Read
IEEE Spectrum-Listen

update

departments

11 ONE MIllION PlUg‑IN
CaRS by 2015?
Nobody agrees on whether
the united States will
meet its plug-in car goal.
Here's why. By John Voelcker

4 baCk STORy
Here's how it feels to drive
the coolest car in creation.
6 CONTRIbUTORS

18 CybORg EyE SENSOR

gEEk lIfE
22 Actor masi oka has no
trouble playing computer
programmers and other
geeks on television-when
he's not programming
computers himself.
By Susan Karlin

20 THE bIg PICTURE
A symphony performance
is broadcast live to a park
outside the concert hall.

23 British pilot Andy Green
is aiming for 1000 miles
per hour-on the ground.
By Susan Karlin

13 HOw TO dRaw
a dIOdE
14 EaRTHqUakES dOg
gREEN POwER PlaNS

opinion
8 SPECTRal lINES
the creative destruction
unleashed by Silicon
valley start-ups spawns
whole new industries but
may kill more jobs than
it generates.
By G. Pascal Zachary
27 TECHNICally
SPEakINg
As locavores turn to edible
gardening, even Newark, N.J.,
is becoming a grow-ityourself paradise.
By Paul McFedries

ClOCkwisE FROM lEFt: GEnERal
MOtORs CO.; istOCkphOtO; Ray laRsEn

24 HaNdS ON
if you don't have a 3-D
printer, turn your cAD file
into a physical object by
shopping the work out.
By David Schneider
26 bOOkS
two new books try to calm
the waters roiled by evermore-frequent collisions
between science and policy.
By William Sweet
64 THE daTa
china still lags the united
States, but it's now No. 2 in
supercomputing, ahead of
Germany and Japan.
By Samuel K. Moore

Big news stories often have a
neglected tech angle. Whether it's
French audio engineers silencing
those droning vuvuzelas during
broadcasts of last year's World
Cup, Internet shutdowns in Egypt
and Libya, the debut of Motorola's
Xoom tablet, or IBM Watson's
decisive victory at "Jeopardy,"
"This Week in Technology" host
Steven Cherry and his expert
guests cover all the angles.

ieee.org/theinstitute
avaiLabLe 7 apriL

IEEE hElps BRING
ElEctRIcIty tO hAItI
A group of members have spent
the last two years designing and
building six trailers that house
solar generators for the people
of Haiti. read about their work.

shOE RAdAR
Signals from pocket-size GpS
navigation systems can't penetrate
many places soldiers and emergency
workers must reach. A paper
published in a recent IEEE Transactions
on Microwave Theory and Techniques
describes an inertial navigation system
small enough to be mounted on or in a
shoe for such situations.
IEEE lAuNchEs stANdARds App
you can now get terms and definitions
for iEEE's wireless standards on your
iphone, ipod touch, or ipad, thanks to
a new app.

onLine Webinars & resources
AvAilABlE At
http://spectrum.ieee.org/webinar

A smart Approach to Maximizing ROI
in consumer Electronics Innovation

5 April: under the hood of
the smart Grid

Best practices for delivering Value
through Quality Management

7 April: using MAtlAB to simulate and
Optimize Multiphysics designs

changing the direction of
Embedded design

14 April: parameter Estimation and
Model Validation of Generator/
Excitation systems

capability vs. complexity:
Building smarter products

Kinetis ARM cortex-M4 Mcus:
the Inside story
Effectively Managing
Autostar development
RF and Microwave heating

Free white papers by Intel: http://
spectrum.ieee.org/intel-resource-library
design resource library by texas
Instruments: http://spectrum.ieee.org/
static/ti-resource-library

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April 2011 * iEEE SpEctrum * NA

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum April, 2011