Optical fiber, as a physical medium for information transmission, is the “highway” of modern economic and social development. However, with the continuous emergence of high-speed and high-capacity communication scenarios such as virtual reality, 5G, intelligent driving, and the Internet of Things (IoT), there is an upper limit to the communication capacity (traffic flow) of the traditional single-mode fiber-optic communication system (highway).

Reports that each of NASA’s Artemis launches could cost as much as $4.1 billion…

“Costs going up faster than the tower,” self-described internet rocket scientist Scott Manley joked at the time.

NASA used its Mobile Launcher 1 for its inaugural — albeit uncrewed — Artemis mission in late 2022. According to a 2020 audit, the tower, which was originally built for NASA’s canceled Constellation program, cost $234 million to develop.

Picking up a box and placing it in a neat pile is not an impressive action in itself for a robot; understanding an enigmatic human command and correctly deciphering and explaining the decision-making process, are definitely innovations. Digit owes parts of its progress to the generative artificial intelligence revolution that also reached the field of robotics and turned expectations from it on its head. “I’ve been asked what’s the biggest thing in 2024 besides language modeling — it’s robotics. Period,” Nvidia’s senior AI scientist Jim Fan wrote in December. “We’re about three years away from a ChatGPT moment for physical AI agents,” he explained.

Ever since Fan made this statement, it seems that everyone is talking about the “ChatGPT moment of robotics”, or the hope of a technological breakthrough that will push the field forward and finally fill our homes with intelligent humanoid robots to help us with household chores, wash the floor, set the table or do the laundry (but not fold it). “What has been happening in recent months is dramatic,” explains Amir Bousani, CEO of R-Go Robotics, which recently entered into a partnership with Nvidia to equip the robot it is developing with its spatial perception capabilities. “The physical world is more difficult than the internet,” notes Dr. Oren Etzioni, founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, “but the field of robots that have the ability to behave in general is running much faster today.”

The huge interest in humanoid robots, or humanoids, which Fan is talking about, is evident in the constant announcements in the field: in February, the startup Figure raised $675 million from Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and OpenAI for the development of the humanoid. In March, Nvidia’s CEO stood on the stage of the company’s developer conference alongside nine humanoids from different companies and announced that building models for robots is “one of the most exciting problems to solve in artificial intelligence”; in April, Elon Musk promised that he would launch the humanoid robot he is developing — Optimus — next year and predicted that by 2040 there will be a billion humanoids among us. A short time later, the activities of Mentee Robotics, Amnon Shashua’s company that was founded two years ago and also develops the humanoid, went public.

Noninvasive braincomputer interfaces could vastly improve brain computer control.

Over the past two decades, the international biomedical research community has demonstrated increasingly sophisticated ways to allow a person’s brain to communicate with a device, allowing breakthroughs aimed at improving quality of life, such as access to computers and the internet, and more recently control of a prosthetic limb. DARPA has been at the forefront of this research.

The state of the art in brain-system communications has employed invasive techniques that allow precise, high-quality connections to specific neurons or groups of neurons. These techniques have helped patients with brain injury and other illnesses. However, these techniques are not appropriate for able-bodied people. DARPA now seeks to achieve high levels of brain-system communications without surgery, in its new program, Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N³).

“DARPA created N³ to pursue a path to a safe, portable neural interface system capable of reading from and writing to multiple points in the brain at once,” said Dr. Al Emondi, program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO). “High-resolution, nonsurgical neurotechnology has been elusive, but thanks to recent advances in biomedical engineering, neuroscience, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology, we now believe the goal is attainable.”

To introduce quantum networks into the marketplace, engineers must overcome the fragility of entangled states in a fiber cable and ensure the efficiency of signal delivery. Now, scientists at Qunnect Inc. in Brooklyn, New York, have taken a large step forward by operating just such a network under the streets of New York City.

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The rapid development of technologies such as the internet, mobile communications, and artificial intelligence has dramatically increased the demand for high-capacity communication systems. Among various solutions, mode-division multiplexing (MDM) has emerged as a crucial technique, utilizing spatial modes like orbital angular momentum (OAM) to enhance communication capacity.

A widely used security protocol that dates back to the days of dial-up internet has vulnerabilities that could expose large numbers of networked devices to an attack and allow an attacker to gain control of traffic on an organization’s network.

A research team led by University of California San Diego computer scientists investigated the Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) protocol and found a vulnerability they call Blast-RADIUS that has been present for decades. RADIUS, designed in 1991, allows networked devices such as routers, switches or mobile roaming gear to use a remote server to validate login or other credentials.

This is a common set-up in enterprise and telecommunications networks because it allows credentials to be centrally managed. As a result, RADIUS is a critical part of modern telecommunications and enterprise networks; in large enterprises, it may control access to tens of thousands of switches.

Scientists have successfully transmitted quantum data and conventional data through a single optical fiber for the first time.

The research demonstrates that quantum data in the form of entangled photons and conventional internet data sent as laser pulses can coexist in the same fiber-optic cable.

Scientists have made a groundbreaking advancement in understanding light propagation through complex media, potentially revolutionizing fields like optical communication and medical imaging.

By introducing the concept of coherence entropy, a new metric for evaluating light behavior, they have provided a reliable tool for managing light fields in challenging environments. This research could significantly enhance the performance of systems that rely on light, particularly in situations where traditional methods fail due to media distortion.

Light technology is at the heart of many cutting-edge innovations, from high-speed internet to advanced medical imaging. However, transmitting light through challenging environments, such as turbulent atmospheres or deformed optical systems, has always posed a significant hurdle. These complexities can distort and disrupt the light field, making it difficult to achieve clear and reliable results. Scientists have long sought ways to overcome these limitations, and a new breakthrough may hold the key to advance practical applications.