"The Inside Story" takes a deeper look into technology news by interviewing the people behind the story. We talk to the sources involved in the news and explore important and interesting issues.
Distinguished research professor Joseph Mitola III, currently vice president for the research enterprise at the Stevens Institute of Technology, is well known for his research in developing software-defined radio and cognitive radio systems. Both ideas were not seen as practical at the time but have since become important, mainstream radio approaches.
His current focus is multifunction RF, which would combine radio communications and the radar technologies used to track aircraft. Multiple small radar stations would replace the relatively few stations near major airports. They could provide both traditional radar and high-speed public radio-communications services. Mitola said this could bring broadband services to sparsely populated areas and add reliability to the nationwide radar system.
The Inside Story interviewed Mitola about multifunction RF.
Listen:
Much of computer technology's progress has occurred because of developments described by Moore's law, which says that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.
In today's era of battery-powered mobile devices, computing is being driven as much by energy efficiency as by performance. Research by Stanford University associate professor Jonathan Koomey discovered that since the 1940s, computers' energy efficiency has doubled about every year and a half. The Inside Story interviewed Koomey to learn more about his research and his predictions for the future.
Read Koomey's article from IEEE Annals of the History of Computing »
Mobile video communications, which companies like Tango have started offering, could be the next big wireless technology. To learn more, The Inside Story interviewed Tango's CTO.
