Military Batteries, Night Vision in Cars & Utopia Net

An IEEE Spectrum Radio Program

IEEE Spectrum Radio
30 minutes, 13.7mb, recorded 2006-05-01

On this edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio, we discover military technologies like fuel cells and night vision could be appearing in consumer products. When having power is a matter of life or death, to power GPS positioning, communications and night vision equipment for example, having a lightweight, dependable and rechargeable power source is essential. Find out how far fuel cell technology has come, and how the US Army is going about using them.

The relentless demand for power is having adverse effects on the environment, as a group of British scientists discover during their study of Norwegian glaciers. They place egg shaped plastic probes deep inside the glaciers, measuring temperature, pressure and movement. They're trying to gauge how Earth's ice masses are responding to the continuing warming trends. Their results are less than comforting.

Far removed from the shrinking glaciers of Norway, a group of 14 cities in Utah are set to create the world's largest municipal broadband network. Already thousands of families across the state are enjoying 100 megabit connections through fibre-to-the-home. Spectrum speaks with Jeff Fishburn, Chief Technology Officer for DynamicCity, and asks him what Utopia is all about.

This program was originally broadcast on IEEE Spectrum Radio.


This free podcast is from our IEEE Spectrum Radio series.

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