For the past 30 years, Nokia Bell Labs optical researcher Sébastien Bigo has been a near-constant presence at the annual European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC). In fact, since 1995, he has missed only a single edition of Europe’s most prestigious gathering of the optical research community. Typically, it has served as an outlet for him to present research in his areas … Read More
We are living in an era in which cognitive robots are becoming commonplace in factories, warehouses and other challenging environments. They offer an autonomous solution that often is safer and more productive than manual labor. The technology behind this is quite impressive, but the automation world is still largely siloed. That means that robots are often making decisions without understanding … Read More
Published in The Canadian Jewish News. One of the defining memories of my youth is the 1990 Gulf War, and the subsequent Iraqi missile attacks against Israel early the next year. I was 14, and I distinctly remember the drama of waking up at night to the sounds of air raid sirens warning of incoming Scud missiles. In a haze, … Read More
Published in The Canadian Jewish News. The start of the inevitable Iranian retaliation to Israel’s stunning series of airstrikes caught me in the shower Friday night. Upon hearing the familiar sound of wailing air raid sirens outside, I quickly grabbed a towel and casually joined my wife and sleeping children in our youngest daughter’s bedroom, which also doubles as our … Read More
If you have ever taken a selfie on your smartphone or gotten an X-Ray from your doctor or dentist, you have George E. Smith to thank. Smith, together with his close Bell Labs colleague and friend Willard S. Boyle, invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), revolutionizing the fields of imaging and digital sensing technology. Their invention provided an essential component for nearly … Read More
It is already conventional wisdom that artificial intelligence is rapidly affecting our lives and upending the way we work. But it’s also clear that the impact of AI will vary from place to place, community to community. With the potential to create new job opportunities, and eliminate others, AI appears poised to have a major economic impact around the world, … Read More
In the never-ending race to meet the insatiable global demand for communication, optical transmission researchers have an overriding objective: speed. Our global communications infrastructure is powered by high-capacity fiber optic cables and Nokia Bell Labs has been at the forefront of seeking to constantly improve these data rates. There are two main ways to do that. The first is by … Read More
When AT&T and Western Electric officially created Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1925, the world was on the cusp of a technological revolution. There were no televisions, transistors or transoceanic telephone cables. There were no communications satellites, cellular networks or high-speed fiber optics. No movies with dialogue, digital cameras or advanced radar systems. No lasers, solar cells or computer software. Over … Read More
One of the more widespread concerns of the looming era of artificial intelligence is how it will impact the traditional job market. Fears have been rampant on how it could make many blue-collar jobs obsolete, with robots replacing those in professions that require manual labor and thus further increasing gaps between the haves and have-nots. But a new comprehensive Nokia … Read More
Published in The Canadian Jewish News. With all the trauma and turmoil that has engulfed this country after more than a year of war, it seems almost trivial to describe the plight of daily life in central Israel under the spectre of missile attacks. After all, we are not in the thick of battle like the soldiers or on the … Read More
With the changing autumn weather of New York City as a backdrop, some of the most creative minds in the communications industry gathered to mark an equally dramatic transition in their field. As the wind picked up and the falling leaves changed colors, this year’s Brooklyn 6G Summit, hosted by Nokia and the NYU WIRELESS research center, focused on the undergoing 6G shift … Read More
It’s been less than a decade since the Fourth Industrial Revolution came into our lives. This revolutionary era – also known as Industry 4.0 – predicted an increasingly interconnected and automated future marked by dramatic advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 5G networks and the Internet of Things. Like previous industrial revolutions, it promised to radically transform industries and … Read More
In the realm of optical networks, speed has long been the driving force. Our global communications infrastructure, powered by high-capacity fiber optic cables, has thrived on the principle that faster is better. Nokia Bell Labs has been at the forefront of this pursuit, pushing the boundaries of optical speed and achieving world-record milestones. But the landscape has shifted. In the … Read More
We are entering a new era of quantum technologies that will unlock new capabilities in computing, networking and sensing. But there is one quantum technology that will have an immediate and direct impact on all of humankind: quantum security. Quantum computing’s problem-solving capabilities will indeed be revolutionary in many industries, but they will also present a devastating threat against the … Read More
We all want seamless, high-quality and errorless connectivity. But for most of us this is a luxury, and the occasional latency and disruptions are annoyances we can handle. For others, though, this is a necessity. In mission critical industries such as mines, ports and factories, communication breakdowns can be a matter of life and death. The network must work, all … Read More