July 2010 issue
COVER STORY
The World's Best Gallium Nitride
A little Polish company you've never heard of is beating the tech titans in a key technology of the 21st century
By Richard Stevenson

FEATURES

Building the Lego Universe Online
Lego tries to construct a new empire with pixels, not plastic
By David Kushner

Cellphone Crime Solvers
Could the murder victim's BlackBerry lead to her killer? Increasingly, the answer is yes
By Richard P. Mislan

The Trouble With Multicore
Chipmakers are busy designing microprocessors that most programmers can't handle
By David Patterson

UPDATE

Computing the Neanderthal Genome
New software helped decode the DNA of our stone-age cousins
By Prachi Patel

Hynix Makes No-Capacitor DRAM
Z-RAM memory design might find a spot in the competitive DRAM market
By Neil Savage

The Danger-Sensing Driver's Seat
A haptic car seat pokes you in the ribs when an accident looms
By Anne-Marie Corley

The Robot Baby Reality Matrix
Some robot babies look real. Some act real. A few do both
By Erico Guizzo

WiMax for Smart Grids
The wireless network is unpopular in smartphones but could succeed with smart grids
By Mark Anderson

OPINION

Contemplating a Dead Computer
As computers get better and better, does our attachment to them get less and less?
By Robert W. Lucky

Home-Built Radio Rules
The FCC's treatment of home-built devices could stand an update
By David Schneider

DEPARTMENTS

Making a Living Building Lego Sculptures
Artist Nathan Sawaya has built life-size Lego creations for IEEE Spectrum and Donald Trump

Review: Alienware M11x
The King Kong of gaming computers now comes in a Fay Wray-size package
By Harry Teasley

The King of Comic-Con
In his spare time, software engineer John Rogers presides over one of the world's largest and strangest conventions
By Susan Karlin

Think Big, See Small
How to build your own digital microscope
By James Turner

Where the Engineering Jobs Are
The news is good but not great for engineers looking for work in 2010
By Prachi Patel

Who Pays More for Wireless? It Depends on Whom You Ask
U.S. customers pay some of the highest—and lowest—mobile phone rates in the world
By Dana Mackenzie