Fraunhofer IIS Magazine

Objects that can communicate, TV that feels like you’re at the movies, pocket X-ray machines... sounds like science fiction. But then who knows? At the Long Night of the Sciences 2017, visitors to Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen got to put their questions to scientists. Professor Albert Heuberger, director of Fraunhofer IIS, joined the scientists to answer the questions and explain what may soon be possible.

• The make-a-wish box
  

5G is much more than the follow-up to 4G. We spoke with expert Bernhard Niemann about what the next generation of wireless networks can do better, what it will make possible, when it will be available, and what role Fraunhofer IIS is playing in the 5G rollout.

• The interview
  

The Internet of Things uses a lot of wireless receivers. How can they be designed to save energy and require little maintenance? This question has been occupying Dr. Frank Oehler and Dr. Heinrich Milosiu since June 2007. Here is the story of how they developed the RFicient^® wireless receiver chip, which receives signals continuously but consumes just one-thousandth of the electricity used by an LED.

• The journal
  

Artificial intelligence offers numerous opportunities. At a Fraunhofer event dedicated to this topic, Prof. Albert Heuberger discussed how “affective computing” offers opportunities for industry, services, and human-machine interfaces.

• The video
  

Cognitive Sensor Technologies is one of the institute’s two guiding topics, along with Audio and Media Technologies. Director Prof. Albert Heuberger reflects on the opportunities which present themselves for industry and economy and how people encounter them in their everyday lives, too.

• The interview
  

„In Riga, we wait at the luggage carousel – and wait and wait, until finally the gates shut and the belt stops. Twelve of us from Erlangen are missing our luggage.”

This is how Nadine Lange, who is part of the team Leistungszentrum Elektroniksysteme LZE, started out on her one-week sailing trip on the Thor Heyerdahl. In the summer of 2017, the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg invited some of its own researchers and other scientists to broaden their scientific horizon in this exceptional setting. Read how this journey without luggage unfolds and what else is going on aboard in her travelogue.

• The travelogue
  

The digitalization of our economy and society is a dominant feature of modern life. We spoke with Dr. Dr. Albrecht Fritzsche who holds holds doctoral degrees in philosophy and business economic and is a member of the scientific council at the Institute of Information Systems at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. We discussed on how digital transformation from a philosophical point of view will change our society, how humans and technology will interact in the future, and the responsibility we carry for these developments.

• The interview and video
  

Fraunhofer IIS employees asked residents of rural communities in the Upper Palatinate to contribute their ideas for a mobile village store.

• The video
  

Fraunhofer IIS has developed a low-cost alternative to whole slide imaging scanners for the digitization of prepared microscope slides. The institute is currently looking for partners to help further develop, evaluate and market the iStix® software.

• The Video