Physics World December 2020
Sounds fantastic: the sensors behind smart speakers
We all love chatting to our smart speakers like they’re another member of the family, providing almost instantaneous responses to our commands and questions. For that we can thank some amazingly accurate voice-recognition technology based on ultrasensitive acoustic sensors and sophisticated machine-learning algorithms that can interpret our speech, as Pip Knight explains in this month’s cover feature. Also in this issue, Brooke Russell and Tamia Williams share their experiences as Black physicists, while Jim Baggott examines John Bell’s ground-breaking work on quantum physics and we offer our pick of festive reading.
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Hot time for hard disks
Following the first stars
Ambassador for the Space Age
On the road less travelled
Resolving the squoon
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