Bell Labs Opens New Doors
PORTLAND, Ore. — Today Bell Labs celebrated its 90-year history and its return to its roots of making basic scientific breakthroughs into electronic and optical advances that transform the world.
The day-long celebration is bringing together its Nobel Laureates — and local dignitaries — to its fabled Murray Hill, N.J. research facility, which is exploring the future of connectivity and communications.
“Bell Labs’ current generation of researchers are exploring the future of connectivity and communications in the new era defined by the digitization of everything and everyone. We believe these are the types of multi-faceted problems that Bell Labs can uniquely address,” president Marcus Weldon told EE Times. “Currently we have 13 Future X projects that brings together multi-disciplinary teams of Bell Labs researchers to work to invent technologies and solutions that will define the Network of 2020 and beyond, including the future of connectivity, cloud, content creation and delivery, control systems and platforms and even computing.”
Marcus Weldon, president of Bell Labs
reveals its future directions.
(Source: Bell Labs)
Future X defines Bell Labs new 10-year horizon, where it continually reevaluates its projects to satisfy the needs of people a decade from now. And since it is now owned by communications company, Alcatel-Lucent, those Future X projects mostly have to do with the communications needs of the future.
“Every day you hear about a new app or web company that has gone viral and the latest cool mobile gadget release, but did you ever stop to consider the technology that surrounds and connects the screen and the web and that makes everything possible? Weldon, who is also chief technology officer (CTO) of Alcatel-Lucent told us. “In fact, the most stunning technological achievement of our time isn’t the smartphone or the social platforms you use every day. It’s the network — the incredibly sophisticated boxes and the endless miles of cable and wire that connect them, and the millions of radios that wirelessly animate our digital lives. In the Future Impossible series, we meet the Nobel Laureates, inventors and geeks at the legendary Bell Labs that look at the limitations of known physics and think, ‘We can do better’.”
