Complex systems specialist Patrice Abry played a key role in identifying the fractal nature of Internet traffic as early as 1998. The success of his work, carried out in collaboration with Daryl Veitch, sparked the launch of a series of research projects integrating theoretical advances and applications, particularly in cybersecurity, that have continued over two decades. We review a career that saw techniques evolve with the times, but in which fundamental constants remain.

What if barcodes disappeared from our supermarket items? Étienne Perret, a researcher in radio-frequency electronics at Grenoble INP, works on identification technologies. His work over recent years has focused on the development of RFID without…