ROBOTICS
Your First Humanoid Robot Coworker Will Probably Be ChineseWill Knight | Wired ($)
“[In addition to Unitree] a staggering 200-plus other Chinese corporations are also developing humanoids, which recently prompted the Chinese government to warn of overcapacity and unnecessary replication. The US has about 16 outstanding firms constructing humanoids. With stats like that, one can’t help but suspect that the primary country to have one million humanoids will likely be China.”
FUTURE
CEOs Say AI Is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story.Lindsay Ellis | The Wall Street Journal ($)
“The gulf between senior executives’ and staff’ actual experience with generative AI is vast, in accordance with a brand new survey from the AI consulting firm Section of 5,000 white-collar staff. Two-thirds of nonmanagement staffers said they saved lower than two hours per week or no time in any respect with AI. Greater than 40% of executives, in contrast, said the technology saved them greater than eight hours of labor per week.”
BIOTECH
mRNA Cancer Vaccine Shows Protection at 5-Yr Follow-Up, Moderna and Merck SayBeth Mole | Ars Technica
“In a small clinical trial, customized mRNA vaccines against high-risk skin cancers appeared to cut back the chance of cancer reoccurrence and death by nearly 50 percent over five years compared with standard treatment alone.”
Computing
To not Be Outdone by OpenAI, Apple Is Reportedly Developing an AI WearableLucas Ropek | TechCrunch
“Apple could also be developing its own AI wearable, in accordance with a report published Wednesday by The Information. The device will likely be a pin that users can wear on their clothing, and that comes equipped with two cameras and three microphones, the report says.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Math on AI Agents Doesn’t Add UpSteven Levy | Wired ($)
“The massive AI corporations promised us that 2025 can be ‘the 12 months of the AI agents.’ It turned out to be the 12 months of talking about AI agents, and kicking the can for that transformational moment to 2026 or possibly later. But what if the reply to the query ‘When will our lives be fully automated by generative AI robots that perform our tasks for us and principally run the world?’ is, like that Latest Yorker cartoon, ‘How about never?'”
SPACE
Extreme Closeup of the ‘Eye of God’ Reveals Fiery Pillars in Stunning DetailPassant Rabie | Gizmodo
“The Webb space telescope has stared deep into the darkness of the Helix Nebula [nicknamed the Eye of God], revealing layers of gas shed by a dying star to seed the cosmos with future generations of stars and planets. …At its center is a blazing white dwarf—the leftover core of a dying star—releasing an avalanche of fabric that crashes right into a colder surrounding shell of gas and mud.”
ENERGY
China’s Renewable Energy Revolution Is a Huge Mess That Might Save the WorldJeremy Wallace | Wired ($)
“The resulting, onrushing utopia is anything but neat. It’s a panorama of coal communities decimated, price wars sweeping across one market after one other, and electrical grids destabilizing as they grow to be more central to the energy system. And absolutely nobody—least of all some monolithic ‘China’ on the control switch—knows methods to cope with its repercussions.”
ENERGY
Zanskar Thinks 1 TW of Geothermal Power Is Being MissedTim De Chant | TechCrunch
“‘They underestimated what number of undiscovered systems there are, possibly by an order of magnitude or more,’ Hoiland said. With modern drilling techniques, ‘you’ll be able to get so much more out of every of them, possibly even an order of magnitude or more from each of those. Abruptly the number goes from tens of gigawatts to what could possibly be a terawatt-scale opportunity.'”
BIOTECH
Some Immune Systems Defeat Cancer. Could That Turn out to be a Drug?Gina Kolata | The Latest York Times ($)
“Dr. Edward Patz, who spent much of his profession researching cancer at Duke, has long been intrigued by cancers which are harmless and has thought they may hold essential clues for drug development. The result, after years of research, is an experimental drug, tested up to now only in small numbers of lung cancer patients.”
SPACE
One other Jeff Bezos Company Has Announced Plans to Develop a MegaconstellationEric Berger | Ars Technica
“The space company founded by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, said it was developing a brand new megaconstellation named TeraWave to deliver data speeds of as much as 6Tbps anywhere on Earth. The constellation will consist of 5,408 optically interconnected satellites, with a majority in low-Earth orbit and the rest in medium-Earth orbit.”
ROBOTICS
Waymo Continues Robotaxi Ramp up With Miami Service Now Open to PublicKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch
“The corporate said Thursday it can initially open the service, on a rolling basis, to the nearly 10,000 local residents on its waitlist. Once accepted, riders will give you the chance to hail a robotaxi inside a 60-square-mile service area in Miami that covers neighborhoods comparable to the Design District, Wynwood, Brickell, and Coral Gables.”
SPACE
Mars Once Had a Vast Sea the Size of the Arctic OceanTaylor Mitchell Brown | Latest Scientist ($)
“This could have been the most important ocean on Mars. ‘Our research suggests that around 3 billion years ago, Mars could have hosted long-lasting bodies of surface water inside Valles Marineris, the most important canyon within the Solar System,’ says Indi. ‘Much more exciting, these water bodies could have been connected to a much larger ocean that when covered parts of Mars’ northern lowlands.'”