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Energy & Green Tech

Organic molecule stores solar energy for years, then releases it as heat on demand

When the sun goes down, solar panels stop working. This is the fundamental hurdle of renewable energy: how to save the sun's power for a rainy day—or a cold night. Chemists at UC Santa Barbara have developed a solution ...

Energy & Green Tech

Lithium alternatives? Calcium-ion batteries show strong 1,000-cycle performance in new test

Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have achieved a breakthrough in calcium-ion battery (CIB) technology, which could transform energy storage solutions in everyday life. Utilizing quasi-solid-state ...

Engineering

'Dynamic plastic delocalization' can slow metal alloy cracking, engineers find

Metal alloys crack and fail through a mechanism called "fatigue" when repeatedly loaded and strained. While it is well known how to design alloys to withstand static loads and pressures, it is very difficult to design resistance ...

Machine learning & AI

What is 'AI-induced psychosis'? Study explains how chatbots may sustain delusions

When generative AI systems produce false information, this is often framed as AI "hallucinating at us"—generating errors that we might mistakenly accept as true. But a new study argues we should pay attention to a more ...

Technology news

Hi Tech & Innovation

How much can an autonomous robotic arm feel like part of the body?

When AI-powered prosthetic arms that move autonomously become widespread, understanding how people feel about them and accept them will be crucial. In a study appearing in Scientific Reports, scientists used virtual reality ...

Business

Google turns to century-long debt to build AI

Google-parent Alphabet will issue bonds maturing in 100 years as it continues to invest massively in infrastructure for artificial intelligence, according to data published Tuesday by Bloomberg.

Machine learning & AI

Reasoning: A smarter way for AI to understand text and images

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new way to train artificial intelligence systems to solve complex problems more reliably, particularly those that require interpreting both text and images. ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Redefining GaN power devices for adoption in EVs and data centers

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have uncovered fundamental insights into designing gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors, making them safer and easier to utilize in high-value electronics such as electric ...

Engineering

Understanding the physics at the anode of sodium-ion batteries

Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) are gaining traction as a next-generation technology to complement the widely used lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). NIBs offer clear advantages versus LIBs in terms of sustainability and cost, as ...

Robotics

Robot swarms turn music into moving light paintings

A system developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo lets people collaborate with groups of robots to create works of art inspired by music. The new technology features multiple wheeled robots about the size of ...

Business

Platforms that rank the latest LLMs can be unreliable

A firm that wants to use a large language model (LLM) to summarize sales reports or triage customer inquiries can choose between hundreds of unique LLMs with dozens of model variations, each with slightly different performance. ...

Consumer & Gadgets

How much does chatbot bias influence users? A lot, it turns out

Customers are 32% more likely to buy a product after reading a review summary generated by a chatbot than after reading the original review written by a human. That's because large language models introduce bias, in this ...

Machine learning & AI

Transphobia in LLMs is more nuanced than expected, research finds

After Twitter's 2023 rebrand into X, hate speech surged on the platform. Social media and video websites like Facebook and YouTube have long struggled with content moderation, battling the need to keep people safe—especially ...