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Parmy Olson: Google's AI shift is causing a collective freak-out
When Google recently announced radical changes to its search tool that will overshadow the page of blue links we’ve been used to seeing for more than a decade, online advertisers had something of a collective freak-out. The Alphabet Inc.-owned company called it the biggest such shift in more than 25 years, and that the search bar would be “...Read more
Gadgets: Portable air conditioner
For whatever reason, you might need a portable air conditioner: your central system goes out, you need cooling in a space that is without AC, or you don’t want to cool the entire house and instead just cool the room where you sleep. If so, the Zafro 16,000 BTU portable air conditioner can be a practical solution.
My experience with AC units...Read more
Jim Rossman: Do smart TV apps become outdated?
This week’s topic comes from a 71-year-old reader and it concerns TV.
“Do TVs need replacing because their software becomes outdated?” and “We have an antenna and sometimes (one local channel) pixelates and becomes unwatchable. How would I get that same channel without an antenna? I need a remote with number buttons, and I don’t ...Read more
Political play or budget fix? Competition for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab management comes at a fraught moment
LOS ANGELES — Weeks after Trump administration officials announced that management of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory would open to competitive bidding for the first time, questions remain as to why Caltech could lose control of the lab its researchers founded in 1936.
On one hand, observers note, high-profile delays and cost overruns on ...Read more
Transmission lines, the arteries of the power grid, need more room to breathe
They don’t look like much — two small boxes and a solar panel mounted on some utility poles around Pittsburgh. A small weather station and a sensor, constantly updating Duquesne Light on the conditions of its transmission lines.
The system is crunching the data into a physics equation that governs how transmission lines operate. The more ...Read more
Silicon Valley's humanoid robots are learning how to do your job -- in the kitchen
Fernando Flores can spend eight hours a day pouring the same cup of coffee.
He is not a barista. He's a robot puppeteer, trying to train humanoids.
He manipulates mechanical controllers to make nearby robot arms pick up a pot of coffee, pour it into a mug and put the pot back in the coffee maker. Flores checks for spills, then empties the mug ...Read more
As students protest artificial intelligence, Pitt professor cautions: 'We cannot delay the AI adoption'
Mark Ma wants to know how the workforce really feels about artificial intelligence — so he’s tracking exactly that.
An associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, Ma spent the past four years studying the motives behind return-to-office mandates after the pandemic. He became a go-to voice on the issue ...Read more
A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems
Picture a pile of trash the size of Manhattan and taller than one and a half Empire State Buildings. That’s how much plastic waste the world is predicted to be generating every year by 2050 if nothing is done to change course.
It’s easy to think of recycling as the solution, but the vast majority of plastic waste now ends up in ...Read more
Executive order sets voluntary cyber reviews for advanced AI
Developers of frontier artificial intelligence models will have the option to voluntarily submit new technologies for review by federal cybersecurity agencies under a new executive order that comes after President Donald Trump backed away from an expected order last month.
Trump issued the executive order on Tuesday morning in a private signing...Read more
Microsoft launches AI that works like an executive assistant
Microsoft Corp. launched new artificial intelligence software designed to function like an always-active executive assistant, the latest evolution of its workplace AI efforts.
While AI bots like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot are only visible to the user, the new tool, dubbed Scout, will appear on internal email and calendar systems as if it ...Read more
More Idaho farmers, ranchers can now get federal funds to help migrating wildlife
BOISE, Idaho — Federal officials on Tuesday announced an expansion to a program that uses Farm Bill funding to help farmers and ranchers preserve big-game migration corridors on private land. The announcement was made in Boise at a Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies conference.
The program, called Migratory Big Game: A ...Read more
How to poop outdoors in a way that won’t harm the environment and other hikers
If you’re one of the 63 million Americans who went hiking last year, chances are you’ve found yourself needing to go, with no toilet in sight.
Aside from personal inconvenience, why is this such a big deal?
Human fecal contamination is a public health concern in natural areas. Pathogens in human poop can remain active for ...Read more
Despite explosion, Blue Origin CEO says New Glenn will fly before end of year
Last week’s explosion of a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket on the pad at Cape Canaveral prompted dire predictions that the company might not be able to launch again until late 2027 at the earliest.
CEO Dave Limp, though, said that’s not the case.
“Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility, we can share a bit of good ...Read more
How a deep-ocean desalination startup hopes to rewrite California's water future
LOS ANGELES — An elephant standing full weight on a smartphone. That’s the pressure 1,400 feet underwater that a startup hopes to use to push seawater through ultrafine filters and make drinking water off the coast of Malibu — without much of the controversy that surrounds desalination.
Desalination plants are notoriously large ...Read more
San Diego County launches 2 studies to measure toll of Tijuana River pollution
SAN DIEGO — San Diego County is moving forward with two major research efforts to document the health and economic impacts of the Tijuana River Valley pollution crisis, partnering with the University of California, San Diego on an air quality study while simultaneously launching a public survey to measure the crisis’s financial toll on South...Read more
Duck-billed dinosaur fossil containing collagen stuns scientists
Reports of proteins in fossilized bones have stirred controversy in the scientific community for decades, as fossilization was thought to destroy organic components, replacing them with minerals over time. Now, a team of British researchers working in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation has found evidence of collagen in a 66-million-year-old ...Read more
Nvidia is taking on Intel and AMD with new AI chip for computers
Nvidia Corp. is entering the PC market with a new chip aimed at loosening the stranglehold of Intel Corp. technology in that arena and modernizing the machines for the AI era.
Starting this fall, Nvidia’s new RTX Spark Superchip will debut in laptop and desktop computers from leading PC brands including Dell Technologies Inc. and Lenovo Group...Read more
AI company Anthropic files to list shares, heating up race with OpenAI
Anthropic, the company behind the powerful artificial intelligence chatbot Claude, has filed to get ready to list its shares.
The development comes days after it raised $65 billion, valuing it at $965 billion.
The company, founded in 2021 by a breakaway faction from OpenAI, was viewed as an upstart that tailored its chatbots to the needs of ...Read more
AI company Anthropic files to list shares, heating up race with OpenAI
Anthropic, the company behind the powerful artificial intelligence chatbot Claude, has filed to go public, the company said Monday.
The development comes days after the company raised $65 billion, valuing it at $965 billion.
The company, founded in 2021 by a breakaway faction from OpenAI, was viewed as an upstart that tailored its chatbots to ...Read more
Nvidia is taking on Intel and AMD with new AI chip for computers
Nvidia Corp. is entering the PC market with a new chip aimed at loosening the stranglehold of Intel Corp. technology in that arena and modernizing the machines for the AI era.
Starting this fall, Nvidia’s new RTX Spark Superchip will debut in laptop and desktop computers from leading PC brands including Dell Technologies Inc. and Lenovo Group...Read more
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