Google's September Pixel drop brings the new Material 3 Expressive UI, AI-powered Gboard writing tools, and Bluetooth Auracast upgrades to older Pixel devices, including the Pixel 6 and Pixel Tablet. "Among other tweaks, Google made it possible to add 'Live Effects,' including a few that cover the weather, to your phone's lock screen wallpaper," notes Engadget. "Material 3 Expressive also gives you more control over how the contact cards your phone displays when your friends and family call you look. Even if you're not one to endlessly tweak Android's appearance, as part of the redesign Google has once again reworked the Quick Settings pane in hopes of making it easier to use."

On the audio front, Pixel Buds Pro 2 gain intuitive nod-and-shake gesture controls, Adaptive Audio for balanced awareness, and Loud Noise Protection to guard against sudden sound spikes. Voice clarity has also been improved with Gemini Live in noisy environments.

A full breakdown of what's new can be found here.

Intel amended its deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce "to remove earlier project milestones," reports Reuters, "and received about $5.7 billion in cash sooner than planned."

"The move will give Intel more flexibility over the funds." The amended agreement, which revises a November 2024 funding deal, retains some guardrails that prevent the chipmaker from using the funds for dividends and buybacks, doing certain control-changing deals and from expanding in certain countries.
The move makes the Wall Street Journal wonder what, beyond equity, the U.S. now gets in return, calling government's position "a stake without a strategy." The U.S. has historically shied away from putting money into private business. It can't really outguess the market on where the most promising returns lie. Yet there are exceptions. Sometimes a company or industry risks failing without public support, and that failure would hurt the whole country, not just its shareholders and employees. Intel meets both conditions. It isn't failing, but it is losing money, its core business is in decline, and it lacks the capital and customers needed to make the most advanced semiconductors. If Intel were to fail, it would take a sizable chunk of the semiconductor industrial base with it. At a time of existential competition with China, that is a national emergency...

[U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick] said as a shareholder, the U.S. would help Intel "to create the most advanced chips in the world." And yet the deal doesn't provide Intel with new resources to accomplish that. Rather, to get the remaining $9 billion, Intel had to give the U.S. equity. This is more like a tax than an investment: Shareholders gave up a 10th of their ownership in return for money the company was supposed to get anyway... Some of the administration's forays into private business do reflect strategic thinking, such as the Pentagon's 15% stake in MP Materials in exchange for investment and contracts that help make the company a viable alternative to China as a supplier of rare-earth magnets for products such as automobiles, wind turbines, jet fighters and missile systems. But more often, companies recoil from government ownership...

Though the U.S. stake dilutes Intel's existing shareholders, its stock has held up. There could be several reasons. It eliminates uncertainty over whether the remaining $9 billion in federal funds will be forthcoming... [B]ecause Washington has a vested interest in Intel's share price, investors believe it may prod companies such as Nvidia and Apple to buy more of its chips.
But that only goes so far, the article seems to conclude, offering this quote from an analyst Bernstein investment research. "If Intel can prove they can make these leading-edge products in high volume that meets specifications at a good cost structure, they'll have customers lined up around the block. If they can't prove they can do it, what customer will put meaningful volume to them regardless of what pressure the U.S. government brings to bear?"

CBS News also notes the U.S. government stake "is being criticized by conservatives and some economic policy experts alike, who worry such extensive government intervention undermines free enterprise."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the news.

They offer "a self-sustaining power solution for marine regions," according to a newly published 41-page review after "pioneering use in wave energy harvesting in 2014". Ten years later, researchers have developed several structures for these "triboelectric nanogenerators" (TENGs) to "facilitate their commercial deployment." But there's a lack of "comprehensive summaries and performance evaluations".

So the review "distills a decade of blue-energy research into six design pillars" for next-generation technology, writes EurekaAlert, which points the way "to self-powered ocean grids, distributed marine IoT, and even hydrogen harvested from the sea itself..." By "translating chaotic ocean motion into deterministic electron flow," the team "turns every swell, gust and glint of sunlight into dispatchable power — ushering in an era where the sea itself becomes a silent, self-replenishing power plant."

Some insights: - Multilayer stacks, origami folds and magnetic-levitation frames push volumetric power density...three orders of magnitude above first-generation prototypes.

- Frequency-complementary couplings of TENG, EMG and PENG create full-spectrum harvesters that deliver 117 % power-conversion efficiency in real waves.

- Pendulum, gear and magnetic-multiplier mechanisms translate chaotic 0.1-2 Hz swells into stable high-frequency oscillations, multiplying average power 14-fold.

- Resonance-tuned structures now span 0.01-5 Hz, locking onto shifting wave spectra across seasons and sea states.

- Spherical, dodecahedral and tensegrity architectures harvest six-degree-of-freedom motion, eliminating orientational blind spots.

- Single devices co-harvest wave, wind and solar inputs, powering self-charging buoys that cut battery replacement to zero...
Another new wave energy project is moving forward, according to the blog Renewable Energy World: Eco Wave Power, an onshore wave energy technology company, announced that its U.S. pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles has successfully completed operational testing and achieved a new milestone: the lowering of its floaters into the water for the first time. The moment, broadcast live by Good Morning America, follows the finalization of all installation works at the project site, including full installation of all wave energy floaters; connection of hydraulic pipes and supporting infrastructure; and placement of the onshore energy conversion unit.

With installation completed, Eco Wave Power has now officially entered the operational phase of its U.S. excursion... [Inna Braverman, founder and CEO of Eco Wave Power] said "This pilot station is a vital step in demonstrating how wave energy can be harnessed using existing marine infrastructure, while laying the groundwork for full-scale commercialization in the United States...." Eco Wave Power's patented onshore wave energy system attaches floaters to existing marine structures. The up-and-down motion of the waves drives hydraulic cylinders, which send pressurized fluid to a land-based energy conversion unit that generates electricity... The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that wave energy has the potential to generate over 1,400 terawatt-hours per year — enough to power approximately 130 million homes.

Eco Wave Power's 404.7 MW global project pipeline also includes upcoming operational sites in Taiwan, India, and Portugal, alongside its grid-connected station in Israel.
Long-time Slashdot reader PongoX11 also brings word of a company building a "simple" floating rig to turn wave motion into electricity, calling it "a steel can that moves water around" and wondering if "This one might work!"

The news site TechEBlog points out that "Unlike old-school wave energy systems with clunky mechanical parts, Ocean-2 rocks a modular, flexible setup that rolls with the ocean's flow." At about 10 meters wide [30 feet wide. and 260 feet long!], it is made from materials designed to (hopefully) withstand the ocean's abuse, over some maintenance cycle. It's designed for deep ocean, so solving this technically is the first big challenge. Figuring out how to use/monetize all that cheap energy out in the middle of nowhere will be the next.
"Ocean-2 works with the ocean, not against it, so we can generate power without messing up marine life," said Panthalassa's CEO, Dr. Elena Martinez, according to TechEBlog: Tests in Puget Sound, done with Everett Ship Repair, showed it pumping out up to 50 kilowatts in decent conditions — enough juice for a small coastal town. "We're thinking big," Martinez said in a press release. "Ocean-2 is just the start, but we're already planning bigger arrays that could crank out gigawatts..." Looking forward, Panthalassa sees Ocean-2 as part of a massive wave energy network. By 2030, they're aiming to roll out arrays that could power whole coastal cities, cutting down on fossil fuel use.

When it comes to nuclear fusion energy, "How do we advance fusion as fast as possible?" asks the CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. They've just raised $863 million from Nvidia, Google, the BIll Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures and nearly two dozen more investors, which "may prove helpful as the company develops its supply chain and searches for partners to build its power plants and buy electricity," reports TechCrunch.

Commonwealth's CEO/co-founder Bob Mumgaard says "This round of capital isn't just about fusion just generally as a concept... It's about how do we go to make fusion into a commercial industrial endeavor." The Massachusetts-based company has raised nearly $3 billion to date, the most of any fusion startup. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) previously raised a $1.8 billion round in 2021...

CFS is currently building a prototype reactor called Sparc in a Boston suburb. The company expects to turn that device on later next year and achieve scientific breakeven in 2027, a milestone in which the fusion reaction produces more energy than was required to ignite it. Though Sparc isn't designed to sell power to the grid, it's still vital to CFS's success. "There are parts of the modeling and the physics that we don't yet understand," Saskia Mordijck, an associate professor of physics at the College of William and Mary, told TechCrunch. "It's always an open question when you turn on a completely new device that it might go into plasma regimes we've never been into, that maybe we uncover things that we just did not expect." Assuming Sparc doesn't reveal any major problems, CFS expects to begin construction on Arc, its commercial-scale power plant, in Virginia starting in 2027 or 2028...

"We know that this kind of idea should work," Mordijck said. "The question is naturally, how will it perform?" Investors appear to like what they've seen so far. The list of participants in the Series B2 round is lengthy. No single investor led the round, and a number of existing investors increased their stakes, said Ally Yost, CFS's senior vice president of corporate development... The new round will help CFS make progress on Sparc, but it will not be enough to build Arc, which will likely cost several billion dollars, Mumgaard said.
"As advances in computing and AI have quickened the pace of research and development, the sector has become a hotbed of startup and investor activity," the article points out.

And CEO Mumgaard told TechCrunch that their Sparc prototype will prove the soundness of the science — but it's also important to learn "the capabilities that you need to be able to deliver it. It's also to have the receipts, know what these things cost!"

Microsoft has found no link between the August 2025 KB5063878 security update and customer reports of failure and data corruption issues affecting solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). From a report: Redmond first told BleepingComputer last week that it is aware of users reporting SSD failures after installing this month's Windows 11 24H2 security update. In a subsequent service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Redmond said that it was unable to reproduce the issue on up-to-date systems and began collecting user reports with additional details from those affected.

"After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media," Microsoft said in an update to the service alert this week. "As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots. It's the latest effort by the South Florida Water Management District to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they are decimating native species with their voracious appetites. In Everglades National Park, officials say the snakes have eliminated 95% of small mammals as well as thousands of birds. "Removing them is fairly simple. It's detection. We're having a really hard time finding them," said Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the water district. "They're so well camouflaged in the field."

The water district and University of Florida researchers deployed 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Previously, there was an effort to use live rabbits as snake lures but that became too expensive and time-consuming, Kirkland said. The robots are simple toy rabbits, but retrofitted to emit heat, a smell and to make natural movements to appear like any other regular rabbit. "They look like a real rabbit," Kirkland said. They are solar powered and can be switched on and off remotely. They are placed in small pens monitored by a video camera that sends out a signal when a python is nearby. "Then I can deploy one of our many contractors to go out and remove the python," Kirkland said. The total cost per robot rabbit is about $4,000, financed by the water district, he added.

Japan has launched its first entirely homegrown quantum computer, built with domestic superconducting qubits and components, and running on the country's own open-source software toolchain, OQTOPUS. "The system is now ready to take on workloads from its base at the University of Osaka's Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology (QIQB)," reports LiveScience. From the report: The system uses a quantum chip with superconducting qubits -- quantum bits derived from metals that exhibit zero electrical resistance when cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius). The quantum processing unit (QPU) was developed at the Japanese research institute RIKEN. Other components that make up the "chandelier" -- the main body of the quantum computer -- include the chip package, delivered by Seiken, the magnetic shield, infrared filters, bandpass filters, a low-noise amplifier and various cables.

These are all housed in a dilution refrigerator (a specialized cryogenic device that cools the quantum computing components) to allow for those extremely low temperatures. It also comes alongside a pulse tube refrigerator (which again cools various components in use), controllers and a low-noise power source. OQTOPUS, meanwhile, is a collection of open-source tools that include everything required to run quantum programs. It includes the core engine and cloud module, as well as graphical user interface (GUI) elements, and is designed to be built on top of a QPU and quantum control hardware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AMD's X3D-series Ryzen chips have become popular with PC gamers because games in particular happen to benefit disproportionately from the chips' extra 64MB of L3 cache memory. But that extra memory occasionally comes with extra headaches. Not long after they were released earlier this year, some early adopters started having problems with their CPUs, ranging from failure to boot to actual physical scorching and burnout -- the problems were particularly common for users of the 9800X3D processor in ASRock motherboards, and one Reddit thread currently records 157 incidents of failure for that CPU model across various ASRock boards.

In an interview with the Korean language website Quasar Zone (via Tom's Hardware), AMD executives David McAfee and Travis Kirsch acknowledged the problems and pointed to the most likely culprit: motherboard makers who don't follow AMD's recommended specifications. Some manufacturers have historically shipped their AMD and Intel motherboards with elevated default power settings in the interest of squeezing a bit more performance out of the chips -- but those adjustments can also cause problems in some cases, especially for higher-end CPUs.

Nvidia has launched its Jetson AGX Thor robotics chip module, a $3,499 "robot brain" developer kit that starts shipping next month. CNBC reports: After a company uses the developer kit to prototype their robot, Nvidia will sell Thor T5000 modules that can be installed in production-ready robots. If a company needs more than 1,000 Thor chips, Nvidia will charge $2,999 per module. CEO Jensen Huang has said robotics is the company's largest growth opportunity outside of artificial intelligence, which has led to Nvidia's overall sales more than tripling in the past two years. "We do not build robots, we do not build cars, but we enable the whole industry with our infrastructure computers and the associated software," said Deepu Talla, Nvidia's vice president of robotics and edge AI, on a call with reporters Friday.

The Jetson Thor chips are based on a Blackwell graphics processor, which is Nvidia's current generation of technology used in its AI chips, as well as its chips for computer games. Nvidia said that its Jetson Thor chips are 7.5 times faster than its previous generation. That allows them to run generative AI models, including large language models and visual models that can interpret the world around them, which is essential for humanoid robots, Nvidia said. The Jetson Thor chips are equipped with 128GB of memory, which is essential for big AI models. [...] The company said its Jetson Thor chips can be used for self-driving cars as well, especially from Chinese brands. Nvidia calls its car chips Drive AGX, and while they are similar to its robotics chips, they run an operating system called Drive OS that's been tuned for automotive purposes.

"Delta Air Lines Flight 1334 was flying from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale last month when smoke and flames started pouring out of a backpack," reports CNN. "The pilots declared an emergency and diverted to Fort Meyers where the 191 people onboard safely evacuated."

The culprit was a passenger's personal lithium-ion battery pack, which had been tucked away in the carry-on bag. At the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace in Atlantic City, New Jersey, fire safety engineers research and demonstrate just how bad it can be. "Lithium batteries can go into what's called thermal runaway," Fire Safety Branch Manager Robert Ochs, explained. "All of a sudden, it'll start to short circuit ... It will get warmer and warmer and warmer until the structure of the battery itself fails. At that point, it can eject molten electrolyte and flames and smoke and toxic gas...."

These thermal runaways are difficult to fight. The FAA recommends flight attendants first use a halon fire extinguisher, which is standard equipment on planes, but that alone may not be enough. In the test performed for CNN, the flames sprung back up in just moments... "Adding the water, as much water from the galley cart, non-alcoholic liquids, everything that they can get to just start pouring on that device." The problems are not new, but more batteries are being carried onto planes than ever before. Safety organization UL Standards and Engagement says today an average passenger flies with four devices powered by lithium-ion batteries. "The incidents of fire are rare, but they are increasing. We're seeing as many as two per week, either on planes or within airports," Jeff Marootian, the president and CEO of the organization, told CNN...

[T]he latest federal data shows external battery packs are the top cause of incidents, and as a result the FAA has banned them from checked baggage where they are harder to extinguish. But despite all of the warnings, UL Standards and Engagement says two in five passengers still say they check them.

Archer Aviation is "the official air taxi partner" of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Electrek reported in May. In June it entered "a key development phase ahead of full-fledged flight certification and commercial operations" by completing a piloted flight in its flagship Midnight aircraft, "demonstrating a conventional takeoff and landing instead of vertical (it can do both)." During that flight, which took place in the skies above Salinas, California, the eVTOL achieved a top speed of 125 mph and a maximum altitude of 1,500 feet above ground level. Most recently, Archer has taken its Midnight eVTOL above Salinas again, achieving its longest flight to date. Per Archer, the recent successful flight in California lasted 31 minutes, and the piloted Midnight eVTOL traveled 55 miles — the company's longest recorded flight yet with a pilot onboard... [Again with speeds exceeding 125 mph]

United Airlines CFO Mike Leskinen, who led the airline's early investment in Archer Aviation, was present at the test facility to witness the milestone flight. Leskinen congratulated the Archer team on its longest eVTOL flight and expressed his satisfaction with the Midnight aircraft's quiet operation.
Their aircraft even "reached speeds of nearly 150 miles per hour" the week before, according to Archer's announcement. They're calling it another milestone "as the company advances toward FAA certification in the U.S. and near-term commercialization in the United Arab Emirates."

And Archer's Founder/CEO said crossing the 50-mile mark at speed "is another clear step toward commercialization that shows the maturity of our program."

"Google has confirmed that its Battery Health Assistance feature can't be turned off on the Pixel 10 phones," reports Android Authority: Google introduced a Battery Health Assistance feature on the Pixel 9a earlier this year. This feature gradually drops your phone's charging speed and battery voltage in the name of battery health. This tool is mandatory on the Pixel 9a but optional on other Pixel phones. However, there's bad news for the Pixel 10 series. Google confirmed to Android Authority that Battery Health Assistance is mandatory on the Pixel 10 series and can't be disabled. That means your phone's charging speed and effective battery life will drop over time...

All smartphone batteries degrade over time, resulting in shorter and shorter endurance. Google says the Pixel 8a and newer Pixel phones can withstand 1,000 charging cycles before their batteries drop down to 80% effective capacity. However, this Battery Health Assistance feature essentially reduces the phone's battery capacity over and above standard degradation. This is particularly disappointing as users aren't given a choice in the matter.

It's also disappointing as some rival smartphone makers address battery health concerns by offering more durable batteries. For example, Samsung's top phones can withstand 2,000 charging cycles before dropping down to 80% effective capacity, while OnePlus and OPPO's lithium-ion batteries offer 1,600 cycles before reaching 80% capacity. So there likely wouldn't be a need for a Battery Health Assistance tool if Google's batteries had similar longevity.
"The issue also comes after several older Pixel A series models suffered from major battery issues in 2025..."

"Solar and wind accounted for almost 91% of new U.S. electrical generating capacity added in the first five months of 2025..." reports Electrek, citing new data from America's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

"Solar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month for 21 consecutive months, starting September 2023." The 11,518 MW of solar added during the first five months of 2025 was 75.3% of the total new capacity placed into service... Between January and May, new wind provided 2,379 MW of capacity additions, accounting for 15.6% of all new capacity added during the first five months of 2025. For the first five months of 2025, solar and wind comprised 90.9% of new capacity while natural gas (1,381 MW) provided just 9.0%; the remaining 0.1% came from oil (14 MW). Solar + wind are 22.9% of U.S. utility-scale generating capacity.

The installed capacities of solar (11.1%) and wind (11.8%) are now each more than a tenth of the U.S. total. Taken together, they constitute 22.9% of the U.S.'s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity. At least 25-30% of U.S. solar capacity is in the form of small-scale (e.g., rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC's data. Including that additional solar capacity would bring the share provided by solar + wind to more than a quarter of the U.S. total. With the inclusion of hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%), and geothermal (0.3%), renewables currently claim a 32.0% share of total US utility-scale generating capacity. If small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables are now about one-third of total US generating capacity....

Taken together, the net new "high probability" capacity additions by all renewable energy sources over the next three years — the bulk of the Trump Administration's remaining time in office — would total 113,097 MW. There is no new nuclear capacity in FERC's three-year forecast, while coal and oil are projected to contract by 24,913 MW and 1,907 MW, respectively... If FERC's current "high probability" additions materialize by May 1, 2028, solar will account for 16.7% of US installed utility-scale generating capacity. Wind would provide an additional 12.7% of the total. Thus, each would be greater than coal (12.2%) and substantially more than nuclear power or hydropower (each 7.2%). In fact, assuming current growth rates continue, the installed capacity of utility-scale solar is likely to surpass that of either coal or wind within two years...

At the end of 2024, the mix of all renewables accounted for 30.96% of total generating capacity. Solar alone was 10.19% while wind was 11.68%. By the end of May, renewables' share had risen to 31.98% with solar at 11.13% and wind at 11.80%.
FERC also says that 43 "units" of solar totaling 1,515 megawatts (MW) were placed into service in May, according to the article, "accounting for 58.7% of all new generating capacity added during the month."

The U.S. government's 10% stake in Intel "is a mistake," writes the Washington Post's editorial board, calling Intel "an aging also-ran in critical markets" that "has spent recent years stumbling on execution and missing one strategic opportunity after another."

But TechCrunch points out that the U.S. government "does not appear to be committing new funds. Instead, it's simply making good on what Intel described as 'grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel.'" Specifically, the $8.9 billion is supposed to come from $5.7 billion awarded-but-not-paid to Intel under the Biden administration's CHIPS Act, as well as $3.2 billion also awarded by the Biden administration through the Secure Enclave program. In a post on his social network Truth Social, Trump wrote, "The United States paid nothing for these shares..." Trump has been critical of the CHIPS Act, calling it a "horrible, horrible thing" and calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to "get rid" of it...

According to The New York Times, some bankers and lawyers believe the CHIPS Act may not allow the government to convert its grants to equity, opening this deal to potential legal challenges.
Reuters writes that the money "will not be enough for its contract-chipmaking business to flourish, analysts said. Intel still needs external customers for its cutting-edge 14A manufacturing process to go to production, says Summit Insights analyst Kinngai Chan, "to make its foundry arm economically viable." "We don't think any government investment will change the fate of its foundry arm if they cannot secure enough customers..."

Reuters has reported that Intel's current 18A process — less advanced than 14A — is facing problems with yield, the measure of how many chips printed are good enough to make available to customers. Large chip factories including TSMC swallow the cost of poor yields during the first iterations of the process when working with customers like Apple. For Intel, which reported net losses for six straight quarters, that's hard to do and still turn a profit. "If the yield is bad then new customers won't use Intel Foundry, so it really won't fix the technical aspect of the company," said Ryuta Makino, analyst at Gabelli Funds, which holds Intel stock.

Makino, who believes that Intel can ultimately produce chips at optimal yields, views the deal as a net negative for Intel compared with just receiving the funding under the CHIPS Act as originally promised under the Biden Administration. "This isn't free money," he said. The federal government will not take a seat on Intel's board and has agreed to vote with the company's board on matters that need shareholder approval, Intel said. But this voting agreement comes with "limited exceptions" and the government is getting Intel's shares at a 17.5% discount to their closing price on Friday. The stake will make the U.S. government Intel's biggest shareholder, though neither Trump nor Intel disclosed when the transaction would happen...

Some analysts say Intel could benefit from the government's support, including in building out factories. Intel has said it is investing more than $100 billion to expand its U.S. factories and expects to begin high-volume chip production later this year at its Arizona plant. "To have access to capital and a new partial owner that wants to see you succeed are both important," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel.

"Only a tiny fraction of the more than 7,000 languages on Earth are supported by artificial intelligence models," reported SiliconANGLE this week. So Nvidia announced "a massive new AI-ready dataset and models to support the development of high-quality AI translation for European languages." The new dataset, named Granary, is a massive open-source corpus of multilingual audio, including more than a million hours of audio, plus 650,000 hours of speech recognition and 350,000 hours of speech translation. Nvidia's speech AI team collaborated with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Fondazione Bruno Kessler to process unlabeled audio and public speech data into information usable for AI training... Granary includes 25 European languages, representing nearly all of the European Union's 24 official languages, plus Russian and Ukrainian. The dataset also contains languages with limited available data, such as Croatian, Estonian and Maltese. This is critically important because providing these underrepresented human-annotated datasets will enable developers to create more inclusive speech technologies for audiences who speak those languages, while using less training data in their AI applications and models... The team demonstrated in their research paper that, compared to other popular datasets, it takes around half as much Granary training data to achieve high accuracy for automatic speech recognition and automatic speech translation.

Alongside Granary, Nvidia also released new Canary and Parakeet models to demonstrate what can be created with the dataset... The new Canary is available under a fairly permissive license for commercial and research use, expanding Canary's current languages from four to 25. It offers transcription and translation quality comparable to models three times larger while running inference up to 10 times faster. At 1 billion parameters, it can run completely on-device on most next-gen flagship smartphones for speech translation on the fly.

Google has released (PDF) a new analysis of its AI's environmental impact, showing that it has cut the energy use of AI text queries by a factor of 33 over the past year. Each prompt now consumes about 0.24 watt-hours -- the equivalent of watching nine seconds of TV. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an Ars Technica article: "We estimate the median Gemini Apps text prompt uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy, emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (gCO2e), and consumes 0.26 milliliters (or about five drops) of water," they conclude. To put that in context, they estimate that the energy use is similar to about nine seconds of TV viewing. The bad news is that the volume of requests is undoubtedly very high. The company has chosen to execute an AI operation with every single search request, a compute demand that simply didn't exist a couple of years ago. So, while the individual impact is small, the cumulative cost is likely to be considerable.

The good news? Just a year ago, it would have been far, far worse. Some of this is just down to circumstances. With the boom in solar power in the US and elsewhere, it has gotten easier for Google to arrange for renewable power. As a result, the carbon emissions per unit of energy consumed saw a 1.4x reduction over the past year. But the biggest wins have been on the software side, where different approaches have led to a 33x reduction in energy consumed per prompt.

The Google team describes a number of optimizations the company has made that contribute to this. One is an approach termed Mixture-of-Experts, which involves figuring out how to only activate the portion of an AI model needed to handle specific requests, which can drop computational needs by a factor of 10 to 100. They've developed a number of compact versions of their main model, which also reduce the computational load. Data center management also plays a role, as the company can make sure that any active hardware is fully utilized, while allowing the rest to stay in a low-power state.

The other thing is that Google designs its own custom AI accelerators, and it architects the software that runs on them, allowing it to optimize both sides of the hardware/software divide to operate well with each other. That's especially critical given that activity on the AI accelerators accounts for over half of the total energy use of a query. Google also has lots of experience running efficient data centers that carries over to the experience with AI. The result of all this is that it estimates that the energy consumption of a typical text query has gone down by 33x in the last year alone.

At its upcoming Connect conference next month, Meta is rumored to unveil its first consumer-ready smart glasses with a built-in display, alongside a neural wristband controller. The $800 device, codenamed Hypernova, will be able to show simple visual content like texts and support AI assistant interactions. CNBC reports: Connect is a two-day conference for developers focused on virtual reality, AR and the metaverse. It was originally called Oculus Connect and obtained its current moniker after Facebook changed its parent company name to Meta in 2021. The glasses are internally codenamed Hypernova and will include a small digital display in the right lens of the device, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential. The device is expected to cost about $800 and will be sold in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the people said. CNBC reported in October that Meta was working with Luxottica on consumer glasses with a display. [...]

With Hypernova, Meta will finally be offering glasses with a display to consumers, but the company is setting low expectations for sales, some of the sources said. That's because the device requires more components than its voice-only predecessors, and will be slightly heavier and thicker, the people said. [...] Although Hypernova will feature a display, those visual features are expected to be limited, people familiar with the matter said. They said the color display will offer about a 20 degree field of view -- meaning it will appear in a small window in a fixed position -- and will be used primarily to relay simple bits of information, such as incoming text messages.

The Hypernova glasses will also come paired with a wristband that will use technology built by Meta's CTRL Labs, said people familiar with the matter. CTRL Labs, which Meta acquired in 2019, specializes in building neural technology that could allow users to control computing devices using gestures in their arms. [...] In addition to Hypernova and the wristband, Meta will also announce a third-generation of its voice-only smart glasses with Luxottica at Connect, one person said.

Google, TVA, and Kairos Power are teaming up to power data centers with advanced nuclear energy through a collaboration in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The project aims to deliver 50 MW of nuclear energy by 2030. From a blog post: Today we announced the first deployment of Kairos Power's advanced nuclear reactor -- the Hermes 2 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- through a new power purchase agreement (PPA) between Kairos Power and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Marking the first purchase of electricity from an advanced GEN IV reactor by a U.S. utility, this agreement will enable 50 megawatts (MW) of nuclear energy on TVA's grid that powers our data centers in Montgomery County, Tennessee and Jackson County, Alabama.

Last October, we began a long-term collaboration with Kairos Power to unlock up to 500 MW of nuclear power for the U.S. electricity system through multiple deployments of their small modular reactor. With this next step, we are creating a three-party solution where energy customers, utilities, and technology developers work together to advance new technologies that can help meet the world's growing energy needs with reliable, affordable capacity.

Here's how it works: TVA will purchase electricity from Kairos Power's Hermes 2 plant, scheduled to begin operations in 2030. In this initial phase of the collaboration, we will procure clean energy attributes from the plant through TVA to help power our data centers in the region with locally sourced clean energy, every hour of every day.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge's Victoria Song: The original Pixel Watch was late to the game. For years, there had been rumors of a Google smartwatch that never materialized. Then, when it finally arrived, it was a quintessential first-gen device, with thicc bezels, dismal battery life, and a host of quirks that needed ironing out. My DMs were full of people wondering when the watch would be unceremoniously dumped into Google's infamous product graveyard. A part of me wondered if Google was going to spend the next decade playing catch-up. Fast forward to 2025, and I'm holding the Pixel Watch 4 at Google's office in New York City. On the surface (and my wrist), it doesn't look like much has changed. But after fiddling with a few menus, watching some demos, and talking over the updates, it's evident that Google has a clear vision about where smartwatches are going. [...]

Starting with hardware, the Pixel Watch 4 has a new domed "Actua 360" display -- as in, the display itself, not just the glass, is also domed. What this translates to is about 10 percent more visible screen space, 15 percent thinner bezels, and a 50 percent increase in maximum brightness to 3,000 nits. On a table, there's a lineup of the Pixel Watch 2, 3, and 4 with the flashlight app turned on. Side-by-side, the improvements are striking. Material 3 Expressive in Wear OS 6also helps emphasize the Pixel Watch's roundness. (No squircles here, folks.) The widgets have more rounded edges, and each screen has been redesigned to be more glanceable, fitting more complications. It's not Liquid Glass, but there are subtle animations when flitting through menus that call your attention to the Pixel Watch's rain droplet-inspired design. Altogether, it's a design tweak that makes senseandis aesthetically pleasing. Google also says battery life has improved. The 41mm watch gets an estimated 30 hours on a single charge, while the 45mm gets 40 hours. That can stretch up to two days in battery saver mode for the smaller watch and three days for the larger one. I couldn't test that at a hands-on, but I did get to see the improved fast charging in action.

As with theGalaxy Watch 8, Gemini has a big presence on the Pixel Watch 4. It replaces Google Assistant and is capable of more complex queries -- even if none have been able to blow my mind yet. But, in a bid to make interacting with Gemini as smooth as possible, the speaker and haptic engines have also been updated so you can hear and interact more easily. There's also a new raise-to-talk gesture that lets you speak to Gemini without having to use the wake word. The processor has been upgraded to the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 to enable more on-device AI features, as well, like smart replies. On the Pixel Watch 4, you'll get more smart reply options to texts that refer to the content of your conversations. They're not confined to the default Messages app, either. But the major AI update this time around is a Gemini-powered health coach that's slated to arrive alongside a revamped Fitbit app in October. ... The gist is the health coach will act more like a personal trainer than a Captain Obvious summary generator. If you sleep poorly, it'll adjust workout suggestions. (This is also why Google is also introducing an improved sleep algorithm.) You can tell it that you've been injured, and that too will be taken into consideration when generating weekly fitness plans. [...]

Another big first is the Satellite SOS mode. If you're without your phone and in a remote area with no signal, you can still call emergency services. (So long as you have the LTE version of the watch.) The big thing here is that there's no extra subscription cost. The watch will also feature more accurate dual-frequency GPS -- a nice update given that I've had issues with the Pixel Watch's GPS maps in the past. The Pixel Watch 4 is priced at $349.99 and is available for pre-order now.

Two Harvard dropouts are launching Halo X, a $249 pair of AI-powered smart glasses that continuously listen, record, and transcribe conversations while displaying real-time information to the wearer. "Our goal is to make glasses that make you super intelligent the moment you put them on," said AnhPhu Nguyen, co-founder of Halo. Co-founder Caine Ardayfio said the glasses "give you infinite memory."

"The AI listens to every conversation you have and uses that knowledge to tell you what to say ... kinda like IRL Cluely," Ardayfio told TechCrunch. "If somebody says a complex word or asks you a question, like, 'What's 37 to the third power?' or something like that, then it'll pop up on the glasses." From the report: Ardayfio and Nguyen have raised $1 million to develop the glasses, led by Pillar VC, with support from Soma Capital, Village Global, and Morningside Venture. The glasses will be priced at $249 and will be available for preorder starting Wednesday. Ardayfio called the glasses "the first real step towards vibe thinking."

The two Ivy League dropouts, who have since moved into their own version of the Hacker Hostel in the San Francisco Bay Area, recently caused a stir after developing a facial-recognition app for Meta's smart Ray-Ban glasses to prove that the tech could be used to dox people. As a potential early competitor to Meta's smart glasses, Ardayfio said Meta, given its history of security and privacy scandals, had to rein in its product in ways that Halo can ultimately capitalize on. [...]

For now, Halo X glasses only have a display and a microphone, but no camera, although the two are exploring the possibility of adding it to a future model. Users still need to have their smartphones handy to help power the glasses and get "real time info prompts and answers to questions," per Nguyen. The glasses, which are manufactured by another company that the startup didn't name, are tethered to an accompanying app on the owner's phone, where the glasses essentially outsource the computing since they don't have enough power to do it on the device itself. Under the hood, the smart glasses use Google's Gemini and Perplexity as its chatbot engine, according to the two co-founders. Gemini is better for math and reasoning, whereas they use Perplexity to scrape the internet, they said.