alternative_right shares a report from Phys.Org: The unit -- dubbed a BeeHome -- is an industrial upgrade from the standard wooden beehives, all clad in white metal and solar panels. Inside sits a high-tech scanner and robotic arm powered by artificial intelligence. Roughly 300,000 of these units are in use across the U.S., scattered across fields of almond, canola, pistachios and other crops that require pollination to grow. [...] AI and robotics are able to replace "90% of what a beekeeper would do in the field," said Beewise Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Saar Safra. The question is whether beekeepers are willing to switch out what's been tried and true equipment. [...]

While a new hive design alone isn't enough to save bees, Beewise's robotic hives help cut down on losses by providing a near-constant stream of information on colony health in real time -- and give beekeepers the ability to respond to issues. Equipped with a camera and a robotic arm, they're able to regularly snap images of the frames inside the BeeHome, which Safra likened to an MRI. The amount of data they capture is staggering. Each frame contains up to 6,000 cells where bees can, among other things, gestate larvae or store honey and pollen. A hive contains up to 15 frames and a BeeHome can hold up to 10 hives, providing thousands of data points for Beewise's AI to analyze.

While a trained beekeeper can quickly look at a frame and assess its health, AI can do it even faster, as well as take in information on individual bees in the photos. Should AI spot a warning sign, such as a dearth of new larvae or the presence of mites, beekeepers will get an update on an app that a colony requires attention. The company's technology earned it a BloombergNEF Pioneers award earlier this year. "There's other technologies that we've tried that can give us some of those metrics as well, but it's really a look in the rearview mirror," [said Zac Ellis, the senior director of agronomy at OFI, a global food and ingredient seller]. "What really attracted us to Beewise is their ability to not only understand what's happening in that hive, but to actually act on those different metrics."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Four teams of humanoid robots took each other on in Beijing [on Saturday], in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence. While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won't be taking Kylian Mbappe's job just yet. Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving. At least two robots were stretchered off after failing to regain their feet after going to ground.

[...] The competition was fought between university teams, which adapted the robots with their own algorithms. In the final match, Tsinghua University's THU Robotics defeated the China Agricultural University's Mountain Sea team with a score of 5-3 to win the championship. One Tsinghua supporter celebrated their victory while also praising the competition. "They [THU] did really well," he said. "But the Mountain Sea team was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises." Cheng Hao, CEO of Booster Robotics, said he envisions future matches between humans and robots, though he acknowledges current robots still lag behind in performance. He also said safety will need to be a top priority.

You can watch highlights of the match on YouTube.

Google has signed a deal to purchase 200 megawatts of future fusion energy from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, despite the energy source not yet existing. "It's a sign of how hungry big tech companies are for a virtually unlimited source of clean power that is still years away," reports CNN. From the report: Google and Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced a deal Monday in which the tech company bought 200 megawatts of power from Commonwealth's first commercial fusion plant, the same amount of energy that could power roughly 200,000 average American homes. Commonwealth aims to build the plant in Virginia by the early 2030s. When it starts generating usable fusion energy is still TBD, though the company believes they can do it in the same timeframe.

Google is also investing a second round of money into Commonwealth to spur development of its demonstration tokamak -- a donut-shaped machine that uses massive magnets and molten plasma to force two atoms to merge, thereby creating the energy of the sun. Google and Commonwealth did not disclose how much money is being invested, but both touted the announcement as a major step toward fusion commercialization. "We're using this purchasing power that we have to send a demand signal to the market for fusion energy and hopefully move (the) technology forward," said Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google.

Commonwealth is currently building its demonstration plant in Massachusetts, known as SPARC. It's the tokamak the company says could forever change where the world gets its power from, generating 10 million times more energy than coal or natural gas while producing no planet-warming pollution. Fuel for fusion is abundant, derived from a form of hydrogen found in seawater and tritium extracted from lithium. And unlike nuclear fission, there is no radioactive waste involved. The big challenge is that no one has yet built a machine powerful and precise enough to get more energy out of the reaction than they put into it.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek: Hundreds of printer models from Brother and other vendors are impacted by potentially serious vulnerabilities discovered by researchers at Rapid7. The cybersecurity firm revealed on Wednesday that its researchers identified eight vulnerabilities affecting multifunction printers made by Brother. The security holes have been found to impact 689 printer, scanner and label maker models from Brother, and some or all of the flaws also affect 46 Fujifilm Business Innovation, five Ricoh, six Konica Minolta, and two Toshiba printers. Overall, millions of enterprise and home printers are believed to be exposed to hacker attacks due to these vulnerabilities.

The most serious of the flaws, tracked as CVE-2024-51978 and with a severity rating of 'critical', can allow a remote and unauthenticated attacker to bypass authentication by obtaining the device's default administrator password. CVE-2024-51978 can be chained with an information disclosure vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-51977, which can be exploited to obtain a device's serial number. This serial number is needed to generate the default admin password. "This is due to the discovery of the default password generation procedure used by Brother devices," Rapid7 explained. "This procedure transforms a serial number into a default password. Affected devices have their default password set, based on each device's unique serial number, during the manufacturing process."

Having the admin password enables an attacker to reconfigure the device or abuse functionality intended for authenticated users. The remaining vulnerabilities, which have severity ratings of 'medium' and 'high', can be exploited for DoS attacks, forcing the printer to open a TCP connection, obtain the password of a configured external service, trigger a stack overflow, and perform arbitrary HTTP requests. Six of the eight vulnerabilities found by Rapid7 can be exploited without authentication. Brother has patched most of the flaws, but CVE-2024-51978 requires a new manufacturing process to fully resolve, which will apply only to future devices.

The UK government has rejected the 25 billion ($34.39 billion) pound Morocco-UK Power Project, citing a preference for domestic renewable initiatives that offer greater economic and strategic benefits. The project aimed to supply solar and wind energy from the Sahara to power up to seven million UK homes. Reuters reports: "The government has concluded that it is not in the UK national interest at this time to continue further consideration of support for the Morocco-UK Power Project," energy department minister Michael Shanks said in a written statement to parliament. He also said the project did not clearly align strategically with the government's mission to build homegrown power in the UK.

Xlinks' Morocco-UK power project would have tapped Moroccan renewable energy via what would have been the world's longest subsea power cable. The plan involved building 3,800 kilometers (2,361 miles) of high-voltage direct current subsea cables from Morocco to southwest England. The company had been seeking a guaranteed minimum price for the electricity supplied, known as contract for difference, from Britain's government.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neuroscience News Science Magazine: Surgeons have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S., using advanced robotic tools to avoid opening the chest. [...] Using a surgical robot, lead surgeon Dr. Kenneth Liao and his team made small, precise incisions, eliminating the need to open the chest and break the breast bone. Liao removed the diseased heart, and the new heart was implanted through preperitoneal space, avoiding chest incision.

"Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants," said Liao, professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. "With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery."

In addition to less surgical trauma, the clinical benefits of robotic heart transplant surgery include avoiding excessive bleeding from cutting the bone and reducing the need for blood transfusions, which minimizes the risk of developing antibodies against the transplanted heart. Before the transplant surgery, the 45-year-old patient had been hospitalized with advanced heart failure since November 2024 and required multiple mechanical devices to support his heart function. He received a heart transplant in early March 2025 and after heart transplant surgery, he spent a month in the hospital before being discharged home, without complications.

Italian utility A2A and French tech firm Qarnot have launched a data center in Brescia, Italy, that captures waste heat from servers and redirects it to a local district heating system. "The Brescia project is expected to meet the heating needs of more than 1,350 apartments and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 3,500 tons annually -- equivalent to the absorption capacity of over 22,000 trees," reports Reuters. From the report: "The rapid spread of data centers and the growing electrification of consumption require major investments in power grids. But data centers also offer a remarkable opportunity for cities with district heating networks," A2A CEO Renato Mazzoncini said at the inauguration. "In (the Italian region of) Lombardy alone, with projects already in the pipeline, we estimate that 150,000 apartments could be heated this way," Mazzoncini added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Swarms of tiny robots, each no larger than a speck of dust, could be deployed to cure stubborn infected sinuses before being blown out through the nose into a tissue, researchers have claimed. The micro-robots are a fraction of the width of a human hair and have been inserted successfully into animal sinuses in pre-clinical trials by researchers at universities in China and Hong Kong. Swarms are injected into the sinus cavity via a duct threaded through the nostril and guided to their target by electromagnetism, where they can be made to heat up and catalyze chemical reactions to wipe out bacterial infections. There are hopes the precisely targeted technology could eventually reduce reliance on antibiotics and other generalized medicines.

[...] The latest breakthrough, based on animal rather than human trials, involves magnetic particles "doped" with copper atoms which clinicians insert with a catheter before guiding to their target under a magnetic field. The swarms can be heated up by reacting to light from an optical fibre that is also inserted into the body as part of the therapy. This allows the micro-robots to loosen up and penetrate viscous pus that forms a barrier to the infection site. The light source also prompts the micro-robots to disrupt bacterial cell walls and release reactive oxygen species that kill the bacteria.

The study, published in Nature Robotics, showed the robots were capable of eradicating bacteria from pig sinuses and could clear infections in live rabbits with "no obvious tissue damage." The researchers have produced a model of how the technology could work on a human being, with the robot swarms being deployed in operating theatre conditions, allowing doctors to see their progress by using X-rays. Future applications could include tackling bacterial infections of the respiratory tract, stomach, intestine, bladder and urethra, they suggested. "Our proposed micro-robotic therapeutic platform offers the advantages of non-invasiveness, minimal resistance, and drug-free intervention," they said.

Google DeepMind has launched Gemini Robotics On-Device, a new language model that enables robots to perform complex tasks locally without internet connectivity. TechCrunch reports: Building on the company's previous Gemini Robotics model that was released in March, Gemini Robotics On-Device can control a robot's movements. Developers can control and fine-tune the model to suit various needs using natural language prompts. In benchmarks, Google claims the model performs at a level close to the cloud-based Gemini Robotics model. The company says it outperforms other on-device models in general benchmarks, though it didn't name those models.

In a demo, the company showed robots running this local model doing things like unzipping bags and folding clothes. Google says that while the model was trained for ALOHA robots, it later adapted it to work on a bi-arm Franka FR3 robot and the Apollo humanoid robot by Apptronik. Google claims the bi-arm Franka FR3 was successful in tackling scenarios and objects it hadn't "seen" before, like doing assembly on an industrial belt. Google DeepMind is also releasing a Gemini Robotics SDK. The company said developers can show robots 50 to 100 demonstrations of tasks to train them on new tasks using these models on the MuJoCo physics simulator.

Ford is moving forward with its $3 billion EV battery plant in Michigan despite political pushback and the potential loss of key U.S. tax credits that make the project financially viable. Axios reports: Ford's argument is that by building batteries using technology licensed from China's leading battery producer, CATL, it is helping to re-shore important manufacturing expertise that was long ago ceded to China. [...] "LFP batteries are produced all around Europe, and the rest of the world," said Lisa Drake, Ford's vice president of technology platform programs and EV systems. "How can we compete if we don't have this technology? Somebody has to take the lead to do this," she said, adding that it will lead to homegrown innovation and the seeding of a domestic supply base. "I'm convinced this is the right thing to do for the United States," she said.

Drake said the tax subsidies are even more important in the face of slower-than-expected EV demand. "When EV adoption slowed, it just became a huge headwind," she said. "The [production tax credit] allows us to keep on this path, and to keep going." "We don't want to back off on scaling, hiring or training in an industry we need to be competitive in the future," she said. "It would be a shame to build these facilities and then have to scale back on the most important part of it, which is the people. These are 1,700 jobs. They don't come along very often."

Consumer tax credits for EV purchases get the most attention, but for manufacturers, the far more lucrative incentives come in the form of production tax credits. Companies could receive a tax credit of $35 per kilowatt-hour for each U.S.-made cell, and another $10 per kilowatt-hour for each battery pack. With an annual production capacity of 20 GWh, Ford's battery plant could potentially receive a $900 million tax credit, offsetting almost one-third of its investment. [...] The Republican-controlled Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on a budget bill that would rewrite language around EV tax credits. A House version of the bill passed last month effectively killed the production tax credits for manufacturers by severely tightening the eligibility requirements. It also specifically prohibited credits for batteries made in the U.S. under a Chinese licensing agreement -- a direct hit on Ford.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from OilPrice.com: China installed its highest solar power capacity for a single month in May, according to official data, which showed mind-boggling figures that the country installed more solar capacity in a month than any other nation did for the entire 2024. With 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed in May, China smashed its own record of 71 GW in December 2024, per data from the National Energy Administration cited by Bloomberg.

China's solar capacity additions in May were rushed ahead of a new government policy -- effective June 1 -- to remove pricing protection for solar power projects. Under these protections, solar projects had all but guaranteed profits when they start operations. Another new rule, effective May 1, made connecting rooftop panels to the grid more difficult. These new policies are expected to moderate the growth in solar power additions this summer, analysts say. A separate report notes that China's cumulative installed solar capacity has surpassed 1 TW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). "By the end of May 2025, solar capacity had reached 1.08 TW (1,080 GW), up 56.9% year on year," reports pv magazine.

"NEA data show total power generation capacity stood at 3.61 TW at the end of May, an 18.8% increase from a year earlier."

jalvarez13 writes: My venerable HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus is showing its age and it has become expensive to operate due to the cost of the original cartridges. I tried some alternative cartridges but the printer rejects them.

Now that schools still require kids to print stuff at home (mine are in 2nd and 4th grade), and my wife also needs to use the printer, I think it may be wise to invest in a good-quality printer that has a lower cost per page (maybe laser?).

In that context, I'd love to have unbiased information about brand quality, printing technology, cost efficiency, and other factors that I might have missed. Any thoughts?

New York will construct the first major new U.S. nuclear power plant in more than 15 years, with Governor Kathy Hochul directing the state's public electric utility to add at least one gigawatt of nuclear generation capacity. The New York Power Authority will identify an upstate location and determine reactor design, either independently or through private partnerships.

The project tests President Trump's May executive orders aimed at accelerating nuclear development through regulatory overhaul, expedited licensing, and expanded use of federal lands for reactors. Only five new commercial reactors have come online since 1991, while nuclear capacity has declined more than 4% from its 2012 peak. Potential sites include grounds of New York's three existing plants owned by Constellation Energy. The state is already collaborating with Constellation on federal grant applications for reactor additions at the Nine Mile Point facility in Oswego and studying Ontario's small modular reactor initiatives.

The classic VW bus got an all-electric update — but that was just the beginning. Now there's an autonomous driving version (that's intended for commercial fleets, reports Jalopnik, "a level 4 vehicle that drives set routes" that's "going into full production" as the ID Buzz AD. (The AD stands for "autonomous driving") The AD version sports a longer wheelbase and a higher roofline than its mere human-driven sibling, which helps it to fit in the 13 cameras, nine LiDARs, and five radars that will (hopefully) allow the car to drive without crashing into anybody. These are intended for large-fleet customers providing taxi services, either ones run by local governments or private companies. [Volkswagen Group software subsidiary MOIA] has already lined up its first customer, the German city of Hamburg, which will provide the automated Buzz as a public transit option alongside traditional bus and subway services. If all goes well, after Hamburg MOIA "will bring sustainable, autonomous mobility to large-scale deployment in Europe and the U.S.," according to VW Group CEO Oliver Blume. Down the road, VW has also signed an agreement for rideshare juggernaut Uber to use the ID Buzz AD across America, starting with Los Angeles in 2026.

The ID Buzz AD is the first vehicle in Germany to reach SAE International's threshold for Level 4 autonomous driving, meaning that the car can drive itself, with no need for a driver behind the wheel, within designated areas.
It comes with "a full suite of tools for public and private transit providers," notes the EV news site Electrek. "That includes everything from the self-driving tech to fleet management software, passenger support, and operator training. That will allow cities and companies to launch driverless fleets quickly, safely, and at scale."

And Christian Senger, a member of the board of management of VW Commercial Vehicles, tells DW the vans will be manufactured in very large numbers. The Hannover VW factory is set to produce more than 10,000 commercial vehicles. "We believe we can be the leading supplier in Europe," Senger says.... [Senger] does not expect the top dog of Germany's beleaguered auto industry to make any money, at least at first. In the long term, though, he explains that autonomous driving is the lucrative field of the future, one that promises to be much more profitable than the traditional automotive industry...

The exact price has not yet been announced but the ID. Buzz AD is unlikely to come cheap. According to Senger, buyers will have to pay a low six-figure sum (in euros) per vehicle. That means it's going to be expensive for transport companies. The Association of German Transport Companies or VDV, is calling for a nationally coordinated strategy of long-term financing, and a market launch supported by public funding, to establish the country's supremacy in this market.

U.S. consumers "rank problems with public electric vehicle charging and the time it takes to recharge as their top two reasons for rejecting electric vehicles," writes the New York Times, citing figures from data analytics firm J.D. Power.

But are things getting better? Automakers and charging companies are building new stations and updating their cars to allow drivers to more easily and quickly recharge their vehicles. They're also outfitting charging stations with items such as food and bathrooms, and making the devices more reliable. Because chargers are only as fast as the cars they connect with, automakers are designing new cars to absorb electricity at higher speeds. In addition, many automakers have cut deals with Tesla to allow owners of other cars to use the company's fast-charging network, the largest in the country and widely considered the most reliable.

Early evidence suggests efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off. In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed about 20% of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16%, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021. "The industry is finally elevating as a whole," said Brent Gruber, an executive director at J.D. Power.

The number of chargers has also increased. There were about 55,200 fast chargers in the United States in May, up from 42,200 a year earlier, according to federal data.

In February, a former Phillips 66 gas station in Apex, N.C., near Raleigh, became the first "Rechargery" from Ionna, a company created by eight automakers, including General Motors, Hyundai Motors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Their chargers can deliver up to 400 kilowatts of juice, much more than Tesla's 250-kilowatt Superchargers. Some cars can replenish a battery in 30 minutes or less at the higher charging speeds. When connected to chargers of 350 kilowatts or more, including those at Ionna and Electrify America, another fast-charging network, a Hyundai Ioniq 5 can fill its electric "tank" from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes...

Some models from BMW, Hyundai and Kia have also enabled a national "Plug and Charge" standard that lets car owners begin charging their vehicles at Ionna stalls without first having to use a smartphone app or swipe a credit card, eliminating a step that sometimes results in errors. Tesla's chargers have long worked this way for Tesla cars and now work with some other vehicles, including Rivian's SUVs and pickups. More cars and charging stations are expected to have plug-and-charge capability in the coming months... Nearly every major automaker is redesigning their cars with plug outlets and software that are compatible with Tesla chargers.
Infrastructure upgrades are happening elsewhere too, according to the article.Texas-based gas chain Buc-ee's is offering "premium" charging using renewable power (working with Mercedes), while Waffle House plans to install BP Pulse fast chargers next year.

J.D. Power's Gruber says that while America's federal charger program only helped construct a tiny fraction of new chargers, it did also published guidelines which helped automakers and charging companies work together and address technical problems.