This week’s furore is microplastics researchers’ ozone moment. If they fail, the powerful plastics lobby will step into the breach Debora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity Are we being injured and killed by ubiquitous, teeny-tiny shards...
Liquid gears could challenge 5,000 years of mechanical engineering
The study, published January 13 in Physical Review Letters, replaces the metal or plastic cogs of conventional gears with controlled flows of liquid. In their experiments, NYU physicists submerged two cylinders in a viscous water – glycerol mixture. When one cylinder rotated, the liquid currents it generated transmitted motion to......
Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 adds 40 TOPS accelerator to the single-board computer
Raspberry Pi has started selling the AI HAT+ 2, an add-on board that represents a significant upgrade over the AI HAT+ model launched in 2024. While the original board could only accelerate certain types of neural network models, the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 is powerful enough to manage and......
Lego’s next Zelda set celebrates Ocarina of Time
Officially titled The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – The Final Battle, the model (77093) features 1,003 pieces as well as minifigures of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. The setting is Ganon's ruined castle, where you'll find three hidden Recovery Hearts and other elements from the game such as the......
Microsoft disrupts cybercrime-as-a-service platform tied to $40M in fraud
Microsoft recently announced a civil lawsuit against RedVDS, a prominent cybercrime service responsible for stealing millions of dollars from high-profile targets. RedVDS exemplifies the growing cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) problem, using a subscription-based model to deploy malicious computing resources and coordinate large-scale phishing campaigns. Read Entire Article
DocuSign debuts contract-trained AI to explain documents before you sign them
According to an official press release, the AI-powered eSignature features that make dense legal language easier to understand are built on DocuSign's Intelligent Agreement Management platform, which simplifies complex wording and helps ensure accurate, error-free document preparation. Read Entire Article
Wikipedia is now getting paid by Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and other AI companies
As generative AI companies search for cleaner training data, one of the internet's oldest institutions is quietly changing its economic model. The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, has confirmed new agreements with major AI players, including Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, and Perplexity. The deals formalize paid access to the......
Gigabyte is considering a handheld gaming PC, but only if it can stand out from the crowd
Gigabyte CEO Eddie Lin spoke to PC World about several subjects at CES last week, including the company's stance on joining the handheld PC market. Read Entire Article
Scientists create a spray-on powder that seals life-threatening wounds in seconds
The agent, known as AGCL powder, was developed through a cross-disciplinary collaboration between materials science and biological engineering, with input from an active-duty South Korean Army Major whose battlefield experience shaped the design's real-world focus. Read Entire Article
AMD is adding a one-click AI tools installer to Radeon GPU drivers
AMD has confirmed that the next version of its Adrenalin software, set to arrive on January 21, will introduce new features to streamline the installation of local generative AI development tools. The announcement follows a multi-front AI development push that the company teased at CES last week. Read Entire Article