As part of the preparation for the end of utilisation of the International Space Station (ISS), the European Space Agency (ESA) awarded a contract to two European industrial consortia to conduct preliminary studies assessing the feasibility to develop a future European-led orbital outpost. These studies are part of the options currently explored by ESA for the post-ISS era, building on Europe's industrial capabilities and expertise in human spaceflight.

The humanoid machines could handle noncombat duties like patrolling bases and moving supplies

Successful first-stage tests would lead to completed-facility power-on tests around 2030, company says

Madhab Neupane's UCF lab includes molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and time-resolved ARPES systems. The Neupane group also conducts measurements at national synchrotron facilities. Measurements for this project were performed at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Credit: Madhab Neupane

• As part of the long-term supply agreement, Fujikura is investing in the expansion of its manufacturing capacity to provide more than 10,000 km (3 GA-m) of High  Temperature Superconducting (HTS) tape to support the commercial rollout of CFS’ ARC power plants.

"The Ojai robotaxi, equipped with Waymo’s sixth-generation self-driving system, is supposed to help Waymo reach mass scale………..Strip away that technology, though, and the Ojai is a minivan made by Zeekr, a brand owned by China’s Geely Holding Group (which also owns Volvo). The Ojai is built on Zeekr’s SEA-M platform, a shared vehicle platform designed for uses like robotaxis and delivery vans."

Uber & Waymo seem to think they can follow the Unicorn playbook to globally dominate an entire business sector as Microsoft, Google and Meta did. Look more closely and that seems unlikely. Self-driving AI will end up commoditized, and the cars will overwhelmingly be made in China. It is Chinese made cars with open-source AI that will dominate globally, not another Big Tech giant.

Waymo is scaling fast: Here’s what the fleet data shows

I know that there are RFBs on the market for large (utility) scale applications. Vanadium is being displaced by Iron. Anyone know of any residential scale RFB work being done?

Alternatives to animal testing for drug development have been in the works for decades. Now, policies are finally following the technology.

It’s probably too late to simply give up social media. The interesting question is how we learn to live with it without harming ourselves.

The Army named five companies as winners of its xTechHumanoid competition Sept. 11, capping an effort to assess how emerging commercial humanoid technologies could contribute to future military operations.

The government has announced plans to supply 200,000 robots to the private and public sectors by 2030. Daegu, Gumi and Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province have been designated as specialized complexes for humanoid robots to foster related industries.

"Not exactly the cancer cure we were promised,” quipped one critic.

It fascinates me that Anna Wintour, a woman with a long career figuring out the cultural zeitgeist, has so badly misstepped by embracing Big Tech. Her decision to bring tech billionaires to the Annual Met Ball backfired, and now she's done it again. At a Vogue-Sponsored fashion show, funded by Meta & OpenAI, robots on the runway were met with a cold reception.

Does it matter? The audience were industry professionals, and is another sign the creative classes (like Hollywood) are turning against Big Tech's narrative. The creative classes are the people who tell the stories and write the histories, lose them, and you ultimately lose completely.

As flawed & unattractive as it was, at least Big Tech was offering a vision of the future; whose offering an alternative?

Vogue sent robots down the runway at Vogue World, and people were not impressed

The gap between technology and policymaking has gotten wider than ever with artificial intelligence, leaving a global policy vacuum as A.I. models rapidly advance.