Comment on AI and Robots That Do Your Laundry and Dishes? Dream On, Folks

Enlarge (credit: Pgiam) Is space-based solar power a costly, risky pipe dream? Or is it a viable way to combat climate change? Although beaming solar power from space to Earth could ultimately involve transmitting gigawatts, the process could be made surprisingly safe and cost-effective, according to experts from Space Solar, the European Space Agency, and the University of Glasgow. But we’re going to need to move well beyond demonstration hardware and solve a number of engineering challenges if we want to develop that potential. Designing space-based solar Beaming solar energy from space is not new; telecommunications satellites have been sending microwave signals generated by solar power back to Earth since the 1960s.

Enlarge (credit: AlexBard | iStock / Getty Images Plus) A feces-encrusted swim diaper tanked a family business after Amazon re-sold it as new, Bloomberg reported, triggering a bad review that quickly turned a million-dollar mom-and-pop shop into a $600,000 pile of debt. Paul and Rachelle Baron, owners of Beau & Belle Littles, told Bloomberg that Amazon is supposed to inspect returned items before reselling them.

Enlarge / FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr arrive to testify during a House committee hearing on March 31, 2022, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Kevin Dietsch ) A federal court on Friday temporarily stayed enforcement of net neutrality regulations but has not decided on the merits of a telecom-industry request to block the rules on a longer-term basis. The Federal Communications Commission's revived net neutrality rules were scheduled to take effect on July 22.

Enlarge / Kevin Scott, CTO and EVP of AI at Microsoft speaks onstage during Vox Media's 2023 Code Conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel on September 27, 2023 in Dana Point, California. (credit: Getty Images) During an interview with Sequoia Capital's Training Data podcast published last Tuesday, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott doubled down on his belief that so-called large language model (LLM) "scaling laws" will continue to drive AI progress, despite some skepticism in the field that progress has leveled out.

Enlarge / Space Cadet Pinball has never been so portable or so tiny! (credit: Turing Software / App Store) One month after PC emulator UTM was rejected from the iOS App Store, the developers have announced that a new "UTM SE" version is now available for free on the App Store.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The ongoing dispute between the United States and China over electric vehicles shows no sign of abating. Today, Reuters reports that China has asked the World Trade Organization to set up a special panel to determine if US EV subsidies are an unfair trade barrier. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has been the most significant climate legislation in US history, with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding for the clean energy transition.