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Pompeii's ruins challenge Rome's famous concrete recipe
Pompeii's ruins challenge Rome's famous concrete recipe The empire's most famous architect may have had it wrong. An ancient Pompeii wall at a newly excavated site, where Associate Professor Admir Masic applied compositional analysis (overlayed to right) to understand how ancient Romans made concrete that has endured for thousands of years. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. For once, new research on the ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii is not focusing on the destructive aftermath of the infamous Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 CE. Instead, it centers on the creative acts preceding it.
Level up your gaming with peripherals that make a real difference
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Not every upgrade noticeably enhances gaming fun, but some hardware improvements deliver immediate impact and stay impressive over time. Peripherals and accessories can unlock more potential than you might expect. In this article, we'll highlight the components that turn a solid PC into a noticeably better gaming system, whether you're into shooters, MMOs, or story-driven games. A programmable mechanical keyboard is one of the first underestimated devices.
Pebble Index: Everything You Need to Know About the 75 Smart Ring
You can speak into the Pebble Index to have it remember things or set reminders, timers, and tasks. Pebble is on a roll--happily skipping along a calm lake, if you will. The resurrected smartwatch company recovered its trademarked name a few months ago, shipped all its new Pebble 2 Duo watches, and is about to start shipping the Pebble 2 Time, which alone received more than 25,000 preorders. But the company is already moving on to some new hardware: the Pebble Index 01 . And unlike most other smart rings, the Pebble Index doesn't measure your heart rate or track your sleep.
Generations in Dialogue: Human-robot interactions and social robotics with Professor Marynel Vasquez
Generations in Dialogue: Bridging Perspectives in AI is a podcast from AAAI featuring thought-provoking discussions between AI experts, practitioners, and enthusiasts from different age groups and backgrounds. Each episode delves into how generational experiences shape views on AI, exploring the challenges, opportunities, and ethical considerations that come with the advancement of this transformative technology. In the fourth episode of this new series from AAAI, host Ella Lan chats to Professor Marynel Vรกzquez about what inspired her research direction, how her perspective on human-robot interactions has changed over time, robots navigating the social world, potential for using robots in education, modeling interactions as graphs, addressing misunderstandings with regards to robots in society, getting input from target users, the challenge of recognising when errors happen, making robots that adapt, and more. Marynel Vรกzquez is a computer scientist and roboticist whose research focuses on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), particularly in multi-party settings. She studies social group dynamics--such as spatial behavior and social influence--in HRI, and develops perception and decision-making algorithms that enable autonomous, socially aware robot behavior.
16 genuinely useful changes in Windows 11's December update
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The December update for Windows 11 will be huge. Today, Microsoft will release December's monthly patch for Windows 11. The last Patch Tuesday in 2025 will be huge, because according to Windows Central, there will be no fewer than new features included in the update. These include various design changes to important elements such as the Start menu, specific improvements to existing functions and completely new features.
Texas authorities have made multiple arrests in an NVIDIA GPU smuggling operation
Individuals conspired to export over $150 million worth of H100 and H200 chips to China. The Southern District of Texas the seizure of more than $50 million in NVIDIA GPUs bound for China in violation of US export laws. Authorities arrested two businessmen, one of them the owner of a Houston company, accused of smuggling the chips used to train and run AI models. "Operation Gatekeeper has exposed a sophisticated smuggling network that threatens our Nation's security by funneling cutting-edge AI technology to those who would use it against American interests," said US Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. The investigation had been ongoing since at least last year and centers on the illicit export or attempted export of at least $160 million worth of NVIDIA H100 and H200 GPUs.
Elizabethan era gold coin sold for record-breaking price
The coin minted between 1584 and 1586 celebrates England's naval superiority. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A coin minted during the reign of one of Great Britain's most famous monarchs recently fetched a record price at auction. The officially designated Elizabeth I (1558-1603) gold "Ship" Ryal of 15 Shillings ND (1584-1586) MS63 NGC sold for $372,000 by Heritage Auction in November . The sale set a world record for an Elizabeth Ship Ryal sold at auction.
Tech's biggest losers of 2025
The companies, products and trends that had an absolutely awful year. It's the end of another year, so it's time for the Engadget staff to compile a list of the year's biggest losers . We scour over articles from the previous 12 months to determine the people, companies, products and trends that made our lives worse over the course of the year. Some selections may be so pervasive they actually make our list of biggest winners. In 2025, OpenAI shed any pretense it was committed to anything more than making money. There are a few different things you could point to, including the company's successful reorganization into a more traditional profit-seeking business, but I think the most damning sign was OpenAI's response to the tragic death of Adam Raine . In August, Raine's parents sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT was aware of four suicide attempts by their son before it helped him successfully plan his death.
EU opens antitrust investigation into Google's AI practices
EU opens antitrust investigation into Google's AI practices The European Commission is looking into Google's lack of compensation for publishers and YouTube creators. Google is no stranger to scrutiny from government bodies such as the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and the European Commission . Now it can add another probe to its list: The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into the company surrounding the content used for its AI tools. Namely, the Commission is looking into two things, starting with whether Google used web publisher's content for its AI Overview and AI Mode services -- without appropriate compensation or the option to refuse the use of their materials. The Commission will investigate to what extent the generation of AI Overviews and AI Mode by Google is based on web publishers' content without appropriate compensation for that, and without the possibility for publishers to refuse without losing access to Google Search, the EU executive body stated in its announcement.