Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Energy Storage


2026 Home of the Future awards: 39 products that will improve your everyday life

Popular Science

Upgrade your space with a smart toilet, new tools, a robotic lawn mower, and several dozen more clever devices and technologies that make home a better place. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . The home doesn't announce its upgrades the way a phone does. Progress shows up as a battery that recharges in about ten minutes, a wall paint that's EPA-registered to kill germs, and a shower that reuses the water it just heated. For our second annual Home of the Future Awards, we evaluated dozens of new products and selected those that use new or clever technology to do something that actually matters. They improve daily life, solve a real problem, make a home more accessible, or waste less of everything. You don't need fire starting skills.


Meet the Battery Startup Taking on China's Giants

WIRED

Solid-state batteries are safer and more capable--but harder to mass-produce. They also represent an opportunity for non-Chinese companies to get back in the game. The field of lithium batteries is currently dominated by Chinese companies like BYD and CATL. Not only do they sell the majority of batteries that go into electric vehicles and energy storage projects worldwide, they're also opening up new factories in your backyard . When companies outside China try to compete, like Europe's Northvolt, they quickly realize how hard it is .


I tested the Ryzen AI 400 for battery life. AMD, we have a problem

PCWorld

PCWorld's battery testing reveals AMD's Ryzen AI 7 445 processor delivers disappointing battery life performance in laptops like the Acer Swift Go 14 AI. The chip ranked last in streaming tests and efficiency scores, falling behind Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Intel's Core Ultra processors. With Ryzen AI 400 processors appearing in about a third of productivity laptops, users may want to consider Intel or Qualcomm alternatives for better battery performance. AMD's Ryzen mobile processors appear in about a third of all productivity laptops sold today. So, how does the Ryzen AI 400, AMD's latest mobile processor, actually hold up in real-world battery tests?


Decision-Value Attribution in Predict-then-Optimize Systems

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Predictive models are increasingly embedded in operational decision-making, yet standard explanation methods typically explain forecasts rather than the decisions those forecasts induce. This distinction is important in predict-then-optimize systems: large forecast changes may leave the optimizer's action unchanged, while small changes can alter the selected decision and its realized value. We propose Decision Value Attribution (DVA), a Shapley-based framework for attributing the value of a fixed prediction--optimization pipeline. The framework defines cooperative games whose payoff is the downstream decision value, allowing the players to be information sources, optimization or design parameters, or both. We present three variants: InfoDVA attributes value to features, DesignDVA attributes value to operational configurations, and Decision-Value Interactions (DVI) quantifies how information and design jointly create value. We further distinguish post-DVA, which evaluates decisions using realized outcomes, from pre-DVA, which evaluates decisions under the model's full prediction. This separation turns attribution into a decision-level diagnostic of whether the model's operational beliefs align with realized performance. The resulting attributions are expressed in the units of the operational objective and decompose the gain or loss relative to a baseline. Case studies in electricity storage arbitrage and emergency medical service coverage show that predictive explanations can be poor proxies for operational value, that DVA can guide targeted information-control interventions, and that optimization configurations determine when predictive information is decision-relevant.


99 Prime Day Deals on Gear We Stand By, Up To 50% Off (2026)

WIRED

The 99 Absolute Best Prime Day Deals We'd Spend Our Own Money On We've gone from A to Z to find Amazon's best Prime Day deals on the gear worth owning. Amazon Prime Day is here once again. Amazon's annual Prime Day deals aims to entice us with an endless scroll of "discounts (some real, many fake), hammering away with red slashes, big percentages off, and coupons you can only see after adding to cart. While Prime Day deals aren't what they once were--its success has inspired a massive number of fake deals and attracted obscure brands--there are still some very significant discounts to be found. For the next four days, the WIRED Reviews team will be pooling our hundreds of years of collective expertise to find actual savings on products we have personally tested and approved. Let us absorb the neon signage and "buy now" buttons on your behalf and share the deals worth sharing. We'll keep this list updated frequently for the duration of the sale, which runs from June 23 to June 26. This is our very favorite MagSafe power bank . Wireless and MagSafe charging aren't always the fastest or most efficient, but despite its bulk, this large-capacity bank can top off modern phones once (or maybe a little more than that) without overheating or taking forever. One of the best budget wireless chargers is even more affordable thanks to Prime Day. You can buy fancier, faster wireless chargers, but if you just want a simple option that'll top off your phone, this is worth checking out. It can deliver up to 10 watts, though you'll need to supply your own wall adapter. Want something that can fast charge your phone, juice up your tablet, and even refill your laptop? This generous 25,000-mAh capacity can do it all, but stops shy of the carry-on air travel limit. The maximum output is 165 watts for two devices, but 100 watts for a single device. It has lovely rounded edges, a retractable, flat, 2.3-foot USB-C cable on the top, and a snazzy, durable, braided 1-foot USB-C cable that doubles as a carry loop. Unlike so many Windows laptops around $500, the OmniBook 3 has excellent performance and battery life. And while the touchpad isn't the best, the specs alone make it the very best cheap laptop you can buy. You have to be careful when buying Chromebooks these days.


129 Prime Day Deals on Gear We've Tested and Would Spend Our Own Money On

WIRED

We've gone from A to Z to find Amazon's best Prime Day deals on the gear worth owning. Amazon Prime Day is here once again. Amazon's annual Prime Day deals aims to entice us with an endless scroll of "discounts (some real, many fake), hammering away with red slashes, big percentages off, and coupons you can only see after adding to cart. While Prime Day deals aren't what they once were--its success has inspired a massive number of fake deals and attracted obscure brands--there are still some very significant discounts to be found. For the next four days, the WIRED Reviews team will be pooling our hundreds of years of collective expertise to find actual savings on products we have personally tested and approved. Let us absorb the neon signage and "buy now" buttons on your behalf and share the deals worth sharing. We'll keep this list updated frequently for the duration of the sale, which runs from June 23 to June 26. This is our very favorite MagSafe power bank . Wireless and MagSafe charging aren't always the fastest or most efficient, but despite its bulk, this large-capacity bank can top off modern phones once (or maybe a little more than that) without overheating or taking forever. One of the best budget wireless chargers is even more affordable thanks to Prime Day. You can buy fancier, faster wireless chargers, but if you just want a simple option that'll top off your phone, this is worth checking out. It can deliver up to 10 watts, though you'll need to supply your own wall adapter. Want something that can fast charge your phone, juice up your tablet, and even refill your laptop? This generous 25,000-mAh capacity can do it all, but stops shy of the carry-on air travel limit. The maximum output is 165 watts for two devices, but 100 watts for a single device. It has lovely rounded edges, a retractable, flat, 2.3-foot USB-C cable on the top, and a snazzy, durable, braided 1-foot USB-C cable that doubles as a carry loop. This remains one of my favorite Windows laptops, despite the recent price increases. But now, it's unexpectedly dropped to $835 for Prime Day, making it the best laptop Prime Day deal I've found so far. Price aside, though, my favorite feature is the 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which also has a faster 120-Hz refresh rate. It's absolutely gorgeous, and all the extra vertical screen space gives more room to work with. A new version just got announced with a more powerful Snapdragon X2 chip inside, but it's considerably more expensive . Unlike so many Windows laptops around $500, the OmniBook 3 has excellent performance and battery life. And while the touchpad isn't the best, the specs alone make it the very best cheap laptop you can buy. This gaming laptop has a big advantage over many others at this price. But the display, build quality, keyboard, and touchpad are a solid step up over even some of my favorite budget gaming laptops.


Best Prime Day Deals We'd Spend Our Own Money On (2026)

WIRED

We've gone from A to Z to find Amazon's best Prime Day deals on the gear worth owning. Amazon Prime Day is here once again. Amazon's annual Prime Day deals aims to entice us with an endless scroll of "discounts (some real, many fake), hammering away with red slashes, big percentages off, and coupons you can only see after adding to cart. While Prime Day deals aren't what they once were--its success has inspired a massive number of fake deals and attracted obscure brands--there are still some very significant discounts to be found. For the next four days, the WIRED Reviews team will be pooling our hundreds of years of collective expertise to find actual savings on products we have personally tested and approved. Let us absorb the neon signage and "buy now" buttons on your behalf and share the deals worth sharing. We'll keep this list updated frequently for the duration of the sale, which runs from June 23 to June 26. This is our very favorite MagSafe power bank . Wireless and MagSafe charging aren't always the fastest or most efficient, but despite its bulk, this large-capacity bank can top off modern phones once (or maybe a little more than that) without overheating or taking forever. One of the best budget wireless chargers is even more affordable thanks to Prime Day. You can buy fancier, faster wireless chargers, but if you just want a simple option that'll top off your phone, this is worth checking out. It can deliver up to 10 watts, though you'll need to supply your own wall adapter. Want something that can fast charge your phone, juice up your tablet, and even refill your laptop? This generous 25,000-mAh capacity can do it all, but stops shy of the carry-on air travel limit. The maximum output is 165 watts for two devices, but 100 watts for a single device. It has lovely rounded edges, a retractable, flat, 2.3-foot USB-C cable on the top, and a snazzy, durable, braided 1-foot USB-C cable that doubles as a carry loop. This remains one of my favorite Windows laptops, despite the recent price increases. But now, it's unexpectedly dropped to $835 for Prime Day, making it the best laptop Prime Day deal I've found so far. Price aside, though, my favorite feature is the 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which also has a faster 120-Hz refresh rate. It's absolutely gorgeous, and all the extra vertical screen space gives more room to work with. A new version just got announced with a more powerful Snapdragon X2 chip inside, but it's considerably more expensive . Unlike so many Windows laptops around $500, the OmniBook 3 has excellent performance and battery life. And while the touchpad isn't the best, the specs alone make it the very best cheap laptop you can buy.


Time-Based Use Rates and Whole-Home Battery Backups Combine

WIRED

Power companies are pushing aggressive time-based use pricing. Here's how a regular consumer can benefit. I like to keep my home at a cool and comfortable 68 degrees year-round. This preference would be fine if I lived near the Pacific Ocean, or in a small home, or in a newer home that's insulated with modern mineral wool instead of tissue paper and horsehair. I, however, live in a 2,000-plus-square-foot home built in 1906.


UMA: AFamily of Universal Models for Atoms

Neural Information Processing Systems

The ability to quickly and accurately compute properties from atomic simulations is critical for advancing a large number of applications in chemistry and materials science including drug discovery, energy storage, and semiconductor manufacturing. To address this need, we present a family of Universal Models for Atoms (UMA), designed to push the frontier of speed, accuracy, and generalization. UMA models are trained on half a billion unique 3D atomic structures (the largest training runs to date) by compiling data across multiple chemical domains, e.g.


Geometric Mixture Models for Electrolyte Conductivity Prediction

Neural Information Processing Systems

Accurate prediction of ionic conductivity in electrolyte systems is crucial for advancing numerous scientific and technological applications. While significant progress has been made, current research faces two fundamental challenges: (1) the lack of high-quality standardized benchmarks, and (2) inadequate modeling of geometric structure and intermolecular interactions in mixture systems. To address these limitations, we first reorganize and enhance the CALiSol and DiffMix electrolyte datasets by incorporating geometric graph representations of molecules. We then propose GeoMix, a novel geometry-aware framework that preserves Set-SE(3) equivariance--an essential but challenging property for mixture systems. At the heart of GeoMix lies the Geometric Interaction Network (GIN), an equivariant module specifically designed for intermolecular geometric message passing. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that GeoMix consistently outperforms diverse baselines (including MLPs, GNNs, and geometric GNNs) across both datasets, validating the importance of cross-molecular geometric interactions and equivariant message passing for accurate property prediction. This work not only establishes new benchmarks for electrolyte research but also provides a general geometric learning framework that advances modeling of mixture systems in energy materials, pharmaceutical development, and beyond.