Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Energy


EufyCam S3 Pro Kit review: Local storage means no subscription

PCWorld

The EufyCam S3 Pro 2-Cam Kit delivers sharp, reliable, and fully independent home security without locking you into ongoing fees. Cloud subscriptions that lock your security camera footage behind a monthly fee are a frustrating reality for homeowners. The EufyCam S3 Pro 2-Cam Kit offers a way out. With 4K video resolution, smart AI detection, and solar panels integrated into the two cameras, it delivers top-shelf performance without roping you into a payment plan. Eufy does offer cloud storage as an option, but the cameras in this offering store their recordings locally on Eufy's HomeBase 3 hub--a NAS box (network-attached storage), essentially--enhancing your privacy while saving you money on subscription fees.


The real win of AI PCs? Battery life

PCWorld

In 2022-2023, AI-powered PCs made quite a splash with their automatic generation and built-in virtual assistants. Those features are cool, sure, but they're a little gimmicky at first blush. That said, amid the hype, the real standout feature emerged: battery life. Thanks to smarter resource management and power-efficient chip architecture, AI PCs became long-lasting devices that didn't need to be plugged in all the time. Let's take flying cross-country with a traditional laptop, for instance.


How Is Elon Musk Powering His Supercomputer?

The New Yorker

Since Elon Musk announced that he'll be stepping back from his daily work with DOGE, perhaps you've been wondering if he has anything else to fill that time now that he's shut down operations at America's humanitarian-aid provider, wrecked much of the nation's scientific-research infrastructure, and disputed the communications systems at the Social Security Administration. One way to find out would be to ask Grok, his entry in the A.I. sweepstakes. "Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been making significant moves in Memphis," Grok reports. "But these have sparked controversy." The Lede Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.


Nuclear EMP attack moves to big screen as author reflects on 'invisible lifeline'

FOX News

Author William R. Forstchen's bestselling novel "One Second After" – which imagines the devastating effects of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) strike on the United States – is being adapted into a feature film. The screenplay will be written by renowned sci-fi writer J. Michael Straczynski, with Forstchen himself serving as an executive producer. Fox News Digital spoke with Forstchen about the real-world inspiration behind his work and why he warns that an EMP attack is a looming threat, not just science fiction. "I wanted to write an accurate, a very accurate story of what would happen in a small town in North Carolina if the power went off, and it never came back on," he said. Electromagnetic pulse expert William R. Forstchen speaks at the rally against North Korea on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Yerba Buena Gardens to support the new Homefront video game on March 2, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif.


Google is funding electrician training to help meet the power demands of AI

Engadget

Google has announced that it's helping to financially support the electrical training ALLIANCe (etA), an organization formed by the National Electrical Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electricians. The goal is to train "100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 new apprentices in the United States" to meet the growing power demands of AI. Using AI will unlock unspecified, but positive economic opportunities, Google's new white paper, "Powering a New Era of American Innovation," claims. In order to take advantage of them, though, the US power grid needs to become more capable and efficient. That's largely because the data centers used to run and train AI models require vast amounts of energy.


Blair's net zero intervention invites scrutiny of his institute's donors

The Guardian > Energy

In little more than 1,600 words voicing his scepticism over net zero policies, Tony Blair this week propelled himself and his increasingly powerful institute back into the national debate. In the past eight years, the former prime minister has built a global empire employing more than 900 people across more than 40 countries, providing policy advice to monarchs, presidents and prime ministers. But while Blair's thinktank has brought him influence in his post-Downing Street career, it has also renewed scrutiny on his political views and how they are shaped by his commercial relationships. The Labour MP James Frith said on Wednesday: "I give congratulations to the marketing department at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), who have managed to time it brilliantly to get maximum coverage." Patrick Galey, the head of fossil fuel investigations at the nongovernmental organisation Global Witness, said: "Blair's well-documented links to petrostates and oil and gas companies ought to alone be enough to disqualify this man as an independent and reliable arbiter of what's possible or commonsense in the energy transition."


Blair says current net zero policies 'doomed to fail'

BBC News

In its report The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change, the Tony Blair Institute argues that global institutions such as COP and the UN have failed to make sufficient progress in halting climate change. At the same time, it argues, the public have lost faith in climate policies because the promised green jobs and economic growth have failed to materialise, thanks in part to global instability and the Covid pandemic. Writing in the foreword, Sir Tony says: "Though most people will accept that climate change is a reality caused by human activity, they're turning away from the politics of the issue because they believe the proposed solutions are not founded on good policy." He says "any strategy based on either'phasing out' fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail". He also warns against the "alarmist" tone of the debate on climate change, which he says is "riven with irrationality".


This high-tech exoskeleton lets you hike longer and run faster

Mashable

Every weekend warrior knows the drill -- you sit in front of a computer all week, and when the weekend hits, you bike, hike, and run yourself ragged. Your body feels destroyed on Monday. If this sounds like you -- or even if you're a casual exerciser who wants to walk and bike longer distances without getting tired -- the future has arrived. The world's first-ever outdoor exoskeleton, Hypershell X, can help max out your physical abilities with minimal effort. Hypershell X is causing a buzz among both outdoorsy types and robotics enthusiasts, and it won the Best of Innovation in Robotics award at CES 2025.


How much energy does a single chatbot prompt use? This AI tool can show you

ZDNet

AI systems require a lot of energy to function, but no one has exact numbers, especially not for individual chatbot queries. To address this, an engineer at Hugging Face built a tool to try to find out. The language surrounding AI infrastructure, much of which emphasizes "the cloud" and other air-themed metaphors, can obscure the fact that it relies on energy-hungry computers. To run complex computations quickly, AI systems require powerful chips, multiple GPUs, and expansive data centers, all of which consume power when you ask ChatGPT a question. This is part of why free-tier access to many chatbots comes with usage limits: electricity costs make computing expensive for the hosting company.


FoxNews AI Newsletter: Swarm of helpful robots can pack your groceries

FOX News

A fully automated warehouse system is changing the way we shop for groceries. GROCERIES IN 5 MIN: Imagine a grocery store where your entire order is picked, packed and ready for delivery in just five minutes without a single human hand touching your food. BRAVE NEW WORLD: Anthropic – the company behind the artificial intelligence platform Claude – anticipates that digital AI employees will appear on corporate networks in the next year, the organization's top security leader informed Axios. THESE FUELS ARE OUT: Imagine powering your boat not with gasoline but with clean hydrogen fuel. That's exactly what Yamaha, together with Roush Industries and Regulator Marine, is working on right now.