A thermometer displays 42 degrees Celsius in the city of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, on Aug. 5. | JIJI The Environment Ministry plans to step up efforts to prevent elderly people from suffering heatstroke indoors, including at home. It has requested ¥1 billion for related measures under the government's fiscal 2026 budget. The government has set a target of halving the average annual number of heatstroke deaths by 2030 from some 1,300 marked during the five years through 2022, but fatalities hit a record high above 2,000 in 2024. According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, 57.4% of people taken to hospital by ambulance due to heatstroke in May-September 2024 were aged 65 or older. Of the total cases, 38.0% occurred at houses, making up the largest share. While elderly people are at higher risk of heatstroke due to their declining thermoregulation and ability to sweat, some refrain from using air conditioners even on very hot days.

Cool off your home with one of these air conditioners. Summer weather is getting unbearable in many parts of the U.S., with record-high temperatures all over the country. To beat the heat, investing in an air conditioner is a must. We've lined up some top air conditioner deals, from budget-friendly options to portable solutions and high-tech, smart AC units. Cool large rooms with this portable option.

Take a look around your home and chances are you have one, or at least you have considered the convenience of having one. They are the devices and appliances that can be remotely controlled – otherwise known as smart devices – which over the past decade have become core features of the modern home. Think of the TVs that allow you to flick through various streaming services, the smart fridges that can have their temperatures moderated and contents checked from afar, the robot vacuum, air purifiers, or one of the big tech companies' virtual helpers to play music or dim the lights. But as the technologies gather, share, aggregate and analyse the data collected, that convenience has come at a cost: privacy. Experts say consumers should be aware of how much personal information they are trading, and what that information is used for.

In February 2022, the MIT Sloan School of Management issued a report that glowingly stated that many companies were starting to make "serious money" with AI. This was welcome news, since MIT Sloan's 2019 report had shown that seven out of 10 companies investing in AI at that time were seeing minimal or no benefit from AI. One factor the 2022 Sloan report mentioned was that in the 2019 survey, there were very few organizations that had artificial intelligence in production. In 2022, according to MIT Sloan, 26% of companies had AI in production. This usage increase was substantial.

This month, Amazon inked a deal to acquire smart vacuum company iRobot – the makers of Roomba – for a tidy US$1.7bn. As some see it, if the purchase goes through, that should worry us. "It's all about the data," says David Vaile from the Australian Privacy Foundation. Privacy advocates such as Vaile are concerned the robot vacuum cleaner will give Amazon access to floor plans of users' homes, using mapping features some iRobot products already offer. Amazon are yet to release details about what existing and future iRobot data will be used for; and the company told Reuters that they safeguard customer privacy and do not sell their data.

Anyone who has studied the field of science and engineering should have heard the word "control" once. In particular, "automatic control" is often used in the field of science and engineering. The field of control is so deep that one specialized book can be written by itself, but this time, let's take a brief look at "What is control?". We will discuss the difference between automatic control and manual control, the difference between feedback control and feed-forward control, and the relationship between artificial intelligence and edge computing, which have become popular in recent years. What is the definition of control?

IoT and Machine Learning are the most advanced and evolving technologies that continue to rise in today's modern world, simplifying human efforts and making lives easier. These technologies have proved to streamline operations and workflows for various industries and provide more robust and scalable applications that allow users to make things done seamlessly. In recent years, the popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML) has greatly increased, especially in finding new ways to uncover business opportunities. The way people used to live before has revolutionized with the power of ML and IoT, making their lives simpler and easier. From retail & eCommerce, sports & entertainment, and medical & healthcare to oil & gas and software industries, ML and IoT are widely adopted for building modern and innovative mobile applications that tailor their unique business needs.

Innovative technology makes life easier, and we are entering a new phase of the technological era. It is nothing new that LG provides us with the opportunity to experience the most innovative technology at an elite rate. To live up to its reputation, LG's Air Conditioner has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) called AI ThinQ, which unlocks the ability to control the AC and more simply use it by speaking through voice. It enables you to connect to Wifi and use it wisely. It is easy to control your AC even from outside your home.

To mitigate local warming, cities including Milan have wrapped condominium balconies and high-rise facades in expansive vertical gardens. A dense stack of vegetation can help keep a building cool by creating natural shading and releasing moisture into the air, says Theodore Endreny, a professor of environmental resources engineering at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The compact foliage augments the benefits trees and plants naturally provide when planted on sidewalks or roofs, including pollution removal, carbon dioxide sequestration and oxygen production. A look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play. Crews of urban arborists certified as tree climbers will be hired to rappel down buildings and maintain these ecosystems as they sprout on more buildings, says Dr. Endreny.

In today's episode of Future Tech, I want to give you 10 reasons how robots could make our lives easier and better. Now we've seen a lot of science fiction movies over the years like Star Wars with C Threepio and R2D2 And how those robots helped Luke, Leia and Han and Chewie, and we've seen iRobot where the robots took over the world or Terminator where the machines took over the world and started killing all the humans. But they don't always show us how robots could be helping us. There's a really good movie and book by Isaac Asimov called Bicentennial Man which I really enjoyed. The movie stars Robin Williams, and it shows you how a robot could actually help a family.