Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

They power our phones, cars, dishwashers--and the A.I. systems that prop up the economy. "We don't have a rating scale for complexity, but rockets are maybe a five," an investor said. His partner added, "Semiconductors are an eleven." There are a handful of truly monumental collective achievements in our history: Machu Picchu, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, and perhaps, if we're being generous, the Roman aqueducts. Modern global civilization has made one contribution to this eternal pantheon. It is not the moon landing. It is the semiconductor supply chain. A microchip is a bauble of metal and refined sand. It doesn't appear to have epic proportions. Upon close examination, however, the epic proportions are there in miniature. Imagine a perfect replica of a sprawling metropolis, a Tokyo or a São Paulo, engraved at atomic dimensions on a tile the size of a fingernail. The urban details would be faithfully rendered to the last golf ball or egg--each reduced to ...

Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK. Is China Replacing Workers With Robots? Today, we discuss China's £14.7bn investment into AI and robotics in the hopes of overtaking the US as the world leader in innovation. China has two million robots already working in factories, and is investing heavily in the hopes that one day they could bridge gaps in an already sluggish economy. What can these robots do?

Beyond China's humanoid robots, a quieter machine revolution is unfolding To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. I take a nap and the world changes, says Chen Tianyu. The 28-year-old keeps up with the latest technology by spending his spare time in factories that are switching to automation. That way he knows what to prioritise when teaching his class about artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In front of him, around 30 college students are studying code.

I wore the world's first HDR10 smart glasses TCL's new E Ink tablet beats the Remarkable and Kindle Anker's new charger is one of the most unique I've ever seen I wore the world's first HDR10 smart glasses TCL's new E Ink tablet beats the Remarkable and Kindle Anker's new charger is one of the most unique I've ever seen Imagine submitting your vibe-coded app to a service that validates, tests, and then mass-produces it in a repeatable, automated fashion for delivery to a wide audience. Software factories will prepare prototypes for wide distribution. Leading AI companies are creating the foundations. Tune into the TV show Shark Tank, and the most recurring question you hear voiced by the venture capitalists to budding entrepreneurs is whether they have arrangements with a factory to cost-effectively mass-produce their pooper-scoopers, comfort socks, or scrub pads. The idea of a mass-production facility may make sense for software delivery as well.

Solar panels arranged on the rooftop of an industrial park in Jimo, Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province. Solar panels arranged on the rooftop of an industrial park in Jimo, Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province. Donald Trump has ordered a new 15% tariff on imported products made of polysilicon, an important ingredient in microchip manufacturing that is primarily produced by China. The new tariff, which will take effect on 4 December, is aimed at supporting US chip and solar panel supply chains to compete with Beijing on artificial intelligence and energy. The executive order signed by the president on Thursday evening said: "The plan of action in this proclamation will, among other things, help ensure the commercial viability of United States production of polysilicon and its derivatives that is necessary to meet United States economic and national security requirements."

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 .

These Are the 12 Ikea Products the Company's Design Chief Personally Owns We asked Johan Ejdemo to list which Ikea items populate his home. He also tells us about his all-time favorite. I'm sitting with the man who decides what more than 900 million shoppers globally will want next in their home. We're at Ikea HQ in Älmhult, a small Swedish town most people have never heard of, and even fewer could find on a map. Johan Ejdemo started his furniture career at 15 when he began training as a cabinetmaker. Now, he's an Ikea lifer, having notched up nearly 30 years at the company. As design manager, he leads an in-house team of 20, as well as a roster of freelance designers, shaping the 1,500 to 2,000 new products the company releases every year.

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. The Dymaxion House weighed only three tons, about as much as a full-size pickup truck, and could be shipped anywhere in America for $100. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. 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 . Tucked into a corner of the cavernous Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, just outside Detroit, is a structure that looks like a cross between a Mongolian yurt and a flying saucer.

LinkerBot makes dexterous robotic hands for as little as $600. It wants to become the standard for humanoids and automated factories--and eventually replace human labor altogether. If you could buy a humanoid robot for less than a smartphone, would you? Would you buy several robots to handle cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and even your job? This is the pitch being made by Zhou Yong, the 40-year-old founder and chief technology officer of LinkerBot, one of China's leading manufacturers of dexterous humanoid hands.