Cars wait to refuel at a gas station in Russia. A series of Ukrainian drone attacks have forced major refineries to suspend operations, causing a fuel shortage. Russia's gasoline production fell to about 70% of domestic consumption levels by the end of August after a series of drone attacks forced major refineries to suspend operations, according to two industry sources. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure in a bid to curb Moscow's revenues, creating a fuel crisis that has forced Russia to import petroleum products and maintain sales restrictions across the country. After a brief respite at the end of July, when some local authorities began easing or lifting restrictions on fuel sales, shortages returned to Russian regions in August. Gasoline production at the end of August dropped to roughly the same level seen in early July, at the peak of the first wave of a fuel crisis that had been building since May, according to sources.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency will introduce an artificial intelligence-powered system to automatically transcribe emergency calls with the aim of streamlining record-keeping and easing the workload on staff amid rising ambulance dispatches. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency plans to launch a model project in fiscal 2027 to utilize artificial intelligence in the handling of 119 emergency calls for firefighting, rescue and ambulance services. The agency will introduce an AI-powered speech recognition system that automatically transcribes emergency calls with the aim of streamlining the process of recording call details and easing the burden on staff amid a growing number of ambulance dispatches. Related expenses will be included in the agency's fiscal 2027 budget request. The project will utilize so-called "vertical AI," which specializes in specific fields. The AI system will also be equipped with a function that advises staff on necessary actions according to the content of each call.

A Barclays report from earlier this year forecast that artificial intelligence-powered robots and autonomous machines have the potential to grow into a trillion-dollar market by 2035. Anthropic has announced a new software standard that will allow artificial intelligence assistants such as Claude to work better with robots and science and manufacturing hardware. The AI startup is releasing its Model Hardware Standard, or MHS, under a research preview, so developers in the scientific, robotics and manufacturing fields can test how Claude interacts with the physical world and build in necessary safeguards before releasing it broadly. Essentially, MHS stores information for AI assistants to understand how a piece of hardware works, without having to refer to paper manuals or tacit knowledge that only resides with a few experts. For example, a factory robot arm vendor could specify in an MHS how AI can manipulate a heavy arm safely by limiting the speed or angles with which it moves. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.