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In the opening chapter of "The Ministry for the Future," science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson details a calamitous heat wave that kills almost all the residents of a small town. In another chapter, he imagines a catastrophic flood that wipes out Los Angeles. The late Octavia Butler described a Southern California reeling from years of drought in "Parable of the Sower," and Paolo Bacigalupi writes about a near-future Southwest that's also been devastated by drought. Sci-fi writers have long conceived worlds in which extreme weather events upend the lives of its inhabitants, but with every passing, warming year, their scenarios feel more prophetic. Last September, record-shattering temperatures nearly broke the state's power grid, and according to a Times investigation, extreme heat waves are killing more Californians than official records show.

With demand for robots growing as companies in multiple sectors look for new ways to enhance their productivity and competitiveness post-pandemic, ABB has compiled a set of growth predictions, looking at key trends driving demand for robots in the coming year. "The pandemic accelerated far-reaching global mega trends – from labor shortages and supply chain uncertainty, to the individualized consumer and growing pressure to operate sustainably and resiliently – leading new businesses to look to robotic automation," said Marc Segura, ABB's newly appointed robotics division President. "As technology opens new opportunities for meeting customer demands, new trends will continue to emerge that will further drive demand in areas where robots have traditionally not been used." Based on customer conversations, market research and a global survey of 250 companies across multiple industries, ABB has identified three key trends that will shape the demand for robots in 2022. With many countries restricting and phasing out the production of combustion engine vehicles over the next decade, the race towards electric cars has accelerated.

When Facebook announced at the end of September that it had suffered a data breach that ultimately affected 30 million accounts, it seemed, perhaps, like the work of sophisticated nation state hackers. But a new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests spammers as the culprit instead. That shouldn't make you feel that much better, though, given just how much damage criminals can do with the kind of information stolen from Facebook. It was, after all, a lot. The sophisticated daisy chain attack that the hackers pulled off garnered the names, phone numbers, and email of 15 million Facebook users.