Cities are at the forefront of addressing global sustainability challenges, particularly those exacerbated by climate change. Traditional zoning codes, which often segregate land uses, have been linked to increased vehicular dependence, urban sprawl, and social disconnection, undermining broader social and environmental sustainability objectives. This study investigates the adoption and impact of form-based codes (FBCs), which aim to promote sustainable, compact, and mixed-use urban forms as a solution to these issues. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, we analyzed zoning documents from over 2000 U.S. census-designated places to identify linguistic patterns indicative of FBC principles. Our findings reveal widespread adoption of FBCs across the country, with notable variations within regions. FBCs are associated with higher floor-to-area ratios, narrower and more consistent street setbacks, and smaller plots. We also find that places with FBCs have improved walkability, shorter commutes, and a higher share of multi-family housing. Our findings highlight the utility of NLP for evaluating zoning codes and underscore the potential benefits of form-based zoning reforms for enhancing urban sustainability.

Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier has the latest on the pros and cons of the bombshell developments on'Special Report.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters after a presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump in Atlanta on Thursday, June 27, 2024. SAFETY SETBACK: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on Sunday vetoed a bill to create safety measures for large artificial intelligence models, which would have been the first such law in the nation. AI BOOM: Investors in the behemoth SPDR technology sector fund might be surprised to learn that until last week their exposure to Nvidia was roughly four times that of Apple, despite their comparable market values. SF'S CRIME WEAPON: San Francisco is taking a bold step in its fight against crime by deploying three new mobile surveillance cameras.

Wyoming man Victor Miller, who filed mayoral candidacy as AI bot "VIC," speaks out after OpenAI shuts down his account. Victor Miller, who had been running as an artificial intelligence-powered bot named "VIC" [Virtual Integrated Citizen] in Wyoming's capital city, conceded his bid to make technological political history on Wednesday. Miller received 327 votes, or about 3% of the total cast, in Cheyenne's nonpartisan mayoral primary on Tuesday night, according to Laramie County records. On Wednesday, Fox News Digital obtained a statement from Miller saying that he and VIC came up short in their bid to change the definition of political machine in the Cowboy State's capital city: "Today, I, Victor Miller, concede the Cheyenne mayoral race. As the first person to put artificial intelligence directly on the ballot, offering voters the novel choice of AI governance, our campaign has marked a historic moment in politics and technology," Miller said.

The recent growth in renewable energy development in the United States has been accompanied by a simultaneous surge in renewable energy siting ordinances. These zoning laws play a critical role in dictating the placement of wind and solar resources that are critical for achieving low-carbon energy futures. In this context, efficient access to and management of siting ordinance data becomes imperative. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently introduced a public wind and solar siting database to fill this need. This paper presents a method for harnessing Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate the extraction of these siting ordinances from legal documents, enabling this database to maintain accurate up-to-date information in the rapidly changing energy policy landscape. A novel contribution of this research is the integration of a decision tree framework with LLMs. Our results show that this approach is 85 to 90% accurate with outputs that can be used directly in downstream quantitative modeling. We discuss opportunities to use this work to support similar large-scale policy research in the energy sector. By unlocking new efficiencies in the extraction and analysis of legal documents using LLMs, this study enables a path forward for automated large-scale energy policy research.

General Motors (GM) will slash spending in its self-driving car unit Cruise, after an accident last month seriously injured a pedestrian and prompted regulators to retract its operating permit for driverless cars in San Francisco. The company announced today that it will "substantially lower" its spending on Cruise next year, according to Mary Barra, GM's CEO. "We expect the pace of Cruise's expansion to be more deliberate when operations resume," she said in a letter to shareholders. Until the accident, Cruise had been operating driverless taxis in three US cities, San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, with plans to expand. In October, the company said it would no longer operate its vehicles without safety drivers behind the wheel.

CNBC reports that Google is reorganizing the management hierarchy within its virtual assistant division--Assistant--to concentrate on Bard. Last week, Google introduced Bard, its ChatGPT competitor, to the public as an experimental project. Previous reports indicate Google has been reallocating team members from various departments to concentrate on Bard as part of a "code red" effort. CNBC's report suggests that the effort is still ongoing. Google hasn't responded to requests for comment on CNBC's report.

When asked to think of someone really'gritty', an image of US marshal Rooster Cogburn in the film'True Grit' may spring to mind. Throughout the story, Cogburn demonstrates an unwavering determination to catch the criminals and fugitives he pursues, and protect 14-year-old Mattie, who has hired him to track down her father's killer. Now a new study has found that the brains of'gritty' people like Cogburn work differently to those who are less perseverant towards their goals. It found that people who are more determined to achieve their long-term goals find it easier to consider all available information while remaining sensitive to new conflicting information. This may help them be more aware of the presence of conflicting goals in their everyday life that could take them off-track from their longer term ones.

The year 2021 was filled with numerous challenges and ups and downs but despite these, I emerged a better and stronger person. When I started my career in tech, I was inclined to the hardware part. However, on getting into the software space, I developed a keen interest in AI and wanted to get to learn the skill but I was confused and lost. I had no idea where and how to start. But, I took the leap of faith towards my path of interest.

Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) is up by almost 60% year-to-date, with its market cap crossing the rarefied $1 trillion mark recently. The run-up is partly due to Tesla's solid execution, with deliveries for this year poised to grow by almost 70% to about 850,000 vehicles, despite the ongoing semiconductor shortage. Tesla's sizable lead in the self-driving market has also traditionally been a very big driver of the company's valuation. So how far ahead is Tesla's self-driving system versus peers, and how does it stack up versus driver-driven vehicles. See our dashboard analysis on Just How Far Ahead Is Tesla In The Self-Driving Race? for more details.

Often disruptive technologies are involved in the perception of creating a huge job loss. Information technology, Innovations, Automation, Artificial Intelligence everything is in the discussion of the concern over future economic dynamics. When we go into the manifestations it is clearly visible to analyse the technological advancements as disruptive for the society's existing economic institutions. However, this is not disruption as such, rather it is reformation and a change to accommodate the growing need, adaptations to the new social order. Manifestations in which we only considered the production side is an acute consideration, think into the latent functionalities. Do you think an organisation can exist without the consumption aspect, without selling their product in the real market?