February 22, 2025

US AI Safety Institute could face big cuts

The National Institute of Standards and Technology could fire as many as 500 staffers, according to multiple reports — cuts that further threaten a fledgling AI safety organization. Axios reported this week that the US AI Safety Institute (AISI) and Chips for America, both part of NIST, would be “gutted” by layoffs targeting probationary employees […]

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January 2023

Meet the designers printing houses out of salt and clay

January 9, 2023
Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello may have met as graduate students in architecture at Columbia University, but it quickly became clear that “architecture” would prove an inadequate term to describe their eclectic body of work.   As the pair started working together in 2002, they became increasingly aware that “sometimes the forces that enable architecture,…

NASA’s return to the moon is off to a rocky start

January 9, 2023
It was December 14, 1972, the final day on the moon for the last Apollo mission. The Challenger lander was dusted in a fine coating of gray lunar dirt, called regolith, both inside and out. Geologist Jack Schmitt was packing the sample containers, securing 243 pounds of rocks to bring home. After passing Schmitt the…

The constant is change

January 9, 2023
For the past 22 years, we’ve been publishing an annual list of the 10 biggest breakthrough technologies. In 2018, we defined a breakthrough as “a technology, or perhaps even a collection of technologies, that will have a profound effect on our lives.” That’s pretty broad! But it gets at the heart of what we try to…

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023

January 9, 2023
Every year, we pick the 10 technologies that matter the most right now. We look for advances that will have a big impact on our lives and break down why they matter.

Inside Japan’s long experiment in automating elder care

January 9, 2023
It’s a picture you may have seen before: a large white robot with a cute teddy bear face cradling a smiling woman in its arms. Images of Robear, a prototype lifting robot, have been reproduced endlessly. They still hold a prominent position in Google Image search results for “care robot.” The photos seem designed to…

Mass-market military drones: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023

January 9, 2023
For decades, high-end precision-strike American aircraft, such as the Predator and Reaper, dominated drone warfare. The war in Ukraine, however, has been defined by low-budget models made in China, Iran, or Turkey. Their widespread use has changed how drone combat is waged and who can wage it.  Some of these new drones are off-the-shelf quadcopters,…

The inevitable EV: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023

January 9, 2023
Electric vehicles are transforming the auto industry. While sales have slowly ticked up for years, they’re now soaring. The emissions-free cars and trucks will likely account for 13% of all new auto sales globally in 2022, up from 4% just two years earlier, according to the International Energy Agency. They’re on track to make up…

Battery recycling: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023

January 9, 2023
High-value metals recovered from old laptops, corroded power drills, and electric vehicles could power tomorrow’s cars, thanks to recycling advances that make it possible to turn old batteries into new ones.  Demand for lithium-ion batteries is skyrocketing as electric vehicles become more common. Greater use of electric vehicles is good news for the climate. But…

Nigerian agritech Releaf gets more capital as it launches new tech for food processing

January 9, 2023

Releaf, a Nigerian agritech startup that supplies ingredients (starting with the oil palm) to consumer goods manufacturers and their food factories, has received $3.3 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round. The Jack Ma Foundation-backed startup, which announced a $4.2 million (including a $1.5 million grant) seed raise in September 2021, said the funding will […]

Nigerian agritech Releaf gets more capital as it launches new tech for food processing by Tage Kene-Okafor originally published on TechCrunch