Amazon is bricking its Astro business robots less than a year after launch
The Astro for Business robot is no more. | Image: Amazon For a moment there, it seemed like Amazon might pivot its Astro home robot to enterprise after giving it…
Blumhouse’s Afraid brings AI terror to the smart home
Sony Sony and Blumhouse’s Afraid from director Chris Weitz might not go so far as to suggest that you shouldn’t have so many smart devices watching and listening to everything…
The hunt for the most efficient heat pump in the world
Enlarge (credit: FHM/Getty Images) Outside a 100-year-old house on the edge of the Peak District in northern England, a heat pump’s fan blades are swiftly spinning. They’re drawing outdoor air…
High-altitude cave used by Tibetan Buddhists yields a Denisovan fossil
Enlarge / The Baishiya Karst Cave, where the recently analyzed samples were obtained. (credit: Dongju Zhang’s group (Lanzhou University)) For well over a century, we had the opportunity to study…
You can save $200 on a refurbished second-gen Sonos Beam
The latest Beam isn’t tiny, but it’s far from the biggest soundbar around. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge While the world of deals is about to heat…
Soda additive “no longer considered safe,” gets long-awaited FDA ban
Enlarge / Tops of citrus sodas at a manufacturing plant. (credit: Getty | Vincent Mundy) After more than five decades of limbo, the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoked…
Japan ends 2-year “war on floppy disks,” kills regulations requiring old tech
Enlarge (credit: Getty) About two years after the country’s digital minister publicly declared a “war on floppy discs,” Japan reportedly stopped using floppy disks in governmental systems as of June…
“Everything’s frozen”: Ransomware locks credit union users out of bank accounts
Enlarge / ATM at a Patelco Credit Union branch in Dublin, California, on July 23, 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado ) A California-based credit union with over 450,000…
Another Ten Year Delay for ITER Fusion
The ITER (International Tokomak) fusion reactor currently being built in France will not achieve first operation until 2034 – almost a decade later than previously planned and some 50 years…
A cheaper, weirder e-reader alternative to the Boox Palma
You can find the Xiaomi Moaan InkPalm Plus for around $125 online. | Image: Xiaomi It seems like everyone is enamored with the Boox Palma, including our own David Pierce,…