Soon we'll have humanoid robots digging trenches so that other humanoid robots can hide in them so they don't get shot by enemy humanoid robots.

Ukrainian troops are using remotely-operated wheeled robots to construct defensive obstacles in dangerous locations where military engineers face direct exposure. The ground robot carries coils of wire on specially designed frames, releasing the material across designated areas as it moves forward.

“Installing barriers in an open area is always a risk for combat engineers. But today, this hard work is done by ground-based drones,” the Ground Forces of Ukraine said on social media.

Similar systems already transport ammunition and essential battlefield provisions, reducing the frequency of dangerous supply missions. Data from Ukraine’s DELTA military management platform shows that robotic activity has increased considerably during the ongoing war with Russia.

Recorded operations reached 19,940 in July 2026, compared with only 7,511 in January, which points to much greater reliance on remotely operated ground equipment.

#Technology
#Robots
#War

techradar.com/pro/ukraine-is-g…

How oddly specific.

Sony has just launched the ELF-MN1, a compact but screenless 3D LCD for viewing compatible digital figures, special content, and anime avatars without glasses or a headset. The 6-inch glass-free display is based on a transparent acrylic stand and allows you to view media from a laptop or smartphone.

The ELF-MN1 display is designed to use eye-tracking that allows the best view of the 1,080×2,160 3D image to the viewer. According to Sony, the new media display, with a pixel density of 403ppi, which is easily the highest among Sony’s Spatial Reality Devices, measures 77mm wide, 154mm high, and 94.5mm deep. It has an approximate weight of 300g, making it compact and convenient to place on a desk or side table.

The stereoscopic image is created with real-time video generation technology that can be viewed best from 30cm to 80cm away. Eye tracking presents different perspectives to each eye, creating the appearance of depth without the need for glasses or a headset. And the 3D effect thus created can hold its effect and image clarity when the viewer changes position. It will go on sale in Japan on December 11 for 54,000 yen (approximately $340).

Sounds like a miniature version of the "Looking Glass" light field displays. Would be great for public outreach if it was at least twice the size; Looking Glass themselves offer much bigger versions but they're also much more expensive (16" for $2000). Not sure why I'd want a tiny view of a 3D character on my desk. For $3, sure, I guess. For $300 ? That's getting weird.

#Technology

yankodesign.com/2026/10/29/son…

Nightmare fuel.

The first time I saw a food delivery robot, I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn't know what this thing was. I still don't fully understand it. All I knew was that it seemed to be looking at me and following me down the street, and it freaked me out.

A box on wheels freaked you out, so you built this ???

I built another frame for the skin layer, added wood and foam, carved the foam down, and sculpted onto it. Then I coated and painted it, creating this weather-resistant, plasticky, rubbery creature.

There are silicone components, including the tongue and orifice. I also put my friend Nina's hair in there. All the hair in my art is real. Friends give it to me, or people who follow me on Instagram mail it to me.

Kill it. Kill it with fire.

I wanted to take this recognizable piece of technology and make something approachable that people would want to interact with. Something curious, fun, and silly.

It looks like it will eat your children and disembowel your pets. You are are a crazy lady. Never build anything ever again. Go home and rethink your life.

#Technology
#Robots

businessinsider.com/i-built-ha…

Power payments produce petrol problems

Electric cars that can be used as “power plants on wheels” could be given government backing as part of plans under consideration to help UK manufacturers. Ministers are considering giving manufacturers incentives to add “vehicle to grid” (V2G) technology to cars as part of its review of the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

The technology allows drivers to charge automatically when electricity is cheap overnight, and then sell some of it back to the grid at times of high demand. Once the technology takes off, electricity supplied by V2G cars could add up to the equivalent of a power station by 2030, able to provide 1.2 gigawatts of power on demand, according to the National Energy System Operator, which balances Great Britain’s grid. That could grow to as much as 41 GW by 2050, Neso forecasts, enough to meet more than a quarter of peak energy demand.

However, campaign groups said the ZEV incentives could also have the perverse effect of allowing carmakers to sell more polluting petrol models in the next few years. Carmakers could earn a “credit” for selling cars installed with V2G technology, also known as bidirectional charging, according to plans detailed in a government consultation that closed on Friday. That credit would allow the carmakers to sell another petrol car without facing the risk of fines if they miss the ZEV targets.

Open mouth, insert foot. Surely the credit shouldn't be allowed to pay for petrol cars, otherwise what's the point ?

#Technology
#Politics

theguardian.com/environment/20…

It's the economics, stupid !

The world's solar power is crossing a threshold. A decade ago, it barely registered on a global scale, providing just 1% of the world's power. In 2026, it will almost certainly increase to 10% of power... multiple sources indicate solar electricity generation will almost certainly far exceed nuclear globally. Nuclear's electricity generation has remained more or less constant since 2000, while solar's has increased some 2,700-fold.

"Massive Chinese manufacturing scale and current overcapacity have pushed module prices to record lows," says Rosenow.

In particular, a large fall in the price of panels in 2023-24 pushed us into the current era of what Jones calls "offensively cheap" solar. "A panel in itself is just so unbelievably cheap," he says. "It's well under $100 (£75)… and that's going to keep you generating electricity for 30, 40 years without any input at all."

Despite the US imposing a variety of tariffs on solar, it remains the second country when it comes to installations, which are still skyrocketing – especially in states won by President Trump in 2024. In fact, the US now has enough solar to power more than one-third of its households.

Fortunately, batteries have been having their own cost revolution, transforming their ability to support the solar rollout. "Solar plus storage is now routinely cheaper than new fossil plants in sunny regions," says Rosenow. "Batteries have largely solved the daily problem of shifting midday sun into the evening."

#Technology
#Solar

bbc.com/future/article/2026102…

Pseudo-hydro power

RheEnergise works using a fluid 2.5 times denser than water, so it can achieve similar results on lower hills, using around 40 percent the size of a regular operation. The results of the pilot show that the system works, but it still has to be tested on bigger projects.

This system is called High-Density Hydro and the fluid used is known as R-19. IEEE Spectrum describes it as a mixture based on minerals, which contains around 80 percent solid particles. The CEO of RheEnergise, Stephen Crosher, says it looks like chocolate milk.”

However, this fluid does not always have the same consistency. When it is still, it is thick and looks like a paste, but when it starts moving through a pipe, it becomes thinner and flows more like water. This behaviour is called shear thinning, and it is a type of non-Newtonian reaction. RheEnergise also says that, in the event of a spill, the mineral particles would not dissolve into the water, they would settle and dry.

A conventional hydro pump requires around 500 meters of elevation to properly perform, whereas, according to New Civil Engineer, this can be achieved at around 200 meters with the new technology. Thanks to this reason, sites in lower altitudes and nearer urban areas could be used, placing them closer to where the electricity demand lies.

I guess they're hoping that pumping denser fluids is easier than lifting heavy weights.

#Technology

ecoticias.com/en/a-small-devon…

Under the sea
Under the sea...
There'll be no accusations
Just power plant installations
Under the sea !

I'll see myself out.

Endurance Energy’s deployment required a subsea lander drill to deploy from the ship Ocean Guardian—operated by Stabbert Maritime—and drill two holes in the seafloor at a depth of about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). Both the drilled holes started venting hot hydrothermal fluid measured at a temperature of about 500° F (260° C). The Endurance Energy team proceeded to case and cement the second hole before installing a valve to create a well.

Then a bunch of stuff went wrong and they ran the power plant using a nearby natural vent instead. Which seems to mean that they managed to do a very small amount of drilling and didn't accomplish very much on that front at all.

Geothermal energy projects are already cost-effective on land but “on the edge of competitive pricewise,” said Horne at Stanford University. So he cautioned that any factors making geothermal more expensive would “push it to the noncompetitive side.”

Still, other customers may consider Endurance Energy’s approach if the company can demonstrate reliable operations over time with the Kingdom of Tonga. The skyrocketing cost of imported fossil fuels is a huge factor that has already spurred multiple governments to invest in more renewable energy alternatives.

“It’s probably technically feasible, but it would undoubtedly be more expensive than to do it on land,” said Roland Horne, professor of energy science & engineering at Stanford University, in an emailed response to Ars.

Surely ordinary renewables with batteries would be easier, cheaper, and more reliable.

#Technology

arstechnica.com/science/2026/1…

Come, let us begin the annual summoning ritual of resurrecting airships which will surely work this time, for reals....

Nearly 100 years after the dirigible Graf Zeppelin made the first nonstop airship journey across the Pacific Ocean, another airship has successfully completed a round-trip flight from New Mexico to Japan and back. But the significance of this modern feat was less about the journey’s length and more about its purpose: demonstrating how a lighter-than-air platform can act as a cell phone tower in the sky. The trans-Pacific flight that took place over a month between August and September 2026 was the most notable milestone yet for Sceye...

Wait, wait, Sceye ?

That's a naming choice so pretentious it's physically painful. I shall replaced this with Sky for the sake of my own well-being.

...has developed an uncrewed platform filled with helium for buoyancy and equipped with an electric-powered propeller for active propulsion, allowing it to resist most strong winds and keep hovering over the same location for long periods. The platform also uses top-mounted solar panels and onboard batteries to stay powered for stratospheric operations around the clock.

“We can stay over an area of operation, and we do that in the stratosphere right around 60,000 feet, so we’re twice as high as air traffic and we’re above the jet stream, and yet 30 times closer than low-Earth orbit satellites,” Mikkel Frandsen, founder and CEO of Sky, told Ars. “We can fly through day and night until the sun comes up the next morning and recharges the batteries, at which point we’re still at the same altitude and still over the same area of operation.”

There have been many past technology demonstrations and attempts to make stratospheric platforms commercially viable since the late 1990s, Frandsen said. In Sky' case, the company began testing a series of smaller prototypes in 2016 before eventually reaching the stratosphere with a 215-foot (65-meter) length version in 2021. The latest version extends to 270 feet (83 meters).

Sky's current platform has already done multiple flight demonstrations with payloads exceeding 220 pounds (100 kilograms) and can provide up to 1 kilowatt of onboard power capability for any devices that it may be carrying. The design could eventually scale up to a high altitude platform system (HAPS) capable of lifting payloads as heavy as 551 pounds (250 kilograms). That would be between 25 and 50 times more payload capacity than competing stratospheric platforms like high-flying drones, according to Helena, a US non-profit organization with a for-profit investment arm that has invested in Sky.

The stratospheric platform has an auto-navigation system that allows the airship to fly on its own between point A and point B while accounting for factors like local wind conditions, Truong explained. The monthlong mission to Japan and back—dubbed Service Test 1 (ST1)—was the longest test flight and deployment yet for Sceye’s platform. “There were times when our actual plan trajectory and flight path was disrupted by a change in the weather,” Truong told Ars. “So what it would do was actually just park itself at a safe, quiet place in the weather and just station-keep a while until it moved on.”

#Technology
#Airships
#Tragedeigh

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/1…

Water, water, every where,
And all the cores did think;
Water, water, every where,
And many drops to drink.

The structure of a MOF looks somewhat “like a jungle gym on a playground,” says Seth Cohen, the dean of the School of Physical Sciences at UC Irvine. MOFs are essentially “molecular sponges—they’re a solid material that’s very, very good at absorbing other molecules,” says Cohen, who is not involved with Atoco. Like a sponge, the materials can also be wrung out using methods including heat to release whatever they’re holding onto.

These jungle-gym-like frameworks create open spaces on the microscopic level that can hold an unbelievable amount of material, and small tweaks can yield even more interior space. “The footage of a gram of MOF could cover two football fields,” Yaghi explains. “They can store hydrogen in there to make clean energy, or you could store CO2 in there to make clean air. Or, in this case, you can store water.”

“The scientists reach a level of precision [where] we really know even the angle of the atom,” in a given material, Taha says.

In Atoco’s technology, air passes through the MOF, which has been specially tailored to attract water molecules. Those molecules adhere to the pores. But the material feels completely dry to the touch even when saturated, and squeezing it doesn’t release a single drop. Instead, the company relies on heat to release the captured molecules.

There are other means of harvesting water. Cohen notes that silica, a popular desiccant, can also pull water out of air, but it doesn’t hold as much moisture and requires you to “heat the heck out of it to get the water back out,” he says. The MOFs in the device can harvest and release water with heat as low as 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 C), Taha says.

#Science
#Technology
#AI

archive.li/bvQ6A