Technology

Remember tamagotchi? Those little digital pets really took the world by storm for a while, and they're still going to this day. However, unlike the early days of the digital pet, we now have the resources and the know-how to make our own tamagotchis. We can even make them open-source so people can tweak them the way they want.

If you have an ESP32 sitting around and you think it'd be better served as a cute little creature that you need to take care of, then you can do a lot worse than check out this adorable project. While it's still a work-in-progress, it's already at the point where you can take care of a cute critter in your spare time. And when you're busy. And just about all the time.

Scientists designed color-changing carbon dot biosensors that can detect spoiled meat in sealed packages in real-time, just in case you don't trust the sniff-test.

We can measure semantic ablation through entropy decay. By running a text through successive AI "refinement" loops, the vocabulary diversity (type-token ratio) collapses. The process performs a systematic lobotomy across three distinct stages:

Stage 1: Metaphoric cleansing. The AI identifies unconventional metaphors or visceral imagery as "noise" because they deviate from the training set's mean. It replaces them with dead, safe clichés, stripping the text of its emotional and sensory "friction."

Stage 2: Lexical flattening. Domain-specific jargon and high-precision technical terms are sacrificed for "accessibility." The model performs a statistical substitution, replacing a 1-of-10,000 token with a 1-of-100 synonym, effectively diluting the semantic density and specific gravity of the argument.

Stage 3: Structural collapse. The logical flow – originally built on complex, non-linear reasoning – is forced into a predictable, low-perplexity template. Subtext and nuance are ablated to ensure the output satisfies a "standardized" readability score, leaving behind a syntactically perfect but intellectually void shell.

https://archive.ph/20260218173337/https://www.ft.com/content/0c6d8ff6-f207-431b-bfb9-1d8b42bb4b6d

Palliser Capital recently sent a letter to Toto, the $7 billion Japanese toilet maker. They called the company "the most undervalued and overlooked AI memory beneficiary." That might seem strange at first, but the connection is in materials science.

Toto is famous for its bidet toilets, but its deep expertise is in advanced ceramics. According to the FT, Toto's chuck technology uses ceramics engineered to remain perfectly stable at extremely low temperatures. This turns out to be really handy for holding silicon wafers firmly in place during cryogenic etching, which is becoming more important as memory chips get more layered and complex. Palliser believes Toto has about a five-year lead in this specific technology and should expand this side of its business.

Their advanced ceramics division already contributes 40% of the company's operating profit, despite making up less than 10% of its revenue.

Toto isn't even the most extreme example. Another company called Ajinomoto is known MSG, leveraged decades of amino acid research to development insulating film, called Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF), that is used in virtually every high-end GPU. They hold an estimated 95% global monopoly on this material. During the 2021 chip shortage, a major bottleneck was the supply of Ajinomoto's film.

It turns out that Japanese companies hold a majority global share in at least 14 critical semiconductor materials, showing how industrial processes are deeply connected. The sintering technique used to create a non-porous ceramic toilet is the same one used to create a contamination-free wafer chuck. The most foundational layer of computing hardware relies on companies whose public identity is built on consumer goods like toilets, food seasoning, and window glass. It's a good reminder that physical material science underpins digital advancement.

https://archive.ph/LhvNo

The drone is equipped with a high-end COFDM transmission system that integrates directly with existing wireless broadcast infrastructure. This allows native HD HDR video to be transmitted, both progressive and interlaced, and enables the signal to be integrated into shading systems in the OB truck. For the complete RF chain, Dutch Drone Gods works together with broadcast service provider Broadcast Rental, which supports the technical team during live transmissions.

FPV pilot ShaggyFPV explains that other sports during the Winter Games are covered by different teams, using drones ranging from 2.5 to 7 inches. Almost all of these drones, however, use the same transmitter and camera technology. In total, around 25 FPV drones are active during the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games for live coverage.

“Twelve months of preparation and this is the result. Without a doubt the most difficult job I’ve ever done: flying in such a tight space, fifty times per session, consistently, with no room for error. And now two more weeks to go.”

They engineered this molecule to reliably fold into a Dewar isomer under sunlight and then unfold on command. The result was a rechargeable fuel that could absorb the energy when exposed to sunlight, release it when needed, and return to a “relaxed” state where it’s ready to be charged up again.

Previous attempts at MOST systems have struggled to compete with Li-ion batteries. Norbornadiene, one of the best-studied candidates, tops out at around 0.97 MJ/kg. Another contender, azaborinine, manages only 0.65 MJ/kg. They may be scientifically interesting, but they are not going to heat your house.

Nguyen’s pyrimidone-based system blew those numbers out of the water. The researchers achieved an energy storage density of 1.65 MJ/kg—nearly double the capacity of Li-ion batteries and substantially higher than any previous MOST material.

Big Tech firms are coming under greater scrutiny for the proliferation of child sexual abuse material generated by artificial intelligence-powered chatbots on their social media platforms.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Tuesday that it was invoking the European Union's data privacy regulations to open an investigation into Grok, the AI chatbot featured on Elon Musk's X platform, after it was used to generate nonconsensual deepfake images, including sexualized images of children.

In announcing the investigation, DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that the commission has been in contact with X for weeks after reports first emerged of Grok being used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Doyle said DPC has since decided to launch "a large-scale inquiry which will examine [X's] compliance with some of their fundamental obligations" under European privacy laws.

Spanish President Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday that his government would ask Spain's Public Prosecution Service to "investigate the crimes that X, Meta, and TikTok may be committing through the creation and dissemination of child pornography by means of their AI."

"These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity, and rights of our sons and daughters," Sánchez emphasized. "The state cannot allow it. The impunity of the giants must end."

The probes announced by Ireland and Spain mark just the latest actions by European governments against US-based tech giants. Earlier in February, law enforcement authorities in France raided the office of X in Paris, which the Paris prosecutor’s office said was part of an investigation aimed at "ensuring that the X platform complies with French laws, insofar as it operates on national territory."

The UK government's Information Commissioner's Office has also announced an investigation into X that the agency said encompasses "their processing of personal data in relation to the Grok artificial intelligence system and its potential to produce harmful sexualized image and video content."

ICE more than tripled the amount of data it holds on Microsoft servers between July 2025 and January 2026, at the same time as the agency’s crackdown on migrants broke new records and sparked mass protests across the United States. Whereas last July the agency was storing around 400 terabytes of data in Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, by the end of January that had risen to almost 1,400 terabytes — equivalent to approximately 490 million images.

ICE employs a powerful arsenal of surveillance technology, reportedly using facial recognition software, drones, phone location tracking, mobile spyware, and even tapping school cameras. The leaked documents show ICE is using Microsoft’s AI video analysis tools including Azure AI Video Indexer and Azure Vision, which enable customers to analyze images, read text, and detect certain words, faces, emotions, and objects in audio and video files.

The agency is also understood to have significantly expanded its access to Microsoft’s suite of productivity apps, which include document management tools and an AI chatbot. However, the files do not specify whether ICE’s vast surveillance trove is being stored on Azure, or whether the agency is using the cloud platform for other operations instead, such as running detention centers or coordinating deportation flights.

Sunlight can cause a molecule to change structure, and then release heat later.

Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Slovenia, Spain and UK.