https://techxplore.com/ en-us Tech Xplore internet news portal provides the latest news on electronics, technology, and engineering. UCLA materials scientists have developed a compact cooling technology that can pump away heat continuously using layers of flexing thin films. The design is based on the electrocaloric effect, in which an electric field causes a temporary change in a material's temperature. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-generation-wearables-compact-cooling-temperatures.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:20:04 EST news656090401 Online retailer Amazon has purchased 202 electric Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 vehicles from Germany's Daimler Truck, the automaker said Tuesday, marking both firms' largest-ever order for battery-powered lorries. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-amazon-mercedes-benz-electric-trucks.html Automotive Tue, 14 Jan 2025 14:40:02 EST news656087027 With a possible TikTok ban just days away, many U.S. users are looking for alternative social media platforms to help them keep up with pop culture or provide the type of entertaining videos that popularized the short-form video app. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-tiktok-days-similar-apps.html Internet Tue, 14 Jan 2025 14:30:03 EST news656086892 The United States finalized a rule Tuesday effectively barring Chinese technology from cars in the American market, taking aim at software and hardware from the world's second biggest economy over national security risks. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-smart-cars-chinese-tech.html Automotive Tue, 14 Jan 2025 14:24:32 EST news656087067 Mexico on Tuesday trumpeted a multibillion-dollar investment pledge from Amazon as a sign of a "great future" awaiting Latin America's second-largest economy, despite US President-elect Donald Trump's threat of a trade war. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-mexico-hails-bn-amazon-investment.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 14:20:28 EST news656086824 Water droplets under freezing conditions do not spontaneously detach from surfaces as they do at room temperature due to stronger droplet-surface interaction and lack of an energy transformation pathway. Since accumulated droplets or ice have to be removed manually or with mechanical equipment, which is costly and inefficient, preventing droplet accretion on surfaces is both scientifically intriguing and practically important. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-nature-elastic-pillars-eject-droplets.html Engineering Tue, 14 Jan 2025 14:19:48 EST news656086785 Automatic speech recognition (ASR) has made incredible advances in the past few years, especially for widely spoken languages such as English. Prior to 2020, it was typically assumed that human abilities for speech recognition far exceeded automatic systems, yet some current systems have started to match human performance. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-bar-chatter-automatic-speech-recognition.html Machine learning & AI Tue, 14 Jan 2025 13:24:03 EST news656083441 Using pine cones as a model, researchers at the universities of Stuttgart and Freiburg have developed a new, energy-autonomous facade system that adapts passively to the weather. The journal Nature Communications has published the research results. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-adjusting-mimics-cones-energy-autonomous.html Engineering Tue, 14 Jan 2025 13:16:04 EST news656082961 A study conducted at the University of Turku, Finland, investigated how household cleaning products affect the ability of solar panel glass to transmit light. The results of the study were presented at the 41st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition and in the conference proceedings. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-solar-panels-dishwashing-detergent.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:35:50 EST news656080539 Issues surrounding students' data and schools' use of educational technology (EdTech) are in the spotlight as school boards in six provinces respond to a "significant cyberattack" on an administration software platform. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-cyberattack-affecting-school-boards-spotlights.html Security Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:31:04 EST news656080261 In recent years, more than 60 countries have developed strategies to stimulate the market ramp-up of hydrogen, particularly in the industrial sector. However, in 2023, less than 10% of the originally announced green hydrogen production was realized, shows a new study published in the journal Nature Energy. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-green-hydrogen-big-gaps-ambition.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:16:04 EST news656079361 A recent study involving Central European University (CEU) is paving the way for a new field of research that merges artificial intelligence and complexity science to understand how ongoing interaction between humans and algorithms can profoundly impact social dynamics. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-coevolution-ai-society-explores-opportunities.html Consumer & Gadgets Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:08:04 EST news656075281 A team of AI researchers at Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI, in Abu Dhabi, working with a colleague from the University of Central Florida, has developed a curriculum learning–based LLM, called LlamaV-o1, that its makers claim shows the benefits of step-by-step reasoning in AI systems. In their study, published on the arXiv preprint server (and also on GitHub), the group built their LLM with a new level of step-by-step reasoning to understand how it arrives at its answers. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-llamav-o1-curriculum-learningbased-llm.html Machine learning & AI Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:45:22 EST news656073918 The world is hurtling rapidly towards a developed future, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) play a key role in enabling technological and industrial progress. These composite materials are lightweight and highly strong, making them desirable for applications in various fields, including aviation, aerospace, automotive, wind power generation, and sports equipment. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-electrical-pulse-method-carbon-fiber.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:34:04 EST news656073241 Volkswagen's deliveries fell last year, the German carmaker said Tuesday, underlining fierce Chinese competition and faltering demand for electric vehicles. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-volkswagen-deliveries-fall-electric.html Automotive Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:20:01 EST news656071561 Meta has told Brazil it will not end fact-checks outside the US just yet, but Brasilia expressed "serious concern" Tuesday that the company's new social media policies went against the country's laws. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-brazil-meta-response-fact-ultimatum.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:10:01 EST news656071454 Norway's anti-discrimination tribunal found Air France's policy against seating men next to unaccompanied children to prevent any possibility of predatory behavior to be discriminatory, a passenger said Tuesday. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-norway-air-france-seating-policy.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:03:59 EST news656071436 Britain's competition watchdog flexed new digital market powers on Monday for the first time with an investigation into Google's search and search ad businesses. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-google-scrutiny-uk-watchdog-flexes.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:03:21 EST news656071393 President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence that seeks to ensure the infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations, such as large-scale data centers and new clean power facilities, can be built quickly and at scale in the United States. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-biden-aimed-ai-infrastructure.html Machine learning & AI Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:03:06 EST news656071380 Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, has announced a significant milestone in silicon photonics with the successful demonstration of electrically driven GaAs-based multi-quantum-well nano-ridge laser diodes fully, monolithically fabricated on 300 mm silicon wafers in its CMOS pilot prototyping line. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-silicon-photonics-advance-paves-effective.html Electronics & Semiconductors Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:00:21 EST news656071216 Dr. Lee Dong Yoon's team at KERI's Energy Conversion Research Center has developed a "plane heating element" made of metal fiber fabric technology, characterized by high efficiency and flexibility, to overcome the shortcomings of cold-sensitive electric vehicles (EV). https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-fabric-woven-metal-fibers-cold.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 09:45:05 EST news656070301 Vijay Gadepally, a senior staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, leads a number of projects at the Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center (LLSC) to make computing platforms, and the artificial intelligence systems that run on them, more efficient. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-qa-climate-impact-generative-ai.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 09:11:06 EST news656068262 Facebook's parent company is building Minnesota's first mega data center in Rosemount to house its fast-growing need for computing muscle. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-mega-centers-minnesota-power-staggering.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:40:04 EST news656065829 Years ago, as she sat in waiting rooms, Maytal Saar-Tsechansky began to wonder how people chose a good doctor when they had no way of knowing a doctor's track record on accurate diagnoses. Talking to other patients, she found they sometimes based choices on a physician's personality or even the quality of their office furniture. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-ai-tool-aims-expert-decision.html Computer Sciences Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:35:25 EST news656066114 Sonos Chief Executive Patrick Spence is stepping down and leaving the company's board in a shake-up that comes as the wireless speaker maker tries to win back the trust of its customers. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-sonos-ceo-disastrous-app-overhaul.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:29:51 EST news656065786 Conventional electronics based on silicon are approaching their limits in terms of performance and scalability. In recent years, engineers have thus been trying to introduce alternative designs that could help reduce the size of electronic components while also improving their speed and energy efficiency. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-framework-scalable-3d-transistors-based.html Engineering Tue, 14 Jan 2025 06:50:01 EST news655991155 Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday signed a bill restricting the use of smartphones at school, following a global trend for such limitations. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-brazil-law-restricts-smartphones-elementary.html Other Tue, 14 Jan 2025 05:52:24 EST news656056334 Furious at the prospect of a US government ban on social media platform TikTok, American users have flocked to another Chinese-owned app in droves, many with a defiant message: "Take my data!" https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-tiktok-refugees-chinese-alternative-app.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 05:49:46 EST news656056183 TikTok on Tuesday labeled as "pure fiction" a report that China is exploring a potential sale of the video-sharing platform's US operations to billionaire Elon Musk as the firm faces an American law requiring imminent Chinese divestment. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-tiktok-sale-musk-pure-fiction.html Business Tue, 14 Jan 2025 05:47:21 EST news656056027 A study from Oxford University has uncovered why the deep neural networks (DNNs) that power modern artificial intelligence are so effective at learning from data. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-key-ai-power-inbuilt-special.html Machine learning & AI Tue, 14 Jan 2025 05:00:03 EST news655980680