Environment

Recently, photonic transformer accelerators (PTAs) have successfully achieved significant speedup and energy efficiency improvements over electronic accelerators for expediting Transformer inference. However, state-of-the-art rely on expensive multi-wavelength light generation and large dot-product units due to active phase-shifter components, thus making their approach inefficient and impractical. To address this, we propose MDTransformer, a novel hardware-software co-design of PTA based on mod

Samoa's strong post-pandemic recovery is giving way to subdued growth as weaker domestic demand is compounded by adverse external shocks. Higher global energy prices, elevated external risks, and ...

Microsoft patched a high-severity vulnerability earlier this month that allows a threat actor to escalate privileges and compromise an AD environment.

For many, this summer is a warning that Europe is unprepared for the new climate reality.

Graphical user interface task evaluation aims to determine whether a GUI agent has successfully completed a user instruction. Automated GUI task evaluation has received increasing attention because the evaluation results can serve as reward signals for both test-time scaling and post-training. However, reliable GUI task evaluation remains challenging because the judgments often require access to environment states, such as system configurations, file data, and application settings, beyond the sc

Evaluating AI agents in interactive environments is hindered by fragmented tasks, scaffolds, verifiers, and scoring rules. Existing efforts focus on narrow settings, remain limited in scale, or require costly reruns, leaving much of the empirical record incomparable. We introduce Messier, a unified corpus of 957,253 records that span 30 benchmarks, 714 agents, 11,891 tasks, and 74,205 verifiers. Messier consolidates public benchmark scores and supplements them with five-agent runs across six und

The decision arrives as the breakneck pace of data center construction has grid operators scrambling to generate power.

Keeping phones out of landfills and doing useful things is a good thing.

Uptime Institute today released the findings of its 16th Annual Global Data Center Survey, the most comprehensive study of the digital infrastructure sector. The 2026 results reveal an industry navigating workforce constraints, escalating outage expenses, even as rising costs remain the top concern for management teams.

On an incredibly detailed new map , you can look through the world’s 120,000-plus power plants, from solar and wind farms to battery storage and coal and gas plants, along with nearly 3 million miles of transmission lines and hundreds of thousands of substations. Other layers include gas pipelines, flood risk, and power-hungry data centers. The map was built by Brian Bartholomew, an energy consultant who created it as part of a side project called OpenGridWorks , which provides publicly accessib

Meta has confirmed it will spend billions on a new AI data center in Texas just months after raising Quest prices due to an AI-driven memory shortage.

Inequality in real-world societies are associated with psychological distress and behavioral consequences. However, less is known about whether similar dynamics emerge when inequality exists within virtual environments or make-belief worlds. As online games increasingly constitute meaningful social spaces, it becomes critical to examine how players perceive and react to structural and resource differences online to optimize their experiences. This study studies perceptions of inequality in the o

Perhaps due to the notable impact of climate change on the ongoing summer, the delivery on C-67/25 by the Court of Justice has gone relatively unnoticed hitherto. The brevity of the judgment conflicts with the thunderous effects it may unleash, which have potential to open a definitive breach in the Union’s constitutional acquis. Noteworthily, this rupture is being perpetrated in alleged defence of Art. 2 TEU values: the lynchpin of the Union as a “militant” democracy is being deployed on the ex

The conflict will eventually subside. But without action, the vulnerabilities it has exposed will not, write Michael Adu Okyere, Brian Mukhaya, and David W. Yellen.

Stop separating training from the workplace. Scarce IT skills should be built within the environments that need them.

As IOT deployments expand across industries and environments, enterprises need a more flexible way to connect devices.

Communities fear they will squeeze access to electricity and water, spoil rural areas and boost tech giant profits with limited local job creation

arXiv:2607.22604v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models, Generative AI and larger frontier AI models, data centres create a significant environmental burden on electricity grids and fresh water resources. Requiring data centre operators and Big Tech under the recast Energy Efficiency Directive (recast EED) to quantify, report and disclose the facility-level energy and water impacts seems to be a step into the right direction towards more

arXiv:2607.22613v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This paper explores the intersection of memory, place, and identity, examining how new technologies, particularly Apple Vision Pro, can illuminate this nexus. Leveraging digital twins and virtual reality, it investigates how memory is woven into landscapes and urban environments of cultural and historical significance, identifying visual elements that evoke memory and heritage. Applications such as Apple Vision Pro can facilitate image extension to

arXiv:2607.22617v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Data centers are critical to today's digital economy, but are also among the largest industrial consumers of freshwater. Beyond the sheer volume of water use, the environmental impact of data center water consumption varies significantly across locations and seasons, depending on local and regional water stress. However, prior research has largely focused on reducing total water use, overlooking that the same unit of water can have drastically diff

arXiv:2607.22640v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Short-term environmental exposures have been linked to cognitive and behavioral outcomes, although many reported associations may reflect broader geographic and contextual differences. Using longitudinal data from the All of Us Research Program (2018--2024), we linked daily weather and air-pollution exposures to repeated attention-related and subjective cognitive outcomes. Associations were evaluated using pooled, fixed-effects, lagged, and event-s

arXiv:2607.23336v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The built environment is on the cusp of populating itself with autonomous artificial agents. AI systems that advise, control and coordinate are being deployed across retrofit, operation and mobility faster than their collective behaviour is studied. The dominant framing treats each agent as a tool operating on a passive building, governance reduced to single-agent safety, which is inadequate. A building, a street, or a city is more accurately model

arXiv:2607.23082v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The semiconductor sector faces a dual transition: scaling manufacturing execution through Artificial Intelligence (AI) while satisfying stringent sustainability mandates, such as the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This paper presents a scoping review of 1,465 documents indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, spanning AI-integrated metrology, supply chain ESG, and federated industrial data spaces. Network analysis reveals a highly fra

The chipmaking giant is in talks with OpenAI to provide a $250 billion financial backstop for the project, which would be among the largest of the A.I. boom.

Quantum computing (QC) has established itself as a disruptive technology that has the potential to enhance computational capabilities across next-generation energy systems. Its integration into smart grids can enable intelligent decision-making, secure control mechanisms, and advanced optimization strategies. However, existing research remains methodologically fragmented and lacks a unified discussion for practical adoption. This highlights the need for a systematic assessment of the current res

"If you're borrowing money to buy something related to the data center, then tomorrow morning, 9:30 a.m., sell it no matter what," said CNBC's Jim Cramer.

CNBC's Jim Cramer said reports of Nvidia backing OpenAI's data center expansion revived memories of the financing arrangements that preceded the dot-com crash.

The backstop would let OpenAI raise debt for a data center campus in Pike County, Ohio, on the strength of Nvidia's credit.

Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The backstop would let OpenAI lease a 10-gigawatt campus in southern Ohio that SoftBank’s energy subsidiary is developing. The reason such a guarantee is needed is straightforward: OpenAI […] This story continues at The Next Web

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is useful for material discrimination, but operational mine screening also depends on how many false alarms must be inspected before targets are found. This paper studies PFM-1 landmine detection in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) visible and near-infrared (VNIR) HSI using spectral angle mapper (SAM), matched filter (MF), adaptive coherence estimator (ACE), and constrained energy minimization (CEM). We compare a ground-measured SVC signature, a fully informed in-scene c

A Times examination details how the Silicon Valley giant used private talks with local officials to start a project big enough to cover nearly six square miles.

The Trump administration announced Monday that it is exempting power plants that only serve data centers and do not connect to the broader grid from pollution limits that seek to prevent acid rain. The administration announced new guidance on Monday clarifying that these “islanded” power plants do not have to be part of the Clean Air Act’s...

Microsoft announced Project Perception on Monday, an agentic security system that coordinates three classes of AI agents in a continuous loop: red team agents that find vulnerabilities before attackers do, blue team agents that investigate and assess which risks are meaningful, and green team agents that fix defences across the environment. The system enters public […] This story continues at The Next Web

Multi-turn long-horizon planning is critical for foundation model agents, yet how to fundamentally improve it remains unclear. Existing models are trained on uncontrollable and opaque Internet data, making it difficult to identify how planning ability is acquired, shaped, and integrated. To address this challenge, we introduce a unified and controlled multi-turn environment that enables precise control. It allows systematically study long-horizon planning across three stages. (1) Planning abilit

Individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often face significant barriers in computing education. In asynchronous learning environments, instructional videos can impose high extraneous cognitive load, often relying on assumptions about sustained attention and working memory that do not align with ADHD neurocognitive profiles. In this work, we evaluate a post-hoc video processing intervention that segments instructional content into single-instruction chunks followed by fix

Governments should commit to a consistent and clear industrial strategy Von Sarah Ladislaw ( Energie & Klima , Energiewende )

Early warning of extreme weather is essential for mitigating the societal, economic, and environmental risks posed by hazardous weather events. However, expert-centered warning workflows are costly, labor-intensive, and difficult to scale throughout the warning-to-action process. Although recent advances in Large Language Model (LLM) agents have enabled the automation of weather-related tasks, existing studies remain centered on isolated scientific tasks and overlook the chain of interdependent

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, the Smart Systems Stage will be where energy, infrastructure, and technology collide, covering everything from fusion breakthroughs to the grid strain AI is putting on the entire economy.

Can the law tell a company that it is no longer free to destroy its own products? Among the powers traditionally associated with ownership is the freedom to determine the fate of one’s property. Whether doing so is economically sensible or environmentally responsible is another matter. However, as of 19 July 2026, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force in 2024, prohibits large companies from destroying unsold clothing, accessories and footwear, subject

In deep learning, efficiency gets more and more important to compensate for the ongoing growth in model sizes and applications. Neuromorphic hardware has long been advocated as an upcoming alternative to deep networks, taking inspiration from the brain for achieving unprecedented energy efficiency. However, demonstrations of these gains only recently began to grow in complexity and real-world applicability. With SpiNNaker2, we present a chip that bridges the gap between deep networks and neuromo