“The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years,” Elon Musk posted on X.com this weekend. Musk said the launches will happen when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens, which the science blog NextBigFuture identifies as “about November through December 2026.” Musk noted that the 2026 missions “will be Read more…
U.S. Justice Department officials are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming weapons into illegal homemade machine guns. “Law enforcement cannot do this alone,” [U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Friday] during a gathering in Washington of federal law enforcement Read more…
Workers get the right to request a four-day workweek under a new proposal by the U.K. government. But a professor of economics at the University of Leeds argues “There remain problems, however” — starting with the fact that “under current laws, employers can still resist the requests of workers, if Read more…
Rising temperatures are threatening the future of Napa Valley’s prized cabernet sauvignon, forcing winemakers to adapt to increasingly severe heat waves. Some vineyards are experimenting with heat-tolerant grape varieties to blend with cabernet, while others are investing in cooling technologies. The shift poses significant risks for Napa’s multibillion-dollar wine industry. Read more…
Amazon’s Audible will begin inviting a select group of US-based audiobook narrators to train AI on their voices, the clones of which can then be used to make audiobook recordings. The effort, which kicks off next week, is designed to add more audiobooks to the service, quickly and cheaply — Read more…
“Six years after sailing out of San Francisco with the ambition of developing the technology to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup returned to San Francisco with the knowledge and know-how to relegate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the history books,” according to a new announcement Read more…
Alorica — which runs customer-service centers around the world — has introduced an AI translation tool that lets its representatives talk with customers in 200 different languages. But according to the Associated Press, “Alorica isn’t cutting jobs. It’s still hiring aggressively.” The experience at Alorica — and at other companies, Read more…