She was the daughter of a French-Canadian trader and an Oglala Lakota woman. Her story shines a light on the West’s transformation.

Ask ChatGPT anything lately—how to poach an egg, whether you should hug a cactus—and you may be greeted with a burst of purple praise: “Good question! You’re very astute to ask that.” To some extent, ChatGPT has been a sycophant for years, but since late March, a growing cohort of Redditors, X users, and Ars readers say that GPT-4o's relentless pep has crossed the line from friendly to unbearable. "ChatGPT is suddenly the biggest suckup I've ever met," wrote software engineer Craig Weiss in a widely shared tweet on Friday. "It literally will validate everything I say." "EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING," replied a Reddit user who references Weiss's tweet, sparking yet another thread about ChatGPT being a sycophant. Recently, other Reddit users have described feeling "buttered up" and unable to take the "phony act" anymore, while some complain that ChatGPT "wants to pretend all questions are exciting and it's freaking annoying."Read full article Comments

Carrie Pallardy, Contributing ReporterApril 21, 20258 Min Readtdbp via Alamy Stock PhotoWe are looking far afield for the future of data centers: in deserts, under the sea, and of course, in space. Data centers in strange places are steadily moving from the realm of imagination to reality. Lonestar Data Holdings, for one, recently achieved milestones in testing its commercial lunar data center in orbit.  How does Lonestar’s most recent mission push us forward on the path to commercial data centers around and on the Moon? What are the unique challenges that must be solved for launching and maintaining these data centers? As more governments and enterprises look to space, what lies ahead for competition and cooperation on the Moon and beyond?  The Mission  On Feb. 26, Lonestar launched its Freedom data center payload onboard the Athena Lunar Lander, a commercial Moon lander sent by American space exploration company Intuitive Machines.  The landing did not go exactly as planned. The system landed on its side and powered down days earlier than anticipated, CNN reports. But Lonestar achieved several testing milestones prior to the landing. The company’s technology demonstrated its ability to operate in the harsh environment of space. Lonestar was able to test its data storage capabilities and execute edge processing functions.   Related:Lunar Opportunities and Challenges Lunar data centers offer a number of advantages over their terrestrial counterparts. Ready access to solar power and natural cooling are useful, and their remote location is key to their appeal.  “Throw in all the problems with climate change, natural disasters, human error, wars, nation states going after immutable data that's held in data centers,” says Chris Stott, CEO of Lonestar. Data center customers want to put their data somewhere that is secure, accessible, and in compliance with data sovereignty laws. And space beckons.  While the promise of lunar data centers as a core piece of resiliency and disaster recovery strategy is clear, there is a lot of work being poured into making them a tangible, commercial option.  Cost is an obvious hurdle for any space-based project. But given the appetite for space exploration and commercialization, there is certainly money to be found. Lonestar raised $5 million in seed funding in 2023, and the company is working on finishing its Series A funding, according to Stott.  Other companies with celestial data center ambitions are attracting millions, too. Starcloud, previously Lumen Orbit, has raised more than $20 million, according to GeekWire. Starcloud is focused on space-based data centers not on the Moon but in low Earth orbit.  Related:Companies need that kind of funding because it is expensive to launch these data centers and to design them. A lunar data center isn’t going to look like one you would see on Earth.  “When you take something into space, you have to redesign everything,” Stott acknowledges.  The data center needs to operate in the vacuum of space. It needs to be built with space-qualified material; it must meet low outgassing criteria. It needs to be able to operate in an environment of extremes.  On the lunar surface, a data center would be faced with two weeks of day and two weeks of night.  “You’ve got 250 degrees Celsius in the sun,” says Stott. “But when it gets to lunar night it goes … instantly to minus 200 degree Celsius. It gets really cold. So cold it fractures silicone.” Lonestar is focusing its near-term efforts on placing its data centers at Lagrange points, specific spots between the Earth and Moon in which objects remain stable. With this approach, the data center will only experience four hours of shade every 90 days, and it will have batteries to power it during that time, Stott explains.  “That changed everything for us because it means we don't have to wait for a ride to the Moon. We don't have to use a lunar lander. We can solve the day-night issue,” he adds. Related:Terrestrial data centers have white space and grey space. The former includes the servers and racks, while the latter supports those: communication, cooling, power. The same concept applies to space-based data centers, but the white space is referred to as a payload. “It's the load that pays … whether it be a camera or whether it be an astronaut or whether it be a data center,” says Stott. “Then our gray space: power, thermal and communications. It’s the satellite, it's the solar panels, the batteries for power, and satellite antennas for communications.” When something in a data center fails or breaks in a terrestrial data center, it is a relatively simple matter to have someone walk in the door and fix it. Those boots on the ground aren’t exactly a readily available option for lunar data centers.  Gregory Ratcliff is chief innovation officer at Vertiv, a company that provides critical infrastructure solutions, including data centers. Vertiv is not directly involved in lunar data center projects, but it has plenty of experience here on Earth.  Ratcliff tells InformationWeek, “Fault tolerance is really going to matter. [You’ll] have a redundancy of systems, redundancy of those servers and in some cases, you might just let it fail until you do the upgrade and work around it, which is a little different than we do in modern data centers on Earth.”   And then, of course, there are the logistical demands of arranging to launch anything into space. “They always say the hardest thing about getting to space is getting permission,” says Stott.  A Commercial Offering Caddis Cloud Solutions, an advisory firm that specializes in data center development, is working with Lonestar. “We're really the … organization helping vet customers, understand the technical solutions that customers are looking for, presenting those solutions, helping them build out the physical infrastructure on ground,” Caddis Cloud Solutions CEO Scott Jarnagin tells InformationWeek.  Lonestar’s lunar data center aims to provide resiliency as a service and disaster recovery and edge processing services. And already there are government and enterprise customers on board. It is working with the state of Florida to provide data storage, for example. On the edge processing side, Lonestar counts Vint Cerf, one of the trailblazers behind the architecture of internet, among its customers.  Lonestar is also working with other data center operators. “They can provide the solutions to their customers as an extension of disaster recovery services,” Jarnigan explains.  Lonestar is planning to launch six data storage spacecrafts between 2027 and 2030. They will orbit the Moon at the Lunar L1 Lagrange Point.  “Each one carrying multi petabytes worth of storage and doing a ton of edge processing as well. Think of it like a smart device up in orbit around the moon,” says Stott. “And they are precursors to what we'll put in the moon later on.” It is booking capacity for those upcoming missions.  While Lonestar is gearing up for those next missions, it is not alone in the world of space-based data centers. Plenty of companies, like Starcloud, are working on low Earth orbit data centers. Stott considers Lonestar to be a “different flavor” of space-based data center.  “We are a very niche, premium, high-latency, high-security application. We don't want to be close to the planet. We want to be far enough away that we can still operate safely and have line of sight communications without any of the other complications that come with that,” he says.  The Future of Data Centers While Lonestar is starting its commercial data centers in lunar orbit, it still plans to return to the surface of the Moon.  And, of course, there is plenty of interest focused on launching a plethora of lunar technology. NASA’s Artemis program is focused on establishing long-term presence on the Moon. The Lunar Surface Technology Research (LuSTR) program and Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative are driving the development of technologies to support Artemis missions to the Moon, as well as exploration on Mars.  As Lonestar and other space-based data center initiatives advance, what of terrestrial data centers?  Ratcliff anticipates that advances made in lunar data centers will be useful here on Earth as well. “It'll feed backwards … power routing, sensor optimization, digital twins,” he says. “So, this is going to push us to be better both on Earth and on the Moon.” For now, the Moon feels almost like a blank slate. But as more and more public and private enterprises launch lunar satellites and establish technology on its surface, competition for real estate -- for data centers and otherwise -- will heat up.  While wealthy governments and enterprises will have a leg up in the competition, it isn’t going to be a complete free-for-all. Plenty of space law exists today. Any initiative that goes to the Moon is subject to the laws of its country of origin. “If you're an American company and you're flying in space, American law applies to you. You don't get to skip anything,” says Stott.  Even within the bounds of law, there is an element of racing. Companies and countries want to reap the benefits of lunar initiatives. “Back in the 60s, it was flags and footprints. Today, it's resources and revenue,” says Stott. “When we're looking at the Moon, it is now just part of Earth’s economics sphere. It's just another place we go to do business.” But there is also a history of collaboration in space. “If you think back just not too long ago, the ISS [International Space Station] was built by a whole bunch of different countries … it was completely outside of politics and seems to work pretty well,” Ratcliff points out.  The groups developing and launching lunar technology will have to figure out how to do so without compromising safety, and that will require at least some level of cooperation with one another.  Success on the Moon is likely just the beginning for the data center industry. “One day we will have Martian data centers. We will have Jovian based data centers. Anywhere that humanity goes, we now take two things with us: the law and data,” says Stott.  In all likelihood, we will have something else with us: cybercriminals. Space may be far more remote than any corner we could find here on Earth, but that doesn’t mean threat actors won’t seek and find vulnerabilities that enable cyberattacks in space .  “We are a hedge against terrestrial problems, but, of course, we have to stay one step ahead in terms of cybersecurity,” Stott recognizes. About the AuthorCarrie PallardyContributing ReporterCarrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. She writes and edits in a variety of industries including cybersecurity, healthcare, and personal finance.See more from Carrie PallardyReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

The TARA Polar Station is undergoing sea trials this year before heading to the ArcticMaéva Bardy/Fondation Tara Océan In 1893, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen left Norway on a mission to drift across the North Pole. His vessel, the Fram, had been specially designed with a rounded hull so it would sit on top of the Arctic ice, gently ferrying its crew over the Arctic. Nansen never made it to the North Pole, but after three years locked in the ice, the Fram emerged in the North Atlantic Ocean. The voyage was the first in history to…

In satellite images, the 20-odd coral atolls of the Maldives look something like skeletal remains or chalk lines at a crime scene. But these landforms, which circle the peaks of a mountain range that has vanished under the Indian Ocean, are far from inert. They’re the products of living processes—places where coral has grown toward the surface over hundreds of thousands of years. Shifting ocean currents have gradually pushed sand—made from broken-up bits of this same coral—into more than 1,000 other islands that poke above the surface.  But these currents can also be remarkably transient, constructing new sandbanks or washing them away in a matter of weeks. In the coming decades, the daily lives of the half-million people who live on this archipelago—the world’s lowest-lying nation—will depend on finding ways to keep a solid foothold amid these shifting sands. More than 90% of the islands have experienced severe erosion, and climate change could make much of the country uninhabitable by the middle of the century. Off one atoll, just south of the Maldives’ capital, Malé, researchers are testing one way to capture sand in strategic locations—to grow islands, rebuild beaches, and protect coastal communities from sea-level rise. Swim 10 minutes out into the En’boodhoofinolhu Lagoon and you’ll find the Ramp Ring, an unusual structure made up of six tough-skinned geotextile bladders. These submerged bags, part of a recent effort called the Growing Islands project, form a pair of parentheses separated by 90 meters (around 300 feet). The bags, each about two meters tall, were deployed in December 2024, and by February, underwater images showed that sand had climbed about a meter and a half up the surface of each one, demonstrating how passive structures can quickly replenish beaches and, in time, build a solid foundation for new land. “There’s just a ton of sand in there. It’s really looking good,” says Skylar Tibbits, an architect and founder of the MIT Self-Assembly Lab, which is developing the project in partnership with the Malé-based climate tech company Invena. The Self-Assembly Lab designs material technologies that can be programmed to transform or “self-assemble” in the air or underwater, exploiting natural forces like gravity, wind, waves, and sunlight. Its creations include sheets of wood fiber that form into three-dimensional structures when splashed with water, which the researchers hope could be used for tool-free flat-pack furniture.  Growing Islands is their largest-scale undertaking yet. Since 2017, the project has deployed 10 experiments in the Maldives, testing different materials, locations, and strategies, including inflatable structures and mesh nets. The Ramp Ring is many times larger than previous deployments and aims to overcome their biggest limitation.  In the Maldives, the direction of the currents changes with the seasons. Past experiments have been able to capture only one seasonal flow, meaning they lie dormant for months of the year. By contrast, the Ramp Ring is “omnidirectional,” capturing sand year-round. “It’s basically a big ring, a big loop, and no matter which monsoon season and which wave direction, it accumulates sand in the same area,” Tibbits says. The approach points to a more sustainable way to protect the archipelago, whose growing population is supported by an economy that caters to 2 million annual tourists drawn by its white beaches and teeming coral reefs. Most of the country’s 187 inhabited islands have already had some form of human intervention to reclaim land or defend against erosion, such as concrete blocks, jetties, and breakwaters. Since the 1990s, dredging has become by far the most significant strategy. Boats equipped with high-power pumping systems vacuum up sand from one part of the seabed and spray it into a pile somewhere else. This temporary process allows resort developers and densely populated islands like Malé to quickly replenish beaches and build limitlessly customizable islands. But it also leaves behind dead zones where sand has been extracted—and plumes of sediment that cloud the water with a sort of choking marine smog. Last year, the government placed a temporary ban on dredging to prevent damage to reef ecosystems, which were already struggling amid spiking ocean temperatures. Holly East, a geographer at the University of Northumbria, says Growing Islands’ structures offer an exciting alternative to dredging. But East, who is not involved in the project, warns that they must be sited carefully to avoid interrupting sand flows that already build up islands’ coastlines.  To do this, Tibbits and Invena cofounder Sarah Dole are conducting long-term satellite analysis of the En’boodhoofinolhu Lagoon to understand how sediment flows move around atolls. On the basis of this work, the team is currently spinning out a predictive coastal intelligence platform called Littoral. The aim is for it to be “a global health monitoring system for sediment transport,” Dole says. It’s meant not only to show where beaches are losing sand but to “tell us where erosion is going to happen,” allowing government agencies and developers to know where new structures like Ramp Rings can best be placed. Growing Islands has been supported by the National Geographic Society, MIT, the Sri Lankan engineering group Sanken, and tourist resort developers. In 2023, it got a big bump from the US Agency for International Development: a $250,000 grant that funded the construction of the Ramp Ring deployment and would have provided opportunities to scale up the approach. But the termination of nearly all USAID contracts following the inauguration of President Trump means the project is looking for new partners. Matthew Ponsford is a freelance reporter based in London.

Actor Michael B. Jordan has become quite a household name over the past two decades.The 38-year-old has been in the industry since he was a child and has had a number of iconic roles over the years.Here are a few things you might not know about him. His first role was on "The Sopranos," not "The Wire." Michael B. Jordan was on "The Sopranos." HBO Many people think Jordan's acting debut was on HBO's "The Wire."Although his role as young, street-smart Wallace launched his career, his first professional credit was a one-off guest appearance on a season-one episode of HBO's "The Sopranos" when he was 12 years old.He also appeared on an episode of CBS' "Cosby" and in the films "Black and White" (1999) and "Hardball" (2001) before beginning his arc on "The Wire" in 2002.  He didn't let his mom watch the filming of his character's final scene on "The Wire." Michael B. Jordan played Wallace on "The Wire." HBO During a 2018 interview with Vulture, Jordan spoke about filming Wallace's tragic final scene on "The Wire," in which the character dies."I kind of knew it was coming," he told the publication. "Especially when you get that knock on your trailer door from David Simon. I'll never forget it. He said, 'I love you. The audience loves you. We've got to kill you. We've got to kill you off.'""I remember telling my mom not to show up on set that day," he continued. "My mom gets extremely emotional, and this was kind of too much. I didn't want her to see it." In 2020, he was named People's Sexiest Man Alive. Michael B. Jordan has been named People's Sexiest Man Alive. Heidi Gutman/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images In 2020, at 33 years old, the actor was named People's Sexiest Man Alive. He is the fifth man of color to receive this title. The "B" in his name stands for Bakari. Michael B. Jordan is named after his dad. Paras Griffin/Getty Images for MGM Pictures Jordan wasn't named after the famed basketball player, but rather his father, Michael A. Jordan.The "B" in his name stands for Bakari, which means "promising" in Swahili.  Jordan didn't initially dream of becoming an actor. Michael B. Jordan hasn't always wanted to act. Willy Sanjuan/AP In 2015, Jordan told NJ.com that his mother set his career in motion when she decided to take him to his first commercial audition. "It wasn't something that I always wanted to do. But like a lot of kids, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to be. And modelling, acting, it got me out of school early, got me a chance to go into the city, so I was all into that," he told the publication. The actor has a production company that's aiming to make Hollywood more inclusive. Michael B. Jordan has a production company. Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Jordan's production company, Outlier Society, is trying to make a change in Hollywood.In 2018, he vowed to incorporate the "inclusion rider" — a clause that allows actors to contractually demand 50% cast and crew diversity on set — on all his projects.At the end of that same year, the actor told Vanity Fair, "I want to create projects for Brad Pitt, but at the same time I want to be able to create a movie for Will Smith, or Denzel, or Lupita, or Tessa. It's gonna be eclectic. It's gonna be animation. It's gonna be non-scripted. It's gonna be digital. It's gonna be film, television. It's gonna be video games." He's been in all of director Ryan Coogler's big movies. Michael B. Jordan in "Fruitvale Station." The Weinstein Company Jordan has starred in all of director Ryan Coogler's feature-length movies.The actor played Oscar Grant in the heartbreaking biopic "Fruitvale Station," the titular character in the "Rocky" sequel "Creed," and the charismatic villain in "Black Panther." Jordan is also the star in Coogler's recent horror movie, "Sinners.""Mike is an incredibly talented experienced actor," Coogler told MTV News in 2018. "He brings an insane work ethic and a consistency that's really great to have on a set." He's a big fan of anime. Michael B. Jordan has posted online about anime. Mark Davis/Getty Images Jordan has often posted on X about anime, and his favorites seem to be "Naruto" and "Bleach."When asked what his guilty pleasure was in a 2014 PopSugar interview, the actor initially wrote "anime" before crossing it out and going with "women." Jordan was a voice actor for a major video game. You may hear the voice of Michael B. Jordan in some video games. Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images Jordan voiced Jace Stratton in the 2011 entry of the critically acclaimed video-game franchise "Gears of War 3." He bought his parents a house and lived with them for a bit. Michael B. Jordan and his parents. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images In 2015, Jordan bought a house for his parents in Sherman Oaks, California, and he lived with them for a few years. In 2019, he got his own place.During an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2020, the host spoke with him about making the move to his own home about 20 minutes away. "It happened," he said. "I'm pretty sure they saged the entire house when I left. Like, they lit incense and bleached it down and got rid of all of me, yes." Jordan took tap-dancing lessons at the beginning of his career. Michael B. Jordan used to try a bunch of hobbies. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP In a 2013 interview with HuffPost, Jordan said he'd do anything to get out of school early as a kid, so when his parents got him into acting around the age of 11, he took on a bunch of hobbies, including tap dancing. Jordan told the publication, "I didn't know what I wanted to do at that age — I was doing everything, playing basketball, acting, tap dancing ... "This story was originally published on February 1, 2019, and most recently updated on April 21, 2025.

At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway. Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade.And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable. Take a look at Texas: The largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US is also the largest in wind energy, and it’s installing more solar than any other. Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore.And there’s only more room to grow. The world is still in the early stages of this revolution as market forces become the driver rather than environmental worries. In some US markets, installing new renewable energy is cheaper than running existing coal plants. Last year, the US produced more electricity from wind and solar power than from coal for the first time. If these energy trends persist, the US economy will see its greenhouse gas emissions diminish faster, reducing its contribution to climate change. The US needs to effectively zero out its carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of the century in order to keep the worst damages of climate change in check. Now, just a few months into Trump’s second presidency, it’s still an open question just how fragile the country’s progress on clean energy and climate will be. But the data is clear: There is tremendous potential for economic growth and environmental benefits if the country makes the right moves at this key inflection point. Certainly incentives like tax credits, business loans, and research and development funding could accelerate decarbonization. On the other hand, pulling back — as the Trump administration wants to do — would slow down clean energy in the US, though it wouldn’t stop it. But the rest of the world isn’t sitting idle, and if the US decides to slow its head start, its competitors may take the lead in a massive, rocketing industry. —Umair Irfan, Vox climate correspondentWindPresident Donald Trump does not like wind energy — apparently, in part, because he thinks turbines are ugly. “We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said after his inauguration during a rally. “Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood.” He’s put some power behind those feelings. Within mere hours of stepping into office, Trump signed an executive order that hamstrung both onshore and offshore wind energy developments, even as he has claimed that the US faces an energy crisis. The order directed federal agencies to temporarily stop issuing approvals for both onshore and offshore wind projects and pause leasing for offshore projects in federal waters.Policies like this will harm the wind industry, analysts say, as will existing and potential future tariffs, which will likely make turbines more expensive. Those policies could also pose a serious threat to offshore developments. But the sector overall simply has too much inertia to be derailed, according to Eric Larson, a senior research engineer at Princeton University who studies clean energy. “Because costs have been coming down so dramatically in the last decade, there is a certain momentum there that’s going to carry through,” Larson said.Since 2010, US wind capacity has more than tripled, spurred by federal tax incentives. But even without those incentives — which Congress may eventually try to cut — onshore wind turbines are the cheapest source of new energy, according to the research firm Lazard. In 2023, the average cost of new onshore wind projects was two-thirds lower than a typical fossil fuel alternative, per a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency.Gabrielle Merite for VoxIn fact, wind energy might be the best example of how politics have had little bearing on the growth of renewable energy. Texas, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in the recent election, generates more wind energy than any other state, by far. The next three top states for wind energy production — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — all swung for Trump in the last election, too. These states are particularly windy, but they’ve also adopted policies, including tax incentives, that have helped build out their wind-energy sectors. Gabrielle Merite for Vox“It’s just a way to make money,” Larson said of wind. “It has nothing to do with the political position on whether climate change is real or not. People continue to get paid to put up wind turbines, and that’s enough for them to do it.” In Iowa, for example, wind energy has drawn at least $22 billion in capital investment and has helped lower the cost of electricity. In 2023, wind generated about 60 percent of the state’s energy — more than double any other source, like coal or natural gas.Related404 Not Found | VoxThe wind sector is not without its challenges. In the last two years the cost of wind energy has gone up, due in part to inflation and permitting delays — which raised the costs of other energy sources, too. Construction of new wind farms had begun slowing even before Trump took office. Dozens of counties across the US, in places like Ohio and Virginia, have also successfully blocked or delayed wind projects, citing a range of concerns like noise and impact on property values. Offshore wind, which is far costlier, faces even more opposition. Opponents similarly worry that they’ll affect coastal property values and harm marine life. Yet ultimately these hurdles will only delay what is likely inevitable, analysts say: a future powered in large part by wind. —Benji Jones, Vox environmental correspondentSolarIt’s hard to think of a natural wonder more unstoppable than the sun, and harnessing its energy has proven just as formidable. The United States last year saw a record amount of clean energy power up, with solar leading the way. Over the past decade, solar power capacity in the US has risen eightfold. Why? Solar has just gotten way, way, way cheaper, even more than wind. Gabrielle Merite for VoxThe main technology for turning sunlight into electricity, the single-junction photovoltaic panel, has drastically increased the efficiency by which it turns a ray of sunlight into a moving electron. This lets the same-size panel convert more light into electricity. Since the device itself is a printed semiconductor, it has benefited from many of the manufacturing improvements that have come with recent advances in computer chip production. Solar has also benefited from economies of scale, particularly as China has invested heavily in its production. This has translated into cheaper solar panels around the world, including the US. And since solar panels are modular, small gains in efficiency and cost reduction quickly add up, boosting the business case.Gabrielle Merite for VoxThere are some clouds on the horizon, however. The single-junction PV panel may be closing in on its practical efficiency limit. Solar energy is variable, and some power grid operators have struggled to manage the spike in solar production midday and sudden drop-off in the evening, creating the infamous “duck curve” graph of energy demand that shows how fast other generators have to ramp up. Still, solar energy provides less than 4 percent of electricity in the US, so there is immense room to grow. Overall costs continue to decline, and new technologies are emerging that can get around the constraints imposed by conventional panels. Across the US and around the world, the sun has a long way to rise. —Umair IrfanOur energy gridWhile wind and solar energy have soared upward for more than a decade, storing electricity on the grid with batteries is just taking off. Grid-scale battery capacity suddenly launched upward around 2020 and has about doubled every year since. That’s good news for intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar: Energy storage is the booster rocket for renewables and one of the key tools for addressing the stubborn duck curve that plagues solar power. Batteries for the grid aren’t that far removed from those that power phones and computers, so they’ve benefited from cost and performance improvements in consumer batteries. And they still have room to get cheaper.Gabrielle Merite for VoxOn the power grid, batteries do a number of jobs that help improve efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The obvious one is compensating for the capriciousness of wind and solar power: As the sun sets and the wind calms, demand rises, and grid operators can tap into their power reserves to keep the lights on. The specific combination of solar-plus-storage is still a small share of utility-scale projects, but it’s gaining ground in the residential market as these systems get cheaper.Batteries also help grid operators cope with demand peaks: They can bank power when it’s cheap and sell those electrons when electricity is more expensive. They also maintain grid stability and provide the juice to restart power generators after outages or maintenance. That means there’s a huge demand for grid batteries beyond backing up renewables. Right now, the main way the US saves electricity on the grid is pumped hydropower, which currently provides about 96 percent of utility-scale storage. Water is pumped uphill into a reservoir when power is cheap and then runs downhill through turbines when it’s needed. This method tends to lose a lot of energy in the process and is limited to landscapes with the ideal terrain to move water up and down. Batteries get around these hurdles with higher efficiencies, scalability, and modularity. And since they stay parked in one place, energy density and portability don’t matter as much on the grid as they would in a car or a phone. That opens up several more options. Car batteries that have lost too much capacity to be worthwhile in a vehicle can get a second life on the power grid. Designs like flow batteries that store energy by the megawatt-hour and molten salt batteries that stash power for months could outperform the reigning lithium-ion battery. —Umair IrfanThe electric vehicle transition Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Fossil fuels currently account for nearly 90 percent of the energy consumption in the transportation sector, which makes it an obvious target for decarbonization. And while it will take some time to figure out how to electrify planes, trains, and container ships, the growth of EVs, including passenger cars and trucks, has reached a tipping point.The price of a new EV is nearly equivalent to a new gas-powered car, when you include state and federal subsidies.is growing. Even though the Trump administration has effectively waged war on the EV transition by pulling funding for charging infrastructure expansion and threatening to end subsidies for new EV purchases, at best those moves may slow a largely unstoppable EV transition in the long term. The automotive industry is all in on the electric transition. Buoyed by strong and growing EV sales trends in China and increasing EV offerings, global demand is growing.There are signs, however, that the number of people buying EVs in the US and Europe is slowing, even as subsidies remain available. Experts say this is likely due, in part, to more consumer choice, as the number of EV offerings, including off-road trucks and minivans, continues to grow. But even here we see encouraging signs: As more EVs have come to market, more plug-in hybrid models have also appeared. And plug-in hybrids tend to be slightly cheaper and help people deal with range anxiety, the umbrella term for the fear of not being able to find a charger, while still reducing emissions.Gabrielle Merite for Vox“The early adopters who are just all in on that EV tech, they’ve adopted it,” Nicole Wakelin, editor at large of CarBuzz, told Vox in January. “So now it’s up to everybody else to dip their toes in that water.”Around the world, cheap EVs are surging in popularity. Prices of EV batteries, the most expensive component of the vehicle, are dropping globally even as their capacity grows. That trend is leading to more and more inexpensive EV models hitting the market. China, once again, is leading the charge here. The cheapest model from Chinese front-runner BYD now costs less than $10,000, and by 2027, Volkswagen promises it will sell a cheap EV in Europe for about $20,000. Meanwhile, in the US, the average price for a used EV in mid-2024 was $33,000, compared to $27,000 for an internal combustion engine vehicle. Those Chinese EVs aren’t currently available in the US.Gabrielle Merite for VoxIt remains to be seen how far Trump will go to keep America hooked on fossil fuels. It’s clear, however, that more and more people want EVs and are buying them, charging them, and quite frankly, loving them. —Adam Clark Estes, Vox senior technology correspondentJobsFor any of these clean energy sectors to reach their highest potential, there’s an essential requirement they all share: a robust, skilled workforce. The good news for the clean energy industry is that data show the jobs are rolling in.Gabrielle Merite for VoxThe 2024 Clean Jobs America report by E2, a national group focused on climate solutions across industries, paints a positive picture for clean jobs. Renewable energy jobs increased by 14 percent from 2020 to 2023 — a surge boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate-focused policies. Jobs in the solar sector have grown by 15 percent in that same period, with 12 percent growth for wind and 11 percent growth for geothermal. In just 2023 alone, 150,000 jobs in the clean energy industry were added. All together, clean energy outpaced economy-wide employment growth for the last five years.And while the Trump administration has targeted the wind industry, rolled back some climate-friendly policies, and griped about solar, the administration’s policies have yet to put a dent on positive job growth in clean jobs.“I expect [the administration] will go after some provisions, but there is quite a bit in the IRA that will be very difficult to repeal since large-scale clean energy investments have been made, and a majority of those in red states whose politicians will not want to give them up,” one former US official told Heatmap News. Republican districts have benefited far more than progressive ones from clean tech manufacturing investments to the tune of over $161 billion, Bloomberg reported. Going after clean jobs would mean stalling economic growth in communities that helped deliver Trump a second term — a move that most would call politically unwise.Gabrielle Merite for VoxThe clean industry is growing beyond the United States. Globally, clean energy sectors added over 4.7 million jobs to a total of 35 million from 2019 to 2022 — exceeding the amount of fossil fuel jobs internationally.While the data bodes well for the industry, there are concerns from workers, unions, and communities that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy may leave many skilled employees behind. One paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that fewer than 1 percent of fossil fuel workers have transitioned to green jobs, citing a lack of translatable skills — operating an oil derrick isn’t as applicable to installing solar panels, for example. Another paper from Nature found that while some fossil fuel workers might have the right skills for clean energy jobs, the location of green jobs often aren’t where fossil fuel workers are based. Several policy routes can be taken to create a more equitable transition for these workers, such as funding early retirement programs for fossil fuel workers who lose their jobs or heavily investing in fossil fuel communities where there is potential for creating renewable energy hubs. Clean energy jobs are growing, and it doesn’t have to be at the cost of the 1.7 million workers in the US with fossil fuel occupations. —Sam DelgadoGeothermalWhile President Trump has largely been hostile to renewable energy, there’s one clean energy source that the administration actually supports: geothermal. Geothermal has long lived in the shadows of other renewables — especially as wind and solar have surged. But geothermal’s potential may be greater than any of those, and ironically, being in Trump’s good graces may give this sector the final boost it needs. If you know President Trump’s motto of “drill, baby, drill,” this might not come as a surprise. Geothermal energy is tapped by drilling into the ground and extracting heat from the earth, and it uses similar technology to the oil and gas industry. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has long praised geothermal, and the fracking company he oversaw prior to joining the Trump administration invested in Fervo Energy, a company that specializes in geothermal technologies. Despite the fact that the first geothermal plant was built in 1904 in Italy, the energy source is still in its infancy. In 2023, geothermal energy produced less than half a percent of total US utility-scale electricity generation, far behind other renewables like solar and wind. Historically, developing geothermal energy has been constrained by geography and relatively few have been built. Most geothermal production happens in the western United States because of the region’s access to underground hot water that can drive turbines isn’t too far from the surface. California dominates the geothermal landscape, with 67 percent of US geothermal electricity generation coming from the state — the outcome of state policy priorities and the right geologic conditions. The regional specificity has been a big barrier to geothermal taking off more broadly.Then there’s the issue of cost. Compared to solar and wind development and operations, building geothermal plants and drilling is much more expensive. And it currently costs more per megawatt hour than solar and wind. But these geographic and financial barriers could be broken down. Geothermal companies have been exploring enhanced geothermal, a method that could make it possible to drill for geothermal energy everywhere. Coupling enhanced geothermal with drilling technology and techniques from the oil and gas industry can also help with efficiency and bring down costs — a parallel to how advances in fracking in the early 2000s helped supercharge the US oil and gas industry.What geothermal lacks in current scale, it makes up for in future potential. Because it’s not intermittent and doesn’t rely on specific weather conditions (the way that solar, wind, and hydropower do) geothermal has a capacity advantage over other renewables. In 2023, geothermal had a capacity factor, or how often an energy source is running at maximum power, of 69 percent, compared to 33 percent and 23 percent for wind and solar, respectively — meaning it’s more capable of producing reliable power. Gabrielle Merite for VoxThat advantage could be critical for US decarbonization goals. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), enhanced geothermal has the potential to power more than 65 million homes and businesses in the US. Right now, stakeholders from energy policymakers to climate scientists to geothermal company executives, are determined to turn potential into reality. In March 2024, the DOE released a lengthy report on the necessary steps to unlocking enhanced geothermal’s full potential on a commercial scale. In October of last year, the federal government approved a massive geothermal project in Utah that plans to provide power for more than 2 million homes and aims to be operational by 2026. The company behind the project and one of the leading enhanced geothermal startups, Fervo Energy, secured $255 million in funding from investors just before the year came to a close.Geothermal also has bipartisan support (and is perhaps one of the few issues that the Biden and Trump administration would share similar views on). And because it’s borrowing technology from the gas and oil industry, it can tap into former fossil fuel workers to staff these plants. But it’s key to note that getting to take off will be really, really expensive — the DOE projects that it will take $20 billion to $25 billion to get geothermal ready for a commercial breakout by 2030. Geothermal’s breakthrough isn’t assured, but it’s on the cusp of takeoff. If the necessary financial investments are made, and companies can show that advances in technology can be scaled up beyond the western US, it could usher in the age of a geothermal energy revolution. —Sam Delgado, former Future Perfect fellowSee More:

So many PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X games are viable for Switch 2 ports (CD Projekt) The use of DLSS in the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 has been confirmed, as the port becomes one of the console’s most hi-tech games. Before anything official had been shared about the Nintendo Switch 2, it was widely assumed that the console would make use of Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling technology. Better known as DLSS, this was a common rumour that was corroborated by a Nintendo patent and eventually confirmed by Nvidia itself, in the wake of the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct. What wasn’t so clear was which games would make use of it, but now we know that the first such example is, not a first party Nintendo title, but the Switch 2 port of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, which launches alongside the console on June 5. ‘We’re using a version of DLSS available for Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, powered by Nvidia’s Tensor cores,’ said CD Projekt when asked by Digital Foundry. The tech is not exclusive to any particular mode of play, with the company adding: ‘The game utilises DLSS in all four modes: in handheld and docked, and the performance and quality variations of each.’ We went hands-on with Cyberpunk 2077 during this month’s press event and while the version we played was unfinished, it was still the most technically impressive game there, even managing to look better, in some ways, than on the PS4 Pro. A CD Projekt Red developer was also on hand to explain that, unlike The Witcher 3, the port had been handled in-house – an indication of the importance with which it’s been treated within the company. What is DLSS? For the uninitiated, DLSS uses AI upscaling to artificially improve a video game’s resolution. Basically, it’s a trick that makes games look and run better even on weaker hardware, and is perfect for more graphically intensive games. The same or similar technology is already used on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, with Sony having its own system called PSSR, but clearly it’s of particular use to the underpowered Switch 2. More Trending While the Switch 2 is significantly more powerful than its predecessor, it’s still not at the same level as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. So, DLSS is an important tool to help ports of games that debuted on stronger hardware look up to snuff when running on Switch 2. As such, it’s safe to assume that other Switch 2 ports, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Elden Ring, and Star Wars Outlaws, are making use of DLSS too. Especially as DLSS requires little effort to implement and does not itself use much hardware power. Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 is already capped at 40 frames per second in performance mode and 30 frames per second in quality mode, which is also likely thanks to DLSS – although using the technology to generate additional frames is more controversial amongst some fans, at least when it comes to pure action games. It’s possible that Nintendo is also using the tech for games built specifically for Switch 2, but they’ve not mentioned it yet. We certainly wouldn’t be surprised if something like The Duskbloods, a Switch 2 exclusive from FromSoftware, made use of DLSS as well. Cyberpunk 2077’s visuals on Switch 2 should be consistent whether you’re playing in handheld mode or not (CD Projekt) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

By Isaac Schultz Published April 21, 2025 | Comments (0) | A large galaxy cluster. Image: NASA, ESA, Harald Ebeling (University of Hawaii at Manoa) & Jean-Paul Kneib (LAM) If you thought the cosmic web was tangled enough, think again. A team of astrophysicists recently used gamma-ray bursts—those spectacular, enigmatic explosions of energy from the farthest reaches of the cosmos—to reveal that the largest-known structure in the universe may be even larger than previously thought. The structure is the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall, a filament of galaxy groups and clusters that spans about 10 billion light-years across. The structure’s new size estimate is causing fresh headaches for standard cosmological models, as it appears even larger than the previous high estimate of about 9.8 billion light-years. In a new study—not yet peer-reviewed and hosted on the preprint server arXiv—a joint Hungarian-American research team led by István Horváth of Budapest’s University of Public Service scanned the sky for patterns. The team used a dataset of 542 gamma-ray bursts with known redshifts, essentially meaning their distances are known. The bursts are basically nature’s flashbangs—extremely luminous bursts of high-energy light capable of outshining entire galaxies for brief moments. These brilliant bursts are observable from great distances, making them ideal cosmic signposts. And when astronomers begin to notice them clustering into a single area of the sky, major questions begin to emerge. The researchers tested a distribution of points across the universe to find that the great wall—originally discovered in 2014—might span a redshift range from z = 0.33 to z = 2.43. In other words: The structure stretches across a mind-bending amount of space and time. We’re talking billions of light-years. And no, this isn’t a pixel glitch or some weird telescope fluke—the authors ruled out statistical artifacts and sampling biases. But according to the cosmological principle, the universe should be roughly homogeneous on large scales. The commonly accepted upper limit for such structures is about 370 megaparsecs (roughly 1.2 billion light-years), the paper stated. But Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall—so named for the constellations in the same region—is far beyond that. It makes the Sloan Great Wall and even the Giant Quasar Group look like dollhouses. The Hercules-Corona Borealis superstructure isn’t just a patch of sky cluttered with gamma-ray bursts—it’s likely a dense region of galaxies, stars, and dark matter, held together by gravity. Furthermore, the brilliant gamma bursts could reveal structures invisible to other surveys; since these bursts are associated with massive stellar deaths, they might trace star formation in a way that galaxy surveys don’t. If the team behind the new study is correct—that structures of this immense size can form in the universe—then the cosmological principle may be in need of a tune-up. Of course, it’s also possible that we’re missing something fundamental in our understanding of how the universe evolved. Frankly, it’s probably a bit of both. So the next time you glance up at the stars and marvel at how small you feel—just remember, you’re even smaller than that—at least compared to a “wall” that nearly makes the scale of the cosmos itself mundane. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Isaac Schultz Published April 13, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published March 24, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published March 21, 2025 By Passant Rabie Published March 20, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published March 17, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published March 14, 2025

PCW Residence / Pitta ArquiteturaSave this picture!© João Paulo Soares de OliveiraHouses•Brazil Architects: Pitta Arquitetura Area Area of this architecture project Area:  260 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:João Paulo Soares de Oliveira Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers:  GM Marcenaria, Geo Cerámica, Onmitrade, Plantare Paisagismo, Portobello, RewoodSave this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Located in Itamambuca, Ubatuba, the PCW Residence is a project that celebrates the connection between architecture and nature. With 2,799 square feet, this modern beach house was designed to be a sophisticated, welcoming refuge that is fully integrated with the natural environment around it. Using natural materials such as wood, exposed concrete, and glass, the design aims to create a light, airy, and well-lit environment, promoting a unique experience of immersion in the local landscape. "The central idea was to create a space that was not only comfortable but also valued the natural surroundings, allowing the family to feel in harmony with the environment at all times," explains Thiago Brunini Pitta.Save this picture!The design of the house was developed to open completely to the outside. "By utilizing large sliding panels, movable brise-soleils, and extensive eaves, we sought to ensure the integration of the indoor and outdoor spaces while still providing the necessary protection for the family's comfort," says Rodrigo Alves Pereira. The double-height ceiling, which creates a sense of spaciousness, was one of the key elements, allowing residents to enjoy views of the sky from all points in the living room. Additionally, skylights were installed to maximize the entry of natural light. "Every detail was carefully considered to create a refuge that integrates with nature, without sacrificing sophistication. The wood and natural materials, such as MLC on the roof, were essential in bringing about this feeling of warmth and connection to the outdoors," states Luiza Querido.Save this picture!On the ground floor, the social area integrates with the garden, featuring a spacious living room that connects to the kitchen, gourmet area, and deck with a swimming pool. Two guest suites ensure privacy, while the upper floor houses the main suites, one for the daughters and the master for the couple. The service area was strategically positioned to not interfere with the flow of the house.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!With the concept of "tropical contemporary architecture," the PCW Residence stands out for its fluidity between indoor and outdoor spaces, always focusing on comfort and practicality for the family. The project took one year to develop, with construction lasting 1.5 years.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this officePitta ArquiteturaOffice••• MaterialsMaterials and TagsPublished on April 21, 2025Cite: "PCW Residence / Pitta Arquitetura" [Residência PCW / Pitta Arquitetura] 21 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029236/pcw-residence-pitta-arquitetura&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream