Regional tech hubs across the U.S. are losing talent as workers return to the coasts, with Austin being one of the hardest hit.

Five, six... nine? 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 9 first drive: Efficient, for a big one Hyundai's biggest EV is designed for American roads and built in Georgia. Jonathan M. Gitlin – May 20, 2025 9:00 am | 15 Spot the elliptical shapes on the new Hyundai Ioniq 9. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin Spot the elliptical shapes on the new Hyundai Ioniq 9. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Hyundai provided flights from Washington to Savannah and accommodation so Ars could drive the Ioniq 9. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. SAVANNAH, Georgia—Hyundai's massive new Metaplant factory in Georgia is actually painted a subtle shade of green, not white, but you'd need someone to point that out to you. It's a shining example of the latest in car manufacturing—bright lights and white walls inside, knee-saving wooden floors on the production line, recaptured waste energy and solar—you name it. Hyundai even uses dog-like robots to check some welds. The vast facility is responsible for North American production of the electric Ioniq 5 and, now, the all-new Ioniq 9 SUV as well. That Hyundai would make a three-row SUV with its class-leading electric powertrain was a no-brainer. The E-GMP platform, with its class-leading 800 V powertrain, was designed for medium to large EVs, after all. In 2021 it debuted the Seven concept, which explored the idea of a living room on wheels. I'm not sure why the nameplate skipped a couple of digits, but the production Ioniq 9 tries to keep as true to that theme as possible within the confines of real life. Although they look quite different from one another, a common design language called "parametric pixels" ties together the Ioniq 9 with its smaller siblings the Ioniq 5 SUV and Ioniq 6 sedan. Creases catch the light even with the matte-gold paint of our test car, like the line ahead of the rear wheels that calls back to the collar on a traditional Korean garment. As ever, there are some other wonderful names for the design language: my favorite is "aerosthetic lounge," but when you look at the images, also think of words like "teutonic," "boat tail," and "integrated." When you hear the shape was inspired by a pebble, it makes sense that the drag coefficient is a slippery 0.27. Inspired by a pebble, don't you know? Jonathan Gitlin Inspired by a pebble, don't you know? Jonathan Gitlin I think this is my favorite angle. Jonathan Gitlin I think this is my favorite angle. Jonathan Gitlin Inspired by a pebble, don't you know? Jonathan Gitlin I think this is my favorite angle. Jonathan Gitlin At 199.2 inches (5,060 mm) the Ioniq 9 is couple of inches longer than the gas-powered Hyundai Palisade, but the EV's more space-efficient powertrain means the Ioniq 9 offers 9 inches (230 mm) more wheelbase, which translates into more room on the inside. The primary beneficiaries of that are whoever sits in the middle row, especially if the Ioniq 9 is in the six-seat configuration, which swaps the middle bench for a pair of captains' chairs. These even get ventilation, like the front seats. Space all the way in the back is average for the breed. There's more headroom than a Rivian R1S, but less legroom, and like most three-row SUVs, that third row is really for small children or occasional use. There's no acoustic glass back there, so its a much noisier place to sit, and the space is better utilized as cargo volume. If you need to put two adults in a third row and it must be electric, the Volkswagen ID. Buzz is your best bet, or at least it was until someone noticed the rear bench was too wide for just two seatbelts, sparkling a recall. But I digress. Seven adults could get up to a lot of work in one of these things. That's how many 100 W USB-C ports Hyundai has included, three up front then two for each of the other rows, although by my maths it would be hard to sap more than a couple of miles of range by simultaneously recharging 16-inch MacBook Pros on a road trip. For gadgets needing alternating current, the Ioniq 9 can provide 120 V V2L and is also capable of powering a home (V2H) or even returning energy to the grid (V2G), although those two will require a Hyundai bidirectional charger. The Cylon/Knight Rider effect is mainly an artifact of the digital camera and the LED lights. Jonathan Gitlin The Cylon/Knight Rider effect is mainly an artifact of the digital camera and the LED lights. Jonathan Gitlin I wonder if Hyundai will make an Ioniq 9 N? Jonathan Gitlin I wonder if Hyundai will make an Ioniq 9 N? Jonathan Gitlin This is very Range Rover. Jonathan Gitlin This is very Range Rover. Jonathan Gitlin I wonder if Hyundai will make an Ioniq 9 N? Jonathan Gitlin This is very Range Rover. Jonathan Gitlin With the electrons flowing from grid to car via a level 2 AC charger, expect to take about 9 hours and 40 minutes to charge from 10–100 percent at 11 kW. For best results DC fast charging, seek out a 350 kW fast charger. You'll need the included CCS1 adapter, but you'll charge from 10–80 percent in 24 minutes. The adapter is required because the Ioniq 9 is one of the few non-Tesla EVs to leave the factory with the NACS charging port. Using a Tesla Supercharger to charge an Ioniq 9 doesn't just put more money in Elon Musk's coffers, though, it also takes a while—41 minutes in total. Only the $58,995 Ioniq 9 S is available with a rear-wheel drive powertrain. In this case, one with 215 hp (160 kW) and 258 lb-ft (350 Nm) and a range of 325 miles (539 km) from the 110.3 kWh (gross) battery pack. All other trims feature twin motor all-wheel drive, but you give up little in the way of range. The $62,765 SE and $68,320 SEL offer a combined 303 hp (226 kW) and 446 lb-ft (605 Nm) and 320 miles (515 km) of range, and the $71,250 Performance Limited, $74,990 Performance Calligraphy, and $76,490 Performance Calligraphy Design use a more powerful front motor to generate a total of 442 hp (315 kW) and 516 lb-ft (700 Nm), and a range of 311 miles (500 km). The Ioniq 9's interior loses some of the charm of the concept. Hyundai The Ioniq 9's interior loses some of the charm of the concept. Hyundai Yes, that is a NACS port. Jonathan Gitlin Yes, that is a NACS port. Jonathan Gitlin We were only able to test the Ioniq 9 in six-seat configuration. Hyundai We were only able to test the Ioniq 9 in six-seat configuration. Hyundai Yes, that is a NACS port. Jonathan Gitlin We were only able to test the Ioniq 9 in six-seat configuration. Hyundai This curved panel is common across a lot of Hyundai and Genesis cars now. Hyundai The center console has wireless charging, among other features. Hyundai Lots of storage, and the lid on top opens both ways. Hyundai Leg rests! Hyundai There's 21.9 cubic feet of cargo with the third row in use, or 46.7 cubic feet with it folded flat, and 86.9 cubic feet with both rows flat. Jonathan Gitlin While a short first drive is not the best place to evaluate an EV's range efficiency, driven day to day in Eco mode, I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to easily exceed 3 miles/kWh (20.7 kWh/100 km). Other drive modes include Normal, which uses the front motor much more often and therefore is markedly quicker than Eco; Sport, which has quite a lot of initial throttle tip-in and will head-toss your passengers if you have any; Terrain, first seen on the Ioniq 5 XRT; and Snow. The ride is quite firm on surface streets but less so at highway speeds over seams and expansion gaps. As you start to corner faster you can expect to encounter understeer, but since this is a three-row SUV weighing between 5,507-6,008 lbs (2,498-2,725 kg), one has to wonder what else was expected. At sensible speeds, it's easy to see out of and place it on the road, and if you're stuck in a tailback with a couple of grumpy children in the back, it's a calming enough environment to keep you from being over-stressed. Hyundai has wisely priced the Ioniq 9 between the related Kia EV9 (which also uses the E-GMP platform) and EVs from premium OEMs like the Volvo EX90, Mercedes EQS SUV, or the aforementioned Rivian. Jonathan M. Gitlin Automotive Editor Jonathan M. Gitlin Automotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 15 Comments

Ħaġar Qim, a megalithic temple complex in southern MaltaFelix Choo / Alamy Stock Photo Several 5000-year-old temples in Malta seem to have been oriented towards specific stars, suggesting the temples could have been schools for celestial navigation. Ancient people constructed seven temples across the Maltese archipelago from 3800 to 2300 BC. Fashioned from large, cut stones weighing several tonnes, the complexes are among the earliest megalithic structures ever built. “Most researchers agree that the temples display features associated with ritual behaviour,” says Huw Groucutt at the…

Marcelino "Mashico" Abad celebrating his 124th birthday, as local authorities claim he might be the world's oldest ever person. Huanuco, Peru in 2024. Pension 65/via REUTERS 2025-05-20T13:30:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? AI is reshaping tech hiring, reducing demand for entry-level roles in favor of experienced talent. SignalFire data shows a 50% drop in entry-level Big Tech hiring since pre-pandemic times. Tech firms now prioritize mid-senior hires, valuing experience over youthful potential. For decades, Silicon Valley thrived on a mythology of youth. Tech giants and startups hired young, hungry employees who were relatively inexperienced but could work every waking hour to write code and ship product.This era of youthful dominance in tech hiring may be fading, and it's partly due to the rise of AI. That's according to a new report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that uses data and technology to guide its investment decisions.Youth no longer at the centerIn the past, young graduates were seen as hungry, moldable, and cost-effective hires. But today, new grads face the steepest employment challenges the tech industry has seen in years. SignalFire's latest State of Talent report reveals that entry-level hiring in Big Tech is down more than 50% from pre-pandemic levels, and startups aren't far behind."Tech startups have long been synonymous with youth," said Heather Doshay, a partner and head of talent at SignalFire. "But today, our data shows that many of those same early career professionals are struggling to find a way in."Startups are mostly focused on survival, cutting burn rates, and extending runway. That means fewer hands, more output, and a demand for autonomous doers. In short, they want experienced individual contributors who can hit the ground running, not entry-level hires who require more management time and training."With reduced headcount, every hire must be high ROI," Doshay added. "Right now, that points squarely to mid-senior level individual contributors — autonomous doers who deliver against immediate company needs."AI: The catalyst for a hiring resetAI isn't the sole cause of this generational hiring shift, but it's a major catalyst. Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire, noted that AI tools are increasingly automating the types of narrowly scoped tasks that were once assigned to junior developers. "What's increasingly scarce is not keystrokes but discernment," he told me. Crafting effective AI prompts, debugging machine-generated code, and integrating tools at scale requires architectural thinking, skills honed through years of experience, not a college diploma.Data from SignalFire's new report reveals this trend:At Big Tech companies, new grads now account for just 7% of hires, with new hires down 25% from 2023 and over 50% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.At startups, new grads make up under 6% of hires, with new hires down 11% from 2023 and over 30% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.The average age of technical hires has increased by three years since 2021.Big Tech companies are now focusing their resources on mid- and senior-level engineers, particularly in roles related to machine learning and data science. Meanwhile, functions like recruiting, design, and product marketing are shrinking across the board, the data also shows.The "experience paradox"This AI-driven shift has created what SignalFire calls the "experience paradox." Companies want junior hires to come pre-trained (just like those AI models!).But young candidates often struggle to gain experience without being given a chance. It's a classic Catch-22, especially in a job market where 37% of managers say they'd rather use AI than hire a Gen Z employee, according to SignalFire's data.Even top computer science grads from elite universities are struggling. The share of these graduates landing roles at the "Magnificent Seven" (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla) has plummeted by more than half since 2022, according to SignalFire's report. A chart from SignalFire's State of Talent 2025 report SignalFire A cultural shiftThis isn't just an economic or technical evolution, it's a cultural one. Where Silicon Valley once idolized youth, today's market prizes proven execution. Risk tolerance has dropped across the startup ecosystem, and with venture capital funding tightening, founders are hesitant to invest in long-term potential over short-term impact.Interestingly, this has opened the door for more seasoned professionals. While C-suite hiring has also slowed, companies are increasingly turning to "fractional" roles — part-time CTOs, CMOs, and advisors — to access senior talent without inflating their burn rate, according to SignalFire.More hustle than everFor younger professionals, the path into tech now requires more creativity and hustle than ever. Bootcamps, freelancing, open-source contributions, and AI fluency are becoming critical entry points. Simply having a degree, even from a top school, is no longer enough.For companies, the long-term risk of this shift is clear. Without reinvesting in early-career talent, the tech industry risks breaking its talent pipeline. While AI may temporarily reduce the need for junior hires, the future may still depend on building and training the next generation of technologists.The mythology of youth in tech isn't dead, but in 2025, it's being rewritten. Recommended video

One of the most momentous developments of the new Trump era is how major billionaires in the tech industry — frequently known as the broligarchs — have thrown their weight behind the president. During the 2024 election, they offered high-profile support and made big donations; after the inauguration, they announced new company policies that aligned them with President Donald Trump’s regressive cultural ideologies. Elon Musk had already turned Twitter into a right-wing echo chamber since purchasing it in 2022, and spent several chaotic months earlier this year as Trump’s government efficiency henchman. Jeff Bezos has revamped the Washington Post’s editorial section to build support for “personal liberties and free markets.” Mark Zuckerberg decided to get rid of fact-checkers at Meta. It was a massive show of power that revealed how possible it is for these wealthy men to remake our culture in their own image, transforming how we speak to each other and what we know to be true. Using that power on Trump’s behalf seems to have paid mixed dividends for Silicon Valley, but it nonetheless makes clear how important it is to understand their worldview and their vision for the future. Which is why it is striking to note that Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg share a favorite author: Iain M. Banks, the Scottish science fiction writer best known for his Culture series. Banks is an odd choice for a bunch of tech billionaires. The author, who died in 2013, was a socialist and avowed hater of the super-rich.“The Culture series is certainly, in terms of more modern science fiction, one of my absolute favorites,” Bezos told GeekWire in 2018, adding, “there’s a utopian element to it that I find very attractive.” Bezos has attempted twice to adapt the series for TV at Amazon, once in 2018 and again in February. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg picked the Culture novel Player of Games for his book club in 2015. Banks is an odd choice for a bunch of tech billionaires. The author, who died in 2013, was a socialist and avowed hater of the super-rich.The most avowed Culture fan among the broligarchs, however, is Musk. Musk has named Space X drone ships after the starships in the Culture books. His original name for the neuralink — a computer chip that can be implanted in human brains, pioneered by his neurotechnology company — was the neural lace, a piece of telepathic technology that Banks came up with in the Culture books. In 2018, Musk declared himself “a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks.” (It’s worth noting that in 2018, Musk was under fire for union busting but had not yet waded so far into national politics or declared public war against the “woke mind virus.”)Plenty of us like and even identify with pieces of pop culture whose politics we don’t entirely agree with, like the libertarian Little House on the Prairie books or the Christian Chronicles of Narnia. Still, the Banks Culture series, which consists of 10 books released between 1987 and 2012, is not politically coded so much as it is downright didactic. “The Culture is hippy commies with hyper-weapons and a deep distrust of both Marketolatry and Greedism,” Banks said in an interview with Strange Horizons in 2010, in a line that’s only barely more explicit than the books themselves.The Culture series takes place in a post-scarcity galactic society known only as the Culture, which strictly values empathy, pluralism, and social cooperation. Most of the volumes of the series see the Culture navigating an altercation with another civilization, usually one with a much less progressive ethos, and figuring out how to handle the resulting tension. Does the Culture intervene in the affairs of another planet to, for instance, stop the spread of a theocratic empire? What does it do about civilizations where slavery is legal?The politics of these books are not subtle, and they are also not compatible with the existence of billionaires. So it’s worth thinking about why the broligarchs have so consistently cited a socialist author as an inspiration. What do they find tantalizing about Banks’ work? Are they missing the point altogether? Nearly every aspect of the Culture seems to be diametrically opposed to the worldview of the tech right.Banks takes as his starting principle for the Culture the idea that a space-faring civilization will have to be socialist to be effective. In the hostile environment of the vacuum of space, he argues, you will need to be able to count on the collective. Banks further reasons that each spaceship or planet in the Culture will have to be reasonably self-sufficient to survive. At the same time, the Culture is stringently non-hierarchical and non-individualistic. There is no money and no want; therefore, there can’t be any billionaires or any economic inequality. There are no laws and almost no crime. This is not a world in which supremely wealthy people who use their power to influence the social fabric make sense. “Succinctly; socialism within, anarchy without,” Banks concluded in a 1994 Usenet post in which he lays out his full theory of the Culture. In the Culture, should someone commit an action that most people agreed was unacceptable, everyone responds with social shaming rather than the rule of law: They stop inviting the person in question to parties. In other words, like a group of proper leftists, they deal with misbehavior by social cancellation, that great threat against which the broligarchs have declared war.Even work-life balance in the Culture exists in opposition to the ethos of Silicon Valley. The Culture’s citizens have invented vastly powerful AIs that take care of governance for them. This delegation frees up the Culture citizens themselves to indulge in what Banks describes as “the things that really mattered in life, such as sports, games, romance, studying dead languages, barbarian societies and impossible problems, and climbing high mountains without the aid of a safety harness.” Those who are burdened with too much ambition to be content in such a soft life take on (unpaid) jobs managing the Culture’s relationships with other civilizations, mostly for the prestige and the adrenaline rush of it all. This vision appears to have influenced Musk’s idea of a future in which AI has rendered work “optional,” so that “if you want to do a job that’s kinda like a hobby, you can do a job.” Musk allows that there would need to be “universal high income” for this plan to work, but outlines no ideas as to how such an ambitious policy could take effect. In the meantime, in our own world, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla are all infamous for requiring employees to work abusively long hours. Elon Musk is one of the most ardent fans of Iain M. Banks’s Culture series. Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFinally, and perhaps most discordantly given the broligarchs’ current gender politics, the Culture is genderfluid. Anyone can change gender just by thinking about it, and most people do at least once in their lives, a state of affairs Banks argues is responsible for its strict regime of gender equality. Meanwhile, Musk is notoriously anti-trans, Zuckerberg has been leaning into the retrograde gender ideologies of the manosphere as he tweaks Meta’s policies to allow more hate speech, particularly toward LGBTQ+ people, and Amazon has removed LGBTQ+ rights support from its website.But it’s not just that the Culture holds the inverse of the ideology these men stand for. The most detestable villain in Banks’s series is Joiler Veppers, a wealthy man in a civilization less evolved than the Culture, who uses his riches to purchase and influence media outlets, undercut labor unions, and rape his indentured servants. Veppers’s money comes from a family fortune built in the computer game industry, and he compounds that fortune by investing in the servers to a series of virtual reality hellscapes, where unfortunates are horribly tortured for all eternity.If you want to know how Banks views capitalist tech billionaires, you don’t have to hunt very hard. In the Culture series, a capitalist tech billionaire is the literal devil, only he couldn’t be bothered to build hell himself. So why are the broligarchs so into the Culture books?So what’s the appeal of the Culture series if you actually are a capitalist tech billionaire? Probably the tech itself.If politics offer the Culture books their intellectual framing, the tech is what gives them their zing, their spectacle. Throughout the series, Banks lovingly describes spaceships and AIs (and lots of spaceships that are also AIs), and artificial planets and gizmos and gadgets. Generally, at the end of the book, the Culture uses one of those gizmos in an inventive way to win a big, explosive space war. Read through this light, the Culture’s technological prowess offers the brute force that backs up its warm and fuzzy ideology. The Culture can afford to be idealistic and worry about its moral culpability because it has better technology than all the other civilizations it faces off with, which means it will nearly always win in a fight.If you think of yourself as a titan of industry who is making that technology for your own culture — who is providing the brute force that allows for wishy-washy moralizing — there is a certain easy comfort that comes with this alignment. You know you are on the correct side of history because you’re on the side that is building the strongest and most advanced technology. Yet within the larger metaphor Banks is building, the relationship between politics and strength is supposed to be the other way around. The Culture is not good because they are strong. Their strength is a metaphor for their goodness. They have the best technology because that shows that they are rational, that they value intelligence, that they are motivated to give their citizens the best possible quality of life. The Culture is not good because they are strong. Their strength is a metaphor for their goodness.To avoid this idea when reading Banks, you would have to be exquisitely attuned to the pleasurable spectacle of technology and the power that tech offers its users, and then ignore everything else. In that case, what the broligarchs’ love of the Culture series reveals is that they see the world through the lens of power and spectacle first and foremost, and have no particular problem evading the work’s deeper meaning. That’s why this group has a propensity for big, pointless stunts, like trips to almost-space and carting a kitchen sink through Twitter headquarters and threatening to punch one another in a public fight. It’s as though they feel entitled to their power because their favorite book taught them that the side with the best tech always wins, and the most important thing you can do with that tech is put on a show. They seem not to have read deeply enough to understand what the book was really trying to say: that the most important thing powerful people can do is use their power to make the world freer, fairer, and more pleasurable for everyone else.See More:

The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog is working on its sci-fi project Intergalactic, but a comment from boss Neil Druckmann has reignited hope for more UnchartedTech12:47, 20 May 2025Updated 12:50, 20 May 2025Uncharted is a bonafide PlayStation classic(Image: Naughty Dog)There are few studios in gaming that have the same pedigree (pun intended) as Naughty Dog.While the developer made its name with games like Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, the PS3 generation saw it reach new heights with Uncharted and a little title called The Last of Us.‌With a multiplayer title in that game's post-apocalyptic world cancelled in recent years, Naughty Dog confirmed it was planning multiple games, and now we know a little more about what could come after Intergalactic thanks to a new Neil Druckmann interview.‌Here's all we learned, and why it could hint at an Uncharted return.Speaking on the Press X To Continue podcast at the 18-minute mark, Game Director of The Last of Us (and executive producer on the TV show) Neil Druckmann reveals a little more about the studio's next projects.Article continues belowThe team's current title, Intergalactic, is a diversion into sci-fi that was rumoured for a long time and finally revealed at The Game Awards 2024.After explaining that he is one of "several directors" on the project, he confirmed the existence of another project.“Then there’s another game that’s being worked on at Naughty Dog where I’m in more of a producer role, and I get to mentor, watch this other team, give feedback and be the executive in the room."‌“I enjoy all those roles, and the fact that I jump from one to the next makes my job very exciting and always feeling fresh. I’m never bored.”The Uncharted series is famous for its incredible set-pieces(Image: Sony)As per VGC, this could mean that Uncharted: The Lost Legacy's Shaun Escayg and The Last of Us Part II's Anthony Newman could be working on this mystery project.‌"I fully believe this is a new Uncharted. It's one of their best-selling franchises, and we know they've already attempted to revive it once before," one Reddit commenter said.Others point out that it's unlikely Druckmann would be more "hands off" if the next game is The Last of Us Part 3, while the company might shy away from another new IP if they're already working on Intergalactic.Uncharted debuted in 2007 as a PS3 exclusive, and there have been four mainline entries as well as two PlayStation Vita titles and The Lost Legacy, a smaller title that launched in 2017.Article continues belowUncharted 4: A Thief's End, was a PS4 exclusive that launched back in 2016, while Sony Pictures released a movie based on the series featuring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg in 2022.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

By Passant Rabie Published May 20, 2025 | Comments (0) | The galactic supernova remnant shown here with its perfect symmetry. Filipović et al./arXiv The universe is a chaotic place filled with exploding stars, material falling into black holes, and rogue planets wandering off on their own. All that chaos makes astronomers suspicious when they glimpse a hint of perfection in the cosmos, like a bubble of material left over from the death of a star that appears to be in perfectly symmetrical shape. Astronomers recently discovered the remnant of a galactic supernova with a remarkable circular symmetry, making it stand out as one of the most perfectly spherical objects detected in the universe. Perfection is not always a bad problem to have, but it does prompt certain questions regarding how the object came to be this way. The discovery, submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia and made available on the preprint website arXiv, was spotted in images collected by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder. The researchers behind the paper identified the object as a galactic supernova remnant—an expanding cloud of debris that forms in the aftermath of the exploding death of a star. The object, located in the Milky Way galaxy, has been dubbed Teleios, the Greek word for perfect. Although it is almost perfectly symmetrical, Teleios is not very bright. It has one of the lowest recorded surface brightness levels among known supernova remnants. Astronomers observing Teleios are also uncertain about its distance to Earth, estimating that it could either be around 7,175 or 25,114 light-years away. That’s a huge difference in distance, and the uncertainty is affecting our understanding of how long the object has been there. The two different distances imply different sizes for Teleios, since objects appear smaller the farther away they are. At its closer distance to Earth, the supernova remnant would be about 46 light-years wide. If it were much farther away, it would be a much larger cloud—around 157 light-years across. Based on its size variation, the scientists suggest that this particular cloud of expanding material has either been around for less than 1,000 years at its smaller size, or a much older supernova remnant that formed more than 10,000 years ago and grew to its larger size. Another odd thing about Teleios is that it only appears in radio wavelengths, even though modeling of the object suggests it should have X-ray emissions. The scientists behind the study try to explain the lack of X-ray emissions by suggesting Teleios is a Type Ia supernova, which takes place in a binary star system in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. In that case, a zombie star is often left behind along with the supernova remnant. There is a nearby star that fits the profile, but it would mean that Teleios is much smaller, spanning across a mere 11 light-years in the Milky Way. However, none of the measurements of Teleios’ distance correspond to this small size. “We consider several different scenarios to explain Teleios’s unusual properties, all of which have their challenges,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “While we deem the Type Ia scenario the most likely, we note that no direct evidence is available to definitively confirm any scenario.” The researchers suggest that sensitive and high-resolution observations of this object are needed in order to uncover its mysteriously perfect shape and unusual qualities. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Isaac Schultz Published May 11, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published April 21, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published April 13, 2025 By Passant Rabie Published March 28, 2025 By Passant Rabie Published March 27, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published March 24, 2025

Vernacular Building and AI: Can Data Alone Bridge the Gap?Presented by:Save this picture!100 Classrooms for Refugee Children / Emergency Architecture & Human Rights. Image © Martina RubinoAs artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in society, it's essential to pause and reflect on the foundations that sustain it—and the dimensions to which it extends. At the heart of AI's learning are datasets, whose structure and content shape how these systems interpret and respond to the world. This reliance creates a deep interdependence—one that not only informs AI's capabilities but also defines its potential blind spots. In light of this, we must ask: What forms of understanding might this process exclude, especially those not easily captured in digital form?Indigenous wisdom, passed down orally or embedded in daily practices, conveys a deep connection to place and history. Vernacular construction technologies, local materials, and ways of inhabiting—rooted in specific conditions—embody a collective memory and intelligence that algorithms may struggle to grasp fully in their cultural and material depth. Are we capturing this material memory? And if so, what might still be missing or diluted in translation? Organizations such as UNESCO have raised questions around AI, especially in the context of increasing digitization of content on the Internet, which brings to the forefront the complex and often tenuous intersection with traditional knowledge systems. Save this picture!The gap between technology and the vernacular was evident not so long ago. Today, with the rapid acceleration driven by AI, that gap persists—and may even be widening. While innovation moves in one direction, local materials and vernacular techniques lie on the other side, generating an increasingly marked disparity. It's true that generative AIs can recognize visual patterns and accurately replicate the fractal designs of the Kassena tribe or the self-supporting tents of Mongol nomads. But can it truly understand the techniques or narratives behind them?Save this picture!Save this picture! Collective Intelligence and the Contextual Understanding of Building Materials When comparing "modern" materials with vernacular ones, a fundamental difference emerges in how knowledge is transmitted. AI can easily process modern materials—quantified in data, yields, and imagery—while traditional materials rely on knowledge passed through practice and shared experience.In vernacular cultures, people understand materials in a deep and situated context: climate, harvest time, thermal behaviors, accessibility, and symbolism. They are not just objects of construction, but living elements within a shared ecosystem. This form of knowledge moves away from systematization. It is nourished by direct experience, rooted in everyday life, in what we call a collective intelligence that emerges from the constant interaction of the community with its environment.Save this picture!Save this picture!We can also consider what Juhani Pallasmaa reflects on traditional African cultures in an interview, where building practices are transmitted more through the haptic sense than visual codes or styles. Rather than being defined by abstract or aesthetic concepts, the teachings pass through sensation, touching, feeling, and experiencing the materials. Thus, we understand that the téchne—art, craft, skill—and logía—study, knowledge—are not limited to plans, data, and technical specifications, but are expressed in direct contact with the environment: a palpable knowledge, inherited across generations, a collective wisdom transmitted not only rationally, but from body to body, from generation to generation.Save this picture!Contemporary Technology as a Bridge Between the Natural and the ArtificialRather than positioning artificial intelligence in opposition to vernacular traditions, it may be more productive to explore their points of convergence. Contemporary technology serves as a bridge. Depending on the perspective, people may see it either as a manifestation of the artificial or as a tool grounded in technique.In this view, contemporary technologies provide new ways of engaging with vernacular knowledge—through documentation, analysis, and even production. Applications such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanning allow for high-precision 3D mapping and digitization of space. This technology is beneficial for preserving and studying constructions, generating detailed digital models that provide valuable data for analysis. A related technique is photogrammetry, which allows the creation of three-dimensional models from images through photographs and software. This measurement and modeling technology helps document and reproduce construction techniques digitally. The data collected by these technologies can intersect with artificial intelligence to predict materials' durability, behavior, or adaptability under changing conditions, thus offering options to optimize their use.Save this picture!Save this picture!But documentation is only one part of this convergence. To translate this integration to the physical plane, technologies such as digital fabrication have been key in linking materials and technological systems. Additive methods—such as 3D printing with earth-based materials—make it possible to recreate complex forms that would be difficult to achieve manually with traditional labor. These technologies open up the possibility of creating prototypes or architectural components based on vernacular techniques, adapting them to new needs.Save this picture!Save this picture!Throughout this process —whether scanning, documenting, or fabricating/printing— it is essential to continually ask: Why? This questioning sustains critical reflection. For contemporary architectural production to incorporate contextualized construction techniques, it must go through an understanding of the climate, the link with the territory, and, why not, even community life. Only in this way can they be considered a form of living heritage. Without these elements, an earth block is nothing more than a collection of minerals compressed in a mold.This type of knowledge may not be fully transferable to a digital environment, nor may it need to be fully "understood" by artificial intelligence. What matters most is that we, as human beings, recognize the value each of these elements brings to the construction of our environment. It is often said that knowledge of the past offers valuable guidance in the face of environmental degradation, the climate crisis, and other pressing issues. In light of this, it is pertinent to rethink the notion of "intelligence" as the capacity to adapt to the environment, from a perspective interconnected with different disciplines and forms of knowledge.Save this picture!This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: What Is Future Intelligence?, proudly presented by Gendo, an AI co-pilot for Architects.Our mission at Gendo is to help architects produce concept images 100X faster by focusing on the core of the design process. We have built a cutting edge AI tool in collaboration with architects from some of the most renowned firms such as Zaha Hadid, KPF and David Chipperfield.Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us. Image gallerySee allShow less About this authorEnrique TovarAuthor••• Cite: Enrique Tovar. "Vernacular Building and AI: Can Data Alone Bridge the Gap?" 20 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030019/vernacular-building-and-ai-can-data-alone-bridge-the-gap&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

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