Military systems take years to build, cost a lot and are difficult to replace once deployed. It is characterized by slow procurement cycles, strict restrictions and tough trade-offs between performance, cost and reliability. This category examines how modern militaries actually develop, acquire, and use technology and what this reveals about the conflicts they prepare for. … Read more
What just happened? Another school district has banned the use of AI in the classroom for students in all grades. While this isn’t the first ban of this type we’ve seen, it’s interesting that it came just weeks after the district began piloting Google Gemini for older students. Frederick County this week became the latest … Read more
Culture in technology is about the people, communities and values that shape the way science and technology are developed, used and discussed. Interesting Engineering’s coverage includes professional networks, leadership, workplace culture, ethics, public engagement and the personalities who are setting trends or breaking norms. This includes technology founders, engineers, researchers and thought leaders, not for … Read more
First look: Amazon is discontinuing its Fire tablet brand after 15 years, replacing it with a new line of Alexa tablets with stock Android as well as Google Play and Alexa+ support. Device boss Panos Panay says the company has no plans for a full-fledged PC or laptop for now and is instead focusing on … Read more
Science is less about sudden discoveries and more about constant, often frustrating work. It progresses through failed experiments, results that need to be repeated, and questions that take years, sometimes decades, to answer. This category focuses on how scientific knowledge is built, tested, challenged, and refined over time. Interesting Engineering’s coverage includes fundamental and applied … Read more
Light at the end of the tunnel? After 14 years of development and over $1 billion in crowdfunding, Star Citizen is still in alpha phase, with no final release date in sight. However, its single-player offshoot Squadron 42 seems closer than ever. A new Steam page lists particularly modest minimum system requirements, and streamers recently … Read more
A new report has found that energy importing countries are expanding clean energy production three times faster than exporters. According to the tenth edition of DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook, the disruption of energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz strengthens governments’ resolve to reduce dependence on imported oil and gas. At the same time, exporting … Read more
In short: Developer Skylar Taylor-Barrick has managed to get Googlebook OS running on Apple Silicon Macs using a virtual machine that supports GPU acceleration and a working Chrome browser. The project, called gbos-vm, allows Mac users to try out Google’s Android-based laptop operating system without having to buy a Googlebook. However, it remains an experiment … Read more
Chinese automaker BYD has unveiled the design of its first homegrown humanoid robot, marking a broader push into embodied AI and robotics that could eventually lead to the company using autonomous machines in its factories and dealerships. The design appeared in a patent published by China’s National Intellectual Property Administration and describes a robot designed … Read more
Through the mirror: The world’s population is expected to reach about 8.3 billion people by the middle of next month, far less than the mathematically infinite population predicted in a 1960 forecast. The failed prediction has relevance for debates about artificial intelligence. It shows how a model can track an accelerating trend for years without … Read more