Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis shared this report from InsideEVs:Chinese battery giant CATL and automaker Changan Automobile are preparing to put the world’s first passenger car powered by sodium-ion batteries on public roads by mid-2026. And if the launch is successful, it could usher in an era where electric vehicles present less of a fire risk and can better handle extreme...

Has the rise of hyper-addictive digital technologies really shattered our attention spans and driven books out of our culture? Maybe not, argues social psychologist Adam Mastroianni (author of the Substack Experimental History):As a psychologist, I used to study claims like these for a living, so I know that the mind is primed to believe narratives of decline. We have a much lower standard of...

Mr. Lewis will be replaced in the interim by Jeff D’Onofrio, formerly the chief financial officer, the company said.

Waymo surprised U.S. lawmakers Wednesday during a hearing on autonomous vehicles and their safety and oversight. Newsweek reports:During questioning, Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked what happens when a Waymo vehicle encounters a driving situation it cannot independently resolve. “The Waymo phones a human friend for help,” Markey explained, adding that the vehicle communicates...

Despite urgent pleas to Americans to save the honeybees, “it was all based on a fallacy,” writes Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. “Honeybees were never in existential trouble. And well-meaning efforts to boost their numbers have accelerated the decline of native bees that actually are.” “Suppose I were to say to you, ‘I’m really worried about bird decline, so I’ve decided to take up...

Last Sunday, Bitcoin had dropped 13% in three days, to $76,790. By Thursday it had dropped another 21%, to $60,062. This morning it’s at $69,549 — up from Thursday, down from Sunday, but 44% lower than its all-time high in October of $123,742. In short, Bitcoin “is down almost 30% this week alone,” reports CNBC:”This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing...

The Mozilla executive in charge of Firefox says that while some people just want AI tools that are genuinely useful, “We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI…” “Listening to our community, alongside our ongoing commitment to offer choice, led us to build AI controls.”Starting with Firefox 148, which rolls out on Feb. 24, you’ll find a new AI controls section within the desktop...

Apple “is preparing to allow voice-controlled AI apps from other companies in CarPlay,” reports Bloomberg, citing “people familiar with the matter.” Bloomberg calls it “a move that will let users query AI chatbots through its vehicle interface for the first time.”The company is working to support the apps in CarPlay within the coming months, said the people, who asked not to be identified...

Somewhere on America’s eastern coast, there’s an economic development agency in Massachusetts promoting green energy solutions. And Monday the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (or MassCEC) announced “a first-of-its-kind” program to see what happens when they provide free electric vehicle chargers to selected residents, school districts, and municipal projects. The catch? The EV chargers are...

Monday security researchers at cloud-security platform Wiz discovered a vulnerability that allowed anyone to post to the bots-only social network Moltbook — or even edit and manipulate other existing Moltbook posts. “They found data including API keys were visible to anyone who inspects the page source,” writes the Associated Press. But had it been discovered by advertisers, wondered a...

About 4% of all public commits on GitHub are now being authored by Anthropic’s Claude Code, a terminal-native AI coding agent that has quickly become the centerpiece of a broader argument that software engineering is being fundamentally reshaped by AI. SemiAnalysis, a semiconductor and AI research firm, published a report on Friday projecting that figure will climb past 20% by the end of 2026....