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Many decisions that were previously made by humans will be left to machines in the future. But can we really rely on the decisions made by artificial intelligence? In sensitive areas, people would like a guarantee that the decision is actually sensible, or at least that certain serious errors have been ruled out.

When Hurricane Beryl swept across Texas in early July, it left more than 3 million homes and businesses without power for days or longer. Local hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses amid the widespread power outages, and at least seven people died from extreme heat.

Residential buildings account for a large percentage of global energy consumption, and many countries around the world are looking into effective solutions to this issue amidst the ongoing energy crisis. Consistent with global efforts to shift away from fossil fuels, an attractive option is to make houses self-sufficient by having them generate their electricity—something that is usually achieved using photovoltaic (PV) systems.

Computer science researchers have developed a new method for predicting what data wireless computing users will need before they need it, making wireless networks faster and more reliable. The new method makes use of a technique called a "digital twin," which effectively clones the network it is supporting.

British telecommunications regulator Ofcom said Wednesday it had handed video sharing platform TikTok a £1.9 million ($2.4 million) fine for failing to timely make available safety data.

Using a newly-devised complex algorithm, the researchers have created a perfectly choreographed "dance" using two robotic arms, continuously retaining a clear space between them—where a patient's body would fit—as well as ensuring a consistent magnetic field.

With a continuous rise in the global population, energy consumption and its associated environmental and economic costs are also increasing.

A research team at Rice University led by James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering, is tackling the environmental issue of efficiently recycling lithium ion batteries amid their increasing use.

Self-driving cars occasionally crash because their visual systems can't always process static or slow-moving objects in 3D space. In that regard, they're like the monocular vision of many insects, whose compound eyes provide great motion-tracking and a wide field of view but poor depth perception.

When picturing next-generation wearables and robotics, the foam filling in your couch cushions is likely not the first thing that comes to mind. However, Rice University engineers have shown that something as simple as the flow of air through the airy, meshlike structure of open-cell foam can be used to perform digital computation, analog sensing and combined digital-analog control in soft textile-based wearable systems.

Think about your neighborhood. Where are the stores or doctor's offices? How easy is it to access fresh food? Human mobility researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are providing information on access to essential services in communities by creating synthetic populations that mirror real neighborhoods and observing how transportation routes around the area support or detract from the residents' quality of life.

From keeping warm in the winter to doing laundry, heat is crucial to daily life. But as the world grapples with climate change, buildings' increasing energy consumption is a critical problem. Currently, heat is produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, but that will need to change as the world shifts to clean energy.

Ubiquitous wireless technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 5G rely on radio frequency (RF) signals to send and receive data. A new prototype of an energy harvesting module—developed by a team led by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS)—can now convert ambient or "waste" RF signals into direct current (DC) voltage. This can be used to power small electronic devices without the use of batteries.

Humans are interacting more than ever with artificial intelligence (AI)—from the development of the first "social robots" (a robot with a physical body programmed to interact and engage with humans) like Kismet in the 1990s to smart speakers such as Amazon's Alexa.

The internet, a vast and indispensable resource for modern society, has a darker side where malicious activities thrive.

Australia's clean energy transition is already underway, driven by solar, wind, batteries and new transmission lines.

A team of engineers from Tsinghua University, working at China's high-temperature reactor with a pebble-bed module (HTR-PM), claims that the reactor has passed a critical cooling test. In their study, published in Joule, the group turned off external power to the reactor to test its cooling abilities over two days.

As the presence of mobile phones becomes increasingly widespread in Africa, digital services have allowed for more financial inclusion among low- and middle-income countries within the continent. Through a system known as mobile money (MoMo), users are able to make transactions through telephone companies, using their phone number as an account number as opposed to opening a traditional account at a financial institution.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers at the Biohybrid and Organic Robotics Group (B.O.R.G.) led by Victoria Webster-Wood, in collaboration with researchers at Case Western Reserve University, are studying the sea slug feeding structure to learn more about how the brain, muscular system and nervous system interact. Their research is being used both in robots and in simulations as part of a multinational research collaboration studying neuromuscular systems.

In an era where the internet connects virtually every aspect of our lives, the security of information systems has become paramount. Safeguarding critical databases containing private and commercial information presents a formidable challenge, driving researchers to explore advanced encryption techniques for enhanced protection.