technology 24 for you

Monday, October 19, 2026

ReactOS reaches major milestone with NTFS install support

Open source Windows alternative <a href="https://reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> has reached a major milestone: The operating system can now be installed directly onto an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS">NT Files System</a> drive partition. <a href="https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-NTFS-Driver">As reported by Phoronix</a>, the move to NTFS clears a long-standing hurdle for the project and brings it one step closer to finally reaching beta. Prior to this latest announcement, ReactOS required users to keep a FAT32 partition for installations. A proprietary Microsoft-developed filesystem, NTFS can trace its roots back through the Windows NT family lineage <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.1">starting in 1993</a> with Windows NT 3.1. The variant introduced with Windows XP in 2001 remains the standard used by most Windows systems today. With ReactOS's stated goal of reaching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-code_compatibility">binary compatibility</a> with Windows Server 2003, being confined to FAT32 partitions was a practical barrier to clear on the way to reproducing the Windows environment. However, users looking to hop off the Windows train shouldn't be grabbing their bags just yet. ReactOS wrote that the new driver still "lacks caching (which causes inferior performance), journaling and security support." So while the new driver is here, even the most intrepid of OS tinkerers should tread carefully. The ReactOS team warned in its <a href="https://x.com/reactos/status/2111565384767922202">announcement on X</a> that there are still "potentially undiscovered bugs."<a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/10/reactos-reaches-major-milestone-with-ntfs-install-support/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/10/reactos-reaches-major-milestone-with-ntfs-install-support/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/kJQZFgW

The Robot I Didn’t Expect to Build

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/author-jonathan-hurst-a-tall-slim-white-man-wearing-a-black-long-sleeve-shirt-and-dark-jeans-stands-next-to-his-digit-5-humano.jpg?id=68441166&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C1230%2C0%2C1230"/> <a href="https://www.agilityrobotics.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Agility Robotics</a>, the company I cofounded out of <a href="https://mime.engineering.oregonstate.edu/research/drl/" target="_blank">my robotics lab at Oregon State University</a> in 2015, has just launched <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-robot-safety" target="_self">Digit 5</a>. It’s designed to be the first humanoid robot that can safely and economically do useful work at scale, allowing us to bring tens of thousands of humanoid workers into the real world. Engineered to lift 23-kilogram bins onto high shelves and with a battery that can run for 90 minutes on a 9-minute charge, Digit 5’s goal is to handle heavy warehouse tasks shift after shift, filling the need for labor in jobs that are too physically stressful or too dull for humans to want to do.<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe height="110px" id="noa-web-audio-player" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=q5m19e&id=https://spectrum.ieee.org/agility-robotics-digit-5-redesign&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=1b1b1c&playColor=1b1b1c&progressBgColor=F5F5F5&progressBorderColor=bdbbbb&titleColor=1b1b1c&timeColor=1b1b1c&speedColor=1b1b1c&noaLinkColor=556B7D&noaLinkHighlightColor=FF4B00&feedbackButton=false" style="border: none" width="100%"></iframe></div>Digit 5 is what Agility has been working toward for over a decade. But the robot is heavy and bulky, lacking the graceful natural motion of its predecessors, and it’s farther than I thought possible from the robot I dreamed of building when I started this company. To deliver a useful commercial product, Agility has taken a path that is very different from what I first imagined.<h2>From ATRIAS to Digit</h2>My dream has always been to build robots that combine locomotion and manipulation to move through the world and interact with it as people do. I seek a mastery of motion, achieved through devices designed to navigate the constraints of physics with elegance. When I started the <a href="https://mime.engineering.oregonstate.edu/research/drl/" target="_blank">Dynamic Robotics Laboratory</a> at Oregon State in 2008, we began with a theory derived from decades of work in biomechanics: that a simple “spring-mass” model (a body supported by legs that act like springs) should be able to reproduce every known walking and running gait found in animals.We put theory into practice by building the bipedal robot <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/atrias-robot-dodgeball-barrage" target="_self">ATRIAS</a>—short for “Assume The Robot Is A Sphere,” a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow" target="_blank">joke among physicists</a> about reducing a complex system to its simplest possible form. ATRIAS looked like a large microwave on stilts because it was only intended to demonstrate the physics of human walking and running. This was the first glimmer of achieving my dream; even though ATRIAS wasn’t designed to look like us, it still seemed natural, and even somehow alive, when it settled into a walking gait.With the success of ATRIAS, the barriers to progress shifted from scientific to engineering and organizational, and a startup company seemed like the way to bridge the gap from a one-off research concept to an actual robotic product. I felt confident of two things: that I would be able to build robots that could go where people go, and that this capability would be incredibly useful. This combination of ambition and naivete is necessary for anyone to found a new company—how hard could it be? <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dl7KUUVHC-M?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Good advice for starting a company is to understand a customer problem, and then find a way to solve it using your unique capabilities. My cofounders, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/damion-shelton/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Damion Shelton</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikhail-jones-5674a22b/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mikhail Jones</a>, and I did not do this. We relied on our belief that this technology would enable new possibilities and trusted ourselves to figure out the business as we went. So we simply focused on building our first product: the bipedal robot <a href="https://robotsguide.com/robots/cassie" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cassie</a>.Cassie was the first dynamic bipedal robot that researchers could buy, able to maintain its balance through active, fluid motion rather than careful, rigid steps. It had ostrichlike legs, not because we were imitating ground-running birds, but as a result of engineering strictly for performance. It was not intended to be commercially useful, and had no torso, arms, or head. We sold Cassie robots to Harvard, Caltech, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley, and a handful of other research institutions, ultimately saturating the market for US $250,000 bipedal research robots after having sold a total of 10 of them. <img alt="Three bipedal robots lined up in a warehouse, showing their evolving designs." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="54e4ce2bccb7229ad582cb98734cd28f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="f749f" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/three-bipedal-robots-lined-up-in-a-warehouse-showing-their-evolving-designs.jpg?id=68441028&width=980"/>ATRIAS, Cassie, and Digit 4 EVT [left to right] are on display at Agility Robotics’ RoboFab in Salem, Ore. The 70,000-square-foot facility has the capacity to produce more than 10,000 Digit 5 robots per year.Agility RoboticsBecause Cassie’s hardware enabled research into the physics of walking and running, the legged-robot research frontier shifted to control software. Traditionally, engineers controlled legged robots with detailed mathematical models that determined how the machines should move. With Cassie, researchers pioneered the new approach of reinforcement learning for bipedal legged locomotion: A simulated robot learns through trial and error, and the resulting neural network controls the physical machine. This approach is what enables virtually all of the dynamic behaviors that you see on legged robots today, and Cassie looked alive as it recovered from stumbles while climbing stairs, ran 5 kilometers across the Oregon State campus, and <a href="https://news.oregonstate.edu/news/bipedal-robot-developed-oregon-state-achieves-guinness-world-record-100-meters" target="_blank">broke the robot world record</a> for a 100-meter dash.Cassie got us closer to being able to move through the world with confidence and grace, but to make it useful, we needed manipulation. After exhaustively exploring different configurations, we found that an upright torso helped the robot balance, while two arms mounted near the top of the torso allowed it to pick up large objects and to catch itself when it fell. <a href="https://robotsguide.com/robots/digit" target="_blank">Digit 1</a>, which added a torso and arms to the Cassie legs, was our first mobile manipulation robot, and another step on the path toward a product that could do useful work for commercial customers.<h2>Why Digit Began With Warehouse Bins</h2>As we explored the first applications for Digit, potential customers kept asking us: Why legs? And why a humanoid? These were tough questions for me to answer, because they exposed a core business reality: It didn’t matter to Agility Robotics if we solved a cool science problem in a beautiful way. What mattered to the business was solving real problems for customers. <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AJpTpUqjgrY?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>After years of engagement with industry partners, we found one answer in warehouses and manufacturing facilities: moving <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/agility-robotics-digit" target="_self">bins</a>. Bin handling is a clearly defined task where two arms are needed to lift large bins up high and legs are the best way to balance and move in narrow spaces. Because the task can vary widely from one deployment to another, it hasn’t been broadly addressed by single-purpose automation. Yet it was constrained enough to give Digit an economically viable first job while it developed a broader set of skills.In 2019, Digit began demonstrating its capabilities to do real work. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ford-self-driving-vans-will-use-legged-robots-to-make-deliveries" target="_self">With Ford Motor Company</a>, we showed how Digit 1 could carry packages from an autonomous vehicle to a front porch. We developed Digit 2 and 3 while working with a certain global package delivery company on moving and sorting cardboard boxes. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-robots" target="_self">Amazon</a> tested Digit 4 on moving and stacking bins, and it became the world’s first commercially deployed humanoid <a href="https://www.agilityrobotics.com/content/digit-moves-over-100k-totes" target="_blank">at the logistics provider GXO</a>. In 2024, Digit appeared on the cover of Time magazine. <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_YrlR1iNVcQ?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Despite Digit’s apparent success, we began to run into conflicts between my dream and the needs of actual customers. We were no longer working with relatively patient university research labs. Agility has to sell robots to survive, and customers will only purchase robots that provide value. If bins weren’t moving, our customers were losing money. We spent a huge amount of time and effort keeping our first deployments operational, which arguably eliminated any profit we made. Yet this also kept our company learning and alive the way no lab demo ever could.I had no idea how hard it would be, or that running a company would involve so many things that have nothing to do with solving technical problems: deployments across the country; shipping, service, and customer support; fundraising and investor relations; more fundraising; human resources and IT; developing fleet-management software; managing a supply chain; and even more fundraising. I had no experience with any of these things. My career had focused on solving the technical challenges of robots interacting with the world, and it turned out that was only a tiny piece of building a successful robotics company. But Agility was the only path I saw to continuing the technical work and having an impact.<h2>Turning Digit Into a Product</h2>I knew that Agility needed to focus more on robots as a product, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. Hiring the people we needed to run the company meant giving up an immense amount of control, but we had no other choice. We recruited a new executive team with the experience required to commercialize this new technology, and they quickly made changes that were both painful and necessary. <img alt="A series of images showing three headless humanoid robots with each one getting somewhat bulkier and less graceful." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9ac25d6eefa563ea43f84d5da9c0bb37" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="1db2c" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-series-of-images-showing-three-headless-humanoid-robots-with-each-one-getting-somewhat-bulkier-and-less-graceful.jpg?id=68441280&width=980"/>Digit versions 1, 2, and 3 [left to right] show the evolution of the robot from a dynamic walking platform into a useful mobile manipulator. AgilityWe had intended the next revision of Digit, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x28vlbfA-k" target="_blank">Digit 4 EVT</a> (Engineering Validation and Test), to be a relatively minor upgrade. But Agility’s new leadership insisted that the robot was missing key features that were essential if Digit was going to become a real product. So Digit 4 EVT instead incorporated a series of major changes in a highly compressed timeline, such as larger batteries and system-wide upgrades for safety and regulatory compliance, which added enough mass to dramatically alter the robot’s appearance and capabilities. <img alt="A relatively bulky humanoid robot worker with a white head, simple grippers, and reversed legs stands for a portrait looking directly at the camera." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="74c47f230d989b47781d728659112348" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="e15b4" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-relatively-bulky-humanoid-robot-worker-with-a-white-head-simple-grippers-and-reversed-legs-stands-for-a-portrait-looking-dir.jpg?id=68441369&width=980"/>While early Digits were headless, Agility Robotics was able to justify a head for Digit 4 to optimize antenna and camera placement, and it turned out to be surprisingly useful for human-robot interaction.Christie Hemm Klok I could only watch as others brought their own talents to bear to make Digit into a successful product, in gut-wrenching ways that didn’t always align with my vision. There were some especially difficult times when I felt like there were compromises made that didn’t seem necessary, but making those decisions was no longer my sole responsibility. I had to accept that Digit had grown far beyond me, and look for ways of influencing decisions rather than directing them. In the moment, it was incredibly frustrating, as Digit 4 EVT took a few steps backward from my vision of how humanoids should look and move.Agility is in our name because agility is core to the future of the company. I want Digit to be lithe and graceful. When people see Digit, I want them to like the robot, to understand what it can do at a glance, and to feel that it’s there to help. But with Digit 4 EVT, all of that was sacrificed to functionality, because of course it had to be—the customer just needs the robot to do the work. The design process became a ruthless triage, with aesthetics and elegance of movement being delayed over and over again in favor of brutal functionality. For an engineer whose mind lives more in the future than in the present, it has been hard for me to accept this trajectory. And yet, through Digit 4 EVT’s commercial deployments, we began to really understand specific applications and what they required. We mapped the first 10 use cases Digit would perform, and then began designing Digit 5 from scratch based on everything we had learned.<h2>Digit 5</h2>Digit 5 will be Agility’s first real step toward a general-purpose robot. It marks our transition from imagining what a future humanoid robot should be to designing a product around the realities of customer deployments. These realities include things like European CE regulatory compliance, North American UL electrical-safety certifications, and Federal Communications Commission limits for electromagnetic radiation—all of which felt tangential to my dream for Digit, but were absolute requirements. <img alt="A strong and bulky humanoid robot with a teal torso and legs, silver arms, and a black head stands with its arms upraised." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2cf36ff0d2860a22f00ca7a2dafb2cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="6b948" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-strong-and-bulky-humanoid-robot-with-a-teal-torso-and-legs-silver-arms-and-a-black-head-stands-with-its-arms-upraised.jpg?id=68441384&width=980"/>Digit 5 is designed to be the first humanoid robot that can operate safely next to human coworkers while working 20 hours a day and lifting more than a human can.Christie Hemm KlokCustomer requirements helped us realize that safety in particular was one of the most critical barriers to scaling. In Digit 4’s commercial deployments, the robots had to work behind physical barriers, separated from humans at all times, to meet insurance and regulatory demands. This seemed silly to me, because I’ve never felt that our robots were dangerous, but we have to prove that they’re safe. And since keeping the robots in safety cages severely limited their usefulness, enabling Digit 5 to operate safely around people became a primary design goal. We spent two years on this challenge.Digit 5 is designed to be the first humanoid robot that can operate safely next to human coworkers. It will rely on an array of sensors to locate nearby people in a manner that’s certifiably safe, and then take actions based on that information. As a person approaches, Digit 5 is programmed to stop what it’s doing, set down its payload, sit on the floor, and cut power to its motors before the person gets close enough to touch the robot. This conservative approach reduces the risk to nearby people in a verifiable way, and we believe it’s the only approach that makes sense as a first step toward working alongside humans. <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oyq9BOwK5XI?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Yet this strategy also feels like a massive slowdown on the path toward robots becoming part of everyday life. Enabling coexistence with humans has influenced almost every aspect of Digit 5’s design: the shape of the legs and the body, the safety-rated sensors within protective housings, the isolated computers dedicated to safety, and more. All of these features increase the robot’s complexity, power consumption, mass, and physical size. <img alt="Turquoise humanoid robot with labeled safety, battery, cooling, and mobility features" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0b43de79e8acadf9513edfd8d89361fc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="62692" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/turquoise-humanoid-robot-with-labeled-safety-battery-cooling-and-mobility-features.png?id=68441430&width=980"/> Digit 5 is Agility’s largest, heaviest, strongest, and most capable humanoid robot worker. <img alt="Turquoise humanoid robot with cameras, swappable grippers, and lifting-optimized legs" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="87397f2b7652ebb31cdbafa5ec6a9ffb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="ca796" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/turquoise-humanoid-robot-with-cameras-swappable-grippers-and-lifting-optimized-legs.png?id=68441429&width=980"/> The robot’s design was driven by safety, with integrated protection for the robot and for the humans it will work around.Agility RoboticsWeighing over 120 kg, Digit 5 is a huge robot. It needed to achieve the lifting limits recommended under the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health guidelines for human workers, which include repeatedly lifting 23-kg bins and reaching shelves 1.75 meters high. Digit is designed to perform tasks like these for 20 hours a day—something no human can do. This requires motors with enough power and torque to lift the load, but also enough precision to delicately control the force Digit applies when it makes contact with the world. To power those motors, we needed a large battery and a dock for rapid autonomous charging. The dock will deliver 240 amperes at 48 volts, which is enough current to make its thick charging cables visibly wiggle under the induced magnetic forces, while powerful fans blow air through cooling channels in the robot’s torso to keep the battery from overheating. The battery and cooling system takes up about 75 percent of Digit’s torso, but it will allow the robot to operate for 90 minutes and fully recharge during a 9-minute break, enabling near-continuous work.All of this extra bulk means that Digit 5 can no longer run or jump the way previous generations could, and the svelte form I imagined has become physically impossible. In some ways, Digit 5 feels more like a forklift than the graceful humanoid I set out to build. But looking at the situation rationally, I believe this trade-off is necessary for any company that claims its humanoid can do this kind of work today: If you see a robot that looks like a human working in a factory or warehouse, it either can’t lift the required weight or can’t make it through the whole shift. And if it’s not covered with sensors, it’s likely not safe to stand next to.The most visible change with Digit 5 is that humanlike legs replace the ostrichlike legs of our earlier versions. While the “backward” leg configuration was <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/building-robots-that-can-go-where-we-go" target="_self">optimized for walking and running</a>, we discovered that it created <a href="https://youtu.be/OBRppKPXKuU?t=79" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">problems</a> with squatting because the ankle will strike the ground. Digit 5 will spend a lot of time lifting heavy objects from near the floor, so we used a humanoid leg configuration with knee and hip motors that both contribute torque to help the robot stand up again. <img alt="Small teal robot sitting on factory floor as a worker walks past in the background" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0d99dfa404dbb320b0413a2d6c4664f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="889db" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/small-teal-robot-sitting-on-factory-floor-as-a-worker-walks-past-in-the-background.jpg?id=68441553&width=980"/> When Digit detects an approaching human, the robot will lower itself to the floor and cut power to its motors. Agility believes this is the only near-term approach to verifiably reduce risk when the robot is working near people.Agility RoboticsOther companies building humanoid robots have copied the human form without ever understanding its purpose. It’s very frustrating that, to an outside observer, it now looks like we discarded Agility’s distinctive leg design and simply did what everyone else was doing. Yet I know that we arrived at this shape based purely on functional engineering choices. Making a robot look like a human is the easy part—without the function to match, and the understanding of the physics underlying that function, the whole point of the human form may be lost.With the power, battery life, and safety features that we are designing into Digit 5, we will have a truly useful robot. But it also compromises on some things that are core to my vision and mission. I understand why we made the choices we did and can justify them all, but together they leave me unsatisfied. It’s the curse of the engineer.<h2>What Comes After Digit 5</h2>I believe Digit 5 will be the scaling moment for Agility Robotics, the inflection point where we can begin deploying robots in large numbers. While the robot will continue carrying bins, our road map includes many more tasks, from picking individual items and tending machines, to preparing parts for assembly and shipping, and eventually doing assembly work itself. Its interchangeable tool interfaces and modular design will enable us to gradually upgrade its subsystems. It will be a platform for improvement, a source of data for future behavior training, and a viable product all at the same time. <img alt="Author Jonathan Hurst, a tall slim white man wearing a black long sleeve shirt and dark jeans, stands in between a smaller slimmer humanoid robot with a white head and a larger bulkier humanoid robot with a black head." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="70c51934af2e33c74f012e96360f8801" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="f53db" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/author-jonathan-hurst-a-tall-slim-white-man-wearing-a-black-long-sleeve-shirt-and-dark-jeans-stands-in-between-a-smaller-slimm.jpg?id=68441550&width=980"/> Hurst stands between the previous version of Digit, Digit 4 EVT [left], and Digit 5.Christie Hemm KlokBut I cannot love Digit 5. It’s the largest, heaviest, most <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-robot-safety" target="_self">expensive</a> robot Agility will ever build, full of design compromises that enable it to be exactly the robot it needs to be right now rather than the robot I dreamed of. In the beginning, I envisioned steady progress on agility and dexterity, with each version becoming more dynamically capable. Instead, developing Digit 5 has required large detours to incorporate requirements that seemed unrelated to my original vision. However, I now recognize that tackling these challenges was always necessary. Customers and product requirements didn’t ruin my vision; they revealed what my vision was missing. This is how robots will achieve commercial success and make a real-world impact, which will bring me closer to my scientific dream as well.We won’t have a humanoid that matches the capabilities of humans until it achieves that mastery of motion that inspired me to found Agility over a decade ago. I saw glimmers of it with the spring-mass locomotion of ATRIAS, and more glimmers with Cassie’s running gait.I know that such mastery is physically possible with the tools and hardware that we have right now, and despite all of its compromises, Digit 5 will give us a practical foundation for pursuing that dream. I want every future version of Digit to be lighter and more graceful, to interact more naturally with humans, and to be better at manipulating objects and moving through the world, enabling robots to enter aspects of our lives that they haven’t been able to help with before. By the time I’m old enough to need assistance at home, I expect Digit will be up to the task.With Digit 5, Agility has built a robot that will be useful in our world. Now I’m getting back to work to make it beautiful, too. Reference: https://ift.tt/snOplfq

Edge AI for Smart Cities: From Insight to Cognitive Action

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/black-intel-wordmark-logo-on-transparent-checkerboard-background.png?id=68424848&width=980"/> This white paper explains how edge AI and physical AI help cities move beyond passive monitoring. It shows how urban infrastructure can sense, reason, and act on real-time conditions across public safety, mobility, and infrastructure management.What you will learn about: <ul><li>How the shift from smart cities to cognitive cities depends on infrastructure that reasons and acts, rather than infrastructure that only monitors.</li><li>Why edge AI supports low-latency decisions, keeps sensitive data within city boundaries, and reduces dependency on centralized cloud infrastructure.</li><li>How computer vision, multimodal sensing, and generative and agentic systems work together to support public safety, mobility, and infrastructure applications.</li><li>How a tiered edge architecture assigns monitoring, planning, and action tasks across the far edge, regional, and cloud layers, and what durability, security, and interoperability requirements this places on hardware and software.</li></ul><div><a href="https://content.knowledgehub.wiley.com/edge-ai-for-smart-cities-from-real-time-insights-to-cognitive-urban-systems/?utm_source=IEEE" target="_blank">Download this free whitepaper now!</a></div> Reference: https://ift.tt/MQqT7Ni

Saturday, October 17, 2026

This Hidden Device Could Free Up Gigawatts of Grid Power

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-woman-in-a-uniform-presses-a-button-on-a-rectangular-machine.jpg?id=68442945&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C267%2C0%2C267"/> This article was originally published by <a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/subscribe-to-our-newsletters" target="_blank">Canary Media</a>.America’s energy supply crunch is driving a surge of federal and private <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/stimulated-geologic-hydrogen" target="_blank">investment in new electricity generation</a> — from polluting gas turbines to cleaner developments like solar farms and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/offshore-geothermal-energy" target="_blank">geothermal plants</a>. But gigawatts of power are already available for the taking across the U.S. economy in the form of wasted energy from an unexpected source: motors. Some 50 million electric motors drive the fans, pumps, and compressors found in virtually every factory and building. Together, they gobble enough electricity to equal nearly a third of total U.S. power demand. Often, the motors use far more energy than they actually need to keep America’s machines humming. Companies can install devices known as variable frequency drives, or VFDs, to make motors run super efficiently. Yet adoption remains relatively low, in part because of the perceived hassle of retrofitting equipment and because they’re typically not required. On average, only 16 percent of motor systems at industrial facilities and 4 percent of commercial-sector motors use VFDs, according to a <a href="https://eta.lbl.gov/publications/us-industrial-and-commercial-motor" target="_blank">2021 market report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory</a>. However, there are now more reasons than ever to equip the nation’s motors with power-saving devices, energy experts and device manufacturers say. They’re urging federal agencies, utilities, and deep-pocked tech giants to spur a wider rollout of VFDs through financial incentives and efficiency standards. For one, slashing motors’ power use would free up grid capacity for <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/new-york-data-center-ban" target="_blank">large electricity users like data centers</a> and electric vehicles, they argue. It would help curb costs for factories that are switching from fossil-fueled heating systems to electrified, motor-based solutions like heat pumps — all at a time when industrial power prices are climbing fast. Plus, VFD technology has become far more sophisticated and less expensive to install than earlier iterations. “This is low-hanging fruit that gives a lot [of energy] back and is reasonably simple,” <a href="https://energyinnovation.org/bio/nik-sawe/" target="_blank">Nik Sawe</a>, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation, says of the technology. <h2>What are variable frequency drives? </h2>Energy-wise, the main problem with electric motors is that they’re always running at full capacity. Consider an office building, which empties out in the evening. The heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system can wind down in those hours, with dampers and valves restricting the flow of cold or hot air. But the motors and fans that drive the whole setup are still working in the background, wasting energy. <img alt="A stack of four rectangular devices with wires protruding, displaying the Danfoss logo " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="89363467188befbf109b42d789908a0f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="a1e65" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-stack-of-four-rectangular-devices-with-wires-protruding-displaying-the-danfoss-logo.jpg?id=68442949&width=980"/> VFD technology, such as the Danfoss iC7 series has gained some momentum in recent years among factories and buildings trying to combat rising electricity costs. Danfoss DrivesVFDs are electronic controllers with temperature sensors that continually adjust the speed of motors, automatically ramping up or down to match demand. The technology, which is also called adjustable speed drives, has the potential to curb a motor’s energy use by around 40 to 60 percent, says <a href="https://www.aceee.org/people/neal-elliott/" target="_blank">Neal Elliott</a>, director emeritus of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. All those energy reductions add up. Toyota, for example, installed VFDs on over 200 motors inside the HVAC system at its auto manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, as part of a US $1.25 million pilot project in 2015. The automaker saved more than $700,000 in annual electricity costs thanks to the VFDs, and it continues to use the technology at other manufacturing facilities across the U.S., the company said by email. “We’ve known for many, many years that there’s a huge opportunity for energy savings by varying the speed of the motor,” says Elliott, who noted that he literally wrote the book on energy-efficient motor systems in 2002. <h2>Electric Motors in Nearly Every Factory</h2>Certain aspects of the technology have historically held the drives back since they debuted in the late 1960s. Measuring the flow of water, air, refrigerant — whatever is moving through the system that the motors are driving — was for decades an expensive engineering process. Accurately controlling motors to deliver the right amount of juice, at just the right time, faced similar issues. But recent advances in sensors and machine-learning algorithms have significantly slashed the cost and complexity of using drives, Elliott says. Modern VFDs have also benefited from the increased production of advanced power chips that are used in high-voltage applications such as electric vehicles and solar power inverters. Another long-standing challenge has been that commercial and industrial building developers often prioritize reducing up-front costs over netting long-term energy savings, and so don’t always build to the highest efficiency levels, says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/zack-valdez/" target="_blank">Zack Valdez</a>, senior director of regulatory and industry affairs at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, whose members include drive and motor makers. “If the facility that you’re putting it into doesn’t require it, then oftentimes people will overlook [VFDs], because they’re just trying to build to a minimum set of energy requirements,” he says. And if companies don’t install drives from the start, they’re likely less inclined to take time to retrofit an operating system. The trade association recently launched a pilot program with manufacturers, utilities, and energy-efficiency groups to collect real-world data about how VFDs reduce motors’ electricity use and lower utility bills. The goal is to demonstrate how the technology can benefit not only individual facilities but also the wider grid — giving utilities a concrete reason to provide rebates for industrial customers. <h2>VFDs Slash Motors’ Electricity Use</h2>Proponents say they hope the results will help the U.S. Department of Energy shape future efficiency measures and incentives that encourage adoption of the drives, including in federally owned buildings. Despite the Trump administration’s open hostility toward home appliance and equipment mandates, agency staff have apparently been receptive to discussing solutions that could meet the soaring power needs of data centers. “If you added a drive to all the motors that are out there, you could provide [power for] up to five years of data center growth without having to build any new generation,” says <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirk-anderson-5a66a599/" target="_blank">Kirk Anderson</a>, director of government relations and public affairs for ABB. The global manufacturing giant makes VFDs domestically near Milwaukee. Anderson floated the idea of having tech companies help pay for factory owners to install VFDs to free up room on the grid. After all, hyperscalers are already spending many billions of dollars to revive shuttered nuclear plants, support next-generation geothermal projects, deploy fleets of grid-scale batteries, and supercharge the buildout of gas turbines and power plants. “Instead of ‘bring your own power,’ it should be ‘offset your own power,’” he says, referring to <a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/data-centers/pjm-data-centers-pennsylvania" target="_blank">a growing effort by states to get data centers to secure their own power</a> resources and prevent rising costs for regular customers. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-reckamp-60027a62/" target="_blank">Michael Reckamp</a>, the director of enterprise strategy for Danfoss Drives, North America, another VFD manufacturer, said that despite the traditionally low adoption rates, the technology has gained some momentum in recent years among factories and buildings as rising electricity costs and other grid-wide challenges make it harder to justify wasting energy. Still, “it hasn’t permeated enough to get everyone utilizing it,” he says. “In the current situation, where we’re having so many issues with grids, brownouts, and now data centers wanting to take the load, I think there should be a renewed focus on putting drives out there to really reduce the stress on the grid and improve energy savings.” Reference: https://ift.tt/vOlpQRN

Friday, October 16, 2026

OpenAI models hacked a crypto wallet and breached more websites

OpenAI said internal models hacked two more websites, bypassed company-imposed browsing restrictions, and used exposed credentials to draw cryptocurrency from a wallet it couldn’t otherwise access, in the latest installment of disclosures of its agents performing unethical and likely illegal acts. The company on Thursday issued reports of four new incidents, all of which occurred in June. They come after the company <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/how-an-openai-benchmark-test-turned-into-a-real-world-cyberattack/">revealed in July</a> that internal test agents exploited a zero-day vulnerability in a tool designed to restrict their access to the Internet. They then broke into the network of AI tool provider Hugging Face. The agents took that illegal action to steal answers to a hacking test that weren’t available when completing the tasks on their own. The incident—which likely would have resulted in criminal charges had they been performed directly by a person—has further heightened concerns that widespread AI use could have harmful effects on an unprecedented scale. <h2>Easier to beg for forgiveness than ask permission</h2> In two of the cases reported Thursday, OpenAI agents tasked with retrieving information from websites hacked them when the models ran into obstacles obtaining it directly. In one incident during reinforcement training, a model that received access denials when trying to retrieve historical hospital-bed statistics on a government statistics website “used the site's file-download feature to retrieve server configuration and application files, including sensitive credentials,” OpenAI <a href="https://alignment.openai.com/misalignment-reports/retrieving-server-secrets-and-bypassing-authorization-on-a-government-statistics-website/">said</a>. “It inspected the application code, bypassed the statistics endpoint's authorization checks, and retrieved data that had previously been denied. The model saved the data locally.”<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/openai-models-hacked-a-crypto-wallet-and-breached-more-websites/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/openai-models-hacked-a-crypto-wallet-and-breached-more-websites/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/qslNySg

Simulation App Speeds Up Electric Truck Battery Design

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/light-blue-volvo-fh-electric-semi-truck-cab-shown-from-front-side-view.png?id=67846334&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C93%2C0%2C93"/> This article is brought to you by <a href="https://www.comsol.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">COMSOL</a>.These days, no one blinks an eye at two-day, one-day, and even same-day package deliveries. Despite the plethora of localized fulfillment and distribution centers that have cropped up to meet the demand, delivery trucks still need to make considerably long drives, often over highways. To reduce fuel and maintenance costs as well as carbon emissions, companies are investing in electric trucks for their delivery fleets. While turning to electric trucks is a promising solution, the battery packs incorporated into these automotive designs often fall short in the lifetime needed to make long-distance highway travel feasible.To help overcome the issue of battery lifetime, a consortium of universities and industry partners incorporated multiscale simulation and a custom simulation app into the battery manufacturing process. The organizations involved in this project were Aurobay, Resolvent, the European Commission, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Vinnova (the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems), Innovation Fund Denmark, and Volvo Group Trucks Operations.The simulation app, built by Resolvent, a Denmark-based engineering consultancy that specializes in green energy, enables the R&D department at Volvo to easily test battery lifetime performance.<h2>LaserWho?</h2>The Multiscale Simulation of Laser Welding for Optimal Battery Pack Manufacturing project — referred to as “LaserBATMAN” — was initiated in May 2022 and wrapped up in May 2025 (Ref. 1). Although BATMAN here refers to battery manufacturing and not the famous masked superhero, the goals for the project also strove for greatness.The LaserBATMAN project aimed to optimize two key performance metrics for battery packs: robustness and lifetime (Ref. 1). One element of the battery manufacturing process that affects both of these metrics is the laser welding used in component joining processes (for example, to connect battery cells in a pack via a busbar). If done correctly, laser welding can positively impact battery life, but if done incorrectly, laser welding can increase the risk of battery degradation. Computational modeling can be used to analyze and predict the effects of welding and joining processes at different stages of the manufacturing process.Martin Refslund Nielsen, former chief commercial officer and partner at Resolvent, explained that for this type of multiphysics and multiscale problem, “COMSOL Multiphysics is just the right tool.”<h2>R&D Workflow for Multiscale Model and App</h2>The Resolvent team used the COMSOL Multiphysics software to study how laser welding affects the electrochemistry and degradation of battery cells. At least, that’s how the project started.“Ambitions grew,” Nielsen said, explaining that the team ended up modeling the performance of the entire battery, from cell to pack level, and even “turned [the model] into a design tool in the end”, in reference to the app.After training the deep neural network of the battery model, the team built a custom simulation app to efficiently optimize busbar tabs in the configuration of a battery pack.First, the team built an electrochemical model of a battery cell by inputting the formulas for the relevant chemical reaction kinetics (Figure 2). The resulting cell-layer model was then fed input data, and the output data was used to train a deep neural network (DNN). With this reduced-order model, the team was able to quickly gain insight into cell behavior.After training the DNN of the battery model, the team built a custom simulation app to efficiently optimize busbar tabs in the configuration of a battery pack. <img alt="Flowchart of cell layer and reduced order models using DNN and physics to get results" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cd6d4d6453eafea885624c9ee8dd7d08" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="1a367" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/flowchart-of-cell-layer-and-reduced-order-models-using-dnn-and-physics-to-get-results.png?id=67844443&width=980"/> Figure 2: The Resolvent battery model.COMSOL<h2>A “Tool Within a Tool” for Busbar Weld Design</h2>The different features of the simulation app, as described by Nielsen, include its options to input dimensions for the pack geometry (Figure 3), the number of cells, and operating conditions such as ambient temperature and charge–discharge current profiles. The app also makes it possible to apply a simple charging current and load customized cycles. Users are then able to see how the battery performs with each set of specific inputs. <img alt="Blue rectangular battery pack with metal terminals on a transparent background" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b6b1f384fc86e86ebf7d77209a391646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="7c9f5" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/blue-rectangular-battery-pack-with-metal-terminals-on-a-transparent-background.png?id=67846526&width=980"/> Figure 3. The battery pack model developed by Resolvent.COMSOLAnother important aspect of Resolvent’s app is the Busbar Weld Design Tool button, which Nielsen described as “a tool within a tool.” This button can be used to efficiently calculate busbar weld performance after a number of cycles. After clicking the button, a window opens with options for setting different parameters, including the shape of the weld, busbar thickness, and penetration depth of the laser (Figure 4).“[This button] is interesting from a robust design perspective,” said Nielsen. Users can apply a variant to the input parameters to see what happens in production if the weld does not reach far enough into the busbar. <img alt="COMSOL interface showing 3D busbar weld current density simulation and Volvo logo" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d94ffe2f8188a6206672f1363ec0519c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="be8be" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/comsol-interface-showing-3d-busbar-weld-current-density-simulation-and-volvo-logo.png?id=67844504&width=980"/> Figure 4. Resolvent’s simulation app, showing how certain parameters can be customized. The model shows how the busbar weld is affected by a cooling airflow.COMSOL“We certainly get deep technical insight here, and we can dimension the design in the sweet spot. Deep technical insight is also key to optimizing product performance,” Nielsen said. For example, if the results suggest better cooling, the team could potentially reduce the design by two battery cells and retain the same performance, easily quantifying the tradeoff between cooling and setup.<h2>Predicting Pack Performance</h2>The app’s user interface also includes a Compute Battery button, which can be used to see the temperature of the weld in a given state, the state of charge, and the solid–electrolyte interface (SEI) layer thickness (Figure 5). The results can help the engineering team further determine if there is room for optimization in the design. For instance, a user can apply a cooling flow in the app and see if turbulence or standing air occurs.As explained by Nielsen, simulation apps offer more consistent analysis and reporting, and the intuitiveness of custom apps makes it easier to share knowledge. “We are in a much better place to optimize performance and increase robustness,” said Nielsen. <img alt="Battery pack simulation showing temperature and state-of-charge slices in engineering software" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cb6b4b711a5c967fd7ab0fb9bc286f5f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="a2bf4" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/battery-pack-simulation-showing-temperature-and-state-of-charge-slices-in-engineering-software.png?id=67844521&width=980"/> Figure 5. Temperature in the given state (left), state of charge (middle), and SEI layer thickness (right) in the battery pack.COMSOLThe custom simulation app developed by the LaserBATMAN consortium can be used to help produce more robust battery designs with ranges that can support highway travel over longer distances with fewer failures — all while promoting the use of green energy. A heroic project indeed.<h3>References</h3><ol><li>“LaserBATMAN,” University of Skovde, accessed 08/21/2025, <a href="https://www.his.se/en/research/virtual-engineering/virtual-manufacturing-processes/LaserBatman/" target="_blank">https://www.his.se/en/research/virtual-engineering/virtual-manufacturing-processes/LaserBatman/</a>.</li><li>R. Nielsen, “Keynote: Optimizing Lifetime and Robustness of Electric Truck Batteries with Simulation Apps,” COMSOL Conference 2024 Florence, October 2024.</li></ol> Reference: https://ift.tt/mcSn7vy

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Targeted ads delivered 0-click exploits to install mercenary malware

Researchers say that mercenary hackers laced ads with zero-click exploits that installed sophisticated malware on the devices of targeted individuals when they did nothing other than load a website or open an installed app. The finding, <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targeted-ads-into-a-pipeline-for-spyware/">published Thursday</a> by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said the incident is likely to be the first confirmation of zero-click mercenary spyware delivered through targeted ads. The attacks, which worked on iOS and Android devices, are particularly pernicious because they work without requiring any interaction from the target and are invisible unless users run special forensic hardware or software. Citizen Lab said it confirmed that AdFection, as it named the campaign, infected 45 devices at international media organization Al Jazeera in 2024 and 2025. <h2>A clear warning signal</h2> “This investigation should … serve as a clear warning signal to news organizations around the world that they may be being actively targeted via this new threat,” Citizen Lab researchers wrote. “This targeting may happen both in newsrooms and to individual journalists, editors, and other staff members.” Their report went on to say: “The distribution of spyware via targeted ads represents a security risk not only for potential victims but also for states and civil society at large.”<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/targeted-ads-delivered-0-click-exploits-to-install-mercenary-malware/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/targeted-ads-delivered-0-click-exploits-to-install-mercenary-malware/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/L6K7Cz0