. This week has been a big one in the EU, with the European Commission going all-in on renewable energy and, in particular,solar. In March 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the European Union committed to entirely phase out its dependency on Russian gas, oil, and coal imports. It asked the European Commission to develop a plan on how to do so by the end of May 2022. The REPowerEU plan is the result. An intensive commitment to renewables The plan commits to partnerships with ren
Most phone companies release several models throughout the year to give users more choice — and sell loads more devices than if they just offered a single one. Fairphone, a company with a core mission to make sustainable devices, is trying to chart a different path than most phone makers by breaking that cycle. It’s not a household name when it comes to buying phones. But at its core, the company wants your phone to last longer, and design it in a way that you can easily repair it yourself. We t
As car manufacturers and battery cell makers race to develop more efficient and faster-charging EV batteries, there’s one material that’s been gaining significant traction in replacing mainstream graphite in the battery’s anode: silicon. That’s because silicon has a theoretical energy capacity 10 times higher than that of graphite, meaning it can significantly increase an EV’s range. It can also absorb lithium-ions much quicker during charging — speeding up the process. But adding silicon to the
There are a lot of machine learning developers in the world. But only one has been mentored by both Andrew Ng and Yoshua Bengio, invented a new kind of artificial neural network, contributed to or led research at Google Brain, OpenAI and Apple, and still has fewer than 40 candles to blow out on their birthday cake. And Apple just let him walk out the door and right into Google’s offices where he’ll soon be working for the DeepMind research team. His name is Ian Goodfellow. And letting him walk a
Imagine there is a public speaking square in your city, much like the ancient Greek agora. Here you can freely share your ideas without censorship. But there’s one key difference. Someone decides, for their own economic benefit, who gets to listen to what speech or which speaker. And this isn’t disclosed when you enter, either. You might only get a few listeners when you speak, while someone else with similar ideas has a large audience. Would this truly be free speech? This is an important quest
Bentley might not have produced a single EV yet, but it sure aims to make the front page with its first one. In a recent interview with Automotive News Europe, the brand’s CEO Adrian Hallmark teased some jaw-dropping specs we can expect to see in the electric car. Planned for 2025, the Bentley EV will be able to deliver up to 1,400 horsepower and accelerate from zero to 60mph (9km/h) in just 1.5 seconds. If these numbers come true in real action, the Bentley would destroy in a race both the Tesl
Not a day goes by when I don’t see people on ebikes whizzing past me, mocking my pedestrian status. But how fast are they allowed to go? And, is speed even policed? Let’s take a look at how the laws and their policing vary in different locations: The US In the US, unsurprisingly, there’s no national approach. Instead, there are two different approaches to setting speed limits, and several states don’t recognize ebikes at all. You can take a look at the different states in detail here, but her
For the last few days, a new website called smallandroidphone.com, has been doing rounds on Hacker News and Reddit. The site is created by Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, and he’s making a pitch for a great small Android phone. It’s a story we’ve heard countless times before: many people love small and powerful Android phones, but there aren’t many options. Apple released a tiny iPhone two years ago, but multiple reports suggest there won’t be an iPhone 14 mini. So what does Migicovsky want? Eas
The AirPods Pro weaseled their way into my life two years ago and haven’t let up since. I take Apple’s earbuds with me everywhere — and I love them dearly. But, today, I had a horrendous shock. I got up nice and early to go for a run (that #FitBoy lifestyle,) and, to my horror, my AirPods Pro were nowhere to be found. After spending a good 20 minutes searching the usual places, I accepted I must’ve left them somewhere weird and went for my jog anyway. During my huffing and puffing and grunting a
In 2022, we rely on algorithms for a lot of things. Think about it: an algorithm can usually tell a bank if they should give you a mortgage, universities use grade prediction software to decide whether or not to enrol applicants, and even your daily bus to work is controlled by mathematical instructions. But should we welcome algorithms into every aspect of our lives? In March last year, a groundbreaking documentary was released by HBO Max called ‘Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests