Cornell University scientists created a process called Direct Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration (DEER) that revives worn EV battery electrodes by chemically stripping excess solid electrolyte interphase buildup rather than shredding cells into raw materials. Treated electrodes recovered up to 95% of original capacity and degraded more slowly than untreated batteries, and a second treatment round restored capacity to 90% even after prior regeneration.
San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to create a permitting system for businesses deploying autonomous, battery-powered robots in workplaces or public spaces. Beyond safety disclosures, companies must submit a Workforce Mitigation Plan requiring them to either redeploy displaced workers at equal pay, provide 60 days' notice with severance, or pay into a new County Automation Impact Fee that funds worker retraining. The ordinance still needs final adoption before taking effect 30 days later.
San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to advance an ordinance requiring businesses to obtain permits before deploying autonomous, battery-powered robots in workplaces. Companies must submit an Economic Impact Assessment and Workforce Mitigation Plan, choosing to redeploy displaced workers at equal pay, offer 60 days' notice with severance, or pay into a new county fund for retraining. The rule, believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S., still needs final adoption before taking effect 30 days later.
A cybersecurity commentator argues that AI has degraded professional discourse and daily work life, citing a flood of unqualified 'AI experts,' formulaic LinkedIn-style writing, and colleagues who now act as mere conduits for chatbot output. The piece also accuses major AI companies of exploiting intellectual property, enabling harmful content generation, and supporting military targeting systems while using anthropomorphic language to dodge accountability for security failures.
Two child sex abuse survivors have filed a proposed class action against Jeffrey Epstein's estate, alleging the Justice Department failed to notify dozens of victims whose images were found among Epstein's massive cache of child sexual abuse material. The FBI reportedly reviewed tens of thousands of videos after Epstein's arrest and confirmed a large volume of images depicted likely minors, some unrelated to Epstein's known trafficking ring. The lawsuit targets the estate's co-executors, seeking court-ordered notification and remedies for survivors who may never have met Epstein but whose abuse images he possessed.
CNET published a rundown of ten everyday materials—like cooking oil, vegetable peels and oil-based condiments such as mayo and salad dressing—that gradually build up and clog kitchen drains. The piece notes that these substances often seem harmless when rinsed down the sink, but accumulate into serious blockages over time, and it also flags that chemical drain cleaners aren't always the best fix once a clog forms.
In an interview, a Syensqo executive described a 'performance pyramid' framework, where commodity materials sit at the bottom and high-performance specialty materials sit at the top. He explained that AI's rapid advancement is piling on technical requirements—heat tolerance, purity, electrical performance, chemical and plasma resistance, long-term stability—that push semiconductor and data center materials toward the top of that pyramid, an area where Syensqo focuses its work.
Reuters reports that smaller smartphone and laptop makers are adapting to a severe memory shortage by redesigning hardware, pre-ordering chips months ahead, and testing incoming shipments for counterfeit components. Fairphone's CEO says memory now accounts for nearly 60% of the bill of materials on its roughly $400 phones, while SK Hynix's chief has warned the shortage could persist until 2030. Jolla has built dual motherboard designs to switch chip configurations based on supply, and Framework leans on modular designs letting users reuse salvaged or second-hand memory.
A global memory chip shortage is pushing smaller device makers like Fairphone, Jolla, and Framework to rethink product design, order chips months ahead, and test incoming shipments for counterfeits. Fairphone's CEO says memory now accounts for nearly 60% of the bill of materials on its roughly $400 phones, while SK Hynix's chief has warned the shortage could persist until 2030, peaking in severity around 2027.
BleepingComputer is hosting a live webinar on September 23, 2026, featuring Material Security's Rajan Kapoor and Fireside Consulting's Rick Fitzgerald, who will dissect real, publicly documented Google Workspace breaches. The session focuses on the critical early hours after a breach is discovered, including cases where attackers used social engineering paired with malicious OAuth apps to gain entry.
A Binomial LLC engineer working on GPU texture interchange has published research fitting neural textures and physically based rendering material maps using evolution strategies (ES) instead of traditional backpropagation. The approach avoids gradient-based optimization typically used in neural texture compression and material fitting workflows.
BleepingComputer is hosting a live webinar on September 23, 2026, with Material Security's Rajan Kapoor and Fireside Consulting's Rick Fitzgerald, who will dissect two real breaches of Google Workspace environments carried out through malicious OAuth applications and social engineering rather than stolen passwords. The session will walk through how the attacks unfolded, the security gaps that let them succeed, and the response decisions made in the early hours of each incident.
GoKawiil