Vera C. Rubin Observatory
A powerful new telescope will come online this year in a remote region of Chile and begin a decade-long survey of the southern sky. Inside is the largest digital camera ever made for astronomy, which will snap photos continuously for years to help astronomers study dark matter, explore the Milky Way, and untangle other cosmic unknowns.
Generative AI search
Generative search promises to make finding what you’re looking for simple and quick. When you type in a query, an AI model summarizes information from many online sources to return a unique answer. On your device, it can comb through documents, photos, and videos, recognizing objects and people to help you find them faster. This may signal the end of traditional search engines and the rise of personal AI assistants.
Small language models
Large language models can do amazing things because they’re crammed with hundreds of billions—even trillions—of parameters (the values that determine their behavior) and were trained on most of the internet’s data. But cheaper and less power-hungry small language models can now stand with the heavyweights across a range of specific tasks. Move over dinosaurs. The future belongs to smaller, nimbler beasts.
Cattle burping remedies
Cow burps are one of the largest sources of agricultural emissions—and one of the trickiest ones to solve. A food supplement that significantly reduces the amount of methane that cattle belch is now available in dozens of countries. Other products, which might prove even more effective, are likely on the way.
Robotaxis
Robotaxis have completed years of beta testing, and they are now finally becoming available to the public. In more than a dozen cities worldwide, riders can summon one whenever they want. Now, the biggest players are ramping up for intense competition as they expand into new cities under regulators’ watchful eyes.
