Infosys has partnered with Linux Foundation Networking to advance responsible AI adoption, contributing its toolkit to enhance ethical practices across global networks. Read...

Global spending on generative AI is set to soar to USD $644 billion by 2025, marking a 76.4% increase from the previous year, according to Gartner. Read...

Newly appointed Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan said all the right things in his opening statement as Intel’s new chief executive, pledging to earn customer trust and return to an engineering-based culture at the chipmaker. Tan, who has served about two weeks on the job, didn’t indicate any major changes would be forthcoming. For now, he emphasized that Intel’s next-generation Panther Lake chips would ship this year, on the Intel 18A process node that is the legacy of Tan’s predecessor, Pat Gelsinger. Gelsinger, a former chief technical officer at Intel who also promised a return to the engineering-driven days of Intel legends like Gordon Moore, was forced out in December after pushing through a series of layoffs, and watching the company’s stock price plunge. Chief financial officer David Zinsner and Intel Products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus served as co-CEOs before returning to those positions. Now, Tan will take the helm. Tan is well-regarded, though he served in the semiconductor-adjacent industry of electronic design automation as the chief executive of Cadence Design Systems from 2008 until 2021. He studied quantum physics in Singapore, moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in nuclear engineering at MIT, then dropped out of the program after the Three Mile Island accident occurred. He later became a venture capitalist and a member of Intel’s board. Tan cited a visit to Henry David Thoreau’s cabin, where he spent a half hour just admiring the craftsmanship. “A lot of our business is building craftsmanship,” Tan said. Now, he’s being asked to lead one of America’s largest chipmaker as it extends those chipmaking abilities to third-party customers as well via an Intel foundry plan. Tan pledged to build “strong teams to correct the past mistakes and start to earn your trust,” speaking in front of customers and partners at Intel’s Vision conference. Though not a semiconductor executive by trade, Tan said that’s he was friends with the late Intel senior vice president (and Pentium 4 chief) Albert Yu and former Intel senior executive Sean Maloney, who retired from Intel in 2013 after recovering from a devastating stroke. Tan said that Intel will “refine some of our strategy and then free up some of the bandwidth and some of the non-core business, we will spin it off.” Intel’s core business — whatever it is, as he didn’t specify — will be expanded using AI and “software 2.0.” He also pledged to work with the Trump administration on advancing Intel’s foundry business. “My motto is very simple: under promise and over deliver,” Tan said. “I love this company,” Tan said. “It was very hard for me to watch its struggle. I simply cannot stay on the sideline knowing that I could help turn things around. I also fully recognize it won’t be easy. It had been a tough period for quite a long time for Intel, we fell behind on innovation. As a result, we have been too slow to adapt and to meet your needs. You deserve better, and we need to improve, and we will, please be brutally honest with us.” “We may not be perfect in the beginning, but eventually, you can count on it, I will make it perfect,” Tan said. Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros 3 individually controlled smart outlets (+3 dumb outlets) 3 fast-charging USB outlets Compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and IFTTT Cons Gives no warning when it can no longer provide surge protection Surge protection limited to 205 joules Our Verdict Don’t buy this multi-outlet for its surge protection feature, as it won’t warn you when it can no longer deliver it. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender (model P306) Retailer Price $34.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket TP-Link’s Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender has some great features, as well as one critical shortcoming that prevents us from recommending it. Tapo doesn’t make big promises for this product in terms of its surge protection, but it does list a key feature on the box: the ability to warn you when it can no longer provide surge protection. If you’re considering buying Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender for that feature, don’t. Here’s why. The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender isn’t all bad news—provided you’re not buying it for surge protection. Most surge protectors use sacrificial MOVs (metal oxide varistors) to absorb excess voltage from power surges, and this one is no exception. The thing is, MOVs wear out over time, losing some of their ability to absorb that excess voltage with each power surge until they can no longer offer any protection at all. Since the number and severity of power surges will vary based on a wide range of factors, starting with the quality of power coming from your utility, it’s impossible to predict when a given surge protector’s MOV (or MOVs, as the case may be) will wear out. The outlets on the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender are spaced 1.56 inches apart, so wall warts and oversized plugs don’t block adjacent outlets.Michael Brown/Foundry Some surge protectors will simply stop sending power to their outlets when this happens, and that’s the best approach in my opinion. Others will trigger a red or green “protection” indicator—typically an LED—to stop glowing when they can no longer offer protection. The latter approach is far more common, and you should periodically check yours to make sure it’s still lit. The problem with the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender is that it doesn’t do either of these things. Its MOV will eventually wear out and cease offering surge protection, but you’ll have no way of knowing when that has happened. I verified this fact with TP-Link, and the manufacturer replied that the absence of a protection indicator is due to the product’s “structural limitations,” but that it recognizes this “as a potential area for improvement in future product iterations.” I’d say that’s an understatement. It would have been better to not include surge protection at all than to have users gamble as to when this one will stop offering protection without any warning. Specifications The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender isn’t all bad news—provided you’re not buying it for surge protection. But before we leave that topic, allow me to report a few details you find won’t find on TP-Link’s website. Three USB charging ports–1 USB-C and 2 USB-A–deliver up to 18 watts of power. Michael Brown/Foundry This product’s surge protector element can handle only a maximum of 205 joules, but it offers 1,200 volts of clamping voltage, based on a 6,000-volt surge on the line-to-neutral leg of the circuit it’s connected to. Thumbs up for that: Protection for the line-to-neutral leg is what’s needed most in a properly grounded home. Compare that to the Philips 6-Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip, a “dumb” surge protector that offers up to 720 joules of protection, but only 500V of protection across the line-to-neutral leg of the circuit. The Philips product also lacks USB-charging ports, but it costs less than half as much as the Tapo product. I should also note, however, that the Philips product doesn’t have any LED indicators either. The key difference is that the Philips product will cease to provide power to its outlets when its MOV wears out and can no longer provide surge protection. An LED would be superfluous in that product. OK, let’s turn our attention to the rest of the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender’s considerable specifications and features. It occupies the top half of a duplex outlet, but necessarily also covers the bottom half. If you have an old-school outlet with a middle screw hole for the cover plate, you can remove the cover, insert a provided screw into the center of the Outlet Extender, and fasten it to that hole. You can also screw a provided post into the back of the extender and plug that into the second outlet’s ground hole for added stability when plugging and unplugging devices. Each of the three smart outlets can also be controlled with a button on the side. The post below the electrical prongs plugs into the second grounded outlet to provide additional stability. Michael Brown/Foundry The Outlet Extender can handle up to a maximum of 1,875 watts, and each of its six outlets puts out a maximum of 15 amps. It’s equipped with one USB-C charging port and two USB-A charging ports on its right-hand side. These deliver a maximum output of 5 volts and 3 amps, providing up to 18 watts of fast charging. More specifically, single-port outputs are 5V/3A, 9V/2A, or 12V/1.5A. You can rest your smartphone on top of the outlet extender while it’s charging, and a lip on its front edge will prevent the device from sliding forward and off. There are six grounded AC outlets in front, three on each side and spaced 1.57-inches apart to accommodate at least smaller wall warts or oversized plugs without blocking adjacent outlets. Only the three outlets on the left-hand side are smart plugs, and each one has an on/off switch and an LED indicator that glows when it’s on. The three outlets on the right-hand side are always-on “dumb” plugs and don’t have buttons or LEDs. An ambient light sensor at the top of the extender’s face triggers a dimmable white, down-facing LED nightlight to glow. This feature is highly customizable in the Tapo app, based on the level of ambient light that will activate it, a time-and-date schedule, or even a countdown timer. An LED beneath the ambient light sensors reports the overall status of the device (solid white when connected to the cloud, blinking orange when disconnected from Wi-Fi, and so on). Smart features The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender connects to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, with up to WPA3 security. Although it’s not Matter certified, it is compatible with all three major smart home ecosystems: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home. It’s also compatible with Samsung SmartThings, Siri Shortcuts, and IFTTT. You’ll use the Tapo smart home app to program and control the device. This software is also used to control everything from security cameras to smart plugs, smart bulbs, robot vacuums, and other smart home products carrying TP-Link’s Tapo or Kasa Smart brands. But you can organize the app by assigning everything to “rooms” and designating “favorites” to make it easier to manage everything.   You can control every Tapo smart home device with the Tapo app, which can also control any of TP-Link’s Kasa Smart products.  Michael Brown/Foundry Widgets are provided for each of the Outlet Extender’s three smart plugs, but there’s just one widget for all three of its USB ports. The widgets have power buttons for toggling them on and off, or you can tap anywhere else on the widget to open a new full-screen window for more granular information and control, including scheduling. You can set “away modes” that will randomly turn the assigned smart outlets on and off between defined days and times. Plug a lamp into one, two, or all three smart outlets, and it will make your home look occupied while you’re away from home. Separate countdown timers will turn any or all the assigned smart outlet on or off after a given number of hours and minutes has elapsed. The smart plugs don’t track energy consumption, but they will report the number of hours they’ve been energized for the current day, the past seven days, and the past 30 days. If you have other TP-Link or Tapo products, you can create routines that will cause those devices to trigger each other—and without needing a smart home hub. For example, you can have a TP-Link or Tapo security camera trigger a light plugged into the Outlet Extender when it detects motion after sunset, and then automatically turn off after a programmed amount of time. Or you can create a shortcut button that dims your Tapo or TP-Link smart bulb when you’re ready for bed and turns off any of the company’s smart plugs, including this Outlet Extender. The more compatible gadgets you have, the more you can do with this feature. If you’re an IFTTT subscriber, of course, you don’t necessarily need Tapo or TP-Link products to accomplish similar goals. TP-Link’s Tapo and Kasa Smart devices can operate together in the same smart home environment. Michael Brown/Foundry Further reading: This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart plugs. Should you buy a Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender? In terms of a multi-plug, the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender is a fine product. It expands any duplex outlet into three smart outlets and provides three more “dumb” outlets. You also get three fast-charging smart USB plugs. So far, so good. As a surge protector, on the other hand, it almost utterly fails. Not knowing when a surge protector can no longer protect attached devices from power surges is worse than not having surge protection in the first place. Whether smart or dumb, if Tapo’s Outlet Extender didn’t offer surge protection, you could at least plug a single-outlet surge protector into one of its outlets to power a sensitive device—a computer, for example—that you want to protect. That said, you should never daisy-chain surge protectors–i.e., plug one surge protector into another surge protector–as that has the potential to overload the electrical circuit to which they’re connected. An overloaded electrical circuit is a fire risk. Read...

Researchers are always developing better battery technologies, hoping to find ones that last a long time and never need to be recharged—and this month, we have yet another exciting breakthrough. South Korean scientists from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology recently presented a prototype battery that works according to the betavoltaic principle. As the researchers explain: “Nuclear batteries generate power by harnessing high-energy particles emitted by radioactive materials. Not all radioactive elements emit radiation that’s damaging to living organisms, and some radiation can be blocked by certain materials. For example, beta particles (also known as beta rays) can be shielded with a thin sheet of aluminum, making betavoltaics a potentially safe choice for nuclear batteries.” This betavoltaic battery prototype is based on carbon-14, an unstable and radioactive form of carbon called radiocarbon. Although this carbon isotope is radioactive, it only produces beta radiation, which can be easily shielded to prevent harm. Radiocarbon is already a byproduct of nuclear power plants and is therefore cheap, readily available, and easy to recycle, according to the researchers. And since radiocarbon degrades very slowly, a battery powered by radiocarbon could theoretically provide energy for decades, centuries, or even thousands of years. According to the researchers, the latest prototype of this radiocarbon battery has a significantly higher energy conversion efficiency, which has increased from 0.48 to 2.86 percent. This kind of nuclear battery would only be the size of a finger, and such long-lasting nuclear batteries could enable numerous applications, says Professor Su-Il In. For example, a pacemaker powered by such a battery would last a lifetime and make surgical replacement unnecessary. At present, however, this betavoltaic battery only converts a tiny proportion of the radioactive decay into electrical energy, which results in lower performance compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Researchers still need to carry out further development work in this area. Betavolt’s mini nuclear battery The Chinese company Betavolt New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., based in Beijing, previously presented a diamond nuclear battery at the beginning of 2024, which is slightly smaller than a coin and is supposed to be capable of supplying electricity for 50 years without needing to be recharged in between or requiring maintenance. The company said its battery was in the pilot phase and prepping to be launched on the market in mass production. Betavolt claimed that its atomic energy batteries could meet the needs for long-life power supply in various scenarios, such as aerospace, AI devices, medical devices, MEMS systems, advanced sensors, small drones, and micro robots. Betavolt’s diamond nuclear energy battery.Betavolt According to the manufacturer, the miniature atomic energy battery combines nickel-63 nuclear isotope decomposition technology and China’s first diamond semiconductor module (fourth-generation semiconductor). In this field, and in the development of miniature atomic energy batteries, China is “far ahead of European and American scientific research institutions and companies,” according to the claim. Betavolt describes the structure of its mini nuclear battery as follows: “Betavolt’s team of scientists developed a unique single-crystal diamond semiconductor with a thickness of just 10 micrometres by placing a 2-micrometre-thick nickel-63 film between two diamond semiconductor converters. The decay energy of the radioactive source is converted into electric current, which forms a self-contained unit. Core batteries are modular and can consist of dozens or hundreds of independent unit modules and can be used in series and parallel, allowing battery products of different sizes and capacities to be manufactured.” Betavolt still needs to increase the performance of its mini nuclear battery to, say, provide a mobile phone with a permanent power supply. Betavolt’s first ready-to-use battery is the 15mm x 15mm x 5mm BV100, with an output of 100 microwatts and a voltage of 3 volts. This will be followed in 2025 by a mini nuclear battery with an output of 1 watt. The batteries can be connected in series and in parallel. More on nuclear batteries Nuclear batteries, also known as radionuclide batteries, have been around for a long time and are by no means a Chinese invention. Back in 2019, Russian researchers reported a breakthrough in nuclear mini-batteries with a 50-year service life. Small nuclear batteries have been used in space travel since the 1960s, and there were even nuclear-powered pacemakers in the 1970s. These nuclear batteries obtain their energy from the radioactive decay of Ni-63, but unlike conventional radionuclide generators, the energy is not obtained from the heat generated during radioactive decay. Instead, the beta radiation of Ni-63 is converted directly into electrical energy with a diamond semiconductor. Over the years and decades, however, the amount of emitted energy decreases. In addition, such a battery can supply comparatively little energy. Due to the use of radioactive material, the use of this energy generation method in everyday devices—such as mobile phones—is unlikely in the longer term. It’s also important to note that this method does NOT result in a dangerous chain reaction, as is the case with a nuclear reactor. Read...

What has happened to the world today, surely this isn`t all just a cruel April Fool`s joke? Read...

Last week, Google launched the new Gemini 2.5 AI model, the company’s “most intelligent AI model” that’s designed to tackle increasingly complex problems. At launch, Gemini 2.5 was only available to paying Gemini Advanced and Google AI Studio customers, but that’s no longer the case. Over the weekend, Google announced on social media that Gemini 2.5 is “taking off” and the company wants to get the thinking AI model “into more people’s hands” ASAP. As such, the experimental version of Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available to all Gemini users, free of charge. However, it remains to be seen how long the AI model will stay free. Kristian Kask If you want to try out Gemini’s new abilities with Gemini 2.5 Pro, all you have to do is go to the Gemini web app and select 2.5 Pro (experimental) as the AI model from the drop-down menu at the top-left corner of the chat window. Read...