Cutlery made from potato peelings and a robotic cleaner that can tackle pollution in rivers, lakes and canals are among the groundbreaking international designs shortlisted for the prestigious annual James Dyson award. Over half the world’s population currently live in cities, according to the United Nations – a proportion expected to rise to seven in 10 people by 2050 – and the projects share a common theme of aiming to redefine urban living through technology to create a more sustainable future.

The self-driving car crashes that usually make the news are, unsurprisingly, either big and smashy or new and curious. The Apple that got bumped while merging into traffic. The Waymo van that got t-boned. And of course, the Uber that hit and killed a woman crossing the street in Tempe, Arizona in March.

Electric-vehicle maker Workhorse announced today that it has begun initial production of a 100-mile range electric delivery truck called the NGEN-1000. The truck is meant to replace diesel-powered delivery trucks, but this vehicle weighs less than half of what a comparable internal combustion van usually weighs.

The announcement comes just a month after the company revealed its 2040 plans.

Buying enough clean energy to make up for your dirty energy is one thing; using all clean energy 24/7 is another, and it could signal a new approach.

This year's International Conference for Robotics and Systems was like a clash of the robot dog titans as a video emerged of the Boston Dynamics SpotMini hanging out with the ANYbotics robot, called ANYmal. According to ANYbotics' cofounder Péter Fankhauser, it's no coincidence that the design and technology is converging, but it's too early to fear the rise of the robot dog empire.

Adobe's Project Fast Mask can automatically isolate moving objects in videos, saving you plenty of time making precise selections.

Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest private players —the so-called unicorns —have managed to put off public listings thanks to a market awash in private capital. Exhibit A: Uber Technologies, which landed a staggering $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2016. Yasir Al Rumayyan, managing director of the fund, is one of a dozen members on Uber’s board of directors.

Facebook believes spammers, not a nation state, were behind the data breach of 30 million accounts, according to a published report. The spammers aimed to make money through deceptive advertising and masqueraded as a digital marketing company, people familiar with the company’s internal investigation told the Wall Street Journal.

Apple has refreshed and expanded its privacy website, a month after its most recent iPhone and Mac launches. You’re not going to see much change from previous years — the privacy pages still state the same commitments that Apple’s long held, like that privacy is a “fundamental human right” and that your information is largely on your iPhones, iPads and Macs. And, now with a bevy of new security and privacy features in iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the pages are updated to include new information about end-to-end encrypted group FaceTime video calls...

Essential Products, the company behind the Essential Phone, has laid off around a third of its employees. The hardware and sales departments were reportedly hit hardest by the cuts. "This has been a difficult decision to make. We are very sorry for the impact on our colleagues who are leaving the company and are doing everything we can to help them with their future careers," an Essential spokeswoman told Bloomberg. "We are confident that our sharpened product focus will help us deliver a truly game-changing consumer product."

The publisher of video game Grand Theft Auto V has been granted the right to search the homes of five people accused of making cheat software. The court order allowed Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, to search two properties in Melbourne, Australia, for evidence related to a cheat known as Infamous.

No matter how small your budget, there's a Linux or open source conference you can afford—and should attend. @Enterprisenxt

From a digital Wild West to landscape of walled gardens, the internet has diverged far from its original incarnation of decentralized freedom in the last twenty years. One area where the the change has been clearest is with online news. Outlets that once eschewed websites now see them as their entire future. For many outlets that rely on original reporting — which is not cheap — paywalls have gone up to ensure that original journalism is still funded.

At the Made by Google event last week, we talked about the combination of AI + Software + Hardware to help organize your information. To better protect that information at a hardware level, our new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices include a Titan M chip.We briefly introduced Titan M and some of its benefits on our Keyword Blog, and with this post we dive into some of its technical details.

Find how aluminium curtain walling can be important in taller buildings, where the fire would quickly spread upwards.

Mitsubishi has developed a new indoor lighting system that mimics blue skies, sunrises and sunsets. The company hopes the system will prove popular in offices and homes that lack natural light. BBC Click's Dan Simmons finds out more.

I love my typewriter. You can write stories without having to wait for your computer to boot, you cannot be distracted by some kind of notification or the urge to check your favorite online place every half an hour.

At this early stage, virtual reality is basically a cool new high-tech toy. But researchers are discovering it can confer real-world benefits, including reducing pain and boosting creativity. A new study examines a particularly promising use for the immersive technology: increasing empathy. It finds that, compared to traditional approaches, using VR to experience the precarious life of a homeless person creates more, and longer-lasting, understanding and compassion for that often-ignored population.

After touting his space tourism mission (now set for 2019), Jeff Bezos also weighed in on the current state of social media and the internet in general on Monday. "I think the Internet in its current incarnation is a confirmation bias machine," he said.

The privacy tool used by millions of people doesn’t actually protect your privacy.

When you get sick, you want the right treatment fast. But certain infectious microbes are experts at evading the very anti-bacterial drugs designed to fight them. A simple and inexpensive new test developed by UC Berkeley researchers can diagnose patients with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in a matter of minutes.

If you’re going to fake a moon landing, you’re going to need the world’s most advanced GPUs. Four years ago, our demo team used GPUs to debunk the myth that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a hoax. So thoroughly, in fact, that it’s become a bit of a joke that the best way to have actually faked the moon landing would’ve been to use technology that didn’t exist at the time.

Scientists Develop a Frightening Robot Snake That Can Ascend ladders

A sensational Bloomberg story about a major hardware hack was swiftly denied. But the journalists aren’t backing down

Mitchell Baker says firms should hire philosophy and psychology graduates to tackle misinformation

For Ars staffers, IRC led to love, marriage, and trolling.

While most indie media was focused on debating the way people talk about Kanye West and the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an unprecedented escalation in internet censorship took place which threatens everything we all care about. It received frighteningly little attention.

Working with Formula 1 race car manufacturers and employing aerospace materials, a Swiss firm has developed what they claim is the world’s lightest wheelchair, with a frame weighing in at just 3.3 pounds.

The Live bookmarks, preview features, that is

When T-Mobile and Sprint first announced their plans to merge in April, the companies didn’t mention any plans to offer in-home broadband internet services. But that changed in June, when the companies promised to grow into the nation’s fourth largest ISP, behind the likes of Comcast and Charter.

Post cleaning,the sofa is secured by a safeguarding mechanism which acts as a barrier between the sofa and dirt find here how?

Need for the periodic repair services for the automatic doors

The highly popular PHP 5.x branch will stop receiving security updates at the end of the year.