Solid-state batteries have significant advantages over lithium-ion batteries. Here's what stands in the way of mass distribution. [...]

For ZDNET's first Lab Award, we tested the latest tablets from Apple, Samsung, and more to find out which one ranked highest for endurance. [...]

Freeze-dried hydrogel powders sprayed onto wet surfaces merge into functional coatings in under five seconds, enabling rapid soft robot fabrication. [...]

Researchers identified AlCas12a, a compact, versatile enzyme that improves CRISPR gene editing and enables faster molecular diagnostics. [...]

Low-Earth orbit is more crowded—and fragile—than it looks. Satellites constantly weave past each other, burning fuel and making dozens of evasive maneuvers every year just to stay safe. A major solar storm could disable navigation and communications, turning that careful dance into chaos. According to new calculations, it may take [...]

JWST has revealed a strange early universe filled with ultra-bright “blue monster” galaxies, mysterious “little red dots,” and black holes that seem far too massive for their age. A new study proposes that dark stars—hypothetical stars powered by dark matter—could tie all these surprises together. These exotic objects may have [...]

The ability to remember you and your preferences is rapidly becoming a big selling point for AI chatbots and agents.  Earlier this month, Google announced Personal Intelligence, a new way for people to interact with the company’s Gemini chatbot that draws on their Gmail, photos, search, and YouTube histories to make [...]

From the Gemini Calendar prompt-injection attack of 2026 to the September 2025 state-sponsored hack using Anthropic’s Claude code as an automated intrusion engine, the coercion of human-in-the-loop agentic actions and fully autonomous agentic workflows are the new attack vector for hackers. In the Anthropic case, roughly 30 organizations across tech, [...]

AI may learn better when it’s allowed to talk to itself. Researchers showed that internal “mumbling,” combined with short-term memory, helps AI adapt to new tasks, switch goals, and handle complex challenges more easily. This approach boosts learning efficiency while using far less training data. It could pave the way [...]

MoCA 2.5 is a great alternative to Wi-Fi networks that use old coaxial cables to enable high-speed internet. [...]

Scientists have developed a new nanomaterial that triggers a pair of chemical reactions inside cancer cells, killing the cells via oxidative stress while leaving healthy tissues alone. [...]

Asus' ExpertBook Ultra B9 is as ultraportable as it is powerful, with Intel's latest chipset and a stunning OLED display. [...]

A hybrid computer uses rotating mechanical beams for memory and electrical contacts for logic, performing reprogrammable computation through physical motion in environments where conventional electronics struggle. [...]

OpenAI just revealed what its new in-house team, OpenAI for Science, has been up to. The firm has released a free LLM-powered tool for scientists called Prism, which embeds ChatGPT in a text editor for writing scientific papers. The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists [...]

Quantum technology has reached a turning point, echoing the early days of modern computing. Researchers say functional quantum systems now exist, but scaling them into truly powerful machines will require major advances in engineering and manufacturing. By comparing different quantum platforms, the study reveals both impressive progress and steep challenges [...]

Bright white rocks spotted by NASA’s Perseverance rover are rewriting what we thought we knew about ancient Mars. These aluminum-rich clays, called kaolinite, usually form on Earth only after millions of years of heavy rainfall in warm, humid environments—conditions similar to tropical rainforests. Their presence on today’s cold, dry Mars [...]

In the three years since ChatGPT’s explosive debut, OpenAI’s technology has upended a remarkable range of everyday activities at home, at work, in schools—anywhere people have a browser open or a phone out, which is everywhere. Now OpenAI is making an explicit play for scientists. In October, the firm announced that [...]

A massive new study comparing more than 100,000 people with today’s most advanced AI systems delivers a surprising result: generative AI can now beat the average human on certain creativity tests. Models like GPT-4 showed strong performance on tasks designed to measure original thinking and idea generation, sometimes outperforming typical [...]

Scientists have discovered that the human brain understands spoken language in a way that closely resembles how advanced AI language models work. By tracking brain activity as people listened to a long podcast, researchers found that meaning unfolds step by step—much like the layered processing inside systems such as GPT-style [...]

MIT researchers have identified significant examples of machine-learning model failure when those models are applied to data other than what they were trained on, raising questions about the need to test whenever a model is deployed in a new setting.“We demonstrate that even when you train models on large amounts [...]

Quantum computers could revolutionize everything from drug discovery to business analytics—but their incredible power also makes them surprisingly vulnerable. New research from Penn State warns that today’s quantum machines are not just futuristic tools, but potential gold mines for hackers. The study reveals that weaknesses can exist not only in [...]

The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence (SQI), a research unit in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, brings together researchers from across MIT who combine their diverse expertise to understand intelligence through tightly coupled scientific inquiry and rigorous engineering. These researchers engage in collaborative efforts spanning science, engineering, the [...]

Generative artificial intelligence models have left such an indelible impact on digital content creation that it’s getting harder to recall what the internet was like before it. You can call on these AI tools for clever projects such as videos and photos — but their flair for the creative hasn’t [...]

Artificial intelligence has captured headlines recently for its rapidly growing energy demands, and particularly the surging electricity usage of data centers that enable the training and deployment of the latest generative AI models. But it’s not all bad news — some AI tools have the potential to reduce some forms of energy [...]