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Hydrogel is an innovative fire suppression technology that eliminates PFAS chemicals, providing effective fire suppression while addressing environmental and health concerns associated with traditional firefighting foams. Hydrogels are a new generation of fire extinguishing agents based on breakthrough material technology. Unlike traditional firefighting foams, hydrogels deliver high firefighting performance without the use of any fluorochemicals, eliminating PFAS-related environmental and human health concerns while maintaining superior operational efficiency. PFAS in Fire Service Personnel: Performance and Results PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are comprised of a group of approximately 10,000 synthetic chemicals that are evaluated for their water-, oil-, and stain-repellent properties.…
December 16, 2025Ravi LakshmananDark Web / Online Safety Google announced it would retire its Dark Web Reporting tool in February 2026, less than two years after launching it as a way for users to monitor whether their personal information was found on the dark web. As a result, scanning for new dark web breaches will stop on January 15, 2026, and this feature will be retired on February 16, 2026. “While this report provided general information, feedback indicated it did not provide useful next steps,” Google said in a support document. “We are making this change to focus on tools…
Three years after the generative AI boom began, most AI startups still make money by selling to businesses rather than individual consumers. While consumers quickly adopted general-purpose LLMs like ChatGPT, most specialized consumer GenAI applications have yet to catch on. “A lot of the early AI applications around video, audio, and photography were really cool,” Chi-Hua Chien, co-founder and managing partner of Goodwater Capital, said on stage at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in early December. “But then Sora and Nano Banana came along, and China open sourced the video model, and a lot of those opportunities disappeared.” Chien compares some of…
Disney’s three-year licensing partnership with OpenAI includes one exclusivity, Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC. Last week, the company entered into a partnership with OpenAI to bring its iconic characters to the AI company’s Sora video generator. Once that special year ends, Disney will be free to enter into similar deals with other AI companies. This agreement makes OpenAI a high-profile content partner, allowing users to create content on Sora with over 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. Currently, this is the only legally permitted AI platform. For Disney, the deal provides a way to try out…
Nvidia continues to expand its footprint in open source AI on two fronts: acquisitions and new model releases. The semiconductor giant announced Monday that it has acquired SchedMD, a leading developer of the popular open source workload management system Slurm. Nvidia said it will continue to operate the program, designed for high-performance computing and AI, as open source, vendor-neutral software. Slurm was originally founded in 2002, and SchedMD was founded in 2010 by lead Slurm developers Morris Jette and Danny Auble. Oubre is the current CEO of SchedMD. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nvidia declined to comment on…
After a decades-long mission to understand the nature of the universe, the telescope on a mountain plateau in northern Chile will say goodbye in 2022. Now, the release of final data reveals a field in tension that is the telescope’s legacy.In October 2007, the Atacama Space Telescope (ACT) observed its first light. But it wasn’t light from a star or a distant galaxy. Instead, ACT was designed to look for microwaves, specifically the types of microwaves left over from the earliest days of the universe. This “fossil” light, known as cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), was emitted when the universe…
Archaeologists have discovered a dog skeleton alongside a bone dagger at the bottom of a Swedish swamp. The ruins are thought to be 5,000 years old and may be from mysterious Stone Age rituals.This unique dog burial was discovered during construction of a high-speed railway in the village of Gerstaberg, about 35 kilometers southwest of Stockholm. Experts from the Swedish group Arkeologerna (archaeologists) announced the discovery in a statement and blog post on Monday (December 15).5,000 years ago, this wetland was a clear lake where Stone Age people fished. Wooden pilings and fragments of an ancient pier were found on…
As Ford shifts away from making large electric vehicles, automakers are adding new product lines to find a home for batteries. Ford announced Monday that it is canceling plans to make batteries for these vehicles and instead converting that capacity to a new battery storage business. These energy storage systems use inexpensive lithium iron phosphate batteries and are used to power data centers and ease demand on the power grid. Ford says it plans to begin shipping the battery storage system in 2027, with an annual capacity of 20GWh. Ford will invest about $2 billion in new businesses over the…
Ford announced Monday that it will end production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning as part of a broader review of its electric vehicle plans across the company. Instead, Ford plans to sell what’s known as an “extended range electric vehicle” version of the truck, which adds a gas generator to recharge the battery pack and power the motor for more than 700 miles. The company did not disclose the release date or price of the new F-150 Lightning. Pivot will come at a hefty price tag for Ford. The company will take a $19.5 billion hit as it restructures its…
A sea raider ship that sank off the coast of Denmark 2,400 years ago contained fingerprints and several chemical clues that are helping researchers figure out where these raiders came from thousands of years ago, a new study has found.Known as the Yotspring Boat, it is the oldest known wooden plank boat in Scandinavia and is currently on display at the National Museum of Denmark. However, its origin was shrouded in mystery for a long time.”Where these maritime raiders came from and why they attacked the island of Als has long been a mystery,” Michael Faubel, an archaeologist at Lund…