TECH

Ionogel innovation could power safe, enduring energy storage

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an innovative energy storage system design that introduces a safer, more efficient method for electrical charge transfer.

This study advances fundamental understanding of how functional groups impact the mechanical and electrochemical performance of highly charged polyelectrolyte membranes—thin, charged polymer sheets that help control the movement of ions in energy devices.

The research team's success is encouraging for next-generation energy storage systems that could help meet growing energy demands. The new approach could impact many sectors, including consumer electronics, portable medical devices and aerospace systems. It could also help advance key national priorities for energy innovation and competitiveness in manufacturing.

The researchers' goals included improving energy storage safety, efficiency and mechanical strength. To overcome common design challenges, such as short lifespans and flammability, they created a layered solution using ionogels. Ions are charge-carrying particles that must travel within energy storage systems.

An ionogel, which is neither liquid nor solid, can carry these ions efficiently. By layering ionogel between flexible, ultrathin polymer sheets, the researchers created robust, charge-carrying membranes. The new layer-by-layer assembly effectively balances conductivity with structural strength.

"This balance upgrades both efficiency and safety," said Bishnu Prasad Thapaliya of ORNL's Chemical Sciences Division, principal investigator of a study published in Advanced Functional Materials.

The ORNL-led team included collaborators from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute.

Many of today's liquid-electrolyte energy storage systems rely on polymer separators to divide liquid solutions that move ions. In a typical liquid-electrolyte energy storage system, a polymer separates the positive and negative electrodes, or cathodes and anodes.

The researchers built what they call "pseudosolid polyelectrolyte membranes" by layering polymer sheets with an ionogel made from lithium salts and ionic liquids. The system increases ion flow and enhances mechanical strength.

Lithium, a lightweight metal often used in anodes, can store more energy than a carbon-based anode like graphite. To achieve this increased storage capacity, the lithium anode must couple with a transition metal, which can easily gain or lose electrons to take part in chemical reactions or form compounds.

The lithium anode also requires a cathode, separated from the anode and its solution by a polymer. To prevent instability and safety issues caused by lithium's reactivity with water, the lithium must also be soaked in a liquid electrolyte that is not water-based.

To support both mechanical strength and ion conductivity, a membrane assembled from layers of ionogel and polymer sheets contains charge-carrying particles uniformly distributed across alternating polymer layers. Credit: Andrew Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Preventing lithium dendrites in energy storage systems...However, when lithium is used with a liquid electrolyte, it may form dendrites, needle-like structures that can damage energy storage systems. Sharp dendrite branches can develop inside the electrolyte when lithium atoms form on lithium-metal surfaces.

Growing unpredictably, dendrites can pierce the polymer separator between the anode and cathode. These punctures, also known as crossover, can result in short circuits that can cause fires and result in critical damage.

Dendrite prevention requires a new kind of membrane, one strong enough to resist punctures while maintaining high conductivity. Combining lithium salts and nonflammable ionic liquids, Thapaliya and his colleagues arrived at a solid structure that maintains its shape and performance at room temperature.

The resulting design serves as both electrolyte and separator, eliminating the need for a liquid electrolyte and suppressing formation of potentially dangerous dendrites.

The resulting membrane combines the mechanical strength of a solid with the ion-flow efficiency of a liquid. Mechanically reinforced, it can withstand internal pressures caused by gas buildup from overcharging. This enhanced strength can also suppress dendrite punctures.

Mechanical durability, a key outcome of the team's layered design, can help ensure long-term charge and discharge, or cycling, in lithium-metal energy storage systems.

In laboratory testing, the team's unique new membranes demonstrated stable, efficient performance over hundreds of charge/discharge cycles, even under conditions that typically degrade such systems.

Using automation to speed up membrane production...Moving forward, Thapaliya and his colleagues hope to benefit from robotic assistance, courtesy of ORNL's Autonomous Chemistry Lab. Robots could eventually automate the layer-by-layer gel assembly process.

They could operate independently—even overnight—to build critical structures. Researchers could then dry the resulting coated, multilayered membranes and test them before installing them into prototype devices.

"Our goal is to build on this research and make a scalable membrane that can also be used in commercial energy storage systems," Thapaliya said.

Provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory 

TECH

Google’s Wiz deal could become a trojan horse in Europe’s cloud

On January 6, Google notified its proposed USD 32 billion acquisition of cloud security company Wiz to the European Commission. This marks a pivotal moment, not only for the future of cloud markets, but also for whether European competition policy is finally willing to confront the expanding power of Big Tech companies.

The deal follows an earlier USD 23 billion takeover attempt in 2024 that collapsed due to alleged concerns about regulatory hurdles in the United States. This time, Google has upped its game and sweetened the deal with a USD 3.2 billion break-up fee if the deal fails. A change in the US administration appears to have paved the way for early merger approval there in November.

Wiz is a fast-growing cybersecurity success story founded in 2020 as a cloud-agnostic challenger to both hyperscalers’ native tools and traditional vendors. It has become a central component of cloud security for governments, critical infrastructure operators and large enterprises. As a multi-cloud security layer, Wiz provides visibility across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and other environments. If Google acquires Wiz, this neutral multi-cloud visibility would be absorbed into a single hyperscaler’s ecosystem, enabling Google to align Wiz’s products and roadmap with its own cloud strategy.

While Wiz would be Google’s largest acquisition to date, no European competition authority opened a review before the deal reached Brussels. This is striking at a time in which Big Tech’s excessive market power in cloud not only hurts businesses and citizens, but has become an increasingly tangible geopolitical threat to Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda. The European Commission must now review the notification and decide by February 10 whether to clear the deal or open an in-depth merger investigation. To prevent the possibility of Google from taking control of the cloud, Europe must step up and stop a structural consolidation that would give the US gatekeeper unprecedented leverage over Europe’s cloud security architecture.

The Wiz deal threatens competition - and more...This transaction is the latest in Google’s long-standing strategy of expanding its empire. Globally, Google acquired at least 43 companies between 2019 and 2025, and since 2010, it has invested in nearly 6,000 companies globally. However, the Wiz transaction stands out from the others: in addition to being Google’s largest, it follows a series of recent cloud security acquisitions, in particular Mandiant, Chronicle and Siemplify, aimed at strengthening its position against Microsoft and Amazon. The scale of this takeover reflects Google’s gargantuan ambition to become an essential player in “left of boom” (i.e., before cybersecurity attacks happen) cloud security.

With Wiz, Google will become one of the most powerful players in cloud security, combining its GCP with a security platform used across all major clouds. This creates an inherent conflict of interest. Google could shape Wiz’s tools to work best with its own cloud, bundle them across its AI and other services, or steer product development in a way that favours GCP. Independent cybersecurity vendors cannot match these advantages and some have already warned that customers operating on other non-Google clouds risk becoming second-class citizens. Large businesses and public bodies would be left with fewer genuinely independent alternative security providers and weaker bargaining positions.

The merger would also strengthen an already dominant tech giant across yet another layer of the digital stack. By gaining control over a key multi-cloud security tool, Google would be in a position to shape the practical level of interoperability across competing cloud environments. This risks customers becoming more dependent on one provider for cloud and security. That is precisely the type of lock-in the EU’s Data Act is meant to reduce.

The deal raises substantial data governance concerns. Wiz’s multi-cloud deployment gives it deep insight into how organisations configure and secure their systems. Once integrated into Google, that insight could be used to reinforce both Google’s cloud and AI businesses. Some investors have described Wiz as a Trojan horse, giving Google visibility into rival clouds that no competitor could replicate.

Experts also note that the acquisition gives Google access to thousands of Wiz patents, allowing it to buy rather than innovate. This removes an independent source of cloud security innovation and reduces the likelihood that Wiz would develop tools that challenge Google’s broader commercial interests.

Consolidating Wiz inside Google would give one company large-scale access to sensitive operational and strategically valuable information. Centralizing this visibility in a single foreign provider increases the risks of misuse, exposure or leakage, and is likely to reduce transparency. Gatekeeper platforms often invoke “security reasons” to justify limiting what customers and regulators can see about how their services work. If Google controls this security layer, users may struggle to assess their own risks, and regulators may find effective oversight harder.

These issues echo a familiar regulatory pattern: competition authorities have repeatedly underestimated the cumulative impact of Google’s acquisitions on market structure, data concentration and ecosystem leverage, most visibly when the DoubleClick takeover paved the way for Google’s dominance in digital advertising.

In addition to this, the competition concerns sit within a wider security and geopolitical context that has been largely overlooked. Europe has already seen cloud outages disrupt basic services such as hospitals, energy grids and financial services. Deepening Europe’s dependence on a small group of powerful hyperscalers, while handing another critical layer of Europe’s digital infrastructure to one of them, runs directly against the European Commission’s and France and Germany’s stated goals of strengthening European cloud sovereignty.

Europe’s competition authorities must act now...Given these risks, the Google/Wiz merger demands more than routine scrutiny. Now that the transaction has been formally notified, the European Commission must open an in-depth investigation and be prepared to block the deal if the evidence shows that Google’s control of Wiz would distort competition in the cloud and cloud security markets. Wiz has a significant operational presence in the region, including registered subsidiaries in the Netherlands and Germany and offices in France. Its UK revenues reached almost GBP 30 million in 2024. Many major European companies—including LVMH, Siemens, BMW, Shell, and Revolut—are customers of Wiz, which means the deal has direct implications for how sensitive data generated in Europe may be consolidated and controlled by a single Big Tech player.

The fact that this USD 32 billion transaction reached the Commission without any prior European national competition authority scrutiny is revealing. The deal did not trigger national notification thresholds, and no national authority called it in, highlighting a persistent gap whereby strategically important digital deals often fall outside traditional merger thresholds, even when their impact is substantial. Past under-intervention, such as in Google/DoubleClick, shows how easily the impacts of such deals can be misjudged. If recently expanded merger regimes in countries such as Germany or the United Kingdom cannot capture a transaction of this magnitude, it raises questions about the effectiveness of those reforms and whether the EU framework is equipped to address high-risk digital infrastructure deals.

Countries currently considering below-threshold merger regimes, including France and the Netherlands, should treat the Google/Wiz as a clear test-case. Without mechanisms capable of assessing strategically relevant digital infrastructure acquisitions, Europe will continue to miss the very transactions that reshape power for years to come.

If Europe is serious about maintaining competitive cloud and cloud security markets, the European Commission must not only investigate but must also be prepared to block the Google/Wiz deal.

Authors below:

Hilary Jennings--Hilary Jennings is a Senior Fellow at the Balanced Economy Project, a civil society organisation dedicated to holding powerful corporations to account. She is an independent competition and regulation consultant advising authorities and governments worldwide, and previously held senior roles at the ...

Claire Lavin--Claire Lavin is a Research Fellow at the Open Markets Institute. She contributes to Open Markets' advocacy and research work in Europe. Claire deals with a range of EU competition policy issues with a particular focus on technology and Big Tech firms.

Çağrı Çavuş--Çağrı Çavuş is a tech researcher at SOMO, a civil society organisation that investigates multinational corporations. He specialises in competition policy and the regulation of digital platforms.

Aline Blankertz--Aline Blankertz is an applied economist and works as Tech Economy Lead at Rebalance Now, an anti-monopoly organization. She has been analyzing competition and markets mostly in the digital sector at various civil society organizations and at an economic consultancy.

TECH

Heat pumps will soon be able to store and distribute heat as needed

Researchers have developed a heat storage unit that takes up less space than a regular hot water tank. It charges when electricity is cheap and releases heat when needed.

Heat pumps are becoming increasingly common in private homes. But storing the heat they produce has not been possible—until now. SINTEF and Swiss company COWA Thermal Solutions researchers are collaborating on the solution.

"Think of it as a thermal battery, which stores the heat from the heat pump and can be used later. In practice, this means that people get more energy out of the stored heat. It becomes easier and more comfortable to use, and the energy is also used in a smarter way," says Galina Simonsen, a senior research scientist at SINTEF.

Simonsen is a member of the team that has developed the new thermal batteries.

"The batteries have high efficiency, and they charge and deliver heat quickly, making it easier to meet the need. Like when several people are taking showers one after the other, for example, or you need hot water early on a cold morning," says Simonsen.

The solution will also benefit your wallet because it makes it possible to store excess heat when electricity is cheap or produced in an environmentally friendly way, and can be used when the need for more heat arises.

Properties lie in salt hydrates...Heat pumps extract energy from the environment—air, soil or water—and transport the heat into the home.

However, in households and other buildings, the heat demand varies, depending on usage patterns, time of day, outdoor temperature and weather conditions. The researchers on this project have worked to meet these fluctuations in a smarter way.

"A heat pump that runs constantly is expensive, energy-consuming and can lead to overloading the power grid. With the new batteries, heat pumps combine storage and smart distribution of heat," says Simonsen.

Research colleagues Martin Fossen and Galina Simonsen in front of the system that can store excess heat from heat pumps. Credit: Silje Grytli Tveten

First out with a solution for private individuals..."The research team at SINTEF has collaborated closely with the Swiss company COWA Thermal Solutions to develop their solution. Although thermal energy storage already exists, the team is among the first to have managed to create a solution that is so effective that it is attractive for private homes.

The secret lies in a combination of technical solutions and materials called salt hydrates.

"Unlike the salt we sprinkle on food, salt hydrates lock water into their structure and behave in a unique way when exposed to heat," says Simonsen.

Substances that can undergo this physical transformation, from melting to solidification, belong to a broader group of materials known as "phase change materials."

Here you can read about the company Cartesian, which has created a similar solution for both heating and cooling large buildings based on solar or wind power:

"Think of thermal batteries as sponges: When they're heated to a certain temperature, they undergo a change from solid to liquid and can store heat. When they are cooled, they return to solid form and release heat again," says Simonsen.

"They can store much more thermal energy than water, for example, and they retain heat longer, even if the temperature does not change that much."

In other words: more heat and more stable temperatures.

You may have this very common substance in your kitchen cupboard. Now it plays the main role in a new system for heat storage. Researcher Galina Simonsen believes the solution could also be very useful in private homes. Credit: SINTEF

Space-saving solution...Salt hydrates thus open up completely new possibilities for smart and more balanced heating systems because heating can be moved to times with low energy demand.

"Salt hydrates aren't toxic, they're not flammable and they are also relatively inexpensive. This makes them a safe and good choice for use in private homes. Heat storage with salt hydrates also takes up less space than a traditional hot water tank, often up to four times less," says Simonsen.

About the Sure2Coat project...The work is being carried out as part of the project Sure2Coat and in close collaboration with the Swiss company COWA Thermal Solutions and research partners. COWA has worked to develop and improve the salt hydrates with new additives, so that the materials are stable and can function for decades without losing their special properties. SINTEF has worked to improve the efficiency of the batteries themselves.

Traditional systems often have low efficiency and can take a long time to charge and provide heat to the house. By using thin cooling fins, the researchers have managed to increase the efficiency of the new batteries from 65 to 85%. At the same time, charging time has been reduced by over 70% and the time it takes to release the heat has been cut by more than 80%.

The Sure2Coat project is a collaboration between 14 partners in industry and research in seven European countries. The project involves developing and implementing new or improved methods for surface treatment and coating of surfaces for different types of metals. The methods are demonstrated through three specific application areas: the gearbox, gas-water heater and latent heat storage.

Through the project, end users will effectively reduce their energy use, material consumption, CO2 emissions and pollution from production. The goal is to contribute positively to European industry and the EU's growth strategy by integrating surface treatment methods into the production line.

Recycled aluminum used...SINTEF's task in the project has been to improve the efficiency itself. That is, how the heat is stored and released in the batteries.

"Specifically, we have designed and tested a type of heat sink that improves heat transfer in the thermal batteries," says Simonsen.

The cooling fins are thin metal structures made of recycled aluminum that are effective heat conductors. This means that the heat is distributed quickly and evenly through the salt hydrate.

"Aluminum is a light material, has good thermal conductivity and is easy to form. The use of recycled aluminum also reduces the environmental footprint and costs, and helps to promote a more circular use of materials.

At the same time, recycled aluminum poses a challenge: it can contain impurities that make it more vulnerable to corrosion.

"Corrosion is particularly critical because salt hydrates are tough on aluminum, especially when impurities are present. Without protection, the cooling fins can degrade over time, reducing performance and shortening the lifespan of the entire system," Simonsen explains.

To solve this problem, the researchers have employed a type of coating called plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), which forms a thin, ceramic layer on the surface of the aluminum.

"This coating is similar to what is used on non-stick pans and provides a very durable and corrosion-resistant barrier," says the researcher.

Provided by Norwegian University of Science and Technology

DIGITAL LIFE

Big tech companies may seek to influence Brazil’s 2026 elections, political scientist warns

Brazil’s 2026 electoral process is likely to face strong interference from major technology corporations, commonly referred to as big tech. The warning comes from political scientist Rudá Ricci, who argues that global tech giants will place strategic focus on Brazil, as well as Colombia, which begins its presidential election cycle in May for a term running through 2030.

“These are the largest and most politically significant elections in Latin America this year,” Ricci said in an interview with Radio BdF, on Wednesday (7). “There is already a clear decision: big tech will go all in, flooding voters with millions of messages, all customized, each one telling a different story to a different niche.”

According to Ricci, advances in algorithmic targeting have made these audience segments increasingly precise, a trend that will be aggressively exploited as campaigns intensify in the coming months. “If you’re a Corinthians fan, they’ll say Lula is a Corinthians supporter who never did anything for the club. If you’re a Palmeiras fan, they’ll also say Lula is a Corinthians supporter,” he explained. “And so on.”

Ricci also points to a deeper structural risk in Brazilian society. He notes that recent research shows growing political inertia and individualism among the population, a dynamic that could make large-scale manipulation easier. He cites the public response to the January 8, 2023 coup attempt as an example: while opinion polls show widespread rejection of the attacks, public mobilization in the streets has been limited.

“For us in sociology, this is striking. We have never seen Brazilian society this inert,” Ricci said. “Research across the country shows people increasingly focused on solving their lives individually. That’s extremely worrying, and it will make it much easier for the kind of manipulation we are likely to see starting in August in Brazil.”

A YouTube video claims that 'elections are being manipulated by organized crime' in Brazil... A YouTube video alleges that organized crime is interfering with the results of Brazilian elections by altering electronic voting machines and buying votes in "strategic regions." This is #FAKE.

The narrator also says that the manipulation was "systematic and technologically sophisticated," involving "intentional vulnerabilities in electoral systems" and "altering the software of the voting machines to favor specific candidates," characterized as "democratic hacking on an industrial scale." Furthermore, it would be possible to install modified versions of the software in strategic regions and systems that erased the traces of the manipulation.

The fake news mentions that 5 million votes were manipulated in national elections, of which 2 million would have been due to the alteration of voting machines and 3 million would have been due to acts of intimidation of voters, poll workers, and party representatives.

The plot would ultimately allow for obtaining details about campaign financing and candidates — which, in reality, is open for public consultation.

According to the TRE (Regional Electoral Court) of São Paulo, the video repeats a fake news story already debunked about the security of electronic voting machines and inserts it into a false context of a criminal operation...by g1.globo.com editorial staff

Elon Musk's Twitter (X) and the far-right AfD campaign in 2025...Billionaire Elon Musk gave his support to the far-right AfD party via video conference at a rally in Germany this Saturday (January 25, 2025), amid controversy following his controversial gesture during Donald Trump's inauguration, which was compared to a Nazi salute.

"It's good to be proud to be German. Fight for a bright future for Germany," declared the world's richest man to, according to AfD data, about 4,500 supporters gathered at the Halle Fair (east). He also reiterated his support for the party that embodies, according to him, "the best hope for Germany."

Accusations of Nazi gesture...A gesture by Elon Musk drew attention during the inauguration ceremony of President Donald Trump. In his speech, while thanking those present, the billionaire beat his chest and quickly raised his right hand, with his arm extended forward and his palm facing down(image above Photo: ANGELA WEISS/AFP), a gesture similar to that given to Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany...by AFP

Facebook and its collusion with Donald Trump's 2016 campaign...Cambridge Analytica, the British consultancy that worked for the election campaign of US President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Wednesday (09/01/2019 ) to refusing to disclose personal data it had extracted from Facebook. The company was fined £15,000 (US$19,100 or €16,700) by a London court and will also have to pay court costs of £6,000.

Facebook had already admitted that Cambridge Analytica – a political consultancy that managed Trump's digital campaign in 2016 – used an app to collect private information from 87 million users without their knowledge. The company then used this data to send users specially tailored political advertising and to create detailed reports to help Trump win the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

TikTok promoted a pro-Putin candidate in the 2024 Romanian presidential elections...The Romanian Supreme Defense Council (CSAT) accused the video platform TikTok on Thursday (November 28, 2024) of helping to promote the far-right, pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu by not labeling the content of his presidential campaign as political propaganda.

In parallel, Romanian authorities denounced an attempt to manipulate the electoral process, and the country's telecommunications regulatory agency requested the complete suspension of the platform in the country.

Georgescu, a member of the far-right and Orthodox Christian fundamentalist, an admirer of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and former Romanian fascists, was practically ignored by the political establishment and the mainstream media.

However, he won the first round of elections without the polls noticing his advance during the electoral campaign. According to the surveys, the far-right candidate had only 5% of the voting intentions before the election.

The CSAT – a security council led by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, which also includes the heads of the intelligence services, the military, and several ministers – urged police and electoral authorities to investigate the case.

The Romanian electoral commission instructed TikTok to ensure that candidates clearly identified themselves using codes that reveal their funding sources. The platform's failure would have increased Georgescu's visibility and given him an unfair advantage...by Deutsche Welle

Big tech companies may seek to influence Brazil’s 2026 elections, mundophone responds: Yes, there are significant concerns and warnings from political scientists and analysts that big tech companies may seek to influence Brazil's 2026 elections. This potential influence, particularly through large-scale digital manipulation and the spread of disinformation and AI-generated content, is a major point of discussion in Brazil's current political and legal landscape.

Key areas of concern:

-Disinformation and AI: Social media platforms are seen as fertile ground for disinformation, with algorithms that prioritize engaging (often sensational or false) content, which spreads faster than factual news. The unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) is considered a direct risk to information integrity and the electoral process, as it can be used to create deepfakes and manipulate public opinion on a massive scale.

-Algorithmic Manipulation: Analysts warn that sophisticated algorithmic targeting can be used to create political "information bubbles," tailoring messages to individual users' biases and making large-scale manipulation easier, especially given research suggesting growing public political disengagement.

-Geopolitical and Economic Interests: There are concerns that U.S.-based big tech companies might act to favor candidates aligned with U.S. interests, within a perceived neocolonial project. This is linked to ongoing tensions over proposed Brazilian legislation that aims to curb the economic power and regulate the activities of these tech giants.

-Regulatory Challenges: The current legislative environment is complex. The Lula government has proposed bills to regulate big tech, but these have stalled in Congress due to political disagreements. In the absence of a comprehensive national law, Brazil's Supreme Court (STF) and Superior Electoral Court (TSE) have taken steps to increase platform accountability, including making platforms civilly liable for failing to proactively remove certain types of illegal content. However, authorities acknowledge that these resolutions may be insufficient to cover all risks.

Overall, the 2026 elections are anticipated to be a challenging period in terms of handling digital content, with a potential conflict between platforms' anti-regulation narratives and the requests of Brazilian electoral authorities.

mundophone responds: k77c49@gmail.com

--mundophone--

CES 2026

'Worst in Show' CES products include AI refrigerators, AI companions and AI doorbells

The promise of artificial intelligence was front and center at this year's CES gadget show. But spicing up a simple machine like a refrigerator with unnecessary AI was also a surefire way to win the "Worst in Show."

The annual contest that no tech company wants to win announced its decisions Thursday. Among those getting the notorious "anti-awards" for invasive, wasteful or fragile products were an eye-tracking AI "soulmate" companion for combating loneliness, a musical lollipop and new AI features for Amazon's widely used doorbell cameras.

Shouting at a 'bespoke AI' fridge that also hawks grocery products...Samsung's "Bespoke AI Family Hub" refrigerator received the overall "Worst in Show" recognition from the group of consumer and privacy advocates who judged the contest.

Samsung invites users to speak to the refrigerator and command it to open or close the door, but a demonstration at the sprawling Las Vegas technology expo showed it didn't always detect what people were saying if there was too much ambient noise. That was just part of the complications and reliability concerns Samsung added to an appliance that's supposed to have one important job: keeping food cold, said Gay Gordon-Byrne of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition in a recorded video ceremony announcing the anti-awards.

People look at a display of the Bosch eBike Flow app at the Bosch booth during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher

"Everything is an order of magnitude more difficult," she said of the fridge that also tracks when food items are running low and can advertise replacements.

Samsung said in response that "a trade show floor is naturally very different from a consumer's home environment. Our Bespoke AI experiences are designed to simplify decisions around the home, making life more convenient and enjoyable."

The South Korean tech giant also said "security and privacy are foundational" to the AI experiences in the fridge..

Who decides what's 'Worst in Show'...The judges have no affiliation with CES or the trade group that runs the show. They say they make the choices based on how uniquely bad a product is, what impact it could have if widely adopted and if it was significantly worse than previous versions of similar technology. The judges represent groups including Consumer Reports, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and right-to-repair advocates iFixit.

"We definitely intend some shame," said iFixit's director of sustainability, Elizabeth Chamberlain, in an interview. "We do hope that manufacturers see this as a poke, as an impetus to do better next time. But our goal isn't to really shame any particular manufacturer as such. We're hoping that they'll make changes as a result of it. We're pointing to trends that we see in the industry as a whole. And a lot of the things that we're calling out, we picked an individual product, but we could have picked a whole category."

Amazon's doorbells once again ring privacy alarms...An array of new features for Amazon's Ring doorbell camera system won the "Worst in Show" for privacy for "doubling down on privacy invasion and supporting the misconception that more surveillance always makes us safer," said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Among the new Ring features is an "AI Unusual Event Alert" that is supposed to detect unexpected people or happenings like the arrival of a "pack of coyotes."

Ring doorbells are seen on display at the Amazon booth during the CES tech show Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/Abbie Par

"That includes facial recognition," Cohn said of the new Ring features. "It includes mobile surveillance towers that can be deployed at parking lots and other places, and it includes an app store that's going to let people develop even sketchier apps for the doorbell than the ones that Amazon already provides."

Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Deskbound AI 'soulmate' companion is always watching your eyes...Winning the "People's Choice" of worst products was an AI companion called Ami, made by Chinese company Lepro, which mostly sells lamps and lighting technology. Ami appears as a female avatar on a curved screen that is marketed as "your always-on 3D soulmate," designed for remote workers looking for private and "empathetic" interactions during long days at the home office. It tracks eye movements and other emotional signals, like tone of voice.

The group says it is calling out Lepro "for having the audacity to suggest that an AI video surveillance device on a desk could be anyone's soulmate." Advocates acknowledged the device comes with a physical camera shutter but said they were unsettled by its "always-on" marketing.

Lepro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tech lollipop gets dinged for environmental waste...Lollipop Star attracted attention early at CES as a candy that plays music while you eat it. Its creators say it uses bone induction technology to enable people to hear songs—like tracks from Ice Spice and Akon—through the lollipop as they bite it using their back teeth. But the sticks can't be recharged or reused after the candy is gone, leaving consumer advocate Nathan Proctor to give it a "Worst in Show" for the environment.

"We need to stop making so many disposable electronics, which are full of toxic chemicals, require critical minerals to produce and can burn down waste facilities," said Proctor, who directs the Public Interest Research Group's right-to-repair campaign.

A spokesperson for Lollipop Star maker Lava Brand didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

A treadmill powered by an AI chatbot fitness coach raises security concerns..."Worst in Show" for security went to Merach's internet-connected treadmill that boasts of having the industry's first AI coach powered by a large language model that can converse with the user but also proactively adjust the speed and incline based on heart rate changes.

All that collection of biometric data and behavioral inferences raised concerns for security advocates, but so did the fine print of a privacy policy that stated: "We cannot guarantee the security of your personal information."

China-based Merach didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Talking coffee makers and making e-bikes hard to fix...German tech company Bosch received two "Worst in Show" awards, one for adding voice assistants and subscriptions to coffee-making with a "Personal AI Barista" machine and another for a purported anti-theft feature on an e-bike app.

Cory Doctorow, author of the book "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" and himself a "Worst in Show" judge, criticized Bosch's "parts pairing" to digitally connect an e-bike with its parts, like motors and batteries, in a way that flags a part if it appeared on a database of stolen products.

Even if Bosch doesn't seek to prosecute its own customers for routine repairs, it could always change its deal with them later, in line with Doctorow's theory of the decay of online platforms as companies exploit the customers they earlier won over.

Bosch said in a statement Thursday "that earning and keeping trust with our consumers, especially in the areas of privacy and cybersecurity, is at the core of our company's values. Both Bosch Home Appliances and Bosch eBike Systems protect their consumers against unauthorized tampering or control through a comprehensive security concept, using encryption and authentication."

© 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

DIGITAL LIFE

Iran's dictatorial regime and its usual tactic: completely shutting down the internet during widespread protests

People in Iran's capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the streets on Thursday night after a call by the country's exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said.

Internet access and telephone lines in Iran cut out immediately after the protests began.

CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference.

Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns.

It represents a new escalation in the protest movement, initially against Iran's ailing economy, that has spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic.

The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 pm local on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighbourhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said.

The chants included "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to the Islamic Republic!" Others praised the shah, shouting: "This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!" Thousands could be seen on the streets.

"Great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Take to the streets and, as a united front, shout your demands," Pahlavi said in a statement.

"I warn the Islamic Republic, its leader and the (Revolutionary Guard) that the world and (President Donald Trump) are closely watching you. Suppression of the people will not go unanswered."

Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fuelling the protests.

Thursday saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters.

So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been detained, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said.

The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

by mundophone

TECH

How chameleon materials adjust to climate extremes in real time

Every summer, our cities burn energy to keep us cool. The same happens in winter with the increasing demand for heating.

But what if we don't just treat our comfort as an issue that can only be solved through hammering the air conditioning or heating? What if our buildings, clothes and infrastructure could have chameleon-like properties and adapt with the seasons?

This is exactly the kind of thinking we are doing at the University of Melbourne when we develop and engineer new materials as we navigate towards net zero.

The great energy challenge isn't just about clean energy generation but also energy preservation.

The energy challenge isn't so simple...Heating and cooling consume nearly half of all energy used in buildings worldwide. And as our weather becomes more extreme, it demands more climate control, heating and cooling. This increases the reliance on energy sources, driving up both emissions and the cost of climate control.

We could keep using more and more air conditioning, adding heaters and very thick insulation, but that's not a solution.

We already spend over half of our energy consumption dollars on climate control—and conventional insulation doesn't adjust with changing conditions. It stays static, unchanging.

A key part of solving this complex problem is smart materials.

We already spend over half of our energy consumption dollars on climate control. Credit: tu nguyen from Pexels

Chameleon-inspired materials...At their core, chameleon materials are phase-change materials engineered to sense their environment and respond in real time, without needing to consume extra power.

One of the stars of this innovation is vanadium oxide, particularly vanadium dioxide (VO₂), which transforms when the temperature changes by just a few degrees. Depending on the temperature, vanadium dioxide's atomic structure changes.

In its cool state (insulating), it transmits infrared radiation, allowing heat through. In its hot state (metallic), it reflects infrared radiation, blocking heat.

So, in summer, VO₂ becomes metallic and reflects solar heat, keeping interiors cool without air conditioning. In winter, it remains insulating and transmits solar warmth into the building.

This remarkable process happens in fractions of a second and repeats millions of times without degrading. No batteries. No electronics. No external controls. Just physics.

How it all works...To understand how these materials "sense," we need to look at them at the atomic level.

Vanadium dioxide exists in many crystal structures and shapes. Let's focus on two: monoclinic (at low temperatures) and tetragonal (at high temperatures).

Each structure has a fundamentally different shape—optical (what it lets through and what it reflects) and electronic (how good of a conductor it is).

Below the transition temperature, vanadium dioxide is an insulator.

Electrons are locked in place, unable to move freely. The material's crystal structure keeps them trapped. This insulating state also means the material strongly transmits infrared radiation—that's the wavelength we experience as heat.

Cross the transition temperature and something dramatic happens. The crystal structure rearranges.

Vanadium atoms shift position by just a fraction of an angstrom, infinitesimal distances, but still enough to unlock electron movement. The material becomes metallic and conductive.

Simultaneously, its optical properties flip: now it reflects what we experience as heat (infrared radiation). This is a chameleon-like transformation that happens almost instantaneously once the threshold is crossed.

The material literally "senses" temperature through its atomic structure, triggering adaptation without any external device or additional power.

Engineering for scale and durability...When phase-change coatings are applied to windows, roofs or building facades, the energy impact is substantial. On hot days, the material becomes metallic and reflects infrared heat, reducing cooling loads.

As evening temperatures drop, it returns to its insulating state, which transmits infrared radiation, allowing the building to cool naturally by radiating heat to its surroundings. But moving from laboratory to the real-world requires solving some practical challenges.

We are developing scalable manufacturing methods. Durability is also critical: materials must withstand UV exposure, pollution, thermal cycling and weathering without losing responsiveness.

We need to engineer materials that are not only smart but sustainable from production to end-of-life.

A tool for climate action...Chameleon materials are a fundamental shift in how we approach energy and climate. Instead of engineering larger, more powerful systems to adjust to extreme changes, we're engineering materials that respond in real time, continuously optimizing their interaction with their surroundings.

As nations commit to net-zero carbon targets, adaptive materials can play a central role. They're not a complete solution, but they're a crucial tool. Chameleons have perfected adaptation over millions of years of evolution.

By learning from nature and engineering smart materials that respond to their environment, research groups worldwide, including at the University of Melbourne, are advancing these materials from concept to application.

The path from lab to large-scale deployment is underway, driven by urgent climate challenges and growing demand for smarter infrastructure.

We're fundamentally changing how buildings and infrastructure interact with the world around them, one degree at a time.

Provided by University of Melbourne