What's old is hot again, and flip phones are so very hot right now. From a report: These phones are a far cry from the phone that you mastered T9 texting on in college. Today's flip phones are garden-variety 2023 smartphones that happen to fold in half -- plus a screen on the front cover. They've been making a kind of comeback over the past few years, but until now, they've existed in the shadows of their bigger, pricier fold-style counterparts. That's understandable, considering that their small cover screens haven't been good for much more than checking the weather and pressing pause on a podcast. But that's all changing this year: in a round of updates from Motorola, Oppo, and very likely Samsung next, cover screens are getting much larger and way more useful. And that's a big deal.

Samsung will likely announce its fifth-generation Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 this week at Unpacked, which has become its annual summer foldable-fest. They'll be thinner and lighter than last year's models -- that's what TM Roh told us, anyway -- and will both likely use new hinges that fold totally flat. The Z Flip 5 is heavily rumored to come with a much bigger cover screen than previous generations. The Z Fold 5? Well, rumors point to a very boring update, frankly. [...] The previous generation of flip-style phones felt like a regular phone with a smartwatch on the front -- good for checking quick information but not a lot more. The new flippable cover screens sit in a more comfortable place between a smartwatch and a full-size phone. They're big enough to provide a lot more information at a glance than a watch, but you can't comfortably do everything you'd do on a normal phone screen. As a result, you get a little bit of your attention back that you would have spent mindlessly scrolling Instagram when all you wanted to do was check the weather.

Tuesday North America's largest lithium mining operation cleared its last legal hurdle in federal appeals court, giving a green light to the mining of 6,000 acres in an 18,000-acre project site near Nevada's northern border.

But meanwhile, in Southern Nevada... Federal land managers have formally withdrawn their authorization of a Canadian mining company's lithium exploration project bordering a national wildlife refuge in southern Nevada after conservationists sought a court order to block it.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy said in a lawsuit filed July 7 that the project on the edge of the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge outside Las Vegas posed an illegal risk to a dozen fish, snail and plant species currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. They filed an additional motion this week in federal court seeking a temporary injunction prohibiting Rover Metals from initiating the drilling of 30 bore sites in search of the highly sought-after metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles.

But before a judge in Las Vegas could rule on the request, the Bureau of Land Management notified Rover Metals on Wednesday that its earlier acceptance of the company's notice of its intent to proceed "was in error... The agency has concluded that proposed operations are likely to result in disturbance to localized groundwaters that supply the connected surface waters associated with Threatened and Endangered species in local springs," said Angelita Bulletts, district manager of the bureau's southern Nevada district...

Conservationists said the reversal provides at least a temporary reprieve for the lush oasis in the Mojave Desert that is home to 25 species of fish, plants, insects and snails that are found nowhere else on Earth — one of the highest concentrations of endemic species in North America at one of the hottest, driest places on the planet.
The article ends with this quote from a director at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Amargosa Conservancy. "We need lithium for our renewable energy transition, but this episode sends a message loud and clear that some places are just too special to drill."

Since 2006, Slashdot has been covering a contest CmdrTaco once summarized as "Compress Wikipedia and Win." It rewards progress on compressing a 1-billion-character excerpt of Wikipedia — approximately the amount that a human can read in a lifetime.

And today a new record was announced. The 1 billion characters have now been compressed to just 114,156,155 bytes — about 114 megabytes, or just 11.41% of the original size — by Saurabh Kumar, a New York-based quantitative developer for a high-frequency/algorithmic trading and financial services fund. The amount of each "Hutter Prize for Lossless Compression of Human Knowledge" increases based on how much compression is achieved (so if you compress the file x% better you receive x% of the prize). Kumar's compression was 1.04% smaller than the previous record, so they'll receive €5187.

But "The intention of this prize is to encourage development of intelligent compressors/programs as a path to AGI," said Marcus Hutter (now a senior researcher at Google DeepMind) in a 2020 interview with Lex Fridman.

17 years after their original post announcing the competition, Baldrson (Slashdot reader #78,598) returns to explain the contest's significance to AI research, starting with a quote from mathematician Gregory Chaitin — that "Compression is comprehension."

But they emphasize that the contest also has one specific hardware constraint rooted in theories of AI optimization: The Hutter Prize is geared toward research in that it restricts computation resources to the most general purpose hardware that is widely available. Why? As described by the seminal paper "The Hardware Lottery" by Sara Hooker, AI research is biased toward algorithms optimized for existing hardware infrastructure. While this hardware bias is justified for engineering (applying existing scientific understanding to the "utility function" of making money) to quote Sara Hooker, it "can delay research progress by casting successful ideas as failures."

The complaint that this is "mere" optimization ignores the fact that this was done on general purpose computation hardware, and is therefore in line with the spirit of Sara Hookers admonition to researchers in "The Hardware Lottery". By showing how to optimize within the constraint of general purpose computation, Saurabh's contribution may help point the way toward future directions in hardware architecture.

In 2015 the founders of "Solar AquaGrid" proposed water-saving solar panels to shade irrigation canals, but they "couldn't get anyone to commit," remembers the Associated Press.

But "fast forward eight years," and you'll find them "preparing to break ground on the first solar-covered canal project in the United States." The idea is simple: install solar panels over canals in sunny, water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and make electricity. A study by the University of California, Merced gives a boost to the idea, estimating that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved by covering California's 4,000 miles of canals. Researchers believe that much installed solar would also generate a significant amount of electricity.

But that's an estimate — neither it, nor other potential benefits have been tested scientifically. That's about to change with Project Nexus in California's Central Valley...

They thought research from a reputable institution might do the trick, and [in 2021] got funding for UC Merced to study the impact of solar-covered-canals in California... Around the same time, the Turlock Irrigation District, an entity that also provides power, reached out to UC Merced. It was looking to build a solar project to comply with the state's increased goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045. But land was very expensive, so building atop existing infrastructure was appealing. Then there was the prospect that shade from panels might reduce weeds growing in the canals — a problem that costs this utility $1 million annually...

The state committed $20 million in public funds, turning the pilot into a three-party collaboration among the private, public and academic sectors. About 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) of canals between 20 and 110 feet wide will be covered with solar panels between five and 15 feet off the ground. The UC Merced team will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality, said Brandi McKuin, lead researcher on the study. "We need to get to the heart of those questions before we make any recommendations about how to do this more widely," she said.
"California isn't first with this technology," the article points out, since India "pioneered it on one of the largest irrigation projects in the world..." But soon even more U.S. canals may be getting solar panels.

Arizona's Gila River Indian Community "received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to install solar on their canals in an effort to save water to ease stress on the Colorado River. And one of Arizona's largest water and power utilities, the Salt River Project, is studying the technology alongside Arizona State University. And a group of more than 100 climate advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, have now sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Bureau Commissioner Camille Touton urging them "to accelerate the widespread deployment of solar photovoltaic energy systems" above the Bureau's canals and aqueducts. Covering all 8,000 miles of Bureau-owned canals and aqueducts could "generate over 25 gigawatts of renewable energy — enough to power nearly 20 million homes — and reduce water evaporation by tens of billions of gallons."

"If the U.S. is to ease its dependence for lithium on other countries such as China, it may need this quiet corner of southwest Arkansas to lead the way," reports the Wall Street Journal, visiting the "thick-wooded back roads" and "crisscrossing fields where oil drillers gave up long ago" in Magnolia, Arkansas. (Population: 11,105) Exxon Mobil, a new player in the hunt for U.S. lithium, is planning to build one of the world's largest lithium processing facilities not far from Magnolia, with a capacity to produce 75,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium a year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Exxon purchased 120,000 gross acres in the area for a price tag of more than $100 million. A consultant for the seller had estimated the prospect could have the equivalent of 4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to power 50 million EVs... To push the project forward, Exxon will have to profitably scale up the technology used to siphon lithium from brine, which for years has been an elusive goal across the industry... Exxon believes it can leverage its engineering prowess to become a low-cost domestic supplier of lithium, and has had discussions with battery and EV manufacturers, people familiar with the matter said. The company would also benefit from green-energy subsidies included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows for tax credits of 10% of the cost of producing lithium.

Exxon, which is generally bullish about the future of oil and natural gas, is also preparing for a future less dependent on gasoline. Last year, it projected light-duty vehicle demand for internal combustion engine fuels could peak by 2025, while EVs, hybrids and vehicles powered by fuel cells could grow to more than 50% of new car sales by 2050.
"Other companies including Standard Lithium and Tetra Technologies are planning to build capacity in the area..."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

Slashdot reader sonlas writes: The government's green energy plans faced a setback as the Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarm project by Vattenfall was halted due to soaring supply chain costs and rising interest rates. Vattenfall's chief executive Anna Borg said: "It's important to understand that our suppliers are being squeezed. They have problems in their supply chain so it's not so easy to mitigate these situations."

The 40% increase in expenses was driven by high global gas prices impacting manufacturing costs, making the project unprofitable. The decision to halt work on the Norfolk Boreas windfarm has cost Vattenfall £415 million, but Borg said the move was "prudent" given the impact of costs on the project's future profitability.

In a related news, energy majors BP and TotalEnergies have won a 7GW offshore wind site auction in Germany worth a record $14.1 billion. However, even back in 2022 market experts were warning governments that those additional costs for energy producers have negative impacts. It is important to bear in mind that negative bidding places extra financial burdens on wind farm developers. These additional costs need to be transferred to someone else, either to consumers through increased energy bills or to suppliers, as the developers have less money to invest in the turbines.

Those two news are related in the sense that what has been shown so far is that in a world where fossil fuels are cheap and abundant, renewables, and especially offshore windfarm, are cheap and easy to deploy. However, signs are pointing toward a world where fossil fuels supply is not as cheap and abundant as expected, and that may have an impact on plans made by governments to reach Net Zero, or to even just reduce their CO2 emissions.

Astranis, a geostationary communications satellite operator, successfully deployed its "Arcturus" satellite from a Falcon Heavy rocket in May to provide internet connectivity from geostationary space. However, the satellite experienced an unexpected issue with a supplier's component on the solar array drive assembly, affecting its ability to maintain continuous power. Ars Technica reports: "The Astranis engineering team has been doing an incredible job working around the clock to troubleshoot the issue," [Astranis co-founder John Gedmark] said. "We have now reproduced the problem on the ground in a vacuum chamber, zeroed in on the exact source of the failure, and know how to fix it for future spacecraft. Because this failure occurred within the internal workings of a component supplied by an external vendor, we're not in a position to go into the full technical details." The disappointment in Gedmark's update is palpable. "This is a frustrating situation -- the Arcturus spacecraft is in a safe state and fully under our control, the payload and our other Astranis in-house designed components are all working perfectly, and the tanks are fueled for years of on-orbit operation," he said. "But unless something major changes, the mission of providing Internet connectivity in Alaska will be delayed."

Astranis was founded in 2015 to determine whether microsatellites built largely in-house could deliver high-speed Internet from geostationary space at a low price. The launch of Arcturus marked the first demonstration that Astranis' small satellite technology worked in space and could survive the harsh radiation and thermal environment previously dominated by much larger satellites that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Given that this was an effort to test this technology on a shoestring budget, it is perhaps not surprising that the satellite ultimately failed due to some unforeseen problem. The real acid test for Astranis, now, is to ensure that it learns from this failure and that the company's second satellite works in space.

In his update, Gedmark said the company understands how to quickly solve this issue on future spacecraft that are in production. The company is also working toward a solution to provide Internet service in Alaska, via Pacific Dataport, as initially planned with Arcturus. The backup plan, he said, "involves a special, multipurpose satellite that can operate as an on-orbit spare and bridge us to a full replacement satellite. We call this satellite UtilitySat. It can operate anywhere in the world, on multiple frequency bands, with the flexibility of a software-defined satellite. UtilitySat has been in the works for over a year, is in the final stages of integration, and is manifested on our very next launch that will take place at the end of this year."

Cerebras Systems and G42 have introduced the Condor Galaxy project, a network of nine interconnected supercomputers designed for AI model training with a combined performance of 36 FP16 ExaFLOPs. The first supercomputer, CG-1, located in California, offers 4 ExaFLOPs of FP16 performance and 54 million cores, focusing on Large Language Models and Generative AI without the need for complex distributed programming languages. AnandTech reports: CG-2 and CG-3 will be located in the U.S. and will follow in 2024. The remaining systems will be located across the globe and the total cost of the project will be over $900 million. The CG-1 supercomputer, situated in Santa Clara, California, combines 64 Cerebras CS-2 systems into a single user-friendly AI supercomputer, capable of providing 4 ExaFLOPs of dense, systolic FP16 compute for AI training. Based around Cerebras's 2.6 trillion transistor second-generation wafer scale engine processors, the machine is designed specifically for Large Language Models and Generative AI. It supports up to 600 billion parameter models, with configurations that can be expanded to support up to 100 trillion parameter models. Its 54 million AI-optimized compute cores and massivefabric network bandwidth of 388 Tb/s allow for nearly linear performance scaling from 1 to 64 CS-2 systems, according to Cerebras. The CG-1 supercomputer also offers inherent support for long sequence length training (up to 50,000 tokens) and does not require any complex distributed programming languages, which is common in case of GPU clusters.

This supercomputer is provided as a cloud service by Cerebras and G42 and since it is located in the U.S., Cerebras and G42 assert that it will not be used by hostile states. CG-1 is the first of three 4 FP16 ExaFLOP AI supercomputers (CG-1, CG-2, and CG-3) created by Cerebras and G42 in collaboration and located in the U.S. Once connected, these three AI supercomputers will form a 12 FP16 ExaFLOP, 162 million core distributed AI supercomputer, though it remains to be seen how efficient this network will be. In 2024, G42 and Cerebras plan to launch six additional Condor Galaxy supercomputers across the world, which will increase the total compute power to 36 FP16 ExaFLOPs delivered by 576 CS-2 systems. The Condor Galaxy project aims to democratize AI by offering sophisticated AI compute technology in the cloud. "Delivering 4 exaFLOPs of AI compute at FP16, CG-1 dramatically reduces AI training timelines while eliminating the pain of distributed compute," said Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras Systems. "Many cloud companies have announced massive GPU clusters that cost billions of dollars to build, but that are extremely difficult to use. Distributing a single model over thousands of tiny GPUs takes months of time from dozens of people with rare expertise. CG-1 eliminates this challenge. Setting up a generative AI model takes minutes, not months and can be done by a single person. CG-1 is the first of three 4 ExaFLOP AI supercomputers to be deployed across the U.S. Over the next year, together with G42, we plan to expand this deployment and stand up a staggering 36 exaFLOPs of efficient, purpose-built AI compute."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Apple Insider: Apple's processor manufacturer TSMC says that it can't find enough skilled workers to open its Arizona facility on time, and mass chip production will have to wait until 2025. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) began work on a first factory in Arizona in 2021. Since then, the plant has seen safety concerns, complaints from TSMC about US taxation, and a claim that US staff don't work hard enough. Most recently, the company announced that it was sending more Taiwanese workers to the US to manage the final stages of making the plant operational. Now according to Nikkei Asia, that move has proven insufficient.

"We are encountering certain challenges, as there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with the specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility," said TSMC chair Mark Liu. "Consequently we expect the production schedule of N4 [4-nanometer] process technology to be pushed out to 2025," continued Liu. The news comes alongside TSMC's latest earnings report, which shows that the firm's profits have fallen, though they are expected to recover when the iPhone 15 range launches. TSMC blames the results on a slow economic recover in China, and a downturn in the consumer electronics market.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Fervo Energy says it has achieved a breakthrough in geothermal technology. It carried out a 30-day well test at its site in northern Nevada and says it was able to achieve a "flowrate of 63 liters per second at high temperature that enables 3.5 megawatts of electric production." The company says the test resulted in flow and power output records for an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) and that it was completed without incident. A megawatt can power around 750 homes at once. Fervo is expected to connect its Project Red site to the grid this year. It will be used to power Google data centers and some of the company's other Nevada infrastructure. Google and Fervo signed an agreement in 2021 to develop a "next-generation geothermal power project."

This is the first time an energy company has shown that an EGS can work on a commercial scale, according to Bloomberg. It's been a long road to reach this point, as scientists have been trying to make EGS a reality since the 1970s. [...] Fervo says it's the first company to "successfully drill a horizontal well pair for commercial geothermal production, achieving lateral lengths of 3,250 feet, reaching a temperature of 191C, and proving controlled flow through rigorous tracer testing." The company is hoping to replicate its success at a site in Utah. If Fervo sees similar results there and it successfully implements design upgrades to maximize output, the site is expected to generate enough electricity to power 300,000 homes simultaneously, Latimer said. That's around a quarter of all homes in Utah.

Today, Nissan announced it's adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) in its electric vehicles, following in the footsteps of Ford, GM, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Polestar. Ars Technica reports: "Adopting the NACS standard underlines Nissan's commitment to making electric mobility even more accessible as we follow our Ambition 2030 long-term vision of greater electrification," said Jeremie Papin, chairperson of Nissan Americas. "We are happy to provide access to thousands more fast chargers for Nissan EV drivers, adding confidence and convenience when planning long-distance journeys."

This is actually Nissan's second time changing its DC fast-charging plugs. An early pioneer of EVs with the first- and then second-generation Leaf, it chose the CHAdeMO standard for those models, which is popular in Japan but never really caught on elsewhere. But when Nissan built the Ariya crossover as its third-generation EV, it dropped CHAdeMO for CCS, which appeared like it was going to win the charging standard war by dint of having every OEM onboard other than Tesla. CCS may have had the power of numbers in terms of OEMs, but EVs from all those makes are still heavily outnumbered on the road by the sheer mass of Models 3 and Y, and it's hard to argue with the superiority of Tesla's Supercharger network, either in terms of reliability or number of deployed chargers.

Intel has announced ASUS as the company's first partner for its Next Unit of Compute (NUC) mini PC business. From a report: The two companies have entered a non-binding agreement that will see ASUS manufacture, sell and support the 10th- to 13th-generation products in Intel's NUC line. ASUS will also develop future NUC designs. Based on the business' current lineup, ASUS could be developing future NUC mini PCs, DIY kits for mini PCs, DIY kits for laptops, customizable boards, chassis and other assembly elements.

If you'll recall, Intel recently told Engadget that it's ending its "direct investment" in its NUC business and will no longer produce first-party NUC products. It didn't elaborate on its reasoning, but working with partners for a non-essential business will free up resources it could use to concentrate on making chips. Intel previously said its first quarter earnings exceeded expectations, but its revenue was still down 36 percent year-over-year when compared to its results in the same period for 2022. The company also said that it remains cautious in this economy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla has officially launched its new 'Charge on Solar' feature to let its electric car owners charge their vehicles with sunshine. Tesla describes the feature: "With Charge on Solar, your Tesla vehicle can charge using only excess solar energy produced by your Tesla solar system. Using excess energy to charge your electric vehicle maximizes the value of your home's solar system. Use the Tesla app to set Charge on Solar limits and have your vehicle charge using extra solar energy."

If you have all the required hardware and software, you can go to your Tesla app, and under "Charge on Solar," you will be able to set your charge limit using excess solar energy. Tesla writes about the charge limit: "Your vehicle will charge from solar and the grid when your current charge level is below the left sun slider. After your vehicle's charge level passes the sun slider, your vehicle automatically switches to only charge on excess solar up to your charge limit. Solar power and home loads are variables so if you ever want to charge faster, you can simply increase the lower charge limit to a desired range." There's also a scheduling feature that stops charging with solar after a specific time if you know that your energy consumption will increase at a specific time.

Dale Vince, the green energy tycoon and founder of Ecotricity, is planning to launch Britain's first electric airline called Ecojet. The Guardian reports: Ecojet, styled as a "flag carrier for green Britain," will launch early next year with a 19-seater plane traveling on a route between Edinburgh and Southampton. The planes will run initially on kerosene-based fuel for the first year, before being retrofitted with engines that convert green hydrogen into electricity. The airline will launch with several green-striped 19-seater planes capable of traveling for 300 miles. Vince hopes to expand the number of routes out to cover all of Britain's big cities. Staff will wear environmentally friendly uniforms, and serve plant-based meals.

A second phase, 18 months later, will result in 70-seater planes capable of flying to Europe being introduced. The company is in the process of applying for a license from the Civil Aviation Authority and securing takeoff and landing slots at airports. However, the process of launching an airline is regarded as slow, and Ecojet will not launch as an electric plane operator, starting by using kerosene-based fuel instead. [...] Vince said Ecojet would "price match" existing airlines on air fares and was intended to attract a mass market, beyond environment-conscious consumers. He said he would invest one million pounds initially but plans to raise further funds next year.

Long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear quotes the South China Morning Post: After a 13-year legal tussle, semiconductor equipment giant Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment of China (AMEC) has won an intellectual property infringement case against US competitor Lam Research Corp in a Shanghai court, as US-China technology rivalry in the semiconductor field rages on. The Shanghai People's High Court gave a final ruling requiring Lam Research to destroy "one technical document and two photographs" relating to an AMEC plasma etching machine that Lam illegally obtained, according to a statement by AMEC on Tuesday.

The court has also banned two individual defendants from Lam from using AMEC's proprietary trade secrets. The court ordered Lam Research to pay damages and legal fees to AMEC for the infringement.

"There seem to be no limits to the ingenious ways that designers are devising to harvest energy or take existing approaches and exploit and enhance them," writes the site Electronic Design: A research team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed a contact-separation mode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with a simple structure for harvesting wave energy and powering marine sensors and transmitters.Although this isn't the first cylindrical TENG (C-TENG) — several models are already in use — the PNNL team maintains that this design overcomes weaknesses of those existing ones.
Long-time Slashdot reader RoccamOccam writes that "triboelectrification is the process by which two originally uncharged bodies become charged when brought into contact and then separated." The key is a new mechanism for wave-driven energy-harvesting "TENGs" that can convert the low-amplitude, low-frequency ocean waves into high-frequency mechanical motion for more effective power generation. This new TENG must be able to operate and be triggered by any wave conditions, even in the middle of the ocean where waves have uniform or random low amplitude and frequency.
The researchers tested their process in a 12-meter-long water tank (with "adjustable wave height and frequency," according to the article). The patent-pending device "sustainably powered up an array of 27 LEDs and was able to charge up a capacitor up to 1.8 V for driving an acoustic transmitter."

In mid-June, the European Parliament voted in favor of new legislation that would, among other things, require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. This week, the European Council officially agreed to the new regulation. Now, when the European Council and Parliament sign on the dotted line, the clock will start ticking for manufacturers to ensure their devices have replaceable batteries by 2027 -- that is, if they want to sell their devices in the EU. Android Authority reports: Now, the only step left is for the European Council and Parliament to sign on the dotted line. Once they do, the clock starts ticking: any manufacturer wanting to sell phones in the EU must ensure those phones have replaceable batteries by 2027. [...] The grace period from now until 2027 is to give OEMs enough time to redesign their products. This new law states, specifically, that users should be able to replace a battery in their phone without any special expertise or tools. Being that almost all smartphones today are designed like a "glass sandwich" that relies on extensive use of adhesives, the very fundamentals of how companies design phones will need to change. It's too early to say yet how this law will change iPhones, Galaxy S phones, Pixels, etc. However, they will change in response to this law, which is huge news.

Here are some other rules this new law covers related to phones with replaceable batteries:

- Collection of waste: OEMs will need to collect 63% of portable batteries that would normally go to a landfill by the end of 2027. By the end of 2030, that number should be at 73%.
- Recovery of waste: Lithium recovery from waste batteries will need to be at 50% by 2027. By the end of 2031, it should be at 80%, meaning 80% of the lithium inside a battery can be recovered and repurposed for new batteries.
- Recycling minimums: Industrial, SLI, and EV batteries will need to be made up of certain percentages of recycled content. Initially, this will be 16% for cobalt, 85% for lead, 6% for lithium, and 6% for nickel.
- Early recycling efficiency target: Nickel-cadmium batteries should have a recycling efficiency target of 80% by the end of 2025. All other batteries should be at a 50% efficiency target by 2025.

Chipotle has developed a robot that can cut the 50-minute process of making guacamole in half. "The fast-casual chain developed the collaborative robot, or cobot, in partnership with Vebu Labs, a California-based robotics startup," reports CNBC. "Chipotle also announced Wednesday that its $50 million venture arm, Cultivate Next, is investing in Vebu. Financial terms weren't disclosed." From the report: To prepare avocados using the Autocado, Chipotle employees load up the device with a full case of the ripe fruit. The Autocado can hold up to 25 pounds at one time. Then, the machine vertically orients the avocados, slices them in half and removes their cores and skin. A bowl at the bottom collects the fruit, which employees can then hand mash and mix with the rest of the guacamole ingredients.

Chipotle still wants employees to have a hand in making their guacamole. "There's no plan to test automated guac made in our restaurant," Curt Garner, Chipotle's chief technology officer, told CNBC. Employees don't have to monitor the Autocado while it prepares the avocados and can even use the top of the device as more counter space to prepare other ingredients. The prototype is "very close" to design for manufacture, according to Garner. Chipotle expects to test the Autocado in restaurants later this year.

Eventually, Vebu plans to add machine learning capabilities and sensors to the Autocado that will help it evaluate the quality of avocados. Preparing avocados for guacamole routinely ranks as one of employees' least favorite tasks, Garner said. It's also one of the most dangerous duties in Chipotle kitchens, sometimes resulting in knife injuries. On top of saving time and labor costs, the robot could also cut food waste. If the chain deploys the Autocado across its footprint of more than 3,200 locations, it could help save millions of dollars on avocados annually, the company said. Despite those savings, guacamole will probably still cost customers extra. "It's worth it," Garner said.

Intel has decided to stop making its Next Unit of Computing (NUC), but the company will encourage partners to keep making the small form-factor (SFF) PCs, the company said Tuesday. From a report: Intel's NUC championed compact PCs, while leaving larger chassis options to partners like Dell and HP. But Intel's decision seems like a natural one, given that Intel has refocused on its core businesses during a period in which it also invested heavily in its own manufacturing operations and foundry business.

An Intel spokesman confirmed an initial report by Serve The Home, saying that Intel will continue to support the existing NUCs it has already shipped into the market. "We have decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) Business and pivot our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth," the Intel spokesman said in an email.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: If you're printing something on actual paper, there's a good chance it's important, like a tax form or a job contract. But popular printing products and services won't promise not to read it. In fact, they won't even promise not to share it with outside marketing firms. The spread of digital file-sharing -- along with obnoxious business practices by printing manufacturers -- has pushed many U.S. households to give up at-home printers and rely on nearby printing services instead. At the same time, major printer manufacturers have adopted mobile apps and cloud-based storage, creating new opportunities to collect personal data from customers. Whether you're walking to the corner store or sending your files to the cloud, it's tough to figure out whether you're printing in private.

Ideally, printing services should avoid storing the content of your files, or at least delete daily. Print services should also communicate clearly upfront what information they're collecting and why. Some services, like the New York Public Library and PrintWithMe, do both. Others dodged our questions about what data they collect, how long they store it and whom they share it with. Some -- including Canon, FedEx and Staples -- declined to answer basic questions about their privacy practices. Wondering whether your printer app or printing service stores the content of your documents? Here's The Washington Post Help Desk's at-a-glance guide to printer privacy. Here's a summary of each company's privacy policy as it pertains to storing the content of your files:

HP: HP's privacy policy states that it does not store the content of files when using their printers or HP Smart app, providing reassurance that they do not invade privacy by snooping into print jobs.
Canon: Canon's privacy policy indicates that it can collect personal data, including files and content, which may be used for marketing purposes. However, Canon did not disclose whether they store, use, or share the content of printed documents.
FedEx: FedEx's privacy policy states that it collects user-uploaded information, including the contents of documents uploaded for printing services, leaving room for potential advertising or sharing with third parties. Although FedEx prioritizes customer privacy, it did not specify the extent of encryption or whether document content is included.
UPS: While the UPS Store, a subsidiary of UPS, can store the contents of printed documents, it does not use this information for marketing or advertising without user consent. The storage duration is undisclosed, but UPS honors customer requests for data deletion.
Staples: According to Staples' privacy policy, the company can store personal data such as copy/print materials, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, and mail contents. They may also use copy/print materials for advertising. The duration of data storage is not disclosed.
PrintWithMe: PrintWithMe, a company placing printers in shared spaces, temporarily stores printed documents with a third-party cloud provider for 24 hours. CEO Jonathan Treble assures that the data is never used for advertising.
Your local library: The New York Public Library, one of the largest library systems, does not store the contents of printed documents. Their computers only retain file names and delete them at the end of the day. However, privacy policies may vary among different libraries, so it is advisable to inquire beforehand.