For over 200 years, we’ve been generating electricity essentially the same way: by boiling water. And it’s worked! Today, steam turbines power the vast majority of the world’s electricity. But this technology, which has powered us since the industrial revolution, might not be up to supplying us
BEST Things I Saw in Vegas at CES 2026 CES can be a mixed bag. But between the robot invasions…and AI takeovers…I encountered tech that really stopped me in my tracks. First, a solid-state battery claim so bold that even battery skeptics are doing a double take. We’
What if you could power cities just by mixing river water with seawater? Around 15,000 TWh of energy pours into the oceans each year as freshwater blends with saltwater at river mouths. That amounts to roughly half the energy the world consumes in electricity every year.12 And we
Thanks to reusable rockets that fly, land, and fly again, launch costs are coming back down to Earth. And that’s revived a ‘70s dream to beam clean solar energy from orbit. Space agencies around the world are revamping blueprints for giant solar farms capturing sunlight 24/7 and wirelessly
If you or someone you love has ever undergone chemotherapy, you know how brutal it can be. The drugs attack both cancer cells and healthy ones, too, leaving patients sick, weak, and exhausted. Or think about a stroke. Every minute a blood clot blocks blood flow, brain cells are dying.
Google just built a computer that solved a problem in 5 minutes that would take our best supercomputers 10 septillion years … that’s not a typo. That’s a 10 with 24 zeros after it. The universe is only 13.8 billion years old, so we’re talking about a
Two and a half years ago, I told you about a company using “death rays” to drill deeper into the Earth than anyone has before. The goal? Unlock cheaper and more plentiful geothermal energy for the world. Well, I just got back from Houston, Texas, where I watched them do
Imagine a world where the homes we live in, the clothes we wear, and even the sensors in our electronics weren’t manufactured, but grown. Mycelium, the root structure of fungi, is shaking up everything from sustainable construction to meatless bacon. It’s turning agricultural waste into walls, hemp into
Solar panels are built to last around 30 years, weathering all kinds of abuse during that time.1 That’s a solid run for any piece of tech, but what if we could push that even further? What if solar panels could last… forever? That’s the promise behind a
It’s no secret that tech companies are racing to build “artificial general intelligence,” or AI that can match a human brain without needing a lifeline. But here’s the kicker: our brains already have the home field advantage. They do the same heavy lifting with just a fraction of
You’ve seen the headlines. The viral demos. AI writing essays, generating photorealistic images, even creating entire videos. It feels like we’re living in a sci-fi future … or dystopian one. But while we’ve been mesmerized by chatbots and deepfakes, something much more important is happening behind the scenes.
CES can be a mixed bag, but it’s also a fascinating glimpse into where the tech industry thinks it’s heading. Beyond the overused trend of slapping AI onto everything—often to the point where it loses all meaning—there were several other exciting developments. Some of these ran