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Utah Becomes First State to Let AI Prescribe Medication

https://gizmodo.com/utah-becomes-first-state-to-let-ai-prescribe-medication-2000706729

The doctor won’t see you now.

Utah has launched a first-in-the-nation pilot program that will allow an AI system to renew 190 commonly prescribed medications for patients with chronic conditions.

Some medications with the potential for abuse, like pain management and ADHD drugs, are excluded, according to Politico. The program will initially cost $4 per renewal but will eventually be either covered by insurance or offered at an annual fee.

Utah is undertaking the program with Doctronic, a health-tech startup that launched in 2023. Doctronic already offers AI medical tools designed to automate some of the work typically performed by physicians, including a chatbot that provides free medical consultations and generates follow-up notes for physicians as needed.

At the heart of Doctronic’s work is removing barriers to healthcare access, cutting down costs, and easing the burden on healthcare workers, and AI can certainly do that, at least to some extent. Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly used by healthcare professionals around the country, with a recent OpenAI report claiming that 46% of American nurses use them weekly. The report also claims that 7-in-10 healthcare-related conversations with AI chatbots happen outside of normal clinic hours.

Per Politico, the decisions made by Doctronic’s AI system matched those of human clinicians 99.2% of the time, and the system will be held to the same level of responsibility as a doctor would be for any claims of malpractice.

But AI is far from a perfect technology, and mistakes can prove to be fatal in healthcare contexts. The AI could fail to catch certain drug interactions or other patient red flags, leading to disastrous consequences for patients. AI systems are also prone to being gamed, including shockingly via poetry, and that can create a dangerous loophole that can be abused by patients struggling with addiction.

There is also the issue of biases. According to a recent Financial Times report, some medical AI tools tend to downplay the concerns of women and stereotype some races and ethnicities while making their diagnoses.

While Utah is so far the only state offering the AI renewals, Doctronic is reportedly in discussion to expand the practice to Texas, Arizona, and Missouri, and is weighing a path to nationwide approval.

The legality of it all is interesting. States broadly get to set their own rules on how medicine can be practiced within their borders, and an AI that independently renews prescriptions would technically be governed under that category.

But AI-enhanced medical devices fall squarely under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration, which itself is going through a reevaluation of how it regulates AI deployment in health.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/

January 7, 2026 at 09:54AM

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Starless ‘Cloud-9’ Is an Entirely New Astrophysical Object

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/starless-cloud-9-is-an-entirely-new-astrophysical-object/

January 5, 2026

3 min read

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Starless ‘Failed Galaxy’ Is First of Its Kind Ever Seen

Scientists have found the best evidence yet for long-predicted “failed galaxies”

By Jenna Ahart edited by Lee Billings

A diffuse purple blob of gas against the depths of intergalactic space, with a dashed circular annotation denoting the blob's central, most gas-dense region.

The “failed galaxy” Cloud-9, a dark matter-dominated blob of hydrogen gas some 14 million light-years from Earth. The diffuse magenta represents radio data from the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA) that shows the presence of the gas. The dashed circle marks the peak of radio emission, which is where researchers focused their search for stars. Follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope found no stars within the cloud. The few objects that appear within its boundaries are background galaxies.

NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScI), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay (University of Milano-Bicocca) (science); Joseph DePasquale (STScI) (image processing)

A potential new type of celestial object has all the makings of a normal small galaxy. It’s rich with the same hydrogen gas that births suns and planets, and it lies within a halo of dark matter, the same invisible stuff that holds galaxies together. Yet it’s missing one key component of glittering galaxies like our own Milky Way: stars.

Nicknamed Cloud-9, the gas cloud is technically the best-yet example of a RELHIC, or Reionization-Limited H I Cloud. The “H I” stands for Cloud-9’s bounty of neutral hydrogen, and “RELHIC” refers to what astronomers believe the object to be: a primordial fossil—or relic—from the universe’s early epochs that, for some reason, never managed to form stars or become a full-fledged galaxy. That makes Cloud-9 a “failed galaxy,” said Rachael Beaton, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, during a January 5 press conference at the American Astronomical Society’s 247th meeting in Phoenix, Ariz.

Based on their understanding of dark matter’s behavior and the hierarchical process of galaxy formation, astronomers have long predicted that such starless objects should exist throughout the cosmos. But until recently, RELHICs had been notoriously difficult to spot.

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The results—presented by Beaton at the meeting and published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters last November—bolster the case that we’ve finally found one of these elusive phantom galaxies. Cloud-9 first burst onto the astronomy scene in 2023, when the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope in China’s province of Guizhou discovered a nearly 5,000-light-year-wide spherical cloud of hydrogen gas about 14 million light-years from Earth that appeared to be a faint dwarf galaxy, albeit bereft of visible stars. More in-depth studies on the cloud showed that it contains about a million solar masses of hydrogen and some five billion solar masses of dark matter, but researchers couldn’t confirm it to be truly starless. Perhaps, instead, it was indeed a strange sort of dwarf galaxy that was sparsely populated with very old and dim stars.

So Beaton and her colleagues peered once again at the object through the keen gaze of the Hubble Space Telescope. And in all of Hubble’s observations, she said, it found hints of just one star within Cloud-9. It could be that other stars simply went by undetected, but based on further simulations, the team found that the cloud probably couldn’t host more than some 3,000 solar masses worth of stars—a meager smattering that would preclude the object being a dwarf galaxy. This new result not only makes Cloud-9 the foremost REHLIC candidate in astronomers’ catalogs but also a milestone for verifying the common prediction that “not every dark matter halo will have a galaxy in it,” Beaton said.

While the fresh information from Hubble “certainly eliminates the possibility that [Cloud-9] is a dwarf galaxy,” there’s still much left to learn about this peculiar object, says Kristine Spekkens, an astronomer at Queen’s University in Ontario, who was not involved with the work. For instance, she says, Cloud-9 doesn’t have quite as smooth a shape as astronomers would expect. Better mapping of its gas distribution could provide more insights into how exactly it formed and evolved over cosmic time.

Still, it will be difficult to definitively confirm that Cloud-9 is in fact a RELHIC so long as it remains in a league completely of its own, says Ethan Nadler, an astronomer at the University of California, San Diego, who didn’t take part in the Hubble observations. While dubbing the cloud officially “starless” will be challenging, finding similar objects may help researchers shed some light on this dark area of astronomy.

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January 7, 2026 at 06:53AM

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Improved Safety, Durability, and Power: A Carbon-Based Battery Materials Breakthrough

https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/54437-improved-safety-durability-and-power-a-carbon-based-battery-materials-breakthrough

This research demonstrates a new way to make carbon-based battery materials much safer, longer lasting, and more powerful by fundamentally redesigning how fullerene molecules are connected. Today’s lithium-ion batteries rely mainly on graphite, which limits fast-charging speed and poses safety risks due to lithium plating. These research findings mean progress toward safer electric vehicles, longer-lasting consumer electronics, and more reliable renewable-energy storage.

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January 6, 2026 at 08:55AM

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CES 2026: I Tried a Gaming Headset That Can Read Your Mind

https://lifehacker.com/tech/ces-2026-i-tried-a-gaming-headset-that-can-read-your-mind

Before this CES, I thought gaming headsets had gotten about as complex as they ever would. How many improvements can you possibly make on speakers and microphones? Well, forget all that. Apparently, the future of gaming headsets is mind-reading.

In a private demo with a colleague from IGN this CES, I tested out a collaboration between HP’s HyperX gaming brand and brain-computer interface company Neurable. Neurable’s been at CES before, but most of its work has been in the defense and enterprise sectors. The idea behind the brand is specifically aimed at helping you nail down your focus, and now, Neurable thinks it can use that to help gamers.

Priming on the Neurable x HyperX headset

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Here’s how it works. Before trying on the Neurable x HyperX headset, I did a quick run-through in a target shooting game, where I shot down 30 targets with a 547ms response time. Then, I got guided through a focus program called Prime. This showed a cloud of dots on the screen, and I was told to do whatever I needed to do to focus up. I decided to stare into the distance and count, and in about 90 seconds, the dots had shrunken down into a small orb and I was "primed." Neurable also suggested focusing techniques like repeating a word in your head over and over, or following one of the dots as it moved about the screen, but these didn’t work for me.

Than, I did the shooting test again. Theoretically, I should have been better, but I actually scored slightly worse this time—a 559ms response time.

Still, that response time isn’t terrible, and your mileage may vary. It might just have been that I was already really locked in before priming, and my colleague actually reduced her response time by about 40ms after priming.

If all of that optimization sounds really nitty-gritty, well, yeah. This is aimed at esports players and streamers, where every (mili)second counts.

Neurable x HyperX headset streaming plugin

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

And that’s probably where the headset’s coolest feature comes in for me. Alongside Prime, Neurable and HyperX are also working on an overlay plugin for streamers that can show their focus level on screen. You can display this as a speedometer, or as that cloud of dots, or even as a progress bar that shows whether you’re "on tilt" or not. It should make for some pretty fun interactions with viewers, and play well with existing plug-ins, like eye trackers that show where a streamer is looking.

Plus, my slightly worse response time after priming wasn’t totally useless. Neurable said the headset could be used to help you "practice choking," where you psych yourself up shortly after locking in and end up worse off. I thought that maybe sounded like marketing spin, but my colleague, a high-level raider in World of Warcraft, said it would have real use for her.

It’s still just a concept for now, but it’s exciting to see this kind of tech getting ready to hit the mass market. What also sets Neurable apart is how portable it is. Unlike other brain-computer interfaces, this just looks like a normal headset, and all the contacts are just stored in the earcups. There’s no need for a giant helmet with discs and wires attached to it, which is thanks to Neurable’s expertise in AI. The company says that using such a compact form factor does result in getting a small amount of data, and a lot of junk data, but thanks to an on-device AI model, it’s easily able to detect trends in your focus and translate them into something usable.

That seemed to be true in my demo, which at the end of the day, kind of felt like a guided meditation with real-time feedback. You could use this for more than gaming, but it’s a clever use case for digital mind-reading, and the streaming plugins really take the cake, helping solidify the concept into a clear product with a concrete goal and target audience.

It’ll take a while for the gaming version of Neurable’s tech to be ready, although the company said it hopes to get it out this year. In the meantime, you can buy an ultra-luxury headset with Neurable’s mind-reading built in, although it’s currently on pre-order and will set you back $500. It also won’t come with Prime or that streaming plugin, although because those are based in software, that could change in the future.

via Lifehacker https://ift.tt/7Ys0FeX

January 6, 2026 at 05:26PM

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TCL’s New Paper-Like Tablet Has a Bunch of AI in It

https://gizmodo.com/tcls-new-paper-like-tablet-has-a-bunch-of-ai-in-it-2000703992

Sometimes you have to go high-tech to get that low-tech feel, and TCL’s newest device is proof. The Note A1 Nxtpaper is TCL’s latest tablet-like device to use the company’s Nxtpaper technology. Nxtpaper, for the uninitiated, is TCL’s paper-like display tech that applies a matte texture to an LCD screen, reducing glare and blue light. It’s like a screen, but you know, slightly less obnoxious and easier on the eyes.

While Nxtpaper has been around since 2021 and has made its way into TCL’s phones and tablets, this is the first time that the company is bringing the tech to a dedicated notetaking device. With Nxtpaper’s evolution, there are also a bunch of (drum roll) AI features. As tired as some of you may be of seeing AI features shoehorned into your favorite gadgets (seriously, like so many), TCL’s AI offerings do seem pretty useful in the context of notetaking and the like.

Note A1 Nxtpaper
© TCL

Among the features are potentially useful things like handwriting-to-text conversion or real-time transcription, which is helpful if you’re using the Note A1 Nxtpaper in meetings. There’s also an increasingly standard array of AI tools like translation, summarization, and writing assistance, as well as “handwriting beautification,” which is a nice way of saying the notetaker will clean up your inscrutable chicken scratch. This last tool would be huge for me personally, since my handwriting tends to look caveman-like at best.

There are also more advanced AI tools like “handwriting one-stroke formation,” which TCL doesn’t elaborate on, but I assume is some kind of shortcut mechanism for quickly jotting down words or phrases. There’s also something called “inspiration AI,” which I can only assume is some kind of generative AI feature for producing writing or pictures that I personally would want nothing to do with, but to each their own.

Like every device with an E Ink or paper-like display, it’s just as much about how things look and feel as it is about what the device does. On that front, TCL says its Note A1 Nxtpaper has a 120Hz display, shows full color, and comes with a stylus that TCL says has around 5 milliseconds of latency, making it (theoretically) suitable for sketching as well.

One major advantage that the Note A1 Nxtpaper has over competitors is storage. TCL says its notetaker has 256GB of total storage compared to comparable tablets like the ReMarkable Paper Pro, which has 64GB. Are you going to need that much storage for taking notes? Probably not, but it’s nice to have just in case. It also has an 8,000 mAh battery, but TCL doesn’t say what that equates to in hours/days/weeks.

If any of this sounds appealing to you, the TCL Note A1 Nxtpaper will retail for $549 and is slated to launch in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific at the end of February.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/

December 30, 2025 at 08:11AM

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Plug-In Hybrids Have 80% More Problems Than Gas Cars, Consumer Reports Finds

https://www.autoblog.com/news/plug-in-hybrids-have-80-more-problems-than-gas-cars-consumer-reports-finds

The Best of Both Worlds? Not Always

A plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) offers several advantages, including lower fuel costs and reduced emissions, without requiring buyers to make a full transition to an all-electric vehicle. However, apart from their apparent non-eco-friendliness, PHEVs experience roughly 80 percent more problems than their purely internal-combustion counterparts, according to Consumer Reports (CR). This figure raises questions about the technology’s long-term reliability and reputation.

In its latest annual survey – based on responses from the owners of about 380,000 vehicles from the 2000 through 2025 model years, and a few early 2026 models – CR breaks down which PHEV models across various segments contributed most to that disparity, offering buyers more detailed insight as they consider their next vehicle purchase.

CR’s 2026 PHEV List

The Ford Escape PHEV ranks as the least reliable among compact SUVs, a segment that also includes the Toyota RAV4 Prime and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Owners participating in the survey cited a wide range of issues specific to the Escape PHEV, including EV battery replacement, battery cooling, EV charging, and electric accessories. In addition to PHEV-related concerns, respondents also reported non-electrification-related problems involving the steering and suspension, as well as the climate control system.

Stellantis appears multiple times on the list, starting with the Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee using the 4xe, the automaker’s plug-in hybrid technology paired with a 4×4 drivetrain. According to CR, all reported issues were tied directly to the 4xe system, including problems with the hybrid system itself, EV battery stalling, and the electric motor. One owner claimed their vehicle was “bricked for nearly six months,” while another reported making eight dealer visits to address recurring hybrid-related failures.

Regulators have also taken notice. NHTSA has been involved in multiple 4xe actions, including a recall tied to loss of drive power issued earlier this year. Separately, the non-4xe Grand Cherokee was also cited in Consumer Reports’ latest survey of the most unreliable SUVs.

At the larger end of the spectrum, the Mazda CX-90 PHEV reportedly ranks as the least reliable among full-size SUVs. This finding mirrors CR’s 2026 Reliability Brand Rankings, in which Mazda dropped from the top 10 to 14th overall. The CX-90 PHEV was flagged for a long list of problems, including issues with the EV battery, electric motor, and engine electrical system. Owners also reported faults involving the transmission (both major and minor), drivetrain and fuel system, climate controls, steering and suspension, brakes, electric accessories, body hardware, in-car electronics, noises/leaks, and paint and trim quality.

One owner summarized their experience by saying their CX-90 PHEV suffered a “hybrid malfunction that causes the car to seize. It will not start, go into gear, or charge.”

Stellantis

The Cost of Complexity

In the luxury segment, the Volvo XC60 PHEV earns similarly unwanted recognition. The report cites issues affecting electrical accessories, the climate system, the drivetrain, the electric motor, and the EV battery. One owner noted that after just a month of ownership, their XC60 PHEV “would not go over 26 mph and went into snail mode,” a term commonly used to describe limp mode, where power output is reduced to prevent further damage.

Another Stellantis model is the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV, though, to be fair, it remains the only minivan with a plug-in hybrid powertrain currently sold in the U.S. For context, the Toyota Sienna and Kia Carnival are offered only as conventional hybrids. At the same time, the Honda Odyssey remains purely internal combustion, despite its Japan-market counterpart using a dual-motor hybrid setup similar to that found in the Civic and Accord. According to CR, Pacifica PHEV owners reported issues involving the transmission, engine, in-car electronics, electric accessories, EV charging, and EV battery cooling.

With automakers like Volvo now scaling back earlier all-electric timelines, this report suggests there is still considerable work to be done to ensure that multi-powertrain strategies – particularly those involving PHEVs – can deliver the reliability consumers expect.

Ford


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December 28, 2025 at 10:07AM

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China Is Putting a Hard Limit on How Much Energy EVs Can Use

https://www.autoblog.com/news/china-is-putting-a-hard-limit-on-how-much-energy-evs-can-use

Drawing the Line

China is set to impose the world’s first hard cap on electric-vehicle energy consumption beginning next year. According to CarNewsChina, newly produced EVs weighing around two tonnes (about 4,400 pounds) will be limited to 15.1 kWh per 100 km, which translates to roughly 139 MPGe under Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) metrics. That efficiency target places the rule in roughly the same territory as the Tesla Model Y.

Officially titled Energy Consumption Limits for Electric Vehicles Part 1: Passenger Cars, the regulation requires all newly made EVs to meet the new efficiency threshold. Models that fall short will force automakers to carry out technical revisions to bring them into compliance, potentially affecting the use or development of larger battery packs. The report also notes that EVs failing to meet the mandatory energy-consumption limits will lose eligibility for tax exemptions.

Geely

When Bigger Stops Being Better

The new cap is particularly stringent when viewed through a U.S. lens, where EVs are often developed to be larger, heavier, and more powerful in response to consumer preferences. A clear outlier under China’s framework would be the GMCHummer EV, which is widely regarded as one of the least efficient EVs on sale today. The Hummer EV carries an EPA efficiency rating of roughly 53 MPGe while tipping the scales well over 8,600 pounds.

Chinese regulators argue that the tighter standard will produce tangible benefits. The updated rule tightens energy-consumption requirements by approximately 11 percent, which authorities say could result in an average 7-percent increase in driving range for EVs using the same battery capacity. In addition, the regulation is intended to accelerate the adoption of energy-saving technologies, pushing manufacturers toward more efficient motors and EV architectures.

BYD

Setting the Stage for a New EV Reality

The new cap applies only to battery-electric vehicles, so hybrids and plug-in hybrids – like the Toyota RAV4 Prime – are exempt. CarNewsChina also reports that many EVs from Geely and BYD, two of the top-selling EV brands in China, already comply with the new limits and are expected to require minimal or no changes.

While the regulation applies specifically to China, its influence could extend well beyond the domestic market. As the world’s largest EV market, China sets one of the most influential benchmarks for global EV development, meaning automakers hoping to compete there may need to rethink vehicle size, weight, and efficiency. Over time, that pressure could reshape global EV strategies – effectively discouraging oversized, inefficient EVs from entering the market. The new regulation is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026.

BYD


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December 30, 2025 at 01:26PM