The future leaves
signals in time.

Norway's government has announced it aims to introduce a temporary ban on smart glasses in a number of public locations, citing privacy as the main concern. The proposal is described as a high priority but still requires legislation and approval by Norway's parliament, so its passage and scope remain uncertain.

A threadlike motor is reported to use sliding fibers to drive flexible robotic devices without gears. Researchers at EPFL's Soft Transducers Laboratory presented the world's first pump in fiber form in 2023; its flexible tubing can generate its own fluid pressure and flow rate and be sewn into smart textiles for thermoregulation, haptic feedback, or powering wearable assistive devices.

Respawn explained that Apex Legends matches were crashing because a modified game client duplicated a weapon optic 'far beyond its intended limits' through an ability the studio names as Ballistic's Sling passive, and the resulting load took the server down.

A developer has pointed the wristband that ships with Meta Ray-Ban Display at a pair of Rokid glasses, saying the band carries a handwriting model of its own. The unofficial project, called Rokid Lumen, reaches the band over a Bluetooth protocol worked out by reverse engineering, and its author reports testing the handwriting feature.

US energy holding company and project developer-owner NextEra Energy has suspended operations at two energy storage facilities on Long Island, New York, over drinking water contamination concerns. The available context provides no further details beyond the suspension.

In UK energy storage news, shareholders of listed fund Gore Street took a key vote that maintained the status quo, while CIP and BW ESS are progressing 4-hour duration battery storage assets at significant scale.

Researchers report that eating more sugar while taking antibiotics was linked to greater disruption of the gut microbiome and increased growth of potentially harmful bacteria. They suggest temporarily cutting back on sweets during and after antibiotic treatment could be a simple way to reduce this damage, though clinical trials are still needed.

Claude Code 2.1.292 changes how it connects to local (stdio) MCP servers, negotiating protocol version 2026-07-28 by default on every install, including Bedrock, Vertex and Foundry, with MCP_PROTOCOL_NEGOTIATION=legacy as an opt-out. However, the documentation still describes the older opt-in behaviour.

AuroraCell has launched a 48 V residential energy storage battery using sodium-ion NCO (chromium oxide) chemistry with 9.7 kWh of rated energy. The company claims a cycle life of 20,000 cycles at 100% depth of discharge and backs the battery with a 20-year warranty.

Harmonic Drive is set to present at RoboBusiness how its integrated actuators can reduce engineering effort by simplifying system integration. According to the announcement, attendees will learn about this approach.

Dutch firm Modat and the Netherlands' cybersecurity agency identified 8,547 exposed systems at solar and wind sites across 35 European countries, with Spain accounting for more than one-third of the exposed solar total, according to pv magazine.

OpenAI says College Planner is coming to ChatGPT for Teens to help students manage college applications, alongside new flashcards and quizzes and the formation of a teen AI council.

Hithium has launched its sodium-ion battery and BESS product, the ∞Cell N785Ah, the latest in a long line of announcements suggesting an inflection point for the battery chemistry. The article compares it with sodium-ion systems from CATL and HiNa, and with Hithium's own LFP offering.

Uber's CEO has confirmed the company invested in robotaxi provider Verne. The investment marks the next step in the two companies' collaboration on a robotaxi service in Zagreb, which is already available through the Uber app.

AstroQuest, a one-person project, runs the PlayStation VR exclusive Astro Bot Rescue Mission on a standalone Meta Quest 3 through a PS4 emulator, with nothing else attached. According to the author's own figures, the build reaches 30 frames per second in levels and 45 in lighter scenes.

Researchers surveying a 55 MW solar plant built on a former golf course in central Japan found that plant diversity under the panels was statistically indistinguishable from open grassland after five years of only twice-yearly mowing, with the plant communities resembling forest edges.

Scientists at UC San Francisco have developed a way to create cancer-fighting CAR-T cells directly inside the body, using a two-particle delivery system to send CRISPR gene-editing tools and new cancer-targeting DNA specifically into T cells, where the DNA was inserted at a precise genomic location. The approach could potentially avoid the slow, extremely expensive process of removing, engineering, and reinfusing a patient's immune cells.