Author: Frank Salvato

Russia’s effort to build its own battlefield-capable alternative to Starlink has suffered another significant setback, with none of the 16 Rassvet satellites launched July 19 reaching their intended operational altitude by August 31. Many remain hundreds of kilometers below their planned orbit, while some are already experiencing orbital decay and at least two appear headed toward atmospheric reentry. The difficulties come as Moscow races to establish an independent satellite communications network after Russian forces lost access to Starlink terminals being used in Ukraine. Although the struggling constellation can still provide limited communications windows useful for drones and precision strikes, Russia…

The Marine Corps has released its Ground Combat Element 2040 blueprint, outlining a sweeping modernization of ground warfare built around artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous systems, drones, precision fires and dispersed operations while maintaining Marines—not machines—as the ultimate center of combat power. The framework anticipates battlefields saturated with sensors, electronic warfare and inexpensive unmanned weapons that make large, concentrated formations increasingly vulnerable. Modernization will proceed in stages: strengthening counter-drone capabilities and existing Force Design initiatives through 2030; expanding AI, autonomous systems and unmanned formations through 2035; and achieving widespread human-machine teaming and AI-enabled command and control by 2040. The Corps is…

Google has signed a 15-year agreement to purchase 396 megawatts of electricity from Fervo Energy’s Cape Station enhanced-geothermal project in Utah, marking the largest power deal in Fervo’s history and one of the clearest signs yet that America’s AI boom is reshaping the energy market. The project is expected to begin supplying Google in 2028, potentially supporting a future Utah data center, while an expansion option could add roughly 600 megawatts and bring Google’s total purchase to nearly one gigawatt by June 2030. The agreement gives Fervo a major commercial endorsement of technology that adapts horizontal drilling and hydraulic-fracturing techniques…

The commercialization of space is rapidly moving beyond rockets and satellite launches toward an economy built around communications, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, Earth observation, tourism and eventually the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources. Falling launch costs and reusable rockets are making ventures conceivable that would have been economically impossible a generation ago, including orbital AI data centers powered by solar energy, pharmaceutical manufacturing in microgravity and asteroid mining. Satellite deployment alone illustrates the scale of the transformation, with the number of spacecraft expected to increase dramatically before the end of the decade. The opportunity is enormous, but so are the practical…

Artificial intelligence is being asked to write computer code, produce advertising campaigns, generate movies, analyze financial markets, design weapons, operate factories, and reorganize the modern workplace. Billions of dollars are pouring into a technological revolution that promises to alter virtually every aspect of human existence. Yet an obvious question deserves considerably more attention: When will the enormous computing power being assembled by the world’s leading AI companies be systematically directed toward curing diseases that medicine has spent decades failing to defeat? Few diseases make the question more urgent than amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS remains one of medicine’s most unforgiving diagnoses.…

Google is preparing to release Gemini 3.8 Flash, internally known as “Skimaki,” with significantly improved software-coding capabilities that could narrow one of the company’s most conspicuous competitive gaps with Anthropic and OpenAI. Internal testing reportedly found Google engineers preferring the new model to Anthropic’s Opus in head-to-head coding work, an encouraging development after Google acknowledged weaknesses in coding and agentic programming. The expected release follows Gemini 3.7 Flash by only weeks, signaling an increasingly aggressive strategy built around rapidly improving smaller, faster and less expensive models rather than relying exclusively on massive frontier systems. The approach could prove commercially important…

The accelerating artificial-intelligence arms race is forcing data-center developers to abandon conventional construction timelines in favor of prefabrication, modular components and factory-built systems that can bring computing capacity online far faster. Traditional projects can require two to three years, an increasingly unacceptable delay for hyperscalers spending enormous sums to secure AI capacity. Builders are responding by moving electrical systems, cooling infrastructure, power distribution and even entire computing sections into factories for assembly and testing before shipment. The shift is reducing onsite labor requirements, shortening deployment schedules and turning data-center construction into something increasingly resembling advanced manufacturing. With U.S. data-center construction…

An artificial-intelligence-powered mosquito defense system is moving from a crowdfunding concept to a commercial product just as California confronts its highest West Nile virus activity in five years. Photon Matrix uses LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, AI-assisted vision and precision lasers to detect and eliminate mosquitoes in flight, offering an indoor infrared model for $988 and an outdoor blue-laser version for $1,088. The technology promises a chemical-free alternative to conventional mosquito control, with detection of insects as small as two millimeters and an outdoor range approaching 20 feet. The innovation is compelling, particularly as mosquito-borne disease becomes a more visible public-health concern,…

Anthropic has agreed to a massive $35 billion cloud-computing deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda, securing roughly 350 megawatts of AI capacity at a new data center being developed in Nueces County, Texas. Nvidia is expected to hold the lease on the facility while Lambda supplies the computing capacity to Anthropic, giving the chipmaker an unusually broad role as investor, hardware supplier and infrastructure participant. The agreement comes as Anthropic rapidly accumulates computing resources to support Claude and Claude Code, adding to other enormous infrastructure commitments, including a recently reported $45 billion cloud-capacity agreement in West Virginia. The deal demonstrates that the…

Fairphone is bringing its Gen 6+ smartphone directly to American consumers with a decidedly different proposition from the prevailing upgrade-and-replace model: a $649.99 Android phone built to be opened, repaired, customized, and kept for years. The device features 12 user-replaceable components—including the battery, display, cameras, speaker, and USB-C port—that can be changed with a Torx T5 screwdriver, while a five-year warranty and promised software support through 2033 strengthen its long-term ownership argument. The Gen 6+ offers 12GB of RAM, 256GB of expandable storage, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor, a removable 4,415mAh battery, and up to two days of claimed…