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One of the many concerns about artificial intelligence these days is how the rush to build data centers is impacting local communities. Data centers can create a drain on resources, and some utility companies have already said customers can expect to see their electricity bills growing as these facilities increase demand. There have been some discussions of what other power sources could support the AI engine, and wind power specialist Airloom is one company that's looking to address the problem. Ahead of the business' upcoming appearance at CES, we've learned a bit about what Airloom has accomplished this year and what it is aiming for next.
Rather than the very tall towers typically used for this approach, Airloom's structures are 20 to 30 meters high. They are comprised of a loop of adjustable wings that move along a track, a design that's akin to a roller coaster. As the wings move, they generate power just like the blades on a regular wind turbine do. Airloom claims that its structures require 40 percent less mass than a traditional one while delivering the same output. It also says the Airloom's towers require 42 percent fewer parts and 96 percent fewer unique parts. In combination, the company says its approach is 85 percent faster to deploy and 47 percent less expensive than horizontal axis wind turbines. Airloom broke ground on a pilot site in June for testing out its approach and confirming how those figures work in practice.
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If cleaning up your digital life is on your New Year's resolution list, we've got good news: 1Password is offering half off its subscription plans (both the Individual and Families plans). That brings the price of the Individual plan down to $24 for a year and the Families plan down to $36 for a year.
The plans are nearly identical, but the Families plan accommodates five additional people. These discounts are only available to new customers and the prices expire after the year, so set a reminder to cancel or reassess. And you'll need to act fast, because the offer expires today — Tuesday, December 30.
This provider topped our list of the best password managers, and for good reason. We appreciated the intuitive interface and the fact that it's available on most platforms, so you'll never be left out in the cold. These include Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, macOS, iOS, Windows, Android and more.
Subscriptions include industry standard encryption and a "secret key" that only you know on top of a master password. There's also two-factor authentication and the platform issues alerts when credentials have potentially been compromised.
1Password recently raised prices across the board, but this is still looking to be the best deal for our favorite password manager going into the new year. The only downside here is the one that accompanies many password managers: There is no free version. Obviously, this won't be an issue for the year, but it could once the plan runs out.
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It's the night before Christmas, and holiday VPN deals are going strong. It's a great time to grab a last-minute subscription for yourself or a loved one. With access to a virtual private network (VPN), you can stream TV shows and events from all over the world, protect your information from hackers and thwart online trackers. It might be cute that Santa sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, but Russian hacker collectives and the Amazon marketing department don't really share St. Nick's charm.
Although we strongly recommend using a VPN, jumping on the first deal that comes along might get you stuck with a substandard app. Beyond that, even otherwise respectable VPNs sometimes frame their prices in misleading ways, with advertised deals not always as available as they seem to be.
Even so, there are some great bargains on the table. For the holiday season, plenty of the best VPNs — including our top pick, Proton VPN — have end-of-year deals live that can save you anywhere from 67 to 88 percent on annual subscriptions. Most of these discounts only apply if you sign up for a year or more, but as long as you're comfortable with a service before you take the plunge, committing actually makes sense. You pay more at the start, but if you divide the cost by the months of subscription, it's much cheaper over time.
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 Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and the University of Michigan have created the world's smallest autonomous and programmable robots. Each measuring about 200 micrometers wide - roughly twice the width of a human hair - these machines can perceive their surroundings, "think," and act independently without external instructions. According to their developers, such technology could one day monitor the health of individual cell
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