On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration released full-year data on how the country generated electricity in 2025. It's a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that overall demand rose appreciably, and a fair chunk of that was met by additional coal use. On the good side, solar continued its run of astonishing growth, generating 35 percent more power than a year earlier and surpassing hydroelectric power for the first time.

Shifting markets

Overall, electrical consumption in the US rose by 2.8 percent, or about 121 terawatt-hours. Consumption had been largely flat for several decades, with efficiency and the decline of industry offsetting the effects of population and economic growth. There were plenty of year-to-year changes, however, driven by factors ranging from heating and cooling demand to a global pandemic. Given that history, the growth in demand in 2025 is a bit concerning, but it's not yet a clear signal that the factors that will inevitably drive growth have kicked in.

(These factors include things like the switch to heat pumps, the electrification of transportation, and the growth in data centers. While the first two of those involve a more efficient use of energy overall, they involve electricity replacing direct use of fossil fuels, and so will increase demand on the grid.)

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DJI, the most popular consumer drone maker, is suing over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s import ban against new, foreign-made drones , which has been in effect since December 23, 2025.

On Tuesday, the Shenzhen-headquartered company filed a petition [PDF] with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that seeks to overturn the FCC’s decision to list DJI on its Covered List . The Covered List includes communications equipment and services that are "deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons,” per the FCC.

In its petition dated February 20, 2026, DJI said:

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A UK regulator today fined Reddit £14.5 million ($19.6 million) for not verifying the ages of users. The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) alleged that the failure to check ages resulted in Reddit illegally using children’s personal information.

"Our investigation found that Reddit failed to apply any robust age assurance mechanism and therefore did not have a lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under the age of 13... These failures meant Reddit was using children’s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content," an ICO press release said.

The ICO findings are based on Reddit's actions prior to its July 2025 rollout of a system that verifies UK users’ ages before letting them view adult content. But the ICO said it is still concerned about Reddit's post-July 2025 system because the company relies on users to declare their ages when opening an account.

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Apple plans to start manufacturing the Mac mini in the United States later this year, the company announced today, as part of its $600 billion commitment to expand its domestic manufacturing operation.

The Macs will be made in a facility in Houston, the same facility Apple uses for "advanced AI server manufacturing." CEO Tim Cook says these AI servers are shipping "ahead of schedule." The facility will also eventually provide "hands-on training in advanced manufacturing techniques" for students, Apple employees, "and American businesses of all sizes."

Apple and many other US tech companies have announced plans to expand their domestic manufacturing operations, just one element of a multi-prong strategy to secure favorable treatment from a Trump administration that has been happy to threaten Apple and others with steep tariffs to get what it wants. Today's Mac mini announcement is more subtle than the time Tim Cook delivered Trump a signed gold statue , but the goal is likely the same.

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While Toyota and Honda's showrooms are littered with electrified offerings, Nissan hasn't had much to counter. Globally, Nissan offers a series hybrid system called E-Power, but the company has been reluctant to offer it Stateside. If you ask anyone at the company about it, they'll tell you that while it makes sense in Europe, Japan, and other parts of Asia, it is not optimized for the type of driving we do this side of the pond.

Nissan's hybrid offerings in North America have been lackluster at best. There was the Altima that borrowed Toyota's hybrid system from the Camry, and there was the Rogue hybrid that failed to deliver noticeably better fuel economy. And that's really it.

That, however, is about to change with the company's third-generation system.

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For the last few years, Lamborghini has been in a quandary: What to do about an electric vehicle? Among the supercar brands, Lamborghini has always stood out as favoring drama over lap times . And while electric motors and their instant torque can make a car accelerate very quickly indeed, other than the G-forces, it happens with such little fuss. Working out how to imbue an EV with enough "wow" factor to wear the famous bull badge has proved so difficult that the company has thrown in the towel in favor of developing more plug-in hybrids.

As part of Volkswagen Group, Lamborghini has access to the EV platforms used by fellow VW Group brands Audi and Porsche, so it's not a question of access to technology. Rather, the company just doesn't think it can sell the cars. As Tim Stevens found out for Ars last year, in this rarefied end of the car market, the customers just aren't interested in EVs . People paying six or even seven figures for a supercar, especially a Lamborghini, are not exercising restraint, and they don't want the car to do that, either.

Speaking to the Sunday Times this weekend, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann revealed that the Lanzador, an electric SUV under development for the past few years, was canceled in late 2025. "Investing heavily in full-EV development when the market and customer base are not ready would be an expensive hobby, and financially irresponsible towards shareholders, customers [and] to our employees and their families," he told the paper.

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Meta has struck a multi-billion dollar chip deal with AMD that could lead to the Facebook owner taking a 10 percent stake in the group, sending shares in the US chipmaker surging on Tuesday.

The social media giant said it would acquire customized chips with a total capacity of 6 gigawatts from AMD as it races to develop and deploy its AI models.

AMD’s chief executive Lisa Su said that “each gigawatt of compute is worth double-digit billions” under the deal.

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Scotch tape has been a household mainstay for nearly a century, but it still holds some scientific surprises. Researchers have discovered that the screeching sound emitted when one rapidly peels Scotch tape —akin to the screech of fingernails on a chalkboard—is the result of shock waves produced by micro-cracks propagating along the tape at supersonic speeds, according to a new paper published in the journal Physical Review E.

It was a 3M engineer named Richard Drew who developed the first transparent sticky tape in 1930. The impetus came from car manufacturing, specifically two-color designs, where the adhesives used were so sticky they often removed the paint when peeled off; the paint then needed to be manually touched up. Drew found a sandpaper adhesive with just the right amount of stickiness and used it to coat a roll of cellophane tape. (Fun fact: Drew also co-invented the snail-style dispenser for the tape with his 3M colleague, John Borden.) The tape was hugely popular during the Great Depression; consumers used it to repair everyday items rather than replace them. That popularity has never waned.

Scotch tape has also generated considerable interest among physicists. Back in 1939, scientists noticed that peeling tape could produce light—specifically, a glowing line where the tape end pulls away from the roll. The phenomenon was first recorded in the 17th century and is known as triboluminescence : the generation of light when a material is crushed, ripped, rubbed, or scratched. Diamonds, for instance, sometimes glow blue or red during the cutting process, while ceramics emit yellow-orange light when being cut by abrasive water jets.

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DALLAS—The Space Force officer tasked with overseeing more than $24 billion in research and development spending says the Pentagon is more interested in supporting startups building new space sensors and payloads than adding yet another rocket company to its portfolio.

The statement, made at a space finance conference in Dallas last week, was one of several points Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy wanted to get across to a room full of investors and commercial space executives.

The other points on Purdy's agenda were that the Space Force is more interested in high-volume production than spending money to develop the latest technologies, and that the military has, at least for now, lost one of its most important tools for supporting and diversifying the space industrial base.

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