Imagine a prosthetic hand that can actually feel the objects it touches, and robots navigating complex environments with the subtlety of human fingers. That’s what Arman Arezoomand is chasing with his soft, bio-inspired robotic skin, and it’s not just science fiction. While the project could transform prosthetics for amputees, it also pushes the boundaries of embodied AI and precision manufacturing, and I find it genuinely exciting because it blends engineering rigor with real-world human impact, and it reminds us why tactile sensing remains one of the most elegant challenges in robotics today.

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The Dutch government’s recent takeover of Nexperia may read like corporate drama, but it’s a strong reminder that global chip supply chains are far from immune to geopolitics, and reliance on Chinese processing still carries real risk. While the chips Nexperia makes aren’t cutting-edge, they are indispensable for modern vehicles, and the disruption shows how quickly politics can ripple through engineering systems. In the unfolding story between Nexperia and China, it is clear that there is a delicate balance of foreign vs. national investment, and that this incident shows why securing strategic manufacturing locally matters more than ever.

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Tesla’s AI5 and AI6 chips will be produced at both Samsung and TSMC fabs, confirming a dual-sourcing approach that balances performance with supply security. While the two foundries produce slightly different physical versions, Tesla ensures that its AI software runs identically on both. The AI6 chip is expected to roughly double AI5’s performance, demonstrating the company’s focus on scaling high-performance silicon reliably, and shows the importance of redundancy and flexibility in semiconductor manufacturing for large-scale AI and robotics applications.

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Bramble Energy, a UK manufacturer of PEM fuel cells and AEM electrolysers built on PCB technology, has filed a notice of intent to appoint an insolvency administrator after failing to secure additional financing. The company had been exploring innovative approaches to electrolysis and fuel-cell design, but the funding shortfall underscores the challenges faced by advanced hydrogen technology startups. While Bramble’s approach showed technical promise, the situation highlights the broader realities of scaling emerging energy technologies and the financial pressures that can impede even the most innovative engineering efforts.

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Florida’s Space Coast is proving that engineering excellence doesn’t stop at rockets. Initiatives like TITAN-AI are bringing aerospace precision to pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and other critical manufacturing, and it’s impressive to see AI-driven automation applied with the same rigor as a launch sequence. By combining disciplined engineering, real-time monitoring, and local collaboration, Florida is showing how reshoring can be both high-tech and resilient. For those of us who follow advanced manufacturing closely, it’s a clear example of how technical expertise and smart process control can protect supply chains while creating skilled jobs at home.

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Zhejiang University has launched FabGPT, a multimodal AI model designed specifically for wafer and chip manufacturing, and it’s a clear signal of how AI is reshaping semiconductor processes. By integrating real-time data and advanced predictive capabilities, FabGPT promises to optimize yield, detect anomalies, and streamline fabrication workflows. For anyone who follows electronics closely, this demonstrates the growing role of AI not just in design but in actual production, showing that innovation in semiconductor manufacturing increasingly depends on combining deep technical expertise with intelligent automation.

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Fudan University has developed the first wafer-scale 2D semiconductor FPGA, integrating roughly 4,000 transistors and marking a major step for 2D electronics beyond simple logic gates. Using a compact DRAM-based configuration memory, the chip achieves high integration density and intrinsic radiation resistance, withstanding 10 Mrad of gamma exposure. This reconfigurable platform demonstrates complex functions like adders and multipliers, showing practical utility for aerospace and high-reliability computing. For anyone following semiconductor innovation, it’s an impressive example of how novel materials and precise engineering can open new paths for robust, reconfigurable, and highly compact integrated circuits.

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Researchers from Peking, Tsinghua, and Hong Kong universities have applied cryo-electron tomography to semiconductor lithography, reducing wafer defects by up to 99 per cent. By freezing and imaging photoresist molecules during development, the team identified polymer entanglement as the root cause of redeposited particles and implemented process adjustments to eliminate them. For anyone tracking advanced chip manufacturing, this is a perfect demonstration of applying physics and imaging techniques to solve long-standing yield problems, potentially lowering costs, improving reliability, and opening new opportunities in high-end photoresist production for advanced nodes.

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North Carolina State University researchers have developed 3D-printed origami robots incorporating thin, magnetically responsive elastomer films to enable precise drug delivery within the body. Utilizing the Miura-Ori folding pattern, these structures can be ingested in a compact form and expanded at target sites, such as ulcers, under external magnetic control. The magnetic films act as actuators, facilitating controlled unfolding and sustained release of medication. This approach represents a major advance in soft robotics and biomedical engineering, combining additive manufacturing, magnetic actuation, and minimally invasive design to improve the precision and efficacy of targeted therapeutic delivery.

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Recycling spent lithium iron phosphate batteries isn’t just smart, it’s starting to be transformative. A research team led by Querubino, Coelho, and Chaves has extracted β-LiFe₅O₈, α-Li₂FeO₃, and α-Fe₂O₃ from old cathodes and turned them into pseudocapacitor materials, boosting both efficiency and longevity. It’s the kind of engineering that excites me, because it tackles waste while pushing energy storage forward, and it shows that careful materials science can make renewable energy systems more practical. Innovations like this remind us that progress often comes from rethinking what we discard and finding real-world value where we least expect it.

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Just weeks after GlassWorm was declared contained, it has resurfaced in open source VS Code extensions and GitHub repositories, exploiting invisible Unicode and blockchain-based command channels. Despite the wonders of open-source technologies, its a frightening reminder that the software supply chain is only as strong as the humans and processes behind it, and automated checks alone can’t catch clever malware. GlassWorm is both fascinating and concerning, because it shows how attackers not only target trusted tools we rely on daily, but also reinforces the need for vigilance, curated sources, and treating developer infrastructure with the same rigor as production systems.

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