Amazon recently announced its latest launch, a robot called Astro. Small in size, but with impressive technology, Astro is seemingly similar to Amazon’s popular virtual assistant. With all the same capabilities as Alexa, many critics are asking why there’s a need for Astro.

Answering this question, Amazon’s Vice-President of Products, Charlie Tritschler, highlights some unique features of Astro that make it a different kind of robot. Astro can move on its own and follow people, offering consumers a far broader range of options. Besides, it can monitor home security. Astro uses Artificial Intelligence to learn more about household members by interacting with users. Users can also register themselves and others into its recognition system. When they leave home, they can make an away mode, which means “Sentry (哨兵) Mode”, or “Patrol Mode” start working. If someone who is not recognized enters the house, Astro will follow and record them. Astro’s mobility seems to be the key feature in its technological enhancement, but what appeals to people most is its “unique persona”. Its big, circular, blinking “eyes” displayed on its screen-like head making it look rather cute are a big reason for this.

Years of research show that humans often experience positive emotional connections with robots. According to MIT’s technology review of Astro, it may not fall far from this observation. People have come to love robotic pets, though they are fully aware that the pets are lifeless. Robots at home can play a useful role in helping elderly patients fight loneliness or young children face social anxiety.

Amazon is offering people interested in Astro the chance to sign up for Day 1 Editions, a program giving invitations to Astro as soon as it goes on the market later this year. Tritschler is encouraging people to personalize the robot when it becomes available, and he is confident that users will come up with more ideas and features they will want to see in the robot in the near future to make it even better.

Scientists say they have developed a system that uses machine learning to predict when and where lightning will strike. Researchers report the system is able to predict lightning strikes up to 30 minutes before they happen within a 30-kilometer area.

Lightning is a strong burst of electricity in the atmosphere. Since it carries an extremely powerful electrical charge, it can be destructive and deadly. European researchers have estimated that between 6,000 and 24,000 people are killed by lightning worldwide each year. For this reason, climate scientists have long sought to develop methods to predict lightning.

The system tested in the experiments uses a combination of data from weather stations and machine learning methods. The researchers developed a prediction model that was trained to recognize weather conditions that were likely to cause lightning.

The model was created with data collected over a 12-year period from 12 Swiss weather stations in cities and mountain areas. The data, related to four main surface conditions: air pressure, air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, was placed into a unique machine learning algorithm (算法), which compared it to records of lightning strikes. Researchers say the algorithm was then able to learn the conditions under which lightning happens.

The researchers test-ran the system several times. They found that the system made predictions that proved correct almost 80 percent of the time. “It can now be used anywhere,” the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said in a statement.

The researchers plan to keep developing the technology in partnership with a European effort that aims to create a lightning protection program. The effort is called the European Laser Lightning Rod project. Scientists working on the project are experimenting with a laser technology that could someday control lightning activity, transferring lightning charges from clouds to the ground. They hope that such technology can one day be used as protection against lightning strikes. Possible uses could be at stations, airports or places where large crowds gather.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are due for huge upgrades in driving range and charging times as new battery technologies are introduced. Lithium (Li) -ion (锂离子) batteries could be out of date in a few years as alternatives like Li-sulfur, Li-air and Li-metal enter production. Meanwhile, quantum (量子) battery charging promises to reduce charge times from hours to seconds.

Scientists at the University of Michigan have produced a stable Li-sulfur battery using Kevlar, the material used in body armor, to increase the amount it can be charged and discharged. Fibers in the Kevlar stop certain parts of lithium from growing between the electrodes (电极) and destroying the battery. Research group leader Nicholas Kotov called the design “nearly perfect” in terms of capacity and efficiency. The battery can handle summer heat and winter cold extremes, and in real-world driving conditions, its lifespan should be 1, 000 cycles or ten years.

Sulfur is a great alternative for EVs because it is a tiny amount of the cost of metals like what is used in Li-ion battery electrodes, and there is simply more of it. Mainstream electric cars fitted with its battery could achieve around 900 miles on a single charge. Battery researchers say the Li-sulfur battery’s energy density could theoretically be 10 times higher than the best Li-ion battery, so it will drive further, be safer and more environmentally friendly, for less money.

In Japan, university researchers have teamed up with a telecommunications company to develop a Li-air battery with an energy density (500 Wh/kg) two to five times better than Li-ion.

Newer quantum technologies that will speed up vehicle charging times are added to these breakthroughs in battery materials and energy density. Li-metal, often talked about as solid-state batteries, are long-lasting and capable of rapid charging, especially when they are paired with quantum technologies that connect all the battery cells simultaneously. And once investments in quantum charging and batteries are made, it could revolutionize transport and the way we use energy worldwide.