All posts tagged: efficient

Co-occurring depression and cannabis use linked to less efficient brain networks

Co-occurring depression and cannabis use linked to less efficient brain networks

Published by José Betancourt

New research published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence provides evidence that experiencing depression symptoms alongside cannabis use is linked to less efficient communication across the brain compared to cannabis use alone. The study suggests that while cannabis use tends to increase overall connectivity in the brain, the presence of depression weakens this effect, resulting in a less integrated brain network. Scientists conducted this study to better understand the underlying biology of why cannabis use and depression frequently occur together. Heavy or chronic cannabis use might increase the risk of developing depression, while individuals experiencing depression often turn to cannabis to self-medicate. Both cannabis use and depression individually alter the way different areas of the brain communicate with each other. This baseline brain communication is known as resting-state functional connectivity, which refers to the brain activity that happens when a person is awake but not focused on a specific task. Prior studies have shown changes in resting-state connectivity in people who use cannabis and in those with depression, but the combined effect of both factors on …

Audi to launch new electric A2 e-tron: ‘Efficient, compact, and confident’

Audi to launch new electric A2 e-tron: ‘Efficient, compact, and confident’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get our weekly Drive Smart newsletter for motoring news, reviews and advice from EV editor Steve Fowler Get motoring news, reviews and advice from EV editor Steve Fowler Get our EV editor’s weekly Drive Smart newsletter Audi has confirmed the revival of its A2 nameplate, set to return as an all-electric model dubbed the A2 e-tron. The original A2, first introduced in 2000, was a pioneering city car lauded for its futuristic design, exceptional interior space, and impressive efficiency. Its innovative construction featured an almost entirely aluminium bodyshell and key panels, which significantly reduced weight and contributed to a remarkably low drag coefficient, optimising fuel consumption. The forthcoming A2 e-tron is expected to emulate these “groundbreaking methods,” promising a modern interpretation of its predecessor’s core values. Audi has confirmed the new electric vehicle will be fully unveiled later this year. Though details on the new model are scarce, Audi has said that the new car will be focused on people who value ‘everyday usability in the city’, suggesting that the upcoming model will be focused …

New ‘vacuum ultraviolet’ laser is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than existing tech

New ‘vacuum ultraviolet’ laser is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than existing tech

Published by Jenni Sidey

The vacuum ultraviolet region is the area of the electromagnetic spectrum lying between X-rays and visible light. It is characterized by very short wavelengths between about 100 and 200 nanometers. For many years, it has resisted development into practical lasers using existing laser techniques due to an almost laughable limitation. Virtually everything in our environment absorbs vacuum ultraviolet radiation instead of allowing it to pass through. For example, air, materials containing organic molecules, and many solid materials absorb it. Many types of atoms also absorb vacuum ultraviolet light rather than allowing it to pass. Yet that same property provides scientists with a wealth of scientific information about the material interactions of whatever vacuum ultraviolet photons encounter. Producing sufficient quantities of vacuum ultraviolet light in an efficient and compact device for practical use has therefore always represented a challenge. Building a Vacuum Ultraviolet Laser Now, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder believe they have overcome this long-standing challenge by building a vacuum ultraviolet laser that is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than currently available …

Black Forest Labs’ new Self-Flow technique makes training multimodal AI models 2.8x more efficient

Black Forest Labs’ new Self-Flow technique makes training multimodal AI models 2.8x more efficient

Published by skeptic

To create coherent images or videos, generative AI diffusion models like Stable Diffusion or FLUX have typically relied on external “teachers”—frozen encoders like CLIP or DINOv2—to provide the semantic understanding they couldn’t learn on their own. But this reliance has come at a cost: a “bottleneck” where scaling up the model no longer yields better results because the external teacher has hit its limit. Today, German AI startup Black Forest Labs (maker of the FLUX series of AI image models) has announced a potential end to this era of academic borrowing with the release of Self-Flow, a self-supervised flow matching framework that allows models to learn representation and generation simultaneously. By integrating a novel Dual-Timestep Scheduling mechanism, Black Forest Labs has demonstrated that a single model can achieve state-of-the-art results across images, video, and audio without any external supervision. The technology: breaking the “semantic gap” The fundamental problem with traditional generative training is that it’s a “denoising” task. The model is shown noise and asked to find an image; it has very little incentive to …

The Best Smart Sleep Pads for Your Most Efficient Sleep (2026)

The Best Smart Sleep Pads for Your Most Efficient Sleep (2026)

Published by skeptic

Sleep tech only seems to be getting more pervasive, permanent, and pricey. One day, you start checking your sleep rings on your Apple Watch, the next, you find yourself shopping for smart mattresses that require you to rethink your entire bed, fans that blow cool air under your duvet, and subscription apps that promise sleep coaching with hyper-granular data. Smart sleep pads are a good middle ground. They don’t require you to replace your bed and frame, strap anything to your body, or radically change your routine. They just sit on or underneath your mattress or pillow, and quietly do their thing—from tracking to temperature regulation—while you sleep. Some smart sleep pads adjust temperature, while others monitor movement or ever-so-slightly influence your sleep patterns. Either way, they’re easy to live with, which feels closer to how we think tech should behave at night. I tested several sleep pads on the same bed, during a Midwestern winter, to see which ones truly felt like they made a difference, and which felt more like experiments than solutions. …

The exercise at least four times more efficient than walking

The exercise at least four times more efficient than walking

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter You’re standing at your front door, facing a five-kilometre commute to work. But you don’t have your car, and there’s no bus route. You can walk for an hour, or jump on your bicycle and arrive in 15 minutes, barely breaking a sweat. You choose the latter. Many people would make the same choice. It’s estimated that there are more than a billion bikes in the world. Cycling represents one of the most energy-efficient forms of transport ever invented, allowing humans to travel faster and farther while using less energy than walking or running. But why exactly does pedalling feel so much easier than pounding the pavement? The answer lies in the elegant biomechanics of how our bodies interact with this two-wheeled machine. A wonderfully simple machine At its heart, a …

iPhone Fold Rumors: Thinner, Brighter, and More Efficient

iPhone Fold Rumors: Thinner, Brighter, and More Efficient

Published by skeptic

Apple is reportedly preparing to integrate Samsung’s advanced COE (Color on Encapsulation) technology into its upcoming iPhone Fold and potentially future iPhone models. This move represents a significant advancement in display technology, as COE eliminates the traditional polarizer layer in OLED displays. The result is thinner, brighter, and more energy-efficient screens, which could redefine smartphone design and performance for both Apple and Samsung. By adopting this technology, Apple is positioning itself to compete directly in the foldable smartphone market while enhancing its traditional iPhone lineup. Understanding COE Technology COE (Color on Encapsulation) is a new innovation in OLED display technology. Unlike traditional displays that rely on a separate polarizer layer, COE embeds the color filter directly into the OLED’s protective layer. This streamlined design delivers several key benefits: Enhanced light efficiency, resulting in brighter displays with reduced energy consumption. Thinner screens, allowing sleeker and more compact device designs. Lower power usage, which can significantly extend battery life. Samsung first introduced COE technology in 2021 with its Galaxy Z Fold 3, setting a new standard for …

New Year’s AI surprise: Fal releases its own version of Flux 2 image generator that’s 10x cheaper and 6x more efficient

New Year’s AI surprise: Fal releases its own version of Flux 2 image generator that’s 10x cheaper and 6x more efficient

Published by skeptic

Hot on the heels of its new $140 million Series D fundraising round, the multi-modal enterprise AI media creation platform fal.ai, known simply as “fal” or “Fal” is back with a year-end surprise: a faster, more efficient, and cheaper version of the Flux.2 [dev] open source image model from Black Forest Labs. Fal’s new model FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo is a distilled, ultra-fast image generation model that’s already outperforming many of its larger rivals on public benchmarks, and is available now on Hugging Face, though very importantly: under a custom Black Forest non-commercial license. It’s not a full-stack image model in the traditional sense, but rather a LoRA adapter—a lightweight performance enhancer that attaches to the original FLUX.2 base model and unlocks high-quality images in a fraction of the time. It’s also open-weight. And for technical teams evaluating cost, speed, and deployment control in an increasingly API-gated ecosystem, it’s a compelling example of how taking open source models and optimizing them can achieve improvements in specific attributes — in this case, speed, cost, and efficiency. fal’s …