The Innovation Report
Smart Mobility Today: 29 June 2026
As I cut the lawn the other day, I heard a loud buzz, like a giant bumble bee. I looked up to see a drone a couple of hundred feet up streaming above my house. It moved with purpose, definitely on a mission. My thoughts immediately went to who sent it, where is it...
TSA Confiscates 300 Drones At U.S. World Cup Events
Federal air marshals have seized more than 300 drones during World Cup events in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday. The TSA said the air marshals, working with state and federal officials, confiscated the devices, though the...
Microsoft Says Its Data Centers Use 90% Less Water Than Its Earliest Facilities As Public Concern Grows
Microsoft announced Wednesday that over the past two decades, it has become dramatically more efficient in its use of water to cool data centers, slashing its consumption rate by 90% compared to levels when it opened its first facilities in the early 2000s. The...
US Army Tests Autonomous Boats During Philippine Exercise
Autonomous boats helped escort a U.S. Army vessel during a recent military exercise, the Army said, in a demonstration of how uncrewed assets are changing maritime operations. Soldiers from the 125th Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion,...
Why Scientists Launched Two Little Robots To The Moon
Two tiny transforming robots landed on the moon! They accompanied Japan's first successful lunar lander called SLIM - Smart Lander for Investigating Moon and are the size of a baseball. They rolled out of SLIM as balls and transformed into a rover by cracking down the...
High Oil Prices Drive A Surge In Chinese Electric Vehicle Sales, But Charging Networks Lag Behind
The war in Iran has helped reshape the global electric vehicle market, giving Chinese automakers an opening across the developing world as soaring fuel prices push drivers towards electric vehicles, even as charging infrastructure lags behind a wave of imports. The...
UK: “Temporary” 50-Year Solar Farm Approved
A solar farm has been approved for farmland near a stately home for a "temporary" period of 50 years. The site, near Thornton in Buckinghamshire, is expected to generate almost 50MW of electricity, enough to power 15,000 houses. Opponents said it would increase flood...
Spacex Launches Starfall Mission For In-Space Manufacturing
SpaceX launched a demonstration mission Tuesday to send a reusable capsule into space and then recover it, part of a new program that may allow the Elon Musk-led company to tap into the emerging market of in-space manufacturing. Under the Starfall program, which...
Astemo Engineering Careers Tour Meets Marcis Jansons, Wayne State University
The Global Auto Mobility and Smart Mobility Today team spent the day on campus at Detroit’s Wayne State University just before winter break. During our visit, Cindy Polakowski and John Petty met with Marcis Jansons, Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering...
EVs Can Power The Grid; Why Aren’t More Of Them Doing It?
When some EV owners in California and Massachusetts plug in their cars, the large batteries inside now serve a second purpose: sending power back to the grid when the vehicles do not need it and earning cash for their owners in the process. In one Massachusetts pilot...
