Investor support for environmental and social shareholder proposals slumped to the lowest in six years amid the Republican

The United Arab Emirates, the host of this year’s United Nations climate summit, pledged $4.5 billion to help

UPDATE: Aug. 8, 2023, 5:00 a.m. EDT This guide has been updated to reflect Mashable's

By Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh BEIJING/SHANGHAI A new series of smartphones launched by China's Huawei Technologies has

It’s no secret that Best Buy loves sales, but this weekend, it aims to outdo

Scientists have achieved a major breakthrough using a so-called ‘miracle material’ to boost the efficiency of solar panels. Two separate studies published on Thursday demonstrated how the material perovskite could push the power conversion efficiency rate of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells above 30 per cent – beyond the theoretical limit of 29 per cent for traditional silicon (PV) solar cells. “Overcoming this threshold provides confidence that high-performance, low-cost PVs can be brought to the market,” wrote material science researchers Stefaan de Wolf and Erkan Aydin, who were not involved in the research, in an article published in the journal Science. Perovskite has emerged in the past 15 years as a material capable of transforming an array of industries, from renewable energy, to ultra high-speed communications. Materials science professor Zeev Valy Vardeny from the University of Utah described perovskite in 2017 as “unbelievable, a miracle material”, after it was able to radically improve the sunlight-to-energy efficiency of solar cells. Perovskite’s properties allow it to harvest energy from a greater range of the light spectrum, however until recently it was too unstable to be used outside of laboratory conditions. By stacking a layer of perovskite on top of silicon into a tandem device, the researchers were able to significantly boost the efficiency of commercial PV technologies while retaining the industry standard configuration. “Tandem solar cells are the most straight-forward route toward decreasing the levelized cost of electricity, well beyond what is possible for single-junction solar cells,” wrote Professor de Wolf and Aydin. The teams from China and Japan who were behind the latest breakthrough claim the latest design will pave the way for the mass production of ultra-efficient solar panels. The current efficiency record for this next-generation solar cell is 33.7 per cent, achieved by engineers at the KAUST Solar Center in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, having risen from under 4 per cent efficiency in 2009. Last month, a startup in China announced that it planned to begin production of tandem solar cells, with the abundance of perovskite cutting costs to “just one 20th of traditional solar cells”, according to Professor Tan Hairen from Nanjing University. The scientists behind the latest research believe their approach could ultimately achieve an efficiency rate “well above 35 per cent”, though more work needs to be done on making the tandem cells more durable in real-world conditions, as well as scaling them up to the size of traditional solar panels. “Arguably, the most critical factor lies in the annual degradation rate under actual outdoor conditions, which for perovskite-silicon tandems remains largely unknown,” the Perspective noted. “To be commercially viable, this degradation should be on par with mainstream PV technologies, which is less than 1 per cent relative per year.” The research was detailed in two separate papers published in the journal Science. Read More Massive mineral deposit discovery could meet global battery and solar panel demand ‘for next 100 years’

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's banking regulator told insurer Medibank on Tuesday it would have to set aside A$250 million ($167 million)

Sony has announced “Project Q”, a portable version of the PlayStation. The handheld system appears to be something like a PlayStation 5 controller, chopped in half with a screen placed in the middle of it. It works by streaming games over WiFi, the company said during a reveal. But it also suggested that customers will still need a PS5 in their home, and that the Project Q handheld will not be a standalone device. “We will launch a dedicated device that enables you to stream any game from your PS5 console using Remote Play over Wi-Fi,” said PlayStation boss Jim Ryan. “Internally known as ‘Project Q,’ it has an 8-inch HD screen and all of the buttons and features of the DualSense wireless controller.” That divided controller will have all the same “buttons and features” of the controller from the PS5, Sony said. That includes its adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. It will also have a screen that can show up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, the company said. The headset is due to be announced later this year. Sony gave no further information about when that would be, how much it would cost, or even whether “Q” would be its eventual name. The system is not a devoted handheld device, like the Nintendo Switch or the Steam Deck. Nor is it specifically for streaming games over the internet, which would be part of a long-rumoured push into cloud gaming from PlayStation. Instead, it appears to be intended as a way of playing PlayStation games in other parts of the house. Users must not only have a PS5 also connected to the WiFi – which will be accessed through that Remote Play service – but also have the game they want to play installed on that console. Other services already offer the ability to play Remote Play games on handheld devices. Android and iPhones can use that same service, and can pair with controllers. Read More WhatsApp could be making a major change in how you find people Top Twitter engineer quits after DeSantis campaign fiasco Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip company gets FDA approval for human testing

After falling in love with the game, The Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle has created a unique set of cards for collectible tabletop and digital trading card game ‘Magic: The Gathering’.

Sony Group Corp. raised its outlook for sales and net income for the fiscal year as its PlayStation

Pickleball mania is causing a strain on the healthcare system.

Apple's massive event on Sept. 12 saw the announcement of plenty of new devices (as