Stockholm-based startup SweGreen is transforming the concept of “farm fresh” by bringing the farm directly into supermarkets. With installations across Sweden and Germany, SweGreen is pioneering a sustainable way to grow crops while simultaneously reducing food waste and carbon emissions.

In the U.S. alone, it’s estimated that 16 billion pounds of food are wasted annually in supermarkets. As much as 30% of the food that reaches store shelves is discarded, often because customers only select the most visually appealing fruits and vegetables. This level of waste, coupled with global challenges like climate change, shrinking agricultural land, and geopolitical tensions, raises concerns about future food security. By 2050, with the world population nearing 10 billion, finding innovative ways to ensure sustainable food production is more urgent than ever.

Purdue University engineers have found that autonomous vehicles (AVs) could soon be powered by advanced chatbots like ChatGPT, enabling them to better understand and respond to passengers’ commands. These chatbots are built on large language models (LLMs), a type of artificial intelligence algorithm designed to interpret natural language and continuously learn from vast amounts of data.

This breakthrough study, published on the preprint server arXiv, is set to be presented at the 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems on September 25. It may be one of the first real-world experiments testing how well AVs can use LLMs to understand and act on passenger instructions.

In response to rising operational costs and labor shortages, Hestia Technology Limited, founded in Hong Kong in 2018 by chemistry professor Chen Guanhua, is transforming restaurant operations with its cutting-edge robotic kitchen systems. The company’s mission is to enhance efficiency and accessibility while delivering traditional Chinese and international cuisine through automation.

Hestia’s fifth-generation robots offer a complete automation solution for restaurant kitchens, handling everything from ingredient retrieval and preparation to serving and cleanup—entirely without human involvement. The system, which consists of a larder, conveyor belt, and multicooker, can replace up to three chefs and prepare more than 200 different dishes, including Chinese regional favorites like Hunan and Sichuan, as well as Italian cuisine.

A 64-year-old man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative nerve disease, has successfully controlled Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant using only his thoughts, thanks to groundbreaking brain-computer interface technology. The company behind the innovation, Synchron, announced on Monday that the patient, named Mark, was able to stream shows, make video calls, control smart home devices, and more using just his mind.

The key to this technological feat is an implant placed in a blood vessel on the surface of Mark’s brain. This implant enables him to mentally “tap” icons on an Amazon Fire tablet, allowing him to command Alexa without using his hands or voice.

A study presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in Vienna revealed that the chatbot ChatGPT outperformed trainee doctors in assessing complex respiratory diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, and chest infections. The research also showed that Google’s chatbot Bard performed better than trainees in certain areas, while Microsoft’s Bing chatbot matched the trainees in overall performance.

The findings suggest that large language models (LLMs) like these could help trainee doctors, nurses, and general practitioners in triaging patients more efficiently, potentially easing the strain on healthcare systems. The study was led by Dr. Manjith Narayanan, a consultant in pediatric pulmonology at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh, and a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.