Instead, all you need to play this Game Boy, officially called the Engage, for hours on end is some sunlight and frantic button mashing. The solar panels attached to the front of the device provide its primary source of power, with your button presses helping to generate additional power.

It’s not a perfect system and there are some major drawbacks. When it’s not too cloudy outside, you can get about 10 seconds of uninterrupted gameplay from the Engage Game Boy before it needs to shut down for about one second. It also can’t play any sounds. But you can still continuously play games thanks to an innovative framework for storing system state data to memory that allows you to pick up exactly where you left off, even if you lost power while in the middle of trying to land the perfect jump in Super Mario Land. While not ideal, this allows you to play slower-paced games relatively easily. 

More so than being a fun DIY project, the Engage is a proof of concept. When they set out to build their Game Boy, the Engage team wanted to show that it was possible to create an interactive device that doesn’t need batteries. They know what they’ve created is only a first step. It will take a lot more work before your Switch and other electronics don’t need batteries. But it’s still a significant step forward for the field of intermittent computing. 

“This could not have been possible even four or five years ago,” Josiah Hester, one of the computer scientists who worked on the project, told CNET. After presenting their findings at the UbiComp conference on September 15th, the Engage team plans to continue working on their Game Boy. One of the things they want to do is find a way to shorten the power interruptions.    

Facebook says its Menlo Park headquarters is 100 percent supported by renewable energy, and it diverts 90 percent of its waste away from landfills through recycling and composting. Four of Facebook’s US data center buildings earned LEED Gold certification, and one building in Sweden earned LEED Platinum certification, the highest rating possible.

In the sustainability report, Facebook claims it’s committed to giving back to the communities where its facilities are located. For instance, it plans to recover heat generated by its servers in Odense, Denmark, and donate it to a local district heating company. Facebook hopes to provide 100,000 MWh of energy annually. That’s enough to warm 6,900 homes in the nearby city, and it will help Odense phase out of coal by mid-2022.

Facebook is trying to improve its water usage, too. In 2019, the company saved over three billion gallons of water, and it invested in watershed restoration projects in Oregon and New Mexico. A pilot project at a data center in New Mexico reduced the water used for cooling by about 40 percent. This year, Facebook plans to expand that tech to other data centers. Facebook expects its water projects to restore about 206,000 cubic meters of water annually.

“All that said, we know there is more work to be done. Now more than ever, businesses need to think not only about managing their operational impact but about working with others to leverage their technical strengths and address sustainability challenges,” Rachel Peterson, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure, wrote in the report.

The trick was to develop “mechanically robust” light-absorbing materials that achieve some of the highest power conversion efficiency of any organic cell, at 13 percent. That’s lower than many conventional solar cells (over 20 percent), but should be enough for wristwear. They’re relatively easy to make thanks to continuous printing tech.

Be sure to temper your expectations. The research team is planning to commercialize the new solar cell tech, but inventions like this can take years to refine and implement. The advantages are clear, at least. This could lead to more wearables that only need small batteries, or none at all. That could keep them running for much longer and slim them down compared to the relatively bulky devices you see today.

The good news continued on Wednesday when the company released its Q4 2019 earnings and 2020 financial forecast. Thanks to a quick turnaround in building its Shanghai Gigafactory, which was completed in just 10 months, Tesla can now focus on ramping up production of its new crossover SUV, the Model Y, at its existing production plant in Fremont, California. The Ys, which were expected to begin shipping in Fall of 2020 are now slated for delivery by the end of Q1 instead. The company also announced that it is boosting the range of its $51,000 Model Y AWD variant from 280 miles to 315. Tesla did not note whether the $47,000 long-range version, the AWD or the $60,000 performance version are being built first.

Tesla plans to have a 500,000-unit production capacity of Model 3s and Model Ys at the Fremont plant by year’s end. That makes sense since the 3 and Y share more than 75 percent of their components.

Additionally, the company announced that its solar power business is booming. Tesla 54 MW of solar capacity in Q4, 26 percent more than in the prior quarter. Over the course of 2019, the company rolled out 1.65 GWh of energy storage, more than the previous four years put together.

The key, according to JBL, is Powerfoyle material from Exeger that, like Logitech’s solar keyboards, can draw energy from indirect and indoor light as well as the Sun. Unless you prefer to listen in total darkness, your cans will always be charging. JBL estimates that an hour and a half of outdoor time is enough for 68 hours of listening if you’re starting with a fully-charged battery. Even if the conditions aren’t nearly as favorable (say, winter), there’s a good chance you won’t have to plug in. There is a backup, of course — you can plug the headphones in through USB and get two hours of playback in 15 minutes.

These are otherwise garden variety headphones. They pack 40mm drivers with a 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response range, hands-free calling, a mode to amplify ambient audio, multi-device pairing and control over your voice assistant of choice. They’re even IPX4-rated, so they can endure some rain or gym sweat.

JBL has already met its crowdfunding target for the Reflect Eternal, so pledging $99 before the campaign’s end on January 14th makes it highly likely that you’ll get a pair around the estimated October 2020 release date. At this point, it’s mainly a question of whether anything will change between now and launch. JBL and Exeger are using the crowdfunding to gauge feedback and tweak the design, so there’s a possibility that complaints you have now might be addressed by the time you can start listening.

The trick is the use of computer vision (aka a form of AI) to align a large array of mirrors as they reflect sunlight on a solitary target. That allows for the kind of accuracy that hasn’t been possible until now.

There’s still a lot of work to go before the technology enters real-world use. Heliogen achieved the record heat levels the first day of its plant’s operation, company founder Bill Gross told CNN. While impressive, it won’t immediately translate to a practical solution.

Nonetheless, the implications are huge. As Gates noted in the announcement, industrial processes are responsible for over 20 percent of emissions. If the technology can cut even a portion those emissions, that could help keep global warming in check. Heliogen has greater ambitions, too. It ultimately hopes to reach temperatures of 2,732F, which would be hot enough to create hydrogen and synthetic gas. At that point, you’d have clean energy being used to produce more clean energy — there would be relatively little need to generate emissions in the first place.

According to the analysis, from July through September, renewables generated 29.5 terawatt hours (TWh) while fossil fuels generated 29.1 TWh. As Gizmodo points out, a 0.4 TWh may sound small but it represents the electricity used by hundreds of thousands of customers. For context, in the third quarter of 2009, the UK generated twice as much electricity from fossil fuels (60.4 TWh) and only 5.7 TWh from renewables.

Of the energy produced last quarter, 20 percent came from wind, 12 percent from biomass (which isn’t a perfect source) and six percent from solar. Wind power got a boost from farms like the Hornsea One, East Anglia One and Walney Extension. In the first half of 2019, Scotland generated enough wind energy to power its homes twice, and it’s working to build a massive battery to store some of its excess wind power. While solar is understandably less productive in the UK, the country is still looking for ways to put it to use for things like a solar-powered rail line.

The analysis doesn’t touch on the fact that most of the UK’s carbon emissions come from its transportation sector. The country has pledged to make improvements there, too. It previously committed to banning the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2040. While the findings from the analysis represent an important milestone and an encouraging trend, there’s still plenty of work to do in the UK and beyond.

The company is reportedly implementing the approach to make the most of its EV output. While Tesla delivered a record 97,000 cars in the third quarter of 2019, it also had 3,000 cars sitting in inventory. The Centers might reduce that inventory by offering a “continuous flow” of vehicles to delivery centers. We’d add that this could improve lengthy service turnaround times by providing more and larger service locations.

We’ve asked Tesla for comment. This would be a sharp contrast from Tesla’s attitude earlier in the year, when it (temporarily) planned to close most stores and focus on internet sales.

If accurate, the plan for Centers could set up another conflict between Tesla and dealership associations. Tesla may feel these locations don’t violate the law, but history suggests dealer lobbies will argue otherwise. They may contend that Tesla is simply trying to hide its direct car sales under the guise of its energy business. Don’t be surprised if this approach leads to more legal battles, and they won’t necessarily work out in Tesla’s favor.

Several UK train stations already run on solar. Network Rail, which manages most of the railway infrastructure on the British mainland, has earmarked billions of pounds to electrify rail lines, and aims to do so with solar power if the pilot project is successful. The UK government aims to eliminate the use of diesel on the rail network by 2040.

Those behind the solar project told the Guardian the renewable energy could power 20 percent of the Liverpool Merseyrail network and 15 percent of commuter lines in Kent, Sussex and Wessex as well as solar trains in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham, London and Manchester. Along with being a greener form of power than diesel, the solar farms could supply cheaper power than electricity from the natural grid, which would reduce costs for railways.

The UK wouldn’t be the first country to have solar-powered trains. More than 250 are in service in India with panels on their roofs. The subcontinent plans to establish trackside solar farms and Indian Railways hopes to have the first entirely green railway network in 10 years. Meanwhile, some UK trains are being refitted to run on hydrogen tanks and fuel cells.

The big-box chain formally accused Tesla of breach of contract, gross negligence and failure to meet industry standards. It wanted Tesla to not only pay damages related to the first, but to remove its panels from over 240 Walmart stores.

We’ve asked Tesla for comment.

There’s a good possibility Tesla will fight back, though. The company has been struggling to revive its solar business, which installed a modest 29MW of solar power capacity in the second quarter compared to more than 200MW at the division’s peak. The last thing it needs is to lose a major deployment and suffer the negative publicity that comes with that loss.