More than 10,000 cans of Original Coca-Cola distributed in two states have been voluntarily recalled.
Manufacturer Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling initiated the recall on March 6 after reports of foreign plastic found inside cans. On March 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designated the recall as Class II, per the FDA enforcement report.
According to the FDA’s recall classification page, a Class II recall means “a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”The report indicated that 864 12-count packs of the product distributed in Illinois and Wisconsin are included in the recall. The products have a single-can UPC of 0 49000-00634 6 and 12-pack UPC of 0 49000-02890 4. The recall number is F-0664-2025.A spokesperson with Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling confirmed the recall to ABC News. “The cases are being withdrawn because they did not meet our high-quality standards,” the spokesperson said. “We are taking this voluntary action because nothing is more important to us than providing high-quality products to the people who drink our beverages.”The latest recall is definitely not the first recall over foreign plastic or other foreign materials being found inside of a product’s packaging lately. Last month, Trader Joe’s issued a recall of its Frozen Acai Bowls over plastic contamination, and just last week, Nestlé USA recalled a number of Stouffer’s and Lean Cuisine meals over wood-like foreign material in the meals.If it seems like recalls have been happening more frequently lately, there’s truth to that suspicion. A February 2025 report, published by the Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit consumer protection group, found that last year, there were about 300 food recalls which led to nearly 1,400 illnesses and 19 deaths.“Nearly 1,400 people became ill from food they ate in 2024 98% of them from just 13 outbreaks, a stunning fact that shows the consequences of companies producing or selling contaminated food,” the report explained.Stunningly, the number of hospitalizations and deaths in 2024 were about twice that of the previous year. According to that report, the most concerning contaminants were Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli.
Despite swirling economic uncertaintyand tariffs that could hit the auto parts industry particularly hardone large auto parts retailer is gearing up for expansion. Advance Auto Parts is going to open 30 new locations across the United States by the end of 2025, and aims to open at least an additional 100 new locations through 2027, according to a company announcement released on Tuesday.
That includes opening new stores in larger market hubs. Fast Company reached out to Advance Auto Parts to get a complete list of new store locations, but the company declined to provide additional information.
The announcement may come as a surprise, as Advance Auto Parts said several months ago that it was closing more than 700 stores. The company operated nearly 4,800 stores across the U.S. and Canada as of the end of 2024.
According to the company, the closure of those stores, and subsequent expansion plans, are a part of a plan to optimize Advances retail footprint. Per the companys release, now, more than 75% of the Companys stores are in markets where the company has the No. 1 or No. 2 position based on store density, strengthening its presence in strategic communities.
Advance Auto Parts is on the path to accelerate store growth and focused on the fundamentals of selling auto parts, said Shane OKelly, president and chief executive officer, in comments included with the companys release. We are excited about whats to come for Advance. Our team members are committed to providing the right parts and the right service for our PRO and DIY customers in their communities.
Advance Auto Parts is battling it out in the competitive auto parts retail industry, and in terms of foot traffic, is tied with OReilly Auto Parts in securing around 18% of overall visits. According to industry data, AutoZone, the market leader, gobbled up more than 32%.
The news of the expansion was met with a tepid response from the markets. Advance Auto Parts stock was trading at $37.50 per share when markets opened on Wednesday morning, and by midday, was up only around 1% or so. Shares are down more than 21% year to date, and down 55% over the past calendar year.
Meanwhile, OReilly Automotives stock is up 16% year to date, and 21.5% over the past year. AutoZone shares are up 13.2% year to date and 15.3% over the past year.
For the first time in over a decade, Coca-Cola is relaunching its iconic Share a Coke campaign. This time around, its targeting Gen Z.
When Share a Coke first debuted in Australia in 2011, replacing the Coca-Cola logo on Coke bottles with 150 of the most popular names in the region, it sold 250 million named bottles and cans in a nation of just under 23 million people. The idea was so successful that, over time, Coca-Cola replicated it in 70 different countries. And this April 1, a new version of Share a Coke is rolling out globally.
The bones of the concept are the same as when it debuted more than a decade ago: In each local market, a range of the most popular regional names has been selected and printed onto Coke bottles and cans. This time, though, the campaign is including an expanded range of names, launching on a broader scale, and adding a few digital touches to attract a younger generation.
The company is positioning this relaunch as a campaign with unprecedented personalization for Gen Z, but its a tough sell in an era when AI has made personalized marketing a much more achievable reality. Instead, its more like a nostalgic re-run with a couple modern tweaksand it might not be enough to impress a new, digitally native generation.
[Image: Coca-Cola]
Coca-Cola’s plan to recruit young consumers
According to the industry research firm IBIS, American consumption of soft drinks has been on a steady decline since 1999. That year, the average American wouldve consumed 49.7 gallons of soda, compared to 42.2 gallons today. But while the category as a whole might be losing steam, Coca-Cola remains profitable: Net revenues were up 3% to $47.1 billion in 2024, and the companys shares have gone up by about 14% in the past year.
For Gen Z, there are a few factors that influence soda consumption. To start, many younger consumers are increasingly interested in wellness, and therefore are choosing functional beverages like prebiotic drinks or lower sugar options. But soda isnt a lost cause, either: As many younger consumers opt to drink less or stay sober entirely, theyre turning to other kinds of drinks at the bar, including plain old soda. Trends like the rise of dirty soda also signal that Gen Z still enjoys a sugary drink here and there.
Islam Eldessouky, Coca-Colas global vice president of creative strategy and content, says the companys idea to bring Share a Coke back actually came up while discussing new ways to recruit as many Gen Zers into the franchise as we can” (a mission that the company has already pursued with new flavor launches like Spiced and Orange Cream).
One key data point that came up is that 72% of Gen Zers are really aspiring to make real connections, Eldessouky says. While we were contemplating different ideas of bringing this aspect of connection to the brand, somebody said, Share a Coke was built on that.
Originally, he explains, “Share a Coke” was about creating organic connections, like finding a bottle with a friends name on it and sharing it with them. In 2011an era when the whole notion of personalization was very basic and very primitive, he saysdiscovering a Coke with your name on it felt especially exciting. To reinvent the concept in 2025 for a digitally native generation, though, the Coca-Cola team felt they’d have to do something bigger.
[Image: Coca-Cola]
A more digital ‘Share a Coke’
There are a few ways that Coca-Cola is seeking to make this new campaign feel more weighty. The scale is literally larger. This campaign is launching globally in 120 different markets over the course of the coming year, starting in North America, Latin America, and Asia South Pacific. The actual number of names used is greater as well, though the specific statistics vary by market.
This version of the campaign will also include two new digital elements: Memory Maker, which lets users scan a QR code on their bottle to upload photos and videos to something like a Coke-powered group chat, and a new customization platform which lets fans order a Coke bottle online with a custom name or word (though, Eldessouky assures me, the platform wont allow users to enter anything obscene or inflammatory).
In addition, Coca-Cola is partnering with McDonalds on an exclusive Share a Coke meal bundle, which will be available in the fast food chain’s restaurants. Coca-Cola says the goal of the Share a Meal, as the company calls its, is to incentivize friend groups to connect in person rather than online. Part of the strategy of this partnership, Eldessouky says, is to provide Gen Z consumes with an accessible, inexpensive third place.
The third place is something that Gen Z is really craving, because it’s a very connected generation digitally, but they desire much more connection in real life than other generations, Eldessouky says. We’re trying to give [Gen Z] a lot of opportunities where they can actually go and find these third places to connect.
But the ‘Share a Coke’ concept doesn’t need add-ons
As a member of the campaigns target demographic myself, I think the customization platform is a nice add-on that might allow those whose names are less common to still participate in the campaign. But the other elements fall flat.
The Memory Maker feature, for one, doesnt exactly feel like the unprecedented personalization Coke hopes it will be. Today, given the advent of targeted marketing and AI tools, personalized campaigns just feel a lot less novel. Coca-Cola itself, for example, used AI in 2024 to make a holiday ad that was customized across 12 different U.S. geographies. Frankly, its tough to imagine many young people going through the effort of scanning a QR code in the first place, let alone using it to message friends. And a Coke and McDonald’s collaboration makes intuitive sensebut I’m not totally convinced by the idea that it’ll make McDonald’s a novel “third space” for Gen Zers who aren’t already hanging out there.
All in all, the new Share a Coke campaign doesnt look very different from its 2011 iteration, and thats fine. I just wish Coke had just gone full-on millennial nostalgia with the marketing (see this extremely 2010s ad, for example) rather than making a play at Gen Z that feels tired at best.
Installation of renewable energy worldwide hit a record high last year, with 92.5% of all new electricity brought online coming from the sun, wind or other clean sources, an international agency reports.Nearly 64% of the new renewable electricity generated in 2024 was in China, according to Wednesday’s report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Overall, the world added 585 billion watts of new renewable electrical energy, a 15.1% jump from 2023, with 46% of the world’s electricity coming from solar, wind and other green non-nuclear energy sources.But even that big jump does not put the globe on track to reach the international goal of tripling renewable energy from 2023 to 2030, with the world on pace to be 28% short, IRENA calculated. The goal was adopted in 2023 as part of the world’s efforts to curb the increasing impacts of climate change and transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.“Renewable energy is powering down the fossil fuel age. Record-breaking growth is creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “But the shift to clean energy must be faster and fairer.”China added almost 374 billion watts of renewable power three quarters of it from solar panels in 2024. That’s more than eight times as much as the United States did and five times what Europe added last year.China now has nearly 887 billion watts of solar panel power, compared to 176 billion in the United States, nearly 90 billion watts in Germany, 21 billion watts in France and more than 17 billion watts in the United Kingdom.United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell used the figures Wednesday to challenge Europe and other industrialized nations to catch up with China.“As one government steps back from climate leadership, it opens up space for others to step forward and seize the vast benefits,” Stiell told European leaders in Berlin, making reference to U.S. President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. “The clean energy transition can be Europe’s economic engine-room now when new sources of growth are vital to buttress living standards and for decades to come.”Stiell said the IRENA numbers show that the “global renewables boom is unstoppable” and said the market for green energy reached $2 trillion last year.The move to renewables can grow even faster, said Neil Grant, senior policy analyst at Climate Analytics, which tracks and projects countries’ climate change fighting efforts.“If in 2024 renewables grew 15%, think how much faster they could grow with the full backing of comprehensive, credible and ambitious climate policies around the world,” said Grant, who wasn’t part of the IRENA report.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer
Current and former government technologists reacted with shock and disbelief to reports that top Trump Administration officials used the consumer messaging app Signal to discuss and plan bombing strikes against Yemen-based Houthis.
The private chat group included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It came to public attention after its organizer, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, inexplicably invited Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to join the conversationdespite Goldberg being a frequent target of Donald Trumps criticism. Goldberg says he witnessed the full strategy session, including detailed discussions of war plans and logistics.
Using a nonsecure consumer messaging app for sensitive government work is neither normal nor smart, according to several current and former government technologists.
I’d never use Signal if something was classified, says Kate Green, who worked at the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) until late last year. There’s so many risks in communicating about classified information that you don’t mess around with that. You use approved channels for that.
Green explains that government agency security departments configure government-issued phones to prevent users from installing commercial apps like Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp. My work phone was very locked down and managed by them, she says.
So they were using Signal either on their personal devices, or they were using it on government phones that weren’t being managed by the rules of the agencies they were part of, Green says of the administration officials on the Houthi chat.
No one I know wouldve been this reckless talking about sensitive matters on a nongovernment system, says another government technology leader, who until very recently worked within USDS. I cant imagine any professional I know committing this egregious a lapse in judgement.”
It’s a hard line we don’t cross for obvious ethical and legal reasons, adds the ex-USDS source, but also the logistics of personal devices getting subpoenaed and FOIA’d [accessed via a Freedom of Information Act request] would be terrible.
(Another ex-government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, says people within her agencyuntil recently, the Office of Management and Budgetreceived ethics training during their first month of employment, along with extensive instruction on the proper ways to communicate about government matters.)
Virginia Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated the obvious during a contentious hearing of the same committee Tuesday. Classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, he said. If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired.
Matthew Mittelsteadt, cybersecurity and emerging technologies expert at the Cato Institute, says the security of encrypted messaging apps like Signal is only as strong as the security of the end devices used to access them. In the specific case of Signal, messages may be secure when they are in transit between phones,” he says, “but once they reach the recipient, security can indeed fail. He points out that just last month, Google Threat Intelligence found actors backed by Russias GRU were actively exploiting Signals “linked devices” feature to eavesdrop on target individuals messages once they reached the individual’s inbox.
As it happened, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was on a trip to Moscow during the Signal chat in question, which spanned several days. Republican Representative from Nebraska Don Bacon, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said theres no doubt that Russia and China were monitoring the devices of the U.S. officials on the Houthi text chat.
Waltz claims that the Signal chat group discussed no secret war plans, nor was any classified material shared. Goldberg bluntly denied Waltzs claim during a CNN interview Monday: Thats a lie. He was texting war plans, he said.
The chief-executive-to-be at money-losing Japanese automaker Nissan is determined to speed up decision-making to come up with models that say Nissanand really sell.Ivan Espinosa, 46, chief planning officer and a Mexican with two decades of experience at Nissan Motor Corp., told reporters in embargoed comments for Wednesday that the company’s corporate culture is “lacking empathy” and has to change.“We need to work together as one single team,” he said at the Nissan Technical Center in Atsugi city on the outskirts of Tokyo. “We need to work together hand in hand.”Nissan recently appointed Espinosa to take its helm, effective April 1, replacing Makoto Uchida.Espinosa has his work cut out for him as the maker of the Sentra sedan and Infiniti luxury cars faces yet another crisis, which began decades ago when Carlos Ghosn was sent in by French alliance partner Renault to save it from the brink of bankruptcy.Ghosn was arrested by Japanese authorities in 2018 on financial misconduct allegations but jumped bail and is now in Lebanon.Uchida, chief since 2019 when Ghosn’s successor Hiroto Saikawa resigned over a separate money scandal, stepped down after the company projected a loss for the fiscal year through March.Espinosa expressed an openness to partnerships, including with parties outside the auto industry, although he declined to give specifics.Nissan recently ditched talks with Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. to set up a joint holding company. They will continue to cooperate on technology development.Espinosa repeatedly came back to the importance of being nimble. New cars will be developed in 37 months, and offshoot models within 30 months, he said.Auto production, starting with design and culminating in product tests, takes several years. Bringing a product to market in 30 months would be relatively quick for the industry.To showcase its turnaround plans, Nissan showed an array of models rolling out in the next two years for the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other markets, some of them as mockup models.Espinosa and other officials promised a lineup that highlights Nissan’s legacy, like the Leaf electric car, and models that sell in greater volumes. It’s also bringing out various ecological models, like hybrids, plug-ins and electric vehicles, and cutting-edge technology like self-driving cars.When announcing his replacement, Uchida called Espinosa “a car guy.”Espinosa, who drives a Z sportscar, Nissan’s flagship nameplate, said he saw himself as “a car lover.” He loves the stories behind each car, he said, like how it’s developed and becomes loved by customers.Analysts have so far taken a cautious approach to Espinosa’s appointment. As an insider, he takes up where Uchida left off, meaning the verdict is still out.“We view it as unlikely that Nissan would be open to becoming a subsidiary of Honda at this time, at least until the board has time to assess the effectiveness of Espinosa’s strategy, once it is unveiled and put into action,” CreditSights analysts Todd Duvick and Will Lee wrote in a recent commentary.
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama
Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
China protested Wednesday after the U.S. added dozens of companies to its export control list, including more than 50 based in China that it says sought advanced knowhow in supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum technology for military purposes.Companies from Taiwan, Iran, Pakistan, South Africa and United Arab Emirates also were included in the roughly 80 companies added to the “entity list” of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.Six are subsidiaries of the Inspur Group, China’s leading cloud computing and big data service provider. It was listed in the U.S. government’s entity list in 2023.The update also includes the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, which objected vehemently.“We are shocked that a private non-profit scientific research institution has been added to the entity list. We strongly oppose this wrong decision without any factual basis and ask the relevant U.S. departments to withdraw it,” the research institute said in a statement.A review committee said the BAAI and another company, the Beijing Innovation Wisdom Technology Co. were judged to have developed large AI models and advanced computer chips for military purposes.China’s Foreign Ministry also lashed back, saying the entity list and other export controls were an abuse meant to “unjustly suppress Chinese enterprises.”“It seriously violates international law and basic norms of international relations, severely damages the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and undermines the security and stability of global supply chains. China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a routine news briefing Wednesday.The aim is to restrict China’s capacity to acquire and develop ultra fast, or “exascale” supercomputers, to develop hypersonic weapons and other sensitive technologies, the bureau said in a notice on its website. It also is intended to prevent South Africa’s Test Flying Academy from using U.S. goods to train Chinese troops, disrupt Iran’s access to unmanned aerial vehicles and other military items and hinder development of insecure nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it said.The companies on the list are subject to the “foreign direct product rule” of the BIS which allows it to control reexports and transfers of foreign-made products containing technology that the U.S. government deems vital for national security.The tightening of controls comes as the Trump administration prepares for another round of tariff hikes due next week, an escalation of the trade war that President Donald Trump launched during his first term in office.Trump has already raised tariffs on imports of Chinese goods to 20%. On Monday he said he would impose a 25% tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela. China buys a large share of the oil exported by Venezuela.China has retaliated with its own countermeasures, including sweeping new duties on a variety of American goods and an anti-monopoly investigation into Google.It also has moved to tighten its own sanctions regime, meanwhile, with a law enabling it to freeze assets of companies subject to Chinese sanctions.
Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
Before the advent of GPS, especially at sea, navigation meant finding your position by looking up at the stars. Today, when the Global Positioning System isn’t workingor gets jammed by electronic warfaredrones are learning to do something similar, orienting themselves by looking down at the Earth instead.
This concept underpins a growing wave of efforts to use cameras, sensors, and AI to keep drones aware of their surroundings, allowing them to complete their missions or pursue their targets without the use of GPS, or even any communication signal. This week satellite giant Maxar entered the fray with Raptor, a suite of software that can determine a drone’s position on the planet by matching its camera feed with the companys giant collection of 3D Earth data.
The system began taking shape about a year ago, says Peter Wilczynski, chief product officer at Maxar Intelligence. By then, he says, it reached a fever pitch of people in defense realizing that all of a sudden, all of these systems that had been designed with GPS would not work in a modern battle space.”
An array of technologies for autonomous navigation and alternative positioning have emerged in recent years, driven by the rise of cheaper and more powerful drones, cameras, sensors, and chips. But even as other companies have tapped 2D and 3D imagery for GPS-free navigation, they werent leveraging the abundance of satellite data that Maxar had.
“As one of the leaders in this kind of 3D mapping, especially globally, you can either wait for customers to do that development or you can do it yourself,” says Wilczynski.
Compared to the basemaps used by other vision-based positioning systems, Wilczynski says Raptors 3D foundation offers advantages particularly at low altitudes, and during nighttime operations, especially with infrared cameras, and in complex terrain, with an accuracy of around three meters. Maxars 3D globe, totaling 125 petabytes in size, now covers 90-million-plus square kilometers, with about three million square kilometers added every month.
The imagery comes from Maxars space unit, which operates a constellation of 10 earth observation satellites that provide imagery to defense and intelligence, government, and industry customers. Last year, it added WorldView Legion, a fleet of six high-performing satellites that expanded its ability to more quickly revisit the most rapidly changing areas on Earth.
[Photo: Maxar]
Acquired in 2022 by private equity firm Advent International for $6.2 billion, the company is a giant in a fast-growing commercial satellite industry, which has been propelled by cheaper flights to low earth orbit on SpaceX rockets, as well as a surge in interest following Russias invasion of Ukraine. Some of the earliest public reporting of the Russian military buildup along its border in 2022 came from nonclassified Maxar imagery, and its satellites have provided key intelligence for the countrys offensive and defensive operations.
The importance of that imagery became even clearer earlier this month, when the Trump administration temporarily suspended Ukraines access to the Defense Dept.-funded, Maxar-run cloud platform that U.S. agencies and allies use to task satellites and access images. The suspension cut off free imagery access to Ukraine, though it did not apply to paid access to Maxar’s imagery within Ukraine and did not impact the provision of imagery to U.S. allies including France and the U.K.
The war “emphasized the criticality of these technologies,” says Wilczynski, “and especially as Europe starts rearming and starts to think about what does a European continental defense system look like, it really does push a lot of those countries to think much more seriously about space-based reconnaissance technology.”
As satellites criss-cross the Earth far above Ukraine, drones have filled its skies, along with the electronic attacks intended to disable their navigation or communication systems. Some Russian counter-satellite systems have been so powerful that they have degraded the encrypted “M-Code signals” used by the U.S.’s constellation of GPS satellites. To survive the jamming and spoofing, Russian and Ukrainian military units have taken to flying drones attached to their controllers by miles-long fiber-optic cables, controlling them by wire rather than over the airwaves.
Defense officials around the globe are taking notice. The U.S. has put an emphasis on unmanned and autonomous systems, especially fleets and swarms of attritable drones, designed for one-way trips. Ret. Army General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that within the next 10 to 15 years, up to a third of the U.S. military could consist of robotic systems. (U.S. policy still requires a human to pull the trigger.)
[Photo: Maxar]
Maxars GPS-free positioning system is designed to work with existing front-facing drone cameras and on-board inertial navigation units. Performing the real-time image matching on the fly necessitates a GPU, either installed on a computer at a ground station or embedded in the drone itself, which would allow it to operate offline.
In addition to helping provide positioning for vehicles, remote operators working alongside drone controllers can use the software on commercial laptops to extract real-time target ground coordinates from the drones’ full-motion aeril video feeds. As with Maxar’s imagery data, the system is designed to integrate with workflows in map-based command and control systems, including software from Esri, Palantir, Lattice, and SitaWare.
Raptor represents a larger shift for Maxar, from 2D to 3D mapping, and a new business strategy that expands beyond overhead imagery and data. Wilczynski declined to name any Raptor customers, but said the company has already begun conducting operational tests with drone manufacturers in conflict areas, and plans to work with defense primes in Europe and the U.S. to upgrade existing non-GPS resilient technologies.
You can upgrade the existing technology in situ without having to do a whole hardware refresh, he says.
A push for autonomy without GPS (or maps)
In Ukraine, where the domestic drone industry could produce three million drones this year, autonomy has become a major focus. Government officials have said that more autonomous drones with AI targeting will arrive on the battlefield this year, potentially making way for real drone swarm uses.
American startups are also developing software and sensors to help drones fly autonomously, without communication or GPS signals, and find and attack ground targets and other drones. U.S. defense tech hotshot Anduril recently debuted an autonomous drone it tested in Ukraine, while drone maker Red Cat announced a partnership with Palantir to integrate visual navigation software into its Black Widow drones. YCombinator startup Theseus builds a small sensor unit for GPS-denied navigation that has attracted the interest of Special Operations Command.
Four U.S. autonomy specialistsCX2, Swan, Auterion, and KEF Roboticsare also working with Ukrainian drone makers to develop their systems, with endorsement from the Pentagon. Earlier this month, Pittsburgh-based Swan and Arlington, Va.-based Auterion were chosen to compete in a Defense Innovation Unit project called Artemis, in which they will partner with Ukrainian attack-drone makers to develop prototype units that can fly in GPS-denied skies by the end of fiscal year 2025.
Another Pittsburgh startup, KEF Robotics, has formed a joint venture with Kiev-based augmented reality company Sensorama Lab to build its autonomous-navigation systems for drones. The new venture, Blue Arrow, has already won a $50,000 award in a DIU hackathon, and is now preparing to test its plug-and-play software and hardware on the front lines in Ukraine.
Blue Arrow takes two appraoches to navigating and finding targets in GPS-denied environments. Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN), like Maxars Raptor, matches ground features with onboard maps, using machine learning to correct for outdated mapping data. Another approach, ideal for shorter distances, called visual inertial odometry (VIO), works without maps: instead, the system relies on the drone’s inertial data and computer vision techniques like optical flow estimation and simultaneous localization and mapping.
We’ve constrained our algorithms and our software to a point where it doesn’t even need a full processor, so we can use just a very small part of the brain of an airplane,” says Olga Pogoda, a co-founder of Blue Arrow.
Researchers are developing more outlandish ways of giving drones geospatial awareness. Last year, NILEQ, a subsidiary of British missile-maker MBDA, introduced a low-power visual navigation system that relies on neuromorphic cameras, which, rather than processing a whole image, can operate more efficiently by measuring the differences between pixels in a moving image.
The stars can still be useful, too. Last year, engineers at the University of South Australia demonstrated a new, low-cost prototype system that merges vision-based algorithmic computing with celestial triangulation for UAVs flying at night. Accuracy remains a challenge.
Maxar is now developing methods to use 2D satellite imagery and drone video to more quickly update its 3D reference map, enabling more up-to-date mapping, especially in areas of rapid change. Improving accuracy is also a priority, especially at lower altitudes; eventually, Raptor could help replace GPS for ground-based autonomous vehicles, too.
Beyond positioning and navigation, Raptor represents a broader vision at Maxar for a shared, dynamic “living globe,” says Wilczynski, one capable of connecting disparate systems and sensor data in near real-time. That project has been in the works since at least 2015, when Maxar predecessor DigitalGlobe entered into a joint venture with defense manufacturer Saab to produce photorealistic 3D digital elevation models for enterprise and government use. In 2020, Maxar acquired Saabs stake in that company, Vricon, and it began developing Raptor last year, after it hired Wilczynski, a former executive at data fusion giant Palantir.
“This general GPS-denied problem space really gave us a natural way to fuse together 2D data from drones, 2D data from satellites into a 3D world,” says Wilczynski.
Among its biggest customers for the 3D Earth data is the U.S. Army, which pays Maxar to power its One World Terrain (OWT) program, a global simulation environment for use in military training. The company won the $95 million OWT contract in June 2019, with its most recent extension awarded last year.
“We have this belief that mapping over he next 10 years is going to shift from predominantly 2D to predominantly 3D, he says.
Featuring Gene Eidelman, Cofounder, Azure Printed Homes; Kate McLeod, Cofounder and Formulator, Kate McLeod and Nicole Richards, CEO, Allonnia. Moderated by Rebecca Barker, Editorial Event Producer, Fast Company.
It’s not enough for companies to declare their commitment to the environment. As the federal government rolls back environmental programs and policies at a head-spinning pace, businesses are on their own to maintain momentum in the push toward sustainability. Hear from leaders who are spearheading climate-positive practices by tackling forever chemicals, reimagining what’s possible with recycled plastic and packaging, and more.
As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hempyes, the marijuana cousinto make building blocks for walls.It’s a response to the country’s shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty.“There’s not enough homes to purchase and there’s not enough places to rent. Period,” said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden.One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. “I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing.”So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents?
Factory-built housing put together in a week
In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line.At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped.The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said.Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said.The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who’ve been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns.That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family.“You can build faster. The faster you buildeven at a high qualitymeans the lower the price,” Schaefer said. “We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis.”There’s a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to.Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassislike a trailerand they aren’t subject to the same local building codes. That’s part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S.Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000.
3D printing is innovative but still ‘a long game’
Yes, there’s technology to 3D print homes.A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks.Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis.It’s “a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,” Hamel said.The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It’s also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape.The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari saidIt’s “a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,” Memari said. “The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.”
A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has ‘a bright future’
Hempthe plant related to marijuanais being used more and more in the construction of walls.The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming “hempcrete,” a natural insulation that’s mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall.Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn’t need the wood studs.As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow.The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation.Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said.Still, he said, “hempcrete has a bright future.”
Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Buena Vista, Colorado.
Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Jesse Bedayn, Associated Press/Report for America
