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Bellevue, Washington, is the home of thousands of Microsoft employees. Its AI-powered traffic monitoring system lives up to such expectations. Using existing traffic cameras capable of reading signs and lights, it tracks not just crashes but also near misses. And it suggests solutions to managers, like rethinking a turn lane or moving a stop line.But this AI technology wasnt born out of Microsoft and its big OpenAI partnership. It was developed by a startup called Archetype AI. You might think of the company as OpenAI for the physical world.[Image: Archetype AI]A city will report an accident after an accident happens. But what they want to know is, like, where are the accidents that nearly happenedbecause that they cannot report. And they want to prevent those accidents, says Ivan Poupyrev, cofounder of Archetype AI. So predicting the future is one of the biggest use cases we have right now.Poupyrev and Leonardo Giusti founded Archetype after leaving Googles ATAP (advanced technology and projects) group, where they worked on cutting-edge projects initiatives like the smart textile Project Jacquard and the gadget radar Project Soli. Poupryev details his history of working at giants like Sony and Disney, where engineers always had to develop one algorithm to understand something like a heartbeat, and another for steps. Each physical thing you wanted to measure, whatever that may be, was always its own discrete systemanother mini piece of software to code and support.Theres simply too much happening inside our natural world to measure or consider it all through this one-problem-at-a-time approach. As a result, our highest-tech hardware still understands very little of our real environment, and what is actually happening in it.What Archetype is suggesting instead is an AI that can track and react to the complexity of the physical world. Its Newton foundational model is trained on piles of open-sensor data from sources like NASAwhich publishes everything from ocean temperatures gathered with microwave scanners to infrared scans of cloud patterns. And much like an LLM can infer linguistic reasoning by studying texts, Newton can infer physics by studying sensor readings. [Image: Archetype AI]The companys big selling point is that Newton can analyze output from sensors that already exist. Your phone has a dozen or more, and the world may soon have trillionsincluding accelerometers, electrical and fluid flow sensors, optical sensors, and radar. By reading these measurements, Newton can actually track and identify whats going on inside environments to a surprising degree. Its even proven capable of predicting future patterns to foresee actions ranging from the swing of a small pendulum in a lab to a potential accident on a factory floor to the sunspots and tides in nature.In many ways, Archetype is constructing the sort of system truly needed for ambient computing, a vision in which the lines between our real world and computational world blur. But rather than focusing on a grand heady vision, its selling Newton as a sort of universal translator that can turn sensor data into actionable insight.[Its a] fundamental shift to how we see AI as a society. [Right now] its an automation technology where we replace part of our human labor with AI. We delegate to AI to do something, Giusti says. We are trying to shift the perspective, and we see AI as an interpretation layer for the physical world. AI is going to help us better understand whats happening in the world.Poupyrev adds, We want AI to act as a superpower that allows us to see things we couldnt see before and improve our decision-making. [Image: Archetype AI]How does Archetype AI work? Lenses.In one of Archetypes demos, a radar notices someone entering the kitchen. A microphone can listen for anything prompted, like washing dishes. Its a demonstration of two technologies that reside in many smartphones, but through the context of Newton, sensor noise becomes knowledge.In another demo, Newton analyzes a factory floor and generates a heat map of potential safety risks (notably drawn in the path of a forklift coming close to people). In yet another demo, Newton analyzes the work of construction boats, and actually charts out a timeline of their active hours each day. Of course, physics alone cant extrapolate everything happening in these scenes, which is why Newton also includes training data on human behavior (so it knows if, say, shaking a box might be inferred as mishandling it) and uses traditional LLM technology for labeling whats going on.Each different front-end UX described above required some custom code, and Archetype has been working with its early partners in a white-glove approach. But the core logic at play is all built upon Newton. Our companies dont care about some AGI benchmark we can meet and not meet, Poupyrev says. What they care about is that this odel solved their particular use cases.Much like entire apps are now built upon OpenAIs ChatGPT and Anthropics Claude, Archetype is making Newton AI available as an API (and customers can request access now). Technically, you can run Newton from computers operated by Archetype, on cloud services like AWS or Azure, or even on your own servers if you prefer. Your primary task is simply to feed whatever sensor data your company already uses through a Newton AI lens. The lens is the companys metaphor for how it translates sensor information into insight. Unlike LLMs, which work on question-answer queries that lead us to metaphors like conversations and agents, sensors output streams of information that may need constant analysis. So a lens is a means to scrutinize this data at intervals or in real time. And the operational cost of running Newton AI will be proportionate to the amount and frequency of your own sensor analysis. [Image: Archetype AI]Tuning the lens is surprisingly simple: You can use natural language prompts to ask the system something like alert me every time theres a safety issue on this floor or notify me if an alarm goes off. But whats particularly exciting to the company is that in analyzing sensor waveforms, Newton AI has proven that it doesnt just understand a lot of whats happening, but it can actually predict what may happen in the future. Much like autocomplete already knows what you might type next, Newton can look at waveforms of data (like electrical or audio information from a machine) to predict the next trend. In a factory, this might allow it to spot the imminent failure of a machine.To demonstrate this idea, Archetype shares data from an accelerometer measuring the swing of an elastic pendulum (aka a pendulum on a springwhich is a classic way to generate chaotic behavior). Even though the model has never been trained specifically on pendulum equations or been programmed to understand accelerometers, Archetype claims that it can accurately track the swing of the chaotic pendulum and predict its next movements. Poupyrev says the same is true for thermoelectric behaviors, like we might see in electronics.By observing patterns normally ignored, and coupling that information with predictive analysis, Archetype believes it can revolutionize all sorts of platforms, ranging from industrial applications to urban planning. And for its next act, the company wants Newton to output in more than text; theres no reason why it cant communicate in symbols or real-time graphs.The claims are, on one hand, outrageously large and tricky to grok. But on the other, Poupyrev has built his entire career on building mind-bendingly novel innovations from existing technologiesthat actually work.For any company interested in Newton, Archetype is still working closely with partners to use their API. Pilots start in the mid-six figures, while annual projects range into the millions, depending on scale.
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This week, AccuWeather released its prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season. The weather service found that after last years Hurricanes Beryl, Helene, and Milton, 2025 will likely be another supercharged year for tropical storms. AccuWeather expects the Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1, to yield 13 to 18 named storms, including 7 to 10 hurricanes. Of those, three and six are expected to have direct U.S. impacts, with the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Canada, the Carolinas, and northwestern Caribbean at the highest risk. Meanwhile, as climate change and record-warm ocean temperatures usher the U.S. into yet another intense storm season, the Trump administration has signaled that it may be working to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Heres what to know: Why does hurricane season keep getting worse? According to AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva, one of the main factors driving the companys prediction is elevated water temperatures. Across the oceans surface, including in the Gulf and Caribbean, temperatures aren’t just well above historical averages, the warm waters also extend to deeper depths than usual. Warm water fuels storms by evaporating quickly, causing rising columns of moist air to feed developing hurricanesmeaning that an abundance of warm water can make hurricanes develop both more quickly and more intensely. “A rapid intensification of storms will likely be a major story yet again this year as sea-surface temperatures and ocean heat content (OHC) across most of the basin are forecast to be well above average,” DaSilva said in a news release. Last year, high OHC supercharged intense storms, including Hurricane Beryl and Hurricane Milton. In an article for The Conversation that summer, expert Brian Tang noted, The peak intensification rates of hurricanes increased by an average of 25% to 30% when comparing hurricane data between 1971-1990 and 2001-2020. Experts believe that as climate change continues to worsen and ocean temperatures rise, its likely that hurricane season will only become more extreme and more dangerous. What’s going on with FEMA? As more information about the upcoming hurricane season comes to light, it appears that the Trump administration may be gearing up to shutter the governments largest disaster aid group. On Monday, Kristi Noem, secetary of Homeland Security, reportedly said that her department planned to eliminate FEMA. On Tuesday, CNN reported that top officials from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security met to discuss FEMAs future and options for shutting it down. According to CNN, the agency is currently in a state of disarray as more than $100 billion in disaster assistance and grant money is frozen and hiring is largely stalled. The elimination of FEMA could have major consequences for the future of disaster relief in the U.S. In January, Samantha Montano, an emergency management professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told Fast Company that abolishing FEMA would result in a less effective, less efficient, and less equitable emergency management system, which means it makes all of us less safe. Without question, we would see higher death tolls, greater physical damage, and immense economic impacts. Currently, aid from FEMA is provided only after local jurisdictions have depleted their own resources and the agencys intervention is approved by Congress. In 2023, the agency spent $30 billion aiding in the aftermath of fires, floods, landslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, and winter storms across the country. In 2024, FEMA workers went door-to-door providing aid after Hurricane Helene struck. Now, though, when the agency should be prepping for the upcoming hurricane season, staffers tell CNN that theyve had to pause their operations. March is typically when were finalizing hurricane plans. A lot of that got paused, one anonymous source shared. So, its already having an impact, which is that were not preparing.
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In mountain ranges around the world, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europes Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuriesalmost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks. Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries. Too much water behind these dams or a landslide into the lake can break the dam, sending huge volumes of water and debris sweeping down the mountain valleys, wiping out everything in the way. Today, over 10million people across the world are vulnerable to glacial lake outburst floods.In High Mountain Asia alone, these flooding hazards are projected to triple by 2100, especially with continued high emissions. Read full @Nature paper: https://t.co/PsXcyH2jFC pic.twitter.com/RgZ44VF6v4— International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (@ICCInet) May 30, 2024 These risks and the loss of freshwater supplies are some of the reasons the United Nations declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers Preservation and March 21 the first World Day for Glaciers. As an earth scientist and a mountain geographer, we study the impact that ice loss can have on the stability of the surrounding mountain slopes and glacial lakes. We see several reasons for increasing concern. Erupting ice dams and landslides Most glacial lakes began forming over a century ago as a result of warming trends since the 1860s, but their abundance and rates of growth have risen rapidly since the 1960s. Many people living in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Iceland, and Alaska have experienced glacial lake outburst floods of one type or another. A glacial lake outburst flood in the Himalayas in October 2023 damaged more than 30 bridges and destroyed a 200-foot-high hydropower plant. Residents had little warning. By the time the disaster was over, more than 50 people had died. Juneau, Alaska, has been hit by several flash floods in recent years from a glacial lake dammed by ice on an arm of Mendenhall Glacier. Those floods, including in 2024, were driven by a melting glacier that slowly filled a basin below it until the basins ice dam broke. Avalanches, rockfalls and slope failures can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. These are growing more common as frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, robbing mountain landscapes of the cryospheric glue that formerly held them together. These slides can create massive waves when they plummet into a lake. The waves can then rupture the ice dam or moraine, unleashing a flood of water, sediment, and debris. That dangerous mix can rush downstream at speeds of 20 to 60 mph, destroying homes and anything else in its path. The casualties of such an event can be staggering. In 1941, a huge wave caused by a snow and ice avalanche that fell into Laguna Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, overtopped the moraine dam that had contained the lake for decades. The resulting flood destroyed one-third of the downstream city of Huaraz and killed between 1,800 and 5,000 people. Teardrop-shaped Lake Palcacocha, shown in this satellite view, has expanded in recent decades. The city of Huaraz, Peru, is just down the valley to the right of the lake. [Image: Google Earth, data from Airbus Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO] In the years since, the danger there has only increased. Laguna Palcacocha has grown to more than 14 times its size in 1941. At the same time, the population of Huaraz has risen to mre than 120,000 inhabitants. A glacial lake outburst flood today could threaten the lives of an estimated 35,000 people living in the waters path. Governments have responded to this widespread and growing threat by developing early warning systems and programs to identify potentially dangerous glacial lakes. Some governments have taken steps to lower water levels in the lakes or built flood diversion structures, such as walls of rock-filled wire cages, known as gabions, that divert floodwaters from villages, infrastructure, or agricultural fields. Where the risks cant be managed, communities have been encouraged to use zoning that prohibits building in flood-prone areas. Public education has helped build awareness of the flood risk, but the disasters continue. Flooding from inside and thawing permafrost The dramatic nature of glacial lake outburst floods captures headlines, but those arent the only risks. As scientists expand their understanding of how the worlds icy regions interact with global warming, they are identifying a number of other phenomena that can lead to similarly disastrous events. Englacial conduit floods, for instance, originate inside of glaciers, commonly those on steep slopes. Meltwater can collect inside massive systems of ice caves, or conduits. A sudden surge of water from one cave to another, perhaps triggered by the rapid drainage of a surface pond, can set off a chain reaction that bursts out of the ice as a full-fledged flood. Thawing mountain permafrost can also trigger floods. This permanently frozen mass of rock, ice and soil has been a fixture at altitudes above 19,685 feet for millennia. Freezing helps keep mountains together. But as permafrost thaws, even solid rock becomes less stable and is more prone to breaking, while ice and debris are more likely to become detached and turn into destructive and dangerous debris flows. Thawing permafrost has been increasingly implicated in glacial lake outburst floods because of these new sources of potential triggers. In 2017, nearly a third of the solid rock face of Nepals 20,935-foot Saldim Peak collapsed and fell onto the Langmale glacier below. Heat generated by the friction of rock falling through air melted ice, creating a slurry of rock, debris, and sediment that plummeted into Langmale glacial lake below, resulting in a massive flood. A glacial outburst flood in Barun Valley started when nearly one-third of the face of Saldim Peak in Nepal fell onto Langmale Glacier and slid into a lake. The top image shows the mountain in 2016. The lower shows the same view in 2017. [Figures: Elizabeth Byers (2016)/Alton Byers (2017)] These and other forms of glacier-related floods and hazards are being exacerbated by climate change. Flows of ice and debris from high altitudes and the sudden appearance of meltwater ponds on a glaciers surface are two more examples. Earthquakes can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. Not only have thousands of lives been lost, but billions of dollars in hydropower facilities and other structures have also been destroyed. A reminder of whats at risk The International Year of Glaciers Preservation and World Day for Glaciers are reminders of the risks and also of who is in harms way. The global population depends on the cryospherethe 10% of the Earths land surface thats covered in ice. But as more glacial lakes form and expand, floods and other risks are rising. A study published in 2024 counted more than 110,000 glacial lakes around the world and determined 10 million peoples lives and homes are at risk from glacial lake outburst floods. The U.N. is encouraging more research into these regions. It also declared 2025 to 2034 the decade of action in cryospheric sciences. Scientists on several continents will be working to understand the risks and find ways to help communities respond to and mitigate the dangers. Suzanne OConnell is a Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth science at Wesleyan University. Alton C. Byers is a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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