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A startup called Bluecore Energy wants to park a ten megawatt nuclear reactor on a barge at the Port of Long Beach, potentially powering around fifteen thousand homes. The catch is that California has banned new nuclear reactor construction since nineteen seventy six, so the floating design is partly a legal workaround — and a sign that small modular reactor ambitions are getting genuinely creative.
Shifting from energy to AI, OpenAI this week launched a version of ChatGPT built specifically for users aged thirteen to seventeen. The teen-focused platform includes a study mode with guided follow-up questions, homework reminders, and prompts encouraging breaks. It reflects a growing recognition that deploying general-purpose AI to adolescents without guardrails is a trade-off worth taking seriously.
And on a more human note, rescuers in Alberta pulled off a remarkable cave rescue using new technology to free a caver trapped vertically in a formation called Psych Squeeze. The details are still emerging, but the incident is drawing attention to how purpose-built rescue tech is quietly changing survival outcomes in some of the most unforgiving environments on earth.
That's your briefing for today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
