I love cordless vacuums, and I don’t just say that because I’m one of CNET’s primary testers of the category. I say it because switching from corded vacuums to cordless vacuums was a big quality-of-life upgrade, thanks to the ease of use and maneuverability around my apartment. The downside is that cordless vacuums don’t usually match the suction power and cleaning capabilities of upright or canister models. 

Shark’s PowerDetect Transformer 3-in-1 is the company’s attempt to address this trade-off without forcing you to buy multiple vacuums.

“The upright vacuum has looked and worked the same way for decades,” said Petra Oman, vice president of marketing at SharkNinja, in a press statement. “We saw an opportunity to rethink the category by eliminating the bulky hose and creating a system that adapts to the way people actually clean. Transformer delivers the deep-cleaning performance consumers expect from an upright, with the flexibility and reach needed to clean everything from floors and carpets to stairs, furniture, ceilings and the car.”

As the name suggests, the PowerDetect Transformer is three vacuums in one. It’s a full-size upright vacuum that’s intended for deep cleaning carpets and hardwood floors with the strongest suction. Shark says you can remove the main canister with one click, and it’ll turn into a slim stick vacuum for regular, lightweight cleaning, getting under furniture and into other tight spots. One more click turns it into a handheld vacuum, making it easier to clean stairs, upholstery, corners and cars. 

In terms of specs, the Transformer will have key features from Shark’s most popular models, including LED lighting to help you find debris and automatic detection of dirt levels, flooring types, edges and movement to automatically adjust suction and cleaning performance. It features anti-tangle brushrolls, odor-neutralizing tech like the Shark Stratos and HEPA filtration. It’ll also come with an auto-emptying system that empties the debris into the main dustbin when the handheld clicks back into place. 

I haven’t had a chance to go hands-on with this vacuum yet, and I’m not entirely sure how the system breaks down. I’ll be testing it both at home and at CNET’s Louisville lab. The most interesting question will be whether the PowerDetect Transformer can truly deliver the cleaning performance of an upright vacuum without compromising elsewhere. 

Price and availability 

The Shark PowerDetect Transformer 3-in-1 will be available on SharkNinja and TikTok Shop for $529. It’ll also come to Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Costco and Sam’s Club. 

The Japanese group plans to mass-produce data-centre battery cells in Kansas by fiscal 2028, redirecting a large slice of its AI infrastructure investment toward storage.

The companies that built batteries for electric cars are discovering a new and hungrier customer: the data centre.

Panasonic plans to localise production of data-centre battery cells in the United States, its energy unit’s chief executive has said, building the cells at a plant in Kansas rather than shipping them in, as the Japanese group chases a market that barely existed a few years ago.

Mass production at the Kansas site is scheduled for the financial year ending March 2029, which Panasonic counts as fiscal 2028.

The plant gives the company a domestic base to supply American data-centre operators directly, a meaningful advantage at a moment when tariffs, supply-chain anxiety, and the sheer speed of AI build-out have made onshore manufacturing a competitive asset rather than a cost to be minimised.

The money behind the move is substantial. Panasonic is directing about 350 billion yen, roughly $2.18 billion, of a previously announced 500 billion yen AI infrastructure investment over fiscal 2026 to 2028 to its Energy unit, the division that also supplies Tesla, with the remaining 150 billion yen going to its Industry segment.

The split tells you where the company thinks the growth is: the battery business that grew up around electric vehicles is being retooled to feed the server hall.

The ambition is sized accordingly. Panasonic Energy chief executive Kazuo Tadanobu described the unit’s 950 billion yen sales target for data-centre-related energy storage in fiscal 2028 as a “minimum commitment,” with the business aiming to push sales past 1 trillion yen.

For a target to be framed as a floor rather than a goal is a sign of how quickly the company expects demand to climb.

The logic is grounded in how modern data centres actually run. The facilities training and serving AI models draw enormous, spiky loads, and they cannot tolerate even a flicker of interruption, which makes large-scale battery storage essential for smoothing supply, bridging outages, and managing the gap between what the grid can deliver and what the racks demand at any given instant. As AI compute scales, the storage attached to it scales with it.

The cells these facilities need are also a different specification from the ones that go into cars, tuned for grid-style duty cycles rather than the range and weight constraints of a vehicle, which is part of why an established battery maker still has to build dedicated capacity rather than simply repurpose its existing lines.

That demand is already straining the systems around it. The build-out has pushed electricity grids to their limits, with operators from Denmark pausing new connections to China wrestling with how to match clean power to data-centre load, a backdrop that makes on-site storage less of a luxury than a requirement.

Batteries are becoming part of the basic plumbing of AI, not an optional extra bolted on at the end.

Panasonic is not moving into an empty field. Chinese battery giants including CATL are racing into the same data-centre storage market, and the competition runs alongside the broader contest over the silicon inside those facilities, where Chinese firms are pushing domestic alternatives to Nvidia at speed.

The energy layer of the AI stack is becoming as contested as the compute layer.

The US plant is one node in a wider network. Panasonic Energy also plans a third plant in Mexico, with mass production likewise targeted for fiscal 2028, giving it North American capacity on both sides of the border.

The company has not detailed the Kansas site’s output volumes or named the data-centre customers it expects to supply, leaving the commercial specifics to emerge as production approaches.

What is clear is the direction: a battery maker that bet its future on cars is now placing a second bet, on the machines learning to think.

Austin streets now host something that looks ordinary at first glance but represents a sharp break from everything that came before. Production Cybercab units have started engineering tests on public roads, and these vehicles carry no steering wheel and no pedals. Tesla just posted video of the tests on June 30. The footage and supporting details show the first examples built for actual use rather than pure development. Earlier cars sometimes carried temporary controls. These do not.

The Texas Department of Transportation confirmed that the production design has no driver-operated controls of any type. Inside one test model, cabin footage shows the safety monitor seated in the front position, leaving an empty space where a steering wheel and pedals would normally be. The monitor’s hands rest against their legs. No controls are within reach. The huge central screen displays the current Tesla navigation interface, which includes the route, speed, and autonomous status in a familiar simple arrangement. The automobile navigates through typical traffic, curves, and downtown streets without the driver’s input.

TZYFOQN Metal Model Cars 1 32 for Teslas Cybercab Alloy Car Model Boy Birthday Vehicle Gift…

• Miniature models are not only vehicle replicas, but also spread the car model story and history and culture. Such as: track racing cars, sports cars…
• The zinc alloy construction provides the body with precise contours and substantial weight; Plastic components offer flexibility and resilience…
• The appearance of the classic car is highly restored, with special tread tires with strong grip, and the combination of retro and modern styling…

The cabin layout focuses on passengers, with two forward-facing seats in an open area created by the removal of any driving hardware. Large glass portions and a clean headliner contribute to a bright, airy atmosphere. Everything revolves around the ride rather than the act of driving. A single visible display provides both occupants with trip information and vehicle status.

Production Cybercabs are around 4.2 meters long and 1.8 meters wide, although they have usable inside space because designers were not required to package steering columns, pedal boxes, or instrument clusters. According to latest EPA data, the car has a battery capacity of roughly 48 kilowatt hours, a single front-mounted motor rated at around 219 horsepower, and a curb weight of approximately 3,113 pounds. Efficiency appears to be high, with estimates indicating 290 miles or more of real-world range in typical conditions.

Some models have a glossy metallic gold finish, which highlights the sleek body lines and futuristic lighting. The two-door form has distinct proportions that appear purposeful rather than dazzling. Doors are designed for quick access in a vehicle of this size. Tesla began producing these vehicles at Gigafactory Texas earlier this year. In February, the first production unit left the line. Volume manufacturing targets were set in April. The latest tests are the next step toward establishing that the entire hardware and software combination works on real roads with normal traffic.

There are presently 34 vehicles participating in the downtown Austin runs. During the validation process, everyone carries a safety monitor as usual procedure. The monitors observe and prepare for rare events that may necessitate human intervention, but they do not steer, brake, or accelerate whatsoever. What happens next depends on how these vehicles perform in the coming weeks and months, as well as the regulatory steps required for widespread unsupervised use. For the time being, seeing these control-free vehicles cruising through Austin traffic provides the clearest picture yet of what Tesla has built specifically for a driverless future.

The opposition KMT is proposing NT$240bn for unmanned systems just days after stalling the government’s plan, in a fight with real implications for the island’s defence.

Few militaries have watched the war in Ukraine more closely than Taiwan’s, and the lesson it has drawn is that cheap, mass-produced drones can blunt a far larger force. Turning that lesson into a budget has proved harder.

Taiwan’s main opposition party has now outlined its own plan to build up the island’s drone industry, just days after stalling a similar proposal from President Lai Ching-te’s government, leaving the policy that matters caught in the gap between two rival bills.

The Kuomintang says it will submit legislation that could allocate NT$240 billion, around $7.5 billion, over six years for the procurement and industrial development of unmanned systems.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

As a headline figure it is substantial, and it lets the opposition argue it is not blocking drone spending so much as proposing its own version.

The framing matters because the KMT controls the legislature, which gives it the power to shape, slow, or sink whatever the executive proposes.

The sequence is what makes the debate pointed. The KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party recently combined to vote down a draft special act, proposed by a legislator from Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party, that would have allotted NT$550 billion, roughly $17.47 billion, for the domestic drone industry over five years.

That is more than double the figure the opposition is now offering, which is the heart of the dispute: not whether to fund drones, but how much, and on whose terms.

The government has tried to answer with a counter-proposal. Taiwan’s Cabinet proposed a special budget bill totalling NT$210 billion, about $6.6 billion, over six years for the procurement of domestically produced drones, intended to restore funding that opposition parties had stripped from an earlier defence spending bill.

The result is three overlapping numbers, NT$550 billion, NT$240 billion, and NT$210 billion, each attached to a different political actor and a different theory of how fast Taiwan needs to move.

Underneath the arithmetic is a genuine strategic question. Taiwan’s domestic drone sector remains small relative to its ambitions, and it has been deliberately built to exclude Chinese components, which raises costs and slows production but is non-negotiable for a military that has to assume its supply chain is a target.

The competing budgets are, in effect, competing bets on how quickly that industry can be scaled, and how much the island can afford to spend closing the gap before the gap matters.

The fight also reflects the reality of a divided government, where the opposition holds the legislature and the presidency belongs to the DPP.

Defence has become one of the sharpest fault lines between them, with the opposition pressing for tighter scrutiny of spending and the government warning that delay carries a cost measured in deterrence.

Drones, cheap individually and decisive in aggregate, have become the specific terrain on which that broader argument is being fought.

Unmanned systems sit at the centre of how modern militaries are being rebuilt, a shift visible far beyond Taiwan.

The US has pushed AI-controlled jets into live trials and rolled out generative-AI tools across the Pentagon at remarkable speed, a reminder that the autonomy race Taiwan is debating in budget terms is already well advanced among the powers it is trying to deter.

For now the island has competing plans and no agreed one. The KMT will submit its bill, the Cabinet has tabled its own, and the rejected DPP proposal hangs over both as the maximalist version neither rival is willing to fund.

What gets passed, and how soon, will determine how fast Taiwan can build the unmanned capability it has spent years deciding it needs.

from the why-limit-yourself-to-$1.8-billion dept

It just wasn’t enough to pardon hundreds of people who raided the Capitol building to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss — people who assaulted police officers, smashed windows to gain entrance, shut down election proceedings for several hours, stole stuff from federal offices, and generally acted liked they intended to kill Vice President Mike Pence to prevent him from certifying election results.

No, Trump had to go further. He sued the IRS (as a non-president) because a government contractor leaked his IRS filings to the media. It didn’t matter that the leaker had already been convicted and served time for his criminal act. That wasn’t enough. Trump claimed he was owed $10 billion in damages for someone leaking documents every other presidential candidate has released voluntarily.

He didn’t get the $10 billion. But he did get a whole lot of money. Trump was back in the White House and had stocked both the IRS and DOJ with loyalists. The end result was never going to be any but this: Trump’s IRS and DOJ agreed to give Trump a $1.776 billion fund, presumably for the sole purpose of rewarding MAGA insurrectionists for their loyalty.

Less than two weeks later, the federal court system froze the fund and demanded the government explain how this wasn’t anything more than Trump utilizing two agencies he controlled to give himself a bunch of money he could spend at his discretion. It was yet another crossing of the Rubicon by the Trump administration, but at least this time there was some pushback.

Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund isn’t even popular within his own party. It’s not that the MAGA-cooked GOP isn’t up for some corruption, it’s that there are still a few Trump supporters within the party that believe what his supporters did on January 6, 2021 was inexcusable.

With the fund blocked by a federal court and very few GOP leaders willing to defend it, the administration has seemingly abandoned the prospect of forcing US taxpayers to hand out paychecks to convicted criminals.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t get paid. Lawyers seeking payouts for convicted insurrectionists are seeing if they can slip in the side door to pick up a paycheck, using a federal law that almost never secures wins for plaintiffs.

The defendants are pursuing their claims using the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals wronged by the government to file claims for monetary damages. The justice department has complete and unchecked discretion over whether to settle the claims, giving the Trump administration a powerful vehicle to reward those responsible for violence on January 6. The claims would be paid out from the judgment fund, a perpetual appropriation allowed for by Congress and the same pot of money Trump’s $1.8bn slush fund was going to draw from. All of the defendants seeking compensation received a pardon from Trump.

The Supreme Court has been steadily shrinking the coverage provided by the Federal Tort Claims Act for years now, making it all but impossible to successfully sue the federal government or its employees for violating constitutional rights.

And one would think (if they didn’t think too long or too hard about it) that this would mean these pardoned insurrectionists and other MAGA loyalists would be shit out of luck. But two plaintiffs closely tied to Trump have already converted the FTCA into an ATM:

The justice department agreed to settle FTCA claims filed by Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser, and Carter Page, Trump’s foreign policy adviser, for $1.25m each earlier this year.

The FTCA is only nigh-impermeable if the government decides to defend itself. These plaintiffs — and the opportunists representing them — are hoping the administration will just give them paychecks, rather than force them to actually engage in honest litigation.

And it’s a lot tougher for courts to deter voluntary settlements paid out by the federal government in cases where the DOJ does nothing more than ask plaintiffs how much money they’d like to have. That means that the existence/non-existence of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” hardly matters. Criminal loyalists like the ones listed below are more than likely going to be stuffing some taxpayer cash in their pockets in the near future.

Among those seeking money are Kenneth Joseph Thomas, an Ohio man who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison after being found guilty for assaulting several police officers. Video showed him shoving multiple police officers and throwing himself into a line of officers as he shouted for other rioters to “hold the fucking line”. Also seeking compensation is John George Todd III, a Missouri man sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty on several charges, including injuring a Capitol police officer.

[…]

Advertisement

Andrew Taake, a Houston man sentenced to six years in prison and who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers with bear spray and a whip-like weapon, is also seeking at least $2.5m in damages. 

This is an inevitable reality. The administration definitely wants to pay these people for breaking laws on Trump’s behalf. And the DOJ isn’t going to do anything more than write checks because filing anything other than short statements announcing the impending settlement might give legitimate plaintiffs something to work with in FTCA lawsuits brought by people who didn’t break a bunch of federal laws in hopes of undermining democracy itself.

The FTCA can be beat. You just need to be the right kind of shitheel to take advantage of the thoroughly corrupt government you’ve chosen to support. So, it hardly matters whether or not Trump’s ill-gotten IRS settlement will ever be disbursed to his favorite criminals. The DOJ has an unlimited fund to use for FTCA lawsuit settlements that will be almost impossible for courts to block.

Filed Under: corruption, doj, ftca, insurrection, irs, january 6, rights violations, self dealing, trump administration