When EA confirmed there were no plans for a Sims 5, most fans were disappointed and moved on. Tytar decided to do something about it instead. With no background in game development whatsoever, he opened up Unreal Engine 5, gave himself a brutally tight 14 day deadline, and got to work building a playable version from scratch. Remarkably, he pulled it off. The result is a familiar top down experience where you guide your Sims through their daily lives, complete with a few pointed jabs at EA for leaving fans out in the cold in the first place.
The first challenge was getting the characters into the game in a way that actually looked right. Tytar used a free online tool called a model ripper to pull character models directly from his own Sims 4 save files, though what came out the other end was rough and needed a lot of work before it was ready for Unreal Engine. That meant getting into bone weights, which sounds more intimidating than it is but still requires a fair amount of trial and error to get feeling natural. Eventually he got his Sims to a point where they could walk, stand idle, and transition between poses without anything looking like it was about to collapse.
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With the basics in place, Tytar turned his attention to giving the Sims actual needs to manage. Energy, bathroom breaks, and hygiene all tick down at their own pace, and a basic mood system keeps you loosely informed about how your Sim is holding up. A plumbob floats above each character’s head and shifts color to give you an at a glance read on their state of mind, which honestly tells you everything you need to know without a single menu in sight. Sometimes the classics are classic for a reason.
The main game screen came next, and Tytar kept it clean and uncluttered in a way that will feel immediately familiar to anyone who spent time with the original Sims. A clock ticks away in the corner, your current cash balance sits in plain sight, and a little Polaroid style photo represents each member of the household. Speed controls are right there on screen too, with the 1, 2, and 3 keys handling the pacing just like they always did. Old habits die hard, and in this case that’s entirely the point
Clicking on a Sim brings up a small pop-up menu, and if you grew up with the original game you’ll immediately recognize the sound effect that comes with it. The options available shift depending on what’s nearby, and the go here command taps into Unreal Engine’s built-in navigation system to get your Sims moving around the lot in a way that feels surprisingly natural. Even the smaller animations hold up well, capturing those everyday moments that made the original so memorable. Watch a Sim crumple to the floor from pure exhaustion or desperately take care of one need while completely tanking another.
Careers and money came next, handled through a simple in game newspaper where job listings change from day to day. One morning you might find an opening in the culinary world, the next something a little more questionable. Pay comes in after each shift just as it always did, and for anyone who never quite played by the rules, the classic cheat codes are alive and well.
The final piece of the two week sprint was getting furniture placement and lot building into a working state. Buy mode lets you preview items in real time, rotate them with a click, and snap them into place with a satisfying precision that feels right at home in a Sims game. Build mode keeps things equally straightforward, giving you the tools to throw up walls and carve out rooms around a basic starter home layout. A free nature pack brought trees and grass into the yard, and a proper day and night cycle means shadows actually shift across the lot as the sun moves overhead, which is one of those small details that makes the whole thing feel surprisingly alive.
It all holds together well enough for a decent play session, long enough to appreciate some of the finer touches Tytar managed to sneak in along the way. Familiar faces like Mortimer and Bella Goth sit in their chairs and go about their business in a way that will put a smile on the face of any longtime fan. He even got a car driving around the lot, which is more than the official Sims 4 can say after years of updates. Even more impressive, not a single line of it was generated by AI. Every animation, every menu, and every line of code was built entirely by hand over the course of just two weeks.
It’s already smartphone season. Samsung’s annual deluge encompasses three new phones for 2026: the frontier-pushing S26 Ultra ($1,300) with its innovative Privacy Screen, the S26 ($899) and the S26+ ($999). The smaller flagships, yet again, are iterative versions of what came before, with the major differences centering on bigger batteries and brighter screens.
I’m getting waves of deja vu as I review the Galaxy S26, because at times I was writing exactly what I wrote last year — including the part about it being a little too similar to what came before.
Samsung/Engadget
Samsung’s smallest flagship phone is a solid if safe addition to the Galaxy series. However, it’s far too similar to its predecessors.
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Pros
Bigger battery
A flagship phone that isn’t huge
More AI assistant options
Cons
Too similar to last year’s S25
Cameras could be improved
Perplexity integration is limited
Hardware
Image by Mat Smith for Engadget
Let’s focus on the changes. The Galaxy S26’s screen size is a little bigger than its predecessor’s; 6.3 inches, up from 6.2 inches on the S25. However, it still has the same FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080) resolution. Given the slight size difference, there’s no particular drop in sharpness. The screen can also go slightly brighter, topping out at 3,000 nits, which is always welcome — especially when Samsung has increased the battery to 4,300mAh from the S25’s 4,000mAh. (The S25 already impressed us with its battery longevity.)
The design, however, is largely unchanged. The camera trio now sits on a unified circular island and, well, that’s all I really have to say. Once again, it’s premium Samsung hardware, but otherwise I’d just be reiterating what I said last year… and our review from the year before that.
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Inside, Samsung increased the base RAM to 12GB and the storage to 256GB on the S26, doubling the space found on the S25. With the S26’s processor, Samsung split the device into two different builds depending on region. In the US, you’ll get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, like the S26 Ultra. Elsewhere, including my review device in the UK, the S26 and (S26+) have the in-house Exynos 2600.
Samsung’s Exynos 2600 SoC is its first 2nm chip and should offer power-efficiency improvements over larger alternatives. This year’s S26 didn’t struggle with any of the games I played or video-editing tasks. Samsung says its new chip delivers around 50 percent better performance across single- and multicore tasks. The Exynos 2600 includes a new Xclipse 960 GPU, which casubtlenuan deliver double the graphical performance of the Exynos 2500.
On Geekbench 6, the Exynos S26 scored 3151 on single-core tests and 10,664 on multicore tests (not far behind the Snapdragon-powered S26 Ultra). Similarly, the GPU score (24425) didn’t lag far behind — all pleasant surprises. There is a but coming.
Comparing battery rundown tests between a Snapdragon S26 and my Exynos version revealed a gap. Watching a looped video at 50 percent brightness, the Exynos iteration lasted almost 28 hours, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite S26 lasted nearly 30 hours. Sure, that’s great longevity regardless of which S26 model you get. But this year’s flagship does have a bigger battery, so why is the Exynos-powered version only matching last year’s phone?
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Cameras
Image by Mat Smith for Engadget
Not much has changed in the composition (or resolution) of the camera trio: there’s a 50-megapixel main, a 12MP ultrawide and a 10MP telephoto. That means that any improvements in photos and video are subtle, to put it kindly.
It’s hard to discern the improvements this year without really scrutinizing dark shots and zooming right in. The S26 does seem a little faster at capturing bursts and high-res video. And while I prefer the no-nonsense shooting of the Pixel 10a, the S26 offers a little more versatility with its zoom and ultrawide cameras. Cropped zoom, for example, lets you get closer to subjects beyond the 3X optical zoom, though more detail is lost than with the S26 Ultra and its larger resolution sensors.
Image by Mat Smith for Engadget
Once you’ve taken the shot, Samsung’s bundle of AI tools can take over. Photo Assist attempts to corral all of these editing features into one place, offering quick ways to reduce reflections or edit out photobombers. You can now use natural language text prompts to guide your photo editing.
For example, I attempted to adjust the lighting more evenly on a photo of me taken outdoors with a flash. I could do it with my rudimentary photo-editing skills, but Samsung’s tools are fast and, crucially, very easy to use. It’s a feature where natural language interfaces really make sense.
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With the front-facing camera, Samsung has added its Object Aware Engine, promising better, more accurate rendering of skin tones and hair, as well as an improved portrait mode. But again, I noticed marginal differences. The S26 seemed to have better color accuracy than its predecessor, resulting in slightly warmer selfies.
For videos, Samsung Super Steady mode is now more versatile, maintaining a consistent horizontal lock no matter how much you move around. As I mentioned during my hands-on, it’s an interesting addition, the kind of feature you typically see on action cams and gimbals. It works well, too, although the footage does pick up a bit of focus-pumping as it fights to stabilize everything.
Rounding out the new additions is an Autoframing mode that crops in on your tracked subject as they move around. There’s a degree of auto-detection for faces and pets, but you can tap to apply tracking to anything, to which it locks on well. It works particularly well with tripods, but there is a slight floating effect as the S26 tries to keep up with the phone’s movement. I also noticed warping at the edge of the lens when the camera app kept my subject centered in the frame.
Software
Image by Mat Smith for Engadget
Samsung’s S26 launch event suggested this was the era of agentic AI, with assistants now positioned to connect the dots between tasks themselves. We’re not quite there, though.
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The company has slightly expanded many of the features introduced last year. Now Brief is capable of pulling data from more apps to generate more comprehensive daily summaries, but I mostly saw the usual suspects: weather, calendar reminders and not much else.
Across the S26, a new Now Nudge feature will suggest actions with an unobtrusive icon, based on what’s happening on screen, such as sharing contact numbers with someone or suggesting calendar times while dealing with work emails.
Perplexity is an interesting addition. The S26 series is in a curious spot where it has hooks into no fewer than three AI assistants: Gemini, Bixby (bless its heart) and now Perplexity.
You do have to install the Perplexity app (and log in to use it), but you can then choose to make it your primary AI assistant. Odd things are missing: Samsung said Perplexity integration would work across the phone, including its own Browser app — something I was excited to test. Perplexity’s own browser, Comet, has a slick feature that lets it browse and summarize multiple tabs. I was in the middle of deciding where to eat during my recent trip to Barcelona, so I thought this was a great use case. However, that feature isn’t available in Samsung’s browser for now. According to Perplexity, Samsung will “integrate Perplexity’s APIs into the Samsung Browser, with agentic browser capabilities.”
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Voice commands of “Hey Plex” also went unanswered. I found I had to manually grant permissions to the Perplexity app for it to work like Google’s Gemini. This could just be teething issues with a pre-release device and software, but Perplexity, for now, doesn’t offer enough utility beyond what I was already used to with Gemini.
Wrap-up
Image by Mat Smith for Engadget
The Galaxy S26 is a solid phone, with upgraded battery capacity and more base storage. Whether you get the Exynos or the Snapdragon S26, there’s fortunately no performance gulf as has happened in the past. However, the shorter battery life is a disappointing discovery from Samsung’s first 2nm chip.
For Samsung’s smallest flagships over the last three years, it’s all been very samey. Is the company now focused on its true flagship Ultra phone and foldables to generate buzz and make things exciting? That’s what it feels like. There’s nothing wrong with this safe, solid Android phone, but you could pick up last year’s S25 and get an experience that’s 99 percent the same for $99 less.
After a relatively quiet few months, Amazon is bringing back another of its famously invented shopping holidays. The Amazon Spring Sale is on its third year, and it’ll be arriving again on March 25. Amazon says the sale will run through March 31 and, like last year’s event, customers are promised thousands of deals across various daily themed categories.
Of course, as we’ve seen in the past with Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, the true discounts on good products will likely be buried among junk deals on shoddy wares. The WIRED Reviews team tests gear all year long, and we’ll be recommending fact-checked discounts on the products we actively recommend to our friends, family, and readers. We’ve highlighted early deals below, and we’ll be updating this story with more when the event officially arrives.
WIRED Featured Deals:
The Sonos Roam 2 is the best smart speaker on the market for most people. It’s portable but has impressive sound despite its small form factor. Bluetooth pairing is fast and simple, and it has IP67 dust and water resistance. The battery has up to 10 hours of listening time. It can also connect to your Sonos home system when you aren’t taking it on the go. The Roam 2 basically never sells for less than this.
The UK’s science minister is announcing details of a five-year, £2.5 billion investment in nuclear fusion, reports the Times of London, “including building one of the world’s first prototype fusion power plants in Nottinghamshire and developing a UK sector projected to employ 10,000 people by 2030.”
Despite the potentially transformative impact of fusion, which in theory could provide limitless clean energy and create a £12 trillion global market, no country has managed to use this fledgling technology to generate useable electricity… [T]he UK is backing a spherical tokamak design… investing an initial £1.3 billion into a prototype fusion power plant called Step (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power station at West Burton in Nottinghamshire. Paul Methven, chief executive of the government-owned UK Industrial Fusion Solutions, which is delivering the Step project, said the aim is to get the reactor operating early in the 2040s. “It’s quite an aggressive programme,” he said. “We need to show that we can achieve genuine ‘wall socket’ energy — which has not been done before.”
On Monday, [science minister] Vallance will also announce £180 million for a facility in Culham, Oxfordshire, to manufacture tritium fuel and £50 million for training 2,000 scientists and engineers in fusion-related disciplines. The government is also buying a £45 million fusion-dedicated AI supercomputer called Sunrise to model plasma physics. Scientists at the UK Atomic Energy Authority last year developed an AI model that can rapidly simulate how the ultra-hot fuel in a fusion power plant will behave, cutting calculations that previously took days down to seconds…
Vallance will also announce new support and collaboration for the many fusion, robotics, engineering and AI start-ups working in Britain, to develop a strong supply chain for a new fusion sector. One of those companies, Tokamak Energy, which spun out from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 2009, has already built a smaller reactor that has informed the Step design. In March 2022, it became the first private organisation in the world to surpass 100 million degrees Celsius in its reactor.
After five years of trying, Revolut has finally secured a full banking licence to form Revolut Bank UK, just days after applying for a US licence.
Revolut has made no secret of its ambition to build “the world’s first truly global bank”, applying just last week for its US banking licence, but it has taken it five years to gain that licence in the UK. It originally applied for the licence in 2021 and in 2024 was given a banking licence “with restrictions”.
Now it has announced that it has secured its full banking licence from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK, which will allow it to offer its 13m customers across the UK, including Northern Ireland, deposit protection of up to £120,000 from the FSCS. In Ireland, Revolut’s customers are served by its European-licenced entity Revolut Bank UAB.
Revolut describes the success as a “milestone”, and says that Revolut Bank UK will soon be able to start offering accounts as a fully licenced bank for both retail and business customers. It says it will gradually begin the process of rolling out current accounts to new customers in a few days, “starting with a small group and expanding over the coming weeks to ensure a smooth user experience”.
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“Launching our UK bank has been a long-term strategic priority for Revolut, and marks a significant moment in our journey,” said Nik Storonsky, Revolut co-founder and CEO. “The UK is our home market and central to our growth. This is a vital step in our mission to build the world’s first truly global bank.”
“Securing this licence lays the foundation for our next chapter: expanding into a broader suite of products, including credit, to sit alongside the innovative services our customers already rely on every day,” said Francesca Carlesi, UK CEO at Revolut.
Revolut recently announced a global $13bn investment over five years, which it said would create 10,000 new jobs as it expands its global footprint. The company aims to launch in 30 new markets by 2030. One of the world’s biggest fintechs, Revolut currently operates across 40 markets globally, servicing around 70m customers.
The company recently expanded operations to Mexico, opened a new global headquarters in London and secured a payments licence in India. It hopes that this continued expansion can help it reach 100m customers by mid-2027.
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India is considering new manufacturing incentives in an effort to shift production of the iPhone and other smartphones out of China, and to stall any move to move it to the US.
iPhone Air internal components
Officials in New Delhi are working on a new version of India’s production-linked incentive program. The subsidy program, which has been crucial in attracting smartphone manufacturing, will expire in March 2026. The program helped attract major manufacturers, and the next phase could tie incentives more closely to export performance. The policy reflects India’s growing role in Apple’s supply chain as the company steadily increases iPhone production outside China. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Unlike chatbots, which learned to imitate human language through vast stores of online text, robots require something the internet doesn’t provide in abundance: detailed examples of real-world movement. How a person grips a sponge, stirs soup, or shuts off a running tap contains a level of nuance that sensors and… Read Entire Article Source link
Edwin Olding’s approach to building his own theme park began with an unlikely discovery on Temu, a two seater spin ride with three independently rotating rings, an electric motor, and basic safety features, all for a surprisingly reasonable $2,500. Most people would have scrolled straight past it, but Edwin saw exactly what it could become, another worthy addition to the 1,000 square foot storage unit that already housed a loop roller coaster and a pair of go-karts.
Weeks later a large container arrived from China, and it was clear the ride had earned every mile of its journey. Dirt, seawater stains, and rusted nuts told the story before he even got the box fully open. Once he did, and after plugging it into a high voltage socket in his garage, three rings unfolded and began spinning independently on their own axes. At the center sat an electric motor running dry v-belts, alongside a large electronics box covered in buttons that were entirely in Chinese. Safety restraints were present in the form of leg straps and a lap bar, though calling them reassuring would be a stretch.
Toy roller coaster set – Send kids’ play soaring with this fully functional LEGO City Robot World Roller-Coaster Park adventure toy for amusement…
What’s in the box? – This creative building set includes everything kids need to build a robot-themed roller coaster with lots of features…
A building toy packed with details for imaginative play – Features include a working 3 car roller coaster train, a posable mech with a minifigure…
The control panel made a lot more sense once Edwin ran it through a translation app on his phone, revealing the first set of operating warnings. Exposed wires poked out from various points around the machine, making it pretty clear this wasn’t a plug and play situation. There was no power plug included either, so Edwin sourced one locally just to get things started. The wiring that came with the ride turned out to be far too thin for the job, overheating quickly under any real load, so he swapped it out for thicker six gauge wire and added a proper ground connection to keep things from getting out of hand.
Positioned in the center of the storage unit, the ride slotted in perfectly, leaving enough room around it to accommodate the 15 foot roller coaster track and keep a lane clear for the go-karts. A few neon palm trees and some artificial grass pulled the whole corner together with exactly the Florida vibe Edwin was going for. Getting the ride to sit completely stable took a bit of patience, the whole thing relied on a slot system that needed to be lined up just right, but once it was dialed in everything came together surprisingly well.
First tests revealed a lot about how the machine actually behaved once the power was on. A single button got things going and a built in timer let riders go for up to ten minutes at a stretch. One immediate quirk was that the local electricity frequency pushed the rings to spin noticeably faster than they would have back in China. Stopping in an emergency was handled by the same button cutting power instantly, which did the job but wasn’t exactly graceful since there was no way to slow things down gradually. Still, it stopped when you needed it to. As for the experience itself, riders climbed in, buckled up, and found themselves being thrown, swirled, and spun in every conceivable direction all at once.
Safety was never far from anyone’s mind during testing. The steel flexed under hand pressure in a few spots, the foot bindings had a habit of loosening over time, and the open rings left enough of a gap to make loose hair or wandering hands a genuine concern. Helmets were mandatory for every rider and Edwin made a point of reminding everyone to keep their arms tucked in throughout the ride. There was also a close call involving the wiring that could have turned serious, though the modifications they had made held up when it counted. Even with all the improvements, it was hard to ignore the fact that the ride had never been looked at by any official safety inspector, and some of those question marks were still very much open.
Automotive maintenance and repair can get expensive, which is why many car owners prefer to do maintenance at home, at least the easy DIY auto projects. If you’re one of these DIYers, you may have dealt with a difficult customer service experience at your local auto parts store. Such experiences can cause delays, and make even the simplest job more challenging than it needs to be. If you regularly shop at AutoZone, chances are you might have nothing but good stories to share.
According to a January 2026 report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), AutoZone leads the way as the best auto parts retailer, based on customer satisfaction. In fact, the company improved over the prior year by 3%, which comes to a total score of 79%. This shift put the company ahead of O’Reilly Auto Parts, even though O’Reilly has a rewards program to help you save money. O’Reilly slid down to the No. 2 spot, from an 81 to a 76. Rounding out the top three is Advance Auto Parts, down from a score of 77 to 75.
The ACSI doesn’t reveal its exact formulas used for generating these scores. However, the organization does explain on its website that customer satisfaction is based on thousands of interviews with said customers. Those interviews are then fed into an internal model that records the key points of satisfaction, including customer expectations, perceived quality, and value. Those figures are then used to formulate a single score for each company reviewed, on a scale of 0-100.
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Customer feedback is mixed on AutoZone
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Beyond its 2026 ranking in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), AutoZone also performs well in reports from other publications. As an example, in Newsweek’s America’s Best Customer Service 2025 rankings, AutoZone placed third in the Online Retailers: Transportation category. The company has a total score of 85.65, behind RockAuto with an 87.05 and first-place Auto Parts Warehouse with an 88.25. Newsweek’s numbers are based on a large consumer survey conducted with Statista.
However, not all customer satisfaction reports have been positive for AutoZone, and that’s despite the fact that you can get some things for free at the stores. According to the 2024 Market Force research, via PR Newswire, NAPA Auto Parts ranked highest in overall customer experience, earning a score of 77.5%. This was based on several customer experience metrics. But NAPA is actually in the second spot for total customer visits, coming in at 18.3%, which is well behind AutoZone’s No. 1 ranking of 32.3%. So even though AutoZone had more customers overall, the study found that other automotive retailers performed better in customer experience.
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ConsumerAffairs shows a similar trend for AutoZone, as the retailer doesn’t display positive customer experiences consistently. According to reviews on the organization’s website, some of AutoZone’s mployees go the extra mile to help, but that same level of service isn’t the norm overall. In fact, AutoZone has 2.4 stars out of 5, and out of 770 total reviews, 471 are one star only. So while some customers are pleased, many leave disappointed.
Smart speakers often promise big sound in small boxes, but few actually manage to fill a room properly, which makes this latest discount on Amazon’s most powerful Echo Dot worth attention.
The 4.5-star Amazon Echo Dot Max positions itself as the most capable entry in the Echo Dot family, designed to deliver noticeably fuller audio while still keeping the compact form that fits easily on shelves, desks, or bedside tables.
Unlike smaller Echo models like Echo Dot (5th Gen) that prioritise voice assistant convenience over audio performance, this version adds a dedicated 2.5-inch woofer and a 0.8-inch tweeter, helping it produce deeper bass and clearer vocals during everyday listening.
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That hardware works alongside automatic room adaptation, meaning the speaker analyses your environment and adjusts output accordingly so music remains balanced whether it sits against a wall, in a corner, or on an open surface.
Where the Amazon Echo Dot Max becomes particularly useful is in its role as a built-in smart home hub, allowing compatible lights, locks, and other devices to connect directly without needing additional bridges.
Support for Zigbee, Matter, and Thread means the speaker can act as the central control point for many smart home ecosystems, letting users create routines, automate devices, and manage everything through Alexa voice commands.
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That practical integration becomes especially helpful in day-to-day routines, whether dimming lights for a film night, setting temperature-based automations, or simply asking Alexa for reminders, weather updates, or quick information.
Amazon has also added its AZ3 processor to keep responses fast, while Omnisense technology enables contextual awareness features such as presence detection and temperature-based routines that can adjust your home automatically.
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At £69.99, the Amazon Echo Dot Max makes a strong case for anyone wanting better sound and smarter home control without stepping up to a much larger or significantly more expensive smart speaker.
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If you are considering other Alexa speakers before deciding, it is also worth checking out our Best Amazon Echo 2026 guide, where the Echo Dot Max was awarded the best budget smart speaker, and a number of them are on sale today.
Improved bass, better overall audio quality and a Zigbee/Thread smart home hub built in, the Amazon Echo Dot Max might be more expensive than its predecessor but it’s a clear upgrade. If you want the best audio quality then the Echo Studio (2025) is a better choice, while those with the old Echo (4th Generation) will find that they have slightly better audio quality. However, for new users looking for an Alexa smart speaker that’s decent for music, this is the best all-rounder – it would be nice to see Alexa+ in the UK to really maximise its capabilities, though.
Over half of UK adults feel uneasy interacting with robots daily
Limited exposure drives anxiety, with only 30% of Britons ever meeting robots
Domestic robots spark the strongest reluctance, especially in home environments
More than half of British adults say they feel uneasy around robots, making the UK the most robot-anxious nation globally.
A survey by Hexagon across nine markets, involving 18,000 participants, found 52% of UK respondents were concerned about potential problems when interacting with robots.
This is higher than the global average of 42%, which experts link partly to the limited exposure many Britons have to robots.
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Limited exposure fuels public concern
Low exposure may be driving the anxiety, as only 30% of Britons report ever encountering a robot in daily life, while the figure is 75% in China.
Britons express their strongest reluctance in home environments, with 39% stating they feel uncomfortable about robots in domestic settings.
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In industrial applications, such as factories and warehouses, robots are slightly more accepted, but comfort levels remain below the global average.
Security concerns are the main reason for the high anxiety levels, with 53% citing the risk of robots being hacked or misused as their top worry.
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Some Britons (41%) also fear that robots may malfunction and cause physical harm.
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Observers note that fear often diminishes once people meet a robot in person, particularly smaller, approachable models.
“Across the world, people aren’t simply pro-robot or anti-robot. They’re asking where robots belong, what they should do, and what safeguards must come first,” said Burkhard Boeckem, CTO at Hexagon.
“In the UK, the message is especially clear: confidence lags when robots feel distant or unfamiliar. Trust breaks down when robots are pushed into everyday or domestic roles before governance, safeguards, and human control are clearly in place.”
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Like robots, Britons do not want data centers anywhere near them, although national support for expansion remains high.
A survey of over 2,100 UK adults by YouGov reveals that only 44% of Gen Z respondents support a local data center, and 31% actively oppose one even though national support for new facilities reaches 69%.
Much of the opposition among younger voters is driven by environmental considerations, including concerns over energy consumption and water usage.
Although arguments about job creation and potential economic benefits exist, they are insufficient to outweigh the environmental concerns.
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This “not in my backyard” attitude implies that local realities may clash with broader national priorities as the UK plans to more than double data center capacity by 2030.
Across both robotics and data infrastructure, trust emerges as a central barrier, strongly influencing public perception, acceptance, and resistance.
Britons may accept automation in areas where the benefits are clear, including performing hazardous tasks or improving efficiency.
But reluctance persists when technologies are unfamiliar or perceived to threaten control.
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