Technologies

Major Energy Breakthrough: Milestone Achieved in US Fusion Experiment

For the first time, the National Ignition Facility officially achieved ignition in a fusion reactor.

It was touted as a «major scientific breakthrough» and, it seems, the rumors were true: On Tuesday, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that they have, for the first time, achieved net energy gain in a controlled fusion experiment.

«We have taken the first tentative steps toward a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world,» Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a press conference Tuesday.

The triumph comes courtesy of the National Ignition Facility at LLNL in San Francisco. This facility has long tried to master nuclear fusion — a process that powers the sun and other stars — in an effort to harness the massive amounts of energy released during the reaction because, as Hruby points out, all that energy is «clean» energy.

Despite decades of effort, however, there had been a major kink in these fusion experiments: the amount of energy used to achieve fusion has far outweighed the energy coming out. As part of the NIF mission, scientists had long hoped to achieve «ignition,» where the energy output is «greater than or equal to laser drive energy.»

Some experts have remained skeptical that such a feat was even possible with fusion reactors currently in operation. But slowly, NIF pushed forward. In August last year, LLNL revealed it had come close to this threshold by generating around 1.3 megajoules (a measure of energy) against a laser drive using 1.9 megajoules.

But on Dec. 5, LLNL’s scientists say, they managed to cross the threshold.

They achieved ignition.

All in all, this achievement is cause for celebration. It’s the culmination of decades of scientific research and incremental progress. It’s a critical, albeit small, step forward, to demonstrate that this type of reactor can, in fact, generate energy.

«Reaching ignition in a controlled fusion experiment is an achievement that has come after more than 60 years of global research, development, engineering and experimentation,» Hruby said.

«It’s a scientific milestone,» Arati Prabhakar, policy director for the White House Office of Science and Technology, said during the conference, «but it’s also an engineering marvel.»

Still, a fully operational platform, connected to the grid and used to power homes and businesses, likely remains a few decades away.

«This is one igniting capsule at one time,» Kim Budil, director of LLNL, said. «To realize commercial fusion energy you have to do many things. You have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute, and you have to have a robust system of drivers to enable that.»

So how did we get here? And what does the future hold for fusion energy?

Simulating stars

The underlying physics of nuclear fusion has been well understood for almost a century.

Fusion is a reaction between the nuclei of atoms that occurs under extreme conditions, like those present in stars. The sun, for instance, is about 75% hydrogen and, because of the all-encompassing heat and pressure at its core, these hydrogen atoms are squeezed together, fusing to form helium atoms.

If atoms had feelings, it would be easy to say they don’t particularly like being squished together. It takes a lot of energy to do so. Stars are fusion powerhouses; their gravity creates the perfect conditions for a self-sustaining fusion reaction and they keep burning until all their fuel — those atoms — are used up.

This idea forms the basis of fusion reactors.

Building a unit that can artificially re-create the conditions within the sun would allow for an extremely green source of energy. Fusion doesn’t directly produce greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, which contribute to global warming.

And critically, a fusion reactor also doesn’t have the downsides of nuclear fission, the splitting of atoms used in nuclear bombs and reactors today.

In other words, a fusion power plant wouldn’t produce the radioactive waste associated with nuclear fission.

The big fusion experiment

The NIF, which takes up the space of around three football fields at LLNL, is the most powerful «inertial confinement fusion» experiment in the world.

In the center of the chamber lies a target: a «hohlraum,» or cylinder-shaped device that houses a tiny capsule. The capsule, about as big as a peppercorn, is filled with isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, or D-T fuel, for short. The NIF focuses all 192 lasers at the target, creating extreme heat that produces plasma and kicks off an implosion. As a result, the D-T fuel is subject to extreme temperatures and pressures, fusing the hydrogen isotopes into helium — and a consequence of the reaction is a ton of extra energy and the release of neutrons.

You can think of this experiment as briefly simulating the conditions of a star.

The complicated part, though, is that the reaction also requires a ton of energy to start. Powering the entire laser system used by the NIF requires more than 400 megajoules — but only a small percentage actually hits the hohlraum with each firing of the beams. Previously, the NIF had been able to pretty consistently hit the target with around 2 megajoules from its lasers.

But on Dec. 5, during one run, something changed.

«Last week, for the first time, they designed this experiment so that the fusion fuel stayed hot enough, dense enough and round enough for long enough that it ignited,» Marv Adams, deputy administrator at the NNSA, said during the conference. «And it produced more energy than the lasers had deposited.»

More specifically, scientists at NIF kickstarted a fusion reaction using about 2 megajoules of energy to power the lasers and were able to get about 3 megajoules out. Based on the definition of ignition used by NIF, the benchmark has been passed during this one short pulse.

You might also see that energy gain in a fusion reaction is denoted by a variable, Q.

Like ignition, the Q value can refer to different things for different experiments. But here, it’s referring to the energy input from the lasers versus the energy output from the capsule. If Q = 1, scientists say they have achieved «breakeven,» where energy in equals energy out.

The Q value for this run, for context, was around 1.5.

In the grand scheme of things, the energy created with this Q value is only about enough to boil water in a kettle.

«The calculation of energy gain only considers the energy that hit the target, and not the [very large] energy consumption that goes into supporting the infrastructure,» said Patrick Burr, a nuclear engineer at the University of New South Wales.

The NIF is not the only facility chasing fusion — and inertial confinement is not the only way to kickstart the process. «The more common approach is magnetically confined fusion,» said Richard Garrett, senior advisor on strategic projects at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. These reactors use magnetic fields to control the fusion reaction in a gas, typically in a giant, hollow donut reactor known as a tokamak.

Those devices have a much lower density than NIF’s pellets, so temperatures need to be increased to well over 100 million degrees. Garrett said he does not expect the NIF result to accelerate tokamak fusion programs because, fundamentally, the two processes work quite differently.

However, significant progress is also being made with magnetically confined fusion. For instance, the ITER experiment, under construction in France, uses a tokamak and is expected to begin testing in the next decade. It has lofty goals, aiming to achieve a Q greater than 10 and to develop commercial fusion by 2050.

The future of fusion

The experiment at NIF might be transformative for research, but it won’t immediately translate to a fusion energy revolution. This isn’t a power-generating experiment. It’s a proof of concept.

This is a point worth paying attention to today, especially as fusion has often been touted as a way to combat the climate crisis and reduce reliance on fossil fuels or as a salve for the world’s energy problems. Construction and utilization of fusion energy to power homes and businesses is still a ways off — decades, conservatively — and inherently reliant on technological improvements and investment in alternative energy sources.

Generating around 2.5 megajoules of energy when the total input from the laser system is well above 400 megajoules is, of course, not efficient. And in the case of the NIF experiment, it was one short pulse.

Looking further ahead, constant, reliable, long pulses will be required if this is to become sustainable enough to power kettles, homes or entire cities.

«It’s unlikely that fusion power … will save us from climate change,» said Ken Baldwin, a physicist at the Australian National University. If we are to prevent the largest increases in global average temperature, fusion power is likely going to be a little too late.

Other investment is going to come from private companies, which are seeking to operate tokamak fusion reactors in the next few years. For instance, Tokamak Energy in the UK is building a spherical tokamak reactor and seeks to hit breakeven by the middle of this decade.

Then there’s Commonwealth Fusion Systems, spun out of MIT, which is hoping to generate around 400 megawatts of power, enough for tens of thousands of homes, by the 2030s. Modern nuclear power plants can produce almost three times as much.

And as CNET editor Stephen Shankland noted in a recent piece, fusion reactors will also need to compete against solar and wind power — so even with today’s revelatory findings, fusion energy remains entrenched in the experimental phase of its existence.

But we can now cast one eye toward the future.

It may not prevent the worst of climate change but, harnessed to its full potential, it could produce a near-limitless supply of energy for generations to come. It’s one thing to think about the future of energy on Earth and how it will be utilized, but our eyes may fall on horizons even further out — deep space travel could utilize fusion reactors that blast us well beyond the reaches of our sun’s gravity, the very thing that helped teach us about fusion reactions, and into interstellar space.

Perhaps then, we’d remember Dec. 5, 2022, as the first tiny step toward places we dared once only dream about.

Correction, 8:44 a.m. PT: This article initially misstated the amount of energy in the fusion reaction. NIF powered the lasers with about 2 megajoules and produced 3 megajoules as a result.

Technologies

Unlock Borderlands 4 Power: Try These Active SHiFT Codes ASAP

These are the latest SHiFT codes that unlock epic loot and cosmetics in Borderlands 4, but you must act quickly.

The biggest looter shooter of the year, Borderlands 4, is out, and players are already taking the fight to the Timekeeper on Kairos. If you want to put the beat down on someone strong enough to control time, then you’re going to need an arsenal of powerful weapons and equipment.

Luckily, developer Gearbox Software is willing to lend a helping hand. Instead of having to farm every piece of legendary equipment in-game, you can roll the dice on some loot with Golden Keys unlocked by SHiFT promo codes.

If you’re already swimming in more loot than you know what to do with, some SHiFT codes also unlock special cosmetic looks for your favorite vault hunters. Special in-game challenges have already unlocked promo codes for Amon, Rafa and Vex vault hunter skins, with a Harlowe skin unlocking soon. Here’s how to use the latest SHiFT codes in Borderlands 4.

All active SHiFT codes for Borderlands 4

You can hunt down SHiFT codes on social media, but we’ll keep all of the active promo codes in one place for ease of access.

Below, you’ll find a chart that contains every active SHiFT code for Borderlands 4, what it unlocks and its expiration date:

Active Borderlands 4 SHiFT codes

Reward	SHiFT code	Expiration date
Vex Mass Market Appeal Skin	BZ6JJ-CB6CT-WXJJW-3TT3B-56FZ5	Jan. 1, 2031
Amon Cult Classic Skin	JZ6BJ-SBR5J-WF3BK-BT3BB-TX9HB	Dec. 31, 2030
Rafa Savings Savior Skin	TZXT3-XJXCB-CXBJW-BTTJT-9SK6B	Dec. 31, 2030
Break Free Cosmetics Pack	JS63J-JSCWJ-CFTBW-3TJ3J-WJS5R	Jan. 1, 2031
Golden Key	TZR3T-JZJKJ-WXJTC-T33TB-RFCFR	Oct. 20, 2025
Golden Key	3S6TT-CZJWT-WXJT5-3B3BJ-JS3JZ	Oct. 20, 2025
Golden Key	J96BJ-RZJWB-C6TJC-BBJJJ-5B5W9	Oct. 20, 2025
Golden Key	T9RJB-BFKRR-3RBTW-B33TB-KCZB9	No expiration

How to redeem SHiFT codes for your Borderlands 4 account

While SHiFT codes are totally free rewards for you to accumulate, you must make a SHiFT account to input any active codes in-game.

SHiFT is a service that Gearbox integrates into its biggest games, and making an account unlocks forums and exclusive beta participation. It’s also necessary to create an account to turn in any promo codes, which is what most fans care about.

Once your account is created, you can enter your SHiFT codes in two separate places. Within your SHiFT account settings, you can find a Rewards tab with a field to enter any Borderlands promo codes. Once you enter the codes, any unlocked items will be added to your account the next time you open the game.

However, an easier way to input your SHiFT codes is within Borderlands 4 itself. Within the game’s pause menu, you can access a SHiFT. Select the Rewards tab from the resulting menu, input your codes and the unlocked items will be immediately available on your save.

Where are SHiFT codes normally released?

SHiFT codes are released frequently on Gearbox and Gearbox-affiliated social media channels. For the best chance at catching every new SHiFT code that gets released, you should follow Gearbox on X and on Facebook.

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford also releases promos on his X account, so if you’re brave enough to follow him despite his frequent outbursts toward fans you can find SHiFT codes there as well.

What are SHiFT codes?

SHiFT codes are promo codes that Gearbox occasionally releases that reward players with loot and cosmetics in Borderlands games. The main SHiFT code reward is a Golden Key, which opens the Golden Chest in most Borderlands hub areas.

But don’t spend them immediately — it’s worth saving your Golden Keys until you reach the level cap and are playing on the hardest difficulty, as the loot rewards will scale to your character accordingly. This is a great way to begin farming some endgame legendaries quickly and easily.

Technologies

Scouts Can Now Earn a Merit Badge for AI

Scouting America has also created an AI chatbot to explain the requirements for the different merit badges.

Scouts are doing more than tying knots, building fires and learning first aid. Scouting America has added artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to its lineup of merit badges, keeping the 115-year-old organization in step with modern technology.

Scouting America is the youth organization that was known as Boy Scouts of America before 2019, when it changed its name to Scouts BSA and allowed girls to join all-girl troops. In February, the organization changed its name to Scouting America to reflect a more-inclusive philosophy.

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The AI merit badge «will introduce scouts to the fundamentals of AI and automation through hands-on activities and real-world examples,» according to Scouting America’s website, while the cybersecurity merit badge «equips Scouts with essential knowledge and skills to navigate and protect the digital world.»

While many of the merit badges seen on individual Scouts’ iconic sashes focus on hands-on experiences, often in the outdoors — such as fire safety and insect study — Scouting America says the new additions are relevant to modern life.

«Both badges focus on real-world practice, not just reading about technology,» Scouting America said in a statement. «The AI badge gets Scouts thinking about how to use technology responsibly. The cybersecurity badge teaches actual security skills along with safe online habits.»

Scouting America added another modern twist. The organization recently released an AI chatbot named Scoutly that can share the requirements for the various merit badges, among other tasks. Scouts can earn more than 130 badges in different subjects.

Scouting America is the largest scouting organization and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 1 million youth, including nearly 200,000 female participants.

Technologies

The Ultimate AI Wearable Is a Piece of Tech You Already Own

Commentary: Tech companies are trying to give us dedicated AI devices. There’s no need — we all have them already.

In some quarters, the rise of AI has sparked the urge to invent all-new devices, which are deeply invested in that technology but which look and function differently from any products we’ve owned before.

These range from head-mounted XR devices, such as headsets and glasses, to pins, necklaces, phone accessories and whatever mystery product former Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI are developing in secret.

But what if, in pursuit of these new devices, we overlook the fact that the ultimate AI form factor is something we all already own? It could even be that the best way to deploy AI is through tech that dates back to the 19th century.

I’m talking about headphones.

There hasn’t been a lack of evolution in personal audio over the years, but integrating AI into headphones is giving them a new lease on life, says Dino Bekis, vice president of wearables at chipmaker Qualcomm. We’re starting to see this with devices like Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3.

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The impact of AI on headphones will be twofold, says Bekis. First, it will build on improvements we’ve already seen, such as the ability to easily switch among active noise cancellation, transparency and other listening modes.

Instead of that being something we need to control manually, the headphones themselves will increasingly handle it all dynamically. Sensors on board, layered with AI, become more adept at reading and understanding our immediate surroundings.

Bekis says that maybe your headphones could alert you to someone trying to get your attention by recognizing your name being called, even if you’re listening to music with ANC enabled. If you’re on a call, walking along a busy street, they could alert you to traffic dangers, sirens or someone who might be walking close behind you.

But where he really sees AI headphones coming into their own is in the interactions you’ll have with AI agents. These personal assistant-like versions of artificial intelligence will operate autonomously with our devices and services on our behalf.

There’s no more «natural way» than conversation to interact with them, he says, and the high-quality mics and speakers in your headphones will allow for clear and effective communication.

«Earbuds or headphones are really yesterday’s technology that’s suddenly been reinvented and is becoming the primary way we’re going to be interfacing with agents moving forward,» says Bekis.

Headphone-makers, meet AI

Not all headphones are on the verge of transforming into wearable AI assistants, and the situation is not the same across the board. Many legacy headphone companies are «entrenched in their core focus of audio quality and audio file capability,» says Bekis.

At the same time, Bekis says Harman-owned high-end audio brand Mark Levinson is one headphone maker Qualcomm is working with on integrating AI into its products. And smartphone manufacturers who also have audio products in their lineup are at the forefront of the charge.

You only need to look at the new capabilities that Samsung, Google and Apple have bolstered their headphones with over the past few years. In addition to adaptive audio, the companies are starting to add AI-specific features. Google’s Pixel Buds 2 are engineered not just as an audio device but as hardware with the company’s Gemini AI assistant at the core (you could say «Hey, Google» to activate Gemini and ask it to summarize your emails, for example).

In September, Apple introduced AI-powered live translation with the AirPods Pro 3. The AirPods will parse what someone is saying to you and play it in your chosen language in your ear. They will also pick up your speech and translate it so that you can show the other person a transcript in their language on your phone screen.

Apple also seems to be searching for ways to further tap the AI potential of its headphones range. A report from Bloomberg earlier this month suggested that the company might introduce AI-powered infrared cameras with the next version of the AirPods Pro, which could be activated by and respond to gestures.

It’s clear that smartphone-makers can see the potential in headphones to be more than just audio products, in the same way they once recognized that the phone could be more than simply a device for making calls. They might even turn headphones and earbuds into what I think could be the ultimate AI wearable.

Why headphones?

The biggest argument for headphones over other emerging AI-focused wearable tech is their popularity: Who doesn’t own at least one pair? (My feeling is that everyone should own at least three different styles, each with its own strengths.) It’s just not the same with glasses or watches.

Yes, they are common and familiar, but the likelihood is that if you don’t already wear them regularly, the addition of AI is unlikely to persuade you. Glasses, in particular, have drawbacks, including battery life. There’s also the difficulty of combining the tech with prescription lenses and privacy concerns due to the addition of cameras.

After well over a decade of effort, tech companies are also still struggling to make smart glasses as sleek and comfortable to wear as their non-smart counterparts (the Meta Ray-Bans perhaps being the one exception to the rule here).

Smartwatches and fitness bands, meanwhile, have become more comfortable, but many people still find them cumbersome for sleeping. The sensors in them are too far away from our faces, where we receive the majority of our sensory inputs, to comprehend the world around us with forensic detail. They cannot relay sensory feedback to us without us having to look at a screen. The same is true for rings and other smart jewelry.

There are no devices that rival headphones, and earbuds in particular, for sheer proximity to a major sensory organ capable of both inputting and outputting complex sensory data. They have been and remain discreet, easy to take on and off, and not overly power hungry or demanding when it comes to charging frequency.

«Critically, there’s the social acceptance level of this as well, where, ultimately, headphones have become incredibly commonplace,» says CCS Insight Analyst Leo Gebbie.

They don’t insert a noticeable barrier between you and the world you’re experiencing. Plus, even when they’re obvious, they don’t tend to put people on edge over concerns you could be capturing their image, and you don’t need to learn how to use them, Gebbie says.

«Contrast that with something like smart glasses, where I think there is a whole new set of user behaviors that would need to be learned in terms of exactly how to interact with that device,» he says. «Also, there’s kind of a social contract, which, for me, at least with smart glasses, has always been one of the biggest stumbling blocks.»

What’s more, headphones have been getting gradually smarter all this time without most of us even noticing.

This invisible evolution is the closest tangible expression I’ve seen of the widespread belief among tech leaders that AI should be a subtle, ambient force that permeates our lives as inconspicuously as possible.

Headphones are an established product that shows consistent growth, making them the safest bet for companies that want as many people as possible to engage with AI through wearable tech.

Multiple forecasts, including from SNS Insider and Mordor Intelligence, estimate the global market for headphones will grow to over $100 billion by the early 2030s. By contrast, Mordor forecasts the smart glasses market will grow to $18.4 billion in the same period, one of the higher estimates I found.

Companies are always searching out new revenue streams, hence their determination to explore new kinds of AI devices, says Gebbie. But, he adds, «headphones definitely feel like a safer bet, because it’s a form factor that people are familiar with.»

It may well be the case that no single wearable device will define our coexistence with AI, and if there is, it will be a device of our choosing.

But rather than reinvent the wheel, I strongly suspect the companies embracing the potential of headphones will see these formerly audio-focused devices fly in the age of AI. And perhaps it’s just personal preference, but I’m on board.