Science and Technology

Upgrades to aging utility equipment and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have combined to drive up electricity costs across the country, with the national average increasing from one year to the next.As a New York Times business reporter, I have been looking into the impact of the rising costs of electricity on consumer bills. With my colleague Madeleine Ngo, I recently examined how higher rates have strained the budgets of low-income consumers — many of whom cannot afford clean energy technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles.We are planning more stories about the rising cost of energy and how…

Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, has spent the duration of the country’s electoral campaign in jail, disqualified from running in what experts have described as one of the least credible general elections in the country’s 76-year history.But from behind bars, he has been rallying his supporters in recent months with speeches that use artificial intelligence to replicate his voice, part of a tech-savvy strategy his party deployed to circumvent a crackdown by the military.And on Saturday, as official counts showed candidates aligned with his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., winning the most seats in a surprise result that threw…

Mr. Romero visits Ms. Ochoa in Mexico about once a month. But when they’re apart, the A.I.-powered app transports Ms. Ochoa to Mr. Romero’s kitchen or to a wrestling tournament as he coaches his teenage son. They exchange messages on WhatsApp and video chat as Ms. Ochoa gets ready for work. In addition to the lip-dub feature, Ms. Ochoa will often use her iPad to translate their tête-à-tête, while Mr. Romero uses the Timekettle WT2 Edge — earbuds with two-way simultaneous translation that help him follow a conversation in real time.Because their work hours differ, Ms. Ochoa is usually working…

Mark Zuckerberg stood to directly address relatives of online child abuse victims in the Senate gallery on Wednesday, a first for the chief executive of Meta and a singular moment in a morning full of tense exchanges during a Judiciary Committee hearing on child safety.“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, turning his back away from the bipartisan panel of Senators and toward the family members, many of whom were holding photos of their deceased loved ones. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered.”Mr. Zuckerberg added that the company was…