Category: 4. Technology

Square Enix has released a special movie to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy 9, but fans are still left wondering what’s going on with the rumoured remake.

The movie is just a minute long, and is essentially a highlights reel from the game’s FMV sequences, edited over a new recording of the game’s iconic theme song Melodies of Life.

The video follows a number of other small releases in the run up to the anniversary. Back in March, Square Enix launched a 25th anniversary website for the game that’s slowly been updated with new artwork in celebration of the game’s Japanese release on 7th July 2000 (it was released in the UK a year later in 2001).

New merchandise has also been released, and – perhaps most interestingly – a new prequel picture book has been released from the game’s event designer Kazuhiko Aoki and character designer Toshiyuki Itahana. It details how adorable black mage Vivi got his name – I won’t spoil anything here.

So where, then, is the rumoured remake?

The rumour began back in 2021, as part of the infamous Nvidia leak which included a number of unreleased and unannounced Square Enix games. The leak has proven to be accurate so far, following the likes of the Chrono Cross remaster, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and the recently revealed Final Fantasy Tactics remaster. The Final Fantasy 9 remake is now the only remaining officially unannounced Final Fantasy game from the leak.

As on the anniversary website, a new vinyl subtitled Timeless Tales is due for release later this week on 9th July – some fans believe this may be the name of the remake itself too.

Final Fantasy 14’s latest expansion, Dawntrail, also heavily references Final Fantasy 9. This could be coincidence considering the MMORPG regularly references past games, but its director and producer Naoki Yoshida has denied remaking Final Fantasy 9.

With this 25th anniversary, Square Enix seems to be really pushing Final Fantasy 9. The company announced earlier this year the game had sold 8.9m units worldwide, but this is less than many others in the series, not only including renowned favourite Final Fantasy 7 and the widely released Final Fantasy 15, but also Final Fantasy 8 and 10 – the two games either side of FF9. Where was Final Fantasy 8’s big 25th anniversary?

Released late in the PS1’s lifecycle, Final Fantasy 9 launched a year after Final Fantasy 8, which proved popular for its realistic graphical style, and a year before Final Fantasy 10 on the more powerful PS2. Though critically well-received, Final Fantasy 9 hasn’t always been the most popular of the series.

Still, a remake of the game would be great timing for Square Enix. The game’s original PS1 release was seen as a callback to the origins of the series, with its more medieval setting and cartoonish art style. A remake release now – if it stayed true to the original – would parallel this callback at a time Square Enix needs it most.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake series has proven divisive in its approach to a remake, despite some welcome modernisation, while Final Fantasy 16 was exemplary for some fans of Square Enix’s decision to move further into action game territory.

A remake of Final Fantasy 9 would return the company to its turn-based roots and bring newer fans into the series with a classic remake. But at this point, Square Enix is just leaving us waiting.

If you’re yet to play Final Fantasy 9, a remaster is already available across PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and mobile.

Microsoft has finally crossed an important milestone for Windows 11, months ahead of Windows 10’s end of support cutoff date. Stat Counter, spotted by Windows Central, now lists Windows 11 as the most used desktop operating system nearly four years after its release, with 52 percent of the market, compared to 44.59 percent for Windows 10.

Windows 11 became the most popular OS for PC gaming in September, but overall adoption had still been lagging behind Windows 10 until now. Leaked data in October 2023 also revealed Windows 11 was used by more than 400 million devices at the time, a slower adoption pace than Windows 10 — which took just a year to reach 400 million devices compared to Windows 11’s two year period.

Part of the slow adoption is down to Windows 11’s hardware requirements. While Microsoft offered a free upgrade to Windows 10 users, millions of machines have been left behind due to stricter CPU and security requirements. Microsoft has been trying to convince the owners of these machines to upgrade their hardware in order to get Windows 11, sometimes with a full-screen prompt.

Windows 10 is due to reach end of support on October 14th, and Microsoft recently revealed it would give away a free year of extra security updates to consumers if they were willing to enable Windows Backup and sync their Documents folder to OneDrive. If you don’t want to do this, you’ll have to pay $30 for a year of updates, or redeem 1,000 Microsoft Reward points.

As Xbox pivots to a multiplatform strategy, and Nintendo carves a unique niche, PlayStation might expectedly cement its position as a primary hardware in the console market sooner. The possibility of such an unprecedented market position being enjoyed by Sony has raised some serious concerns—without any fierce competition, could Sony intensify its anti-consumer practices that have priority over profits and not player choices? Historical evidence suggests a troubling path forward.

Sony might double down on anti-consumer move: What does its playbook suggest?

With the company’s past as a prologue, there’s a pattern of Sony leveraging market control to restrict user freedom while maximizing revenue. Sony is popularly known for blocking cross-platform for many years. It was only after being under pressure, as Microsoft supported and promoted the feature, that the company gave in.As the data reveals, Sony got exposed demanding royalties from the publishers just to enable the online cross-play. It was a clear tactic for protecting the walled garden revenue.

Further, Sony has even aggressively locked users into the ecosystem. The company enforced a near-total monopoly on PlayStation Store’s digital game sales, prohibiting any third-party retailers from selling the digital codes, unlike its competitors.Popularly known as Sony Tax, this move allows the company to artificially inflate prices. This was clearly evidenced during the UK £5 billion ($6.35 billion approx.) lawsuit. Therein, it was alleged that digital games cost 47% more than the PlayStation’s physical copies.Additionally, Sony was even fined €13.5 million ($14.85 million approx.) previously by the French regulators. It was due to their deliberate attempt to sabotage the third-party PS4 controllers via software updates, while continuing to maintain an opaque licensing program, which stifled the entire competition. When any licensing dispute arises, like 2023’s removal of the purchased Discovery content, users even lose access entirely. It even highlighted Sony’s ownership fragility within the digital domain, serving as one of the most egregious examples of how Sony handheld digital purchases. The entire case was highlighted as Warner Bros. Discovery content got pulled in 2023, from user libraries, without any offered refunds.

With all being said and considered, the past trends clearly show that Sony is not the one to back down. It will continue to push its anti-consumer policies as and when it gets a chance. Especially with major competition from the console market, it’s highly likely to see that such practices are repeated or, probably, soon, there will be some new way to own a monopoly.

Why does PlayStation stand alone in shifting the Console landscape?

The console landscape has dramatically shifted, and the traditional console war is now dynamically crumbling. Microsoft has already made a fundamental shift in strategy, moving some major exclusives, including “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” and “Sea of Thieves,” to PlayStation. The company is now heavily promoting Game Pass accessibility across varied devices—mobile and Fire TV. They are signaling to a future that is beyond pure hardware sales. Xbox now competes within an ecosystem, not just the consoles.Meanwhile, Nintendo is thriving on a unique hybrid model and the family-friendly IP. It’s operating in a distinct market segment instead of directly competing for hardcore gamers. Its lower price point is a huge appeal to a broad and casual audience. While some of the franchises here, like Zelda, Mario and Animal Crossing, cater to different demographics than the cinematic and mature exclusives of PlayStation.The focus of Nintendo on affordability and portability, together with its reluctance to engage in a hardware arms race and subscription wars, means it can coexist with PlayStation instead of directly opposing it. Not to mention, as Sony continues to chase high-fidelity graphics and the live-service dominance, Nintendo thrives on nostalgia and accessibility. It ensures Nintendo remains insulated from any cutthroat competition between PlayStation and Xbox.With the changing dynamics, PlayStation now seems to be the only major player that’s solely focused on publishing premium-priced and dedicated console hardware. With Xbox “embracing the multiplatform strategy” and Nintendo “doing its own thing”, Sony now faces diminished pressure from competition, for giving priority to consumer-friendly policies.The company’s dominance within traditional console hardware is now looking to be increasingly uncontested. Sooner, it might allow Sony to enforce some policies, like raising PS Plus subscription price without any addition of meaningful value. It could be riskier in the contested market.

Sony’s digital dominance and ownership erosion

Sony’s control over PlayStation Store is the cornerstone of a potential exploitation in the future. Inability to purchase digital games from third-party retailers, including CD Keys like PC platforms or Xbox, creates a captive audience. Such a monopoly would allow Sony to set high prices and resist discounting pressures.The threat extends much beyond pricing. The terms of service of the company explicitly state that users only license the digital content. They do not own it. It was starkly demonstrated as Warner Bros. Discovery content got removed from the user libraries due to expired licensing. With physical media fading, Sony now wields absolute power to revoke access to all purchased media or games, making the libraries of players inherently insecure.

PlayStation Loyalty faces rising cost, subscription squeeze and proprietary lock-in

Pricing strategies employed by Sony have grown quite aggressive. The new first-party PlayStation games are now retailing at $70, while the digital versions often cost significantly more than the physical copies. It goes up to 47% more in some of the regions, as per a Dutch lawsuit that sought €1 billion ($1.17 billion approx.) in damages from Sony.The company has even restricted digital game sales to its storefront. It eliminates price competition. On Xbox, players could purchase digital codes from retailers like CDKeys or Amazon, but PlayStation instead locked buyers into Sony’s inflated pricing.Note: The price hikes with the Premium tier taking a jump to $160 annually come with a little justification, especially as Sony has removed perks like PlayStation Plus Collection.Considering all of this, the price of PlayStation Plus now seems to be more strategic and merely inflationary. While it offers few tangible benefits, as compared to all past offerings, Sony now leverages the necessity of service for online play to bring in more revenue. New tiers—Essential, Extra and Premium lack compelling value, quite especially the underwhelming classic game library of Premium. It suggests that Sony’s focus is on profit maximization rather than service enhancement.

Even hardware lock-ins now look like another tactic. The PlayStation Portal streaming device quite notably lacks standard Bluetooth audio support. It forces users to expensive and proprietary PlayStation Link headsets. It mirrors the costly proprietary memory cards of Vita—artificial banners that have been designed to generate accessory revenue in Sony’s closed ecosystem.

Sony’s gamble on content control and live services comes with high manipulation tactics

Sony’s pursuit of live-service games has raised some red flags. While it promised many such titles, only a few materialized, and it was often laden with increased microtransactions. The launch controversy of Gran Turismo 7, where the in-game economy was altered drastically post-release to push MTX purchases after the published reviews, shows Sony’s willingness to manipulate player experience just for profit.

Together with a lack of transparency over major first-party single-player releases, much beyond Wolverine and Spider-Man 2, the live-services push shows the future to all, where the players’ engagement would get highly monetized, aggressively. All of it would be possible with Sony’s control over the environment and, quite potentially, at the expense of complete game experiences.

Roadmap ahead: Sony’s monopoly and power bring consumer risk

With the diminished competition within the traditional console hardware space, Sony now faces very little incentive to reverse its course. The current trajectory and past both point to Sony doubling down on anti-consumer practices, which can maximize its revenue in walled garden—high subscription cost, strict digital control, aggressive monetization within live-service titles and proprietary hardware dependencies.

While Sony offers acclaimed exclusives and powerful hardware, the path of PlayStation as a potential sole major hardware player risks prioritizing shareholder value over consumer ownership and choices. There will be a lot of vigilance required in the future from consumers and regulators. It is only then that Sony’s dominance could be prevented from stifling the broader gaming ecosystem.

Niko executives Lisa Hanson and Daniel Ahmad joined Bill Bishop on his Sinocism podcast on Substack Live to dive into the current state of China’s $50 billion games industry and how Chinese companies are making their marks in the global stage. Our 22 years of tracking China’s games industry coupled with Bill’s decades of expertise on China’s politics, economics and policy yielded a lot of food for thought on the pod. Scroll down for the link to view it directly.  

By the way, Niko News is now available on Substack! If you like your newsletters delivered that way, please subscribe there and recommend us on the platform. We are new to Substack and want to spread the good news, as well as the Niko News! 

We discussed some hot topics on Sinocism with Bill Bishop, concerning China’s games industry and international growth of Chinese game companies. Here are a few points we talked about: 

• The international expansion of the two giants in the Chinese game scene: Tencent and NetEase, as well as their domestic success and evergreen titles.  

• Non-licensed games can find success through Steam international as Chinese gamers can access both the Chinese and international version of Steam.  

• More game developers or publishers turn to generative AI (genAI) for game development to increase efficiency and lower cost. Almost half of Chinese gamers are both aware and interested in the leveraging of gen AI in video games. 

Watch the full episode here (42 minutes).  

Check out our reports and services to help you staying up to date on the China video game market: 

NikoIQ: Get the latest updates on game approvals, the top internet café games, esports tournaments and all the latest news and analysis on the China games market. 

China Games & Streaming Tracker: Track games, streamers, fans, tips, and more across China’s leading game live streaming platforms. 

China Games Market Report Series: Get access to our three-part report series that includes our market model and five-year forecast, gamer survey insights, and market analysis. 

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• Some Pixel owners are reporting Android 16 lock-screen issues
• They say the screen can be laggy and unresponsive
• So far, Google hasn’t issued any official advice about the issue

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The official Android 16 rollout got underway last month, with the best Pixel phones first in line for the update – but it appears that the software is causing lock-screen issues for a significant number of Pixel owners.

A variety of problems have been reported, as per 9to5Google. These include the lock screen not waking up when tapped, and not responding to a press of the power button, as well as fingerprint ID issues and extreme variations in brightness.

For Prime Day, Amazon is (once again) rolling out some of the best deals of the year on its own products. Whether you’re interested in a Kindle, a Ring or Blink security system, or the ever-popular Fire TV Sticks, these limited-time offers are the best you can get.

This year, the discounts on Fire TV Sticks go even deeper than last year with the Amazon HDMI streaming dongles hitting their lowest prices ever. It’s important to note that these are Prime Deals, so you’ll need a Prime membership to access the savings. If you’re not a member yet, you can also join the free 30-day trial and still enjoy these record-low prices.

The Fire TV Stick 4K is now discounted to just $24 from its regular $49. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max with even more high-end features is reduced to $34 from $59. If you’re wanting the most affordable option, the Fire TV Stick HD is just $17, reduced from its normal $34. Prices this low, it’s a good idea to grab a few extra devices for different rooms or even as gifts.

See Fire TV Stick 4K at Amazon

See Fire TV Stick HD at Amazon

See Fire TV Stick 4K Max at Amazon

AI-Powered Search

The star of the show is the Fire TV Stick 4K and it delivers a powerful streaming experience in a compact size. It supports 4K Ultra HD, Dolby Vision, HDR, and HDR10+, so you’ll enjoy sharp details on compatible TVs. It also boasts Wi-Fi 6 for a fast and stable connection and smooth streaming even if you have multiple devices connected to your home network. The newest model also features AI-powered Fire TV Search. With access to over 1.5 million movies and TV episodes, plus free and live TV options, you’ll never run out of things to watch.

Setting up the Fire TV Stick 4K is simple: Plug it into your TV’s HDMI port, connect to Wi-Fi, and you’re ready to stream. The Alexa Voice Remote that’s included lets you search for content and even control compatible smart home devices using only your voice. You can use the remote to turn up the volume, mute the TV, or launch apps without needing to touch a button.

Even the Fire TV Stick HD, Amazon’s entry-level model, offers a strong streaming experience with HD resolution, Alexa Voice Remote, and smart home controls. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max offers a faster streaming experience and improved connectivity compared to the Fire TV Stick 4K, thanks to its more powerful processor, expanded storage, and support for Wi-Fi 6E.

If you’re looking to modernize your home entertainment system, these Fire TV Stick deals for Prime Day represent some of the best value you’ll find all year. Make sure you don’t miss this opportunity before it runs out of stock.

See Fire TV Stick 4K at Amazon

With two days until the official launch, more details have leaked about the trio of foldable phones Samsung is about to reveal. The latest leak details the screens, storage, batteries, and other core specs of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and new Z Flip 7 FE.

The new information comes from WinFuture’s Roland Quandt, who claims to have obtained official Samsung promotional materials for the new phones, which will be officially revealed at a Galaxy Unpacked event this Wednesday, July 9th.

The Fold 7 is expected to be substantially thinner than its predecessors, and Quandt quotes marketing materials that say it will measure 4.2mm thick when unfolded, and 8.9mm folded. That would make it the same thickness as the Oppo Find N5, and just 0.1mm thicker than Honor’s Magic V5, though at 216g it would actually be the lightest book-style foldable phone yet.

It cuts the weight despite having bigger screens than the Fold 6 — 6.5 inches on the outside, and 8 inches on the inside — and squeezing in the exact same battery capacity of 4,400mAh. As expected it’ll be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, with either 256GB or 512GB of storage. This may vary by market however, as in a previous post Quandt reported on a 1TB version of the Fold 7, in line with what it offers for the current Fold 6. The only camera detail listed is a resolution of 200 megapixels, presumably for the main camera, and it will apparently launch in blue, black, and silver.

The smaller Flip 7 is just as interesting. Quandt claims that it will have a substantially larger 4.1-inch cover screen, sharing an image that shows this will wrap right around the two camera lenses, just like on Motorola’s recent Razr flip phones. That design appeared over the weekend in an alleged hands-on video of the new Z Flip, and has been seen in renders since March.

The Flip 7 is also tipped to be substantially thinner than older models despite its bigger 4,300mAh battery, only a little smaller than the Fold 7’s. Storage options and colors are the same as the bigger phone too, though the Flip sticks to a 50-megapixel main camera.

Quandt also has a few details on the long-rumored Z Flip 7 FE, expected to be a cheaper take on the flip phone. It drops to 128GB and 256GB storage, along with a smaller 4,000mAh battery. It has the same screen sizes as the main Flip 7, suggesting that it too will use the wrap-around cover display design, though that contradicts earlier reports that it will reuse the Flip 6’s design. It’s apparently only launching in black and white versions.

Amazon Prime Day may not officially start until 8 July, but the retailer already has some brilliant early deals online.

Amazon has slashed the price of its HD 10 tablet by a huge 48%. Originally retailing at £197.98, the device is now available for £102.98 as part of the retailer’s early Prime Day deals.

While it’s not the lowest price the HD 10 tablet has been discounted to in the past – the device was reduced further in the Amazon Spring Deals Day event in March this year – it’s still a substantial saving.

It’s worth noting that this particular deal is a bundle, as the device comes with two anti-glare screen protectors designed to protect against scratches and smudges. The protectors also come with a cleaning cloth and applicator card for a smooth application process.

It’s important to remember that in order to take advantage of this discount (and any Prime Day deals occurring this week), customers must have an Amazon Prime membership.

Amazon Prime membership costs £8.99 per month or £95 per year, and as well as access to Prime Day deals, members can enjoy One-Day delivery on orders (where available) and access to the Prime Video streaming service.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet is part of a new wave of Fire HD 10 launches that went on sale at the end of 2023, and is the newest model of this product.

Amazon says that the tablet has 25% faster performance than the 11th generation Fire HD 10, and is also 30g lighter.

The front-facing camera is also upgraded from 2 MP to 5 MP for better-quality pictures and video calling capabilities.

While the Fire HD 10 tablet is available in a choice of 32 or 64 GB, in a choice of three shades – black, lilac and ocean blue – the device on offer has 64 GB storage and comes in the black colourway.

It also features ads, which means that it “displays sponsored screensavers on your device’s lock screen and in sleep mode”.

The Fire HD 10 tablet also has up to 13 hours of battery life (perfect for binge watching your Prime Video favourites on the go), and comes with up to 1 TB expandable storage (sold separately).

You can expect more discounts from Amazon in its Prime Day event over the coming days, so watch out for more offers landing imminently.

As much as Microsoft would like PC owners to use its Edge browser, that’s just not the case. Chrome has five times as many Windows users as Edge, which makes Google’s browser the de facto default for Windows users around the world.

That makes Google’s confirmation that Chrome is now checking if a PC “is capable of being upgraded to Win11” interesting. As spotted by Windows Latest, this data will help “influence Google’s decision to support the browser in future.”

ForbesMicrosoft Warns 400 Million Windows Users—Upgrade Your PC NowBy Zak Doffman

Around half of all Windows users still run Windows 10, even as Windows 11 overtakes its market share for the first time. Those Windows 10 users divide into around 400 million PCs eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 and around 240 million that can’t.

Those numbers are critical. As I’ve commented before, Microsoft’s recent decision to extend security support for Windows 10, even on PCs eligible to upgrade, risks slowing down the transition to the more secure Windows 11, delaying the cliff edge 12 months.

It would be better to force all PCs that can upgrade to do so, and only extend support for those that can’t, giving those users a year’s grace to buy new hardware.

On that note, Windows 10 holdouts will have see recent reports into Microsoft “quietly downloading and installing” the KB5001716 update on Windows 10 PCs.

As Neowin points out, “the tech giant pushes this update out whenever it wishes to force-install a new feature update onto PCs.”

Microsoft says that “after this update is installed, Windows may periodically display a notification informing you of problems that may prevent Windows Update from keeping your device up-to-date and protected against current threats.”

ForbesSamsung’s Galaxy Upgrade Just Made Android More Like iPhoneBy Zak Doffman

This includes notifying you “that your device is currently running a version of Windows that has reached the end of its support lifecycle, [or] does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for the currently installed version of Windows.”

All told, any Windows 10 users expecting a quiet ride until October 2026 after taking Microsoft’s free 12-month support extension could be in a for a rude awakening. Those warnings will not stop. Put mopre simply — if you can upgrade, you should.

Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually measure important material properties.

A fully autonomous robotic system developed by MIT researchers could speed things up.

Their system utilizes a robotic probe to measure an important electrical property known as photoconductance, which is how electrically responsive a material is to the presence of light.

The researchers inject materials-science-domain knowledge from human experts into the machine-learning model that guides the robot’s decision making. This enables the robot to identify the best places to contact a material with the probe to gain the most information about its photoconductance, while a specialized planning procedure finds the fastest way to move between contact points.

During a 24-hour test, the fully autonomous robotic probe took more than 125 unique measurements per hour, with more precision and reliability than other artificial intelligence-based methods.

By dramatically increasing the speed at which scientists can characterize important properties of new semiconductor materials, this method could spur the development of solar panels that produce more electricity.

“I find this paper to be incredibly exciting because it provides a pathway for autonomous, contact-based characterization methods. Not every important property of a material can be measured in a contactless way. If you need to make contact with your sample, you want it to be fast and you want to maximize the amount of information that you gain,” says Tonio Buonassisi, professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of a paper on the autonomous system.

His co-authors include lead author Alexander (Aleks) Siemenn, a graduate student; postdocs Basita Das and Kangyu Ji; and graduate student Fang Sheng. The work appears today in Science Advances.

Making contact

Since 2018, researchers in Buonassisi’s laboratory have been working toward a fully autonomous materials discovery laboratory. They’ve recently focused on discovering new perovskites, which are a class of semiconductor materials used in photovoltaics like solar panels.

In prior work, they developed techniques to rapidly synthesize and print unique combinations of perovskite material. They also designed imaging-based methods to determine some important material properties.

But photoconductance is most accurately characterized by placing a probe onto the material, shining a light, and measuring the electrical response.

“To allow our experimental laboratory to operate as quickly and accurately as possible, we had to come up with a solution that would produce the best measurements while minimizing the time it takes to run the whole procedure,” says Siemenn.

Doing so required the integration of machine learning, robotics, and material science into one autonomous system.

To begin, the robotic system uses its onboard camera to take an image of a slide with perovskite material printed on it.

Then it uses computer vision to cut that image into segments, which are fed into a neural network model that has been specially designed to incorporate domain expertise from chemists and materials scientists.

“These robots can improve the repeatability and precision of our operations, but it is important to still have a human in the loop. If we don’t have a good way to implement the rich knowledge from these chemical experts into our robots, we are not going to be able to discover new materials,” Siemenn adds.

The model uses this domain knowledge to determine the optimal points for the probe to contact based on the shape of the sample and its material composition. These contact points are fed into a path planner that finds the most efficient way for the probe to reach all points.

The adaptability of this machine-learning approach is especially important because the printed samples have unique shapes, from circular drops to jellybean-like structures.

“It is almost like measuring snowflakes — it is difficult to get two that are identical,” Buonassisi says.

Once the path planner finds the shortest path, it sends signals to the robot’s motors, which manipulate the probe and take measurements at each contact point in rapid succession.

Key to the speed of this approach is the self-supervised nature of the neural network model. The model determines optimal contact points directly on a sample image — without the need for labeled training data.

The researchers also accelerated the system by enhancing the path planning procedure. They found that adding a small amount of noise, or randomness, to the algorithm helped it find the shortest path.

“As we progress in this age of autonomous labs, you really do need all three of these expertise — hardware building, software, and an understanding of materials science — coming together into the same team to be able to innovate quickly. And that is part of the secret sauce here,” Buonassisi says.

Rich data, rapid results

Once they had built the system from the ground up, the researchers tested each component. Their results showed that the neural network model found better contact points with less computation time than seven other AI-based methods. In addition, the path planning algorithm consistently found shorter path plans than other methods.

When they put all the pieces together to conduct a 24-hour fully autonomous experiment, the robotic system conducted more than 3,000 unique photoconductance measurements at a rate exceeding 125 per hour.

In addition, the level of detail provided by this precise measurement approach enabled the researchers to identify hotspots with higher photoconductance as well as areas of material degradation.

“Being able to gather such rich data that can be captured at such fast rates, without the need for human guidance, starts to open up doors to be able to discover and develop new high-performance semiconductors, especially for sustainability applications like solar panels,” Siemenn says.

The researchers want to continue building on this robotic system as they strive to create a fully autonomous lab for materials discovery.

Reference: Siemenn AE, Das B, Ji K, Sheng F, Buonassisi T. A self-supervised robotic system for autonomous contact-based spatial mapping of semiconductor properties. Sci Adv. 2025;11(27):eadw7071. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adw7071