All The News You Missed Overnight: No More Military iRobots

Good morning! It’s a busy world out there. All The News You Missed Overnight gives you a guide to everything techy that happened while you were sleeping.

iRobot Is Selling Its Military Robotics Division To Focus On Cute House Cleaners
Robot manufacturer iRobot announced on Thursday that it is selling off its military line of robots to Arlington Capital Partners to be spun off into a new company, in order to better focus on the growing market for home robotics.

iRobot is famous for its home cleaning robot, the Roomba, as well as the PackBot — robots which are used in war or hazardous zones for bomb disposal or chemical testing. iRobot will be selling off their Defence & Securities division to Arlington Capital Partners for up to $US45 million ($64 million), a deal which is expected to close in a couple of months.

New York’s Nuclear Power Plant Is Leaking, But You Shouldn’t Freak Out
Buchanan New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, a three-unit reactor power plant, reported yesterday afternoon that radioactive tritium has been detected in groundwater testing wells near the facility.

Three groundwater monitoring wells surrounding the plant have reported radioactive samples. Despite the discovery at the site, the risk to the public in this instance is low: the discovery is far removed from drinking water systems. That said, tritiated water is often diluted and routinely released from nuclear power plants.

General Electric Will No Longer Make Fluorescent Lighbulbs
GE just announced that it no longer make or sell compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) lightbulbs in the US. The company will wind down the manufacturing of CFL bulbs over the course of the years, and it will begin to shift its focus on making the newest and most energy-efficient lightbulbs — LEDs.

This is good news for a few reasons. Figuring out exactly which one to buy can be a pain: Incandescent bulbs are cheap, but burn out easily. CFL bulbs, the weird curly things that’ve become popular in recent years, are also brighter and last longer. However, they take long to warm up and use poisonous chemicals like mercury to generate light. LEDs last the longest and use the least amount of energy, but they’re the most expensive. Now, thanks to General Electric, there might be some relief next time you’re shopping for bulbs.

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