From Dora the Explorer to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, perhaps no television programming is as interactive by nature as children’s TV, where characters will regularly break the fourth wall to appeal to their young audience directly.

Now, kids will sometimes have a chance to chat back through a new special slate of interactive episodes from PBS Kids. The public broadcaster is working with academic partners to study how AI-assisted conversation can help enhance the educational content of certain animated series.

But rather than sometimes hallucination-prone generative models, the technology is built on top of more conventional natural language processing, meaning that all of the potential dialogue is still written by the show’s staffers.

At a time when ChatGPT in the classroom has raised questions about AI’s role in education, Sara DeWitt, PBS Kids’s senior vice president and general manager, said the goal is to explore how AI-enhanced interactivity can help kids learn more from the media they consume.

“At PBS, we’re always trying to think about what new technologies and what new media opportunities can do for kids’ learning,” DeWitt told Tech Brew. “[This technology] has so much potential for really shifting so much of the landscape.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Generative AI is coming to nuclear power plants—but it’s perhaps less scary than it sounds.

California’s last remaining nuclear power plant, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, recently teamed with AI startup Atomic Canyon to handle office tasks like document search and retrieval. The goal is to ease management of the extensive regulatory documentation operator Pacific Gas & Electric is required to log on the facility.

The startup claims it’s the first time generative AI has been used onsite at a US nuclear power plant.

But use cases like these are nothing new for large language models—delegating certain rote paperwork and organizing internal information are among the most intuitive ways for all kinds of offices to put this type of AI to work. Atomic Canyon has eyed a niche in the nuclear power industry, which requires reams of datalogs and operational notes to stay compliant with safety rules, as well as plenty of specialized knowledge.

Nuclear energy also happens to be booming right now, thanks in big part to AI itself. Faced with a power crunch brought on by the massive data centers needed to train and run generative AI models, tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have turned to an energy source that conveniently seems to be enjoying newfound public acceptance after decades of safety stigma.

Keep reading here.—PK

President-elect Donald Trump over the weekend tapped Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission, a move that could have extraplanetary implications.

The appointment bodes well for Trump ally Elon Musk, who could face a friendlier regulatory environment for Starlink satellite launches under Trump rule, despite increasing concerns from scientists about environmental damage from satellites.

Carr, who was appointed to the commission by Trump in 2017, currently serves as the senior Republican at the agency and authored a Project 2025 chapter on how the FCC should operate under a second Trump term.

Carr wrote in the Project 2025 document that he hopes to “advance America’s space leadership,” in part by speeding up FCC review and approval of satellite launches.

“I would say he’s very diligent, very committed to a project that he sinks his teeth into,” Michael O’Rielly, a former FCC commissioner who worked alongside Carr from 2017 to 2020, told Tech Brew.

But while there’s been plenty of chatter about what Carr’s appointment means for Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink, O’Rielly said Musk’s potential influence is not necessarily “a leg up” and noted the FCC was already focused on space.

Keep reading here.—PB

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Let’s move: For those of us who hang out behind the keyboard all day, hitting a step goal can be rather challenging. There’s a simple device that can aid in upping your step count, though: a desk treadmill. Is it a little dystopian? Sure. But does it actually aid meeting movement goals? Indeed.

Comparison shopping: Doing your holiday shopping at brick-and-mortar outlets or all online? Why not both? Retail Brew detailed upgrades to Google Shopping to make it easier to use its Lens feature when shopping IRL.