Private renewable energy projects are still moving forward despite a pullback in government support, and new technology is making that construction more efficient.

Solar farms, for example, take meticulous planning and surveying, involve long hours and require significant labor. Now, robots are taking on the job.

CivDot is a four-wheeled robot that can mark up to 3,000 layout points per day and is accurate within 8 millimeters. The machine can ride over rugged terrain and work through rough weather.

It is the brainchild of California-based Civ Robotics.

“Our secret sauce and our core technology is actually in the navigation and the geospatial — being able to literally mark coordinates within less than a quarter inch, which is very, very difficult in an uneven terrain, outdoor surfaces, and out in the desert,” said Tom Yeshurun, CEO of Civ Robotics.

The data for manual surveying is uploaded into the Civ software, then the operator chooses the area they want to mark and presses go. The robot does the rest, saving both time and money.

“The manual surveying equipment, if you use that in the field and you have three crews, they will need three land surveying handheld receivers. That alone is already equal to how much we lease our machines in the field, and all the labor savings is just another benefit,” Yeshurun said.

Civ Robotics has more than 100 of these robots in the field that are primarily being used by renewable energy companies, but they are also used in oil and gas. It is currently working with Bechtel Corporation on several solar projects.

“These were usually pretty highly paid field engineers that we would send out there, and they might be able to do 250 or 350 pile marks a day. With the CivDot robot, we’re able to do about 1250 a day,” said Kelley Brown, vice president at Bechtel.

Brown said the company has used the robot in thick and muddy terrain in Texas and out in the deserts of Nevada.

“And so you have to think about things like the tires, or you may have to think about clearance. Are you trying to get over existing brush and such, across the solar field? So that’s one thing that we contemplate. I think the other is, you know, this runs on batteries, so you’ve got to contemplate battery swaps,” she added.

Civ Robotics is backed by Alleycorp, FF Venture Capital, Bobcat Company, Newfund Capital, Trimble Ventures, and Converge. Total VC funding to date is $12.5 million.

There are other robotics solutions for markings, but the competition is mostly doing work on highways and soccer fields. Yeshurun said those rivals can’t handle the terrains that the solar industry faces as it expands into new territories.

 CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.

PlayStation 5 game consoles will cost $50 more in the U.S. starting this week, Sony announced on Wednesday.

The price for an entry-level PlayStation 5 Digital Edition will increase from $450 to $500, and a PlayStation 5 with a disc drive is going up to $550 from $500. Sony’s high-end PlayStation 5 Pro will cost $750, up from $700. The PlayStation 5 was first released in 2020.

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan announced in April went into effect earlier this month on most countries. The U.S. currently has a 30% tariff on imports from China, and higher tariffs on goods from the world’s second-largest economy are currently “paused,” according to the administration. Sony’s home country of Japan was hit with a 15% tariff.

While Sony didn’t attribute the increase to Trump’s tariffs, consumer companies have been warning for months that higher prices are on the way.

“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,” Sony said in its blog post.

The company said that retail prices for console accessories such as controllers haven’t changed.

Earlier this month, Sony officials said the company was working on supply chain diversification to combat U.S. tariffs, and said that the console hardware it sells in the U.S. is produced outside of China.

“It is difficult to speak to our hardware pricing strategy as that has implications for our future competitive strategy,” ” Sony officials said, according to a translated transcript of a call with financial analysts posted on its website. “But we intend to take a flexible approach to such decision-making by monitoring consumer price sensitivity as we think about total full-year segment profits, lifetime value, manufacturing, units sold in, and our content sales potential.”

In May, Microsoft raised the price of its Xbox video game consoles. Nintendo delayed pre-orders of its Switch 2 by a few weeks in April, attributing the delay to tariffs. Although Nintendo did not raise the price of its new consoles, it hiked the price of the original Switch earlier this month.

WATCH: Nintendo President on the new Switch 2, tariffs and what’s next for the company

Google on Wednesday debuted its latest line of Pixel smartphones that prominently feature the Gemini assistant as artificial intelligence increasingly becomes the battleground where device companies compete.

The Alphabet company announced the Pixel 10 family of smartphones, saying the devices can use Google’s AI to do smart tasks, like quickly surfacing the address of an Airbnb when someone sends a text asking for it.

The Pixel 10 series includes several models and incorporates new AI and camera features. The baseline model, the Pixel 10, starts at $799 and is available in several colors. A more powerful Pixel 10 Pro starts at $999, and the Pixel 10 Pro XL with a larger screen and 256GB of base storage starts at $1,199. Google is also releasing an updated version of its folding phone, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, that starts at $1,799.

Google’s Pixel phone launch comes before Apple is expected to announce new iPhone models in September. While the Pixel typically has single-digit market share — far behind brands like Samsung, Motorola and Apple — the devices enable Google to release cutting-edge Android features without going through third-party hardware makers. The Pixel line of devices also allows Google to showcase how it believes its Android software compares with that of the iPhone.

The latest series of smartphones also have the potential to serve as a funnel for Google’s artificial intelligence services and subscriptions. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis previously described a vision for a universal assistant that “can seamlessly operate over any domain, any modality or any device.” Hassabis told employees at an all-hands meeting last year that “the products themselves are going to evolve massively over the next year or two.”

Google’s Gemini models are considered by critics to be more advanced than the models underpinning Apple Intelligence, the iPhone’s built-in AI suite.

Earlier this year, Apple delayed a big update to Siri until 2026, creating an opening for Google to secure a lead among AI-eager customers with its well-respected Gemini assistant, which can already hold a natural conversation and manage calendars and other apps. A Google Pixel 10 ad released earlier this month poked fun at Apple’s Siri delays.

“If you buy a new phone because of a feature that’s coming soon, but it’s coming soon for a full year, you could change your definition of soon, or change your phone,” the Pixel ad said.

Among the Pixel 10’s key AI features is “Magic Cue,” which Google said is an AI product that “brings a new level of personalized intelligence and helpfulness.”

If calling an airline, Magic Cue surfaces flight details “as soon as you dial,” the company says, adding that it is meant to anticipate the users’ needs and suggest “relevant information and helpful actions based on the context on your phone.”

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold, meanwhile, has the largest inner display among devices with foldable screens at 8 inches, Google said. The screen is built with two layers of anti-impact film for added drop protection. It also has a new “high-strength” hinge that the company says can handle over 10 years of folding.

Google touts the Fold’s “split screen” abilities which allows users to navigate to different apps on the two screens.

“Imagine planning a trip with friends by comparing flight details in one app and checking hotel availability in another,” the company said.

Already, Samsung appears to be gaining momentum with its line of foldable Galaxy Z Fold 7 phones. Analysts say Apple is expected to release its first foldable-screen iPhone as soon as 2026.

The Pixel series also incorporates Gemini Live, a Google product that allows back-and-forth chat about what the phone is “seeing” on its screen in real time. It’s built on Google’s image recognition prototype Project Astra, which the company announced last year.

For the smartphone camera, Google announced a new assistant called “Camera Coach,” that can describe the scene of a photo, offer suggestions, and recommend the best angle and lighting. It can also find and combine similar photos into one “where everyone looks their best.”

The Pixel 10 Pro phones come with a one-year subscription to Google’s “AI Pro” plan, which is typically $19 a month and gives users some extra Gemini features, priority access to AI products like NotebookLM and Veo 3 as well as extra storage.

Despite Google’s unique smartphone offerings, there haven’t been major signs that artificial intelligence has yet become a key driver of smartphone sales, or that users are deciding to switch from Apple’s platform to Android due to AI offerings. No major manufacturer has claimed the features have significantly boosted sales. But analysts say that eventually, Google could crack an AI feature that catches on among users and starts to erode Apple’s installed base.