This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How cuddly robots could change dementia care

Companion animals can stave off some of the loneliness, anxiety, and agitation that come with Alzheimer’s disease, according to studies. Sadly, people with Alzheimer’s aren’t always equipped to look after pets, which can require a lot of care and attention.

Enter cuddly robots. The most famous are Golden Pup, a robotic golden retriever toy that cocks its head, barks and wags its tail, and Paro the seal, which can sense touch, light, sound, temperature, and posture. As robots go they’re decidedly low tech, but they can provide comfort and entertainment to people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Now researchers are working on much more sophisticated robots for people with cognitive disorders—devices that leverage AI to converse and play games—that could change the future of dementia care. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly health and biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

What tech learned from Daedalus

Today’s climate-change kraken may have been unleashed by human activity, but reversing course and taming nature’s growing fury seems beyond human means, a quest only mythical heroes could fulfill. 

Yet the dream of human-powered flight—of rising over the Mediterranean fueled merely by the strength of mortal limbs—was also the stuff of myths for thousands of years. Until 1988.

That year, in October, MIT Technology Review published the aeronautical engineer John Langford’s account of his mission to retrace the legendary flight of Daedalus, described in an ancient Greek myth. Read about how he got on.

—Bill Gourgey

The story is from the current print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is on the fascinating theme of Build. If you don’t already, subscribe now to receive future copies once they land.

Get ready for EmTech Digital 

AI is everywhere these days. If you want to learn about how Google plans to develop and deploy AI, come and hear from its vice president of AI, Jay Yagnik, at our flagship AI conference, EmTech Digital. We’ll hear from OpenAI about its video generation model Sora too, and Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, will also join MIT Technology Review’s executive editor Amy Nordrum for an exclusive interview on stage. 

It’ll be held at the MIT campus and streamed live online next week on May 22-23. Readers of The Download get 30% off tickets with the code DOWNLOADD24—register here for more information. See you there! 

Thermal batteries are hot property

Thermal batteries could be a key part of cleaning up heavy industry and cutting emissions. Casey Crownhart, our in-house battery expert, held a subscriber-only online Roundtables event yesterday digging into why they’re such a big deal. If you missed it, we’ve got you covered—you can watch a recording of how it unfolded here. 

To keep ahead of future Roundtables events, make sure you subscribe to MIT Technology Review. Subscriptions start from as little as $8 a month.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI has struck a deal with Reddit 
Shortly after Google agreed to give the AI firm access to its content. (WSJ $)
+ The forum’s vocal community are unlikely to be thrilled by the decision. (The Verge)
+ Reddit’s shares rocketed after news of the deal broke. (FT $)
+ We could run out of data to train AI language programs. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Tesla’s European gigafactory is going to get even bigger
But it still needs German environmental authorities’ permission. (Wired $)

3 Help! AI stole my voice
Voice actors are suing a startup for creating digital clones without their permission. (NYT $)
+ The lawsuit is seeking to represent other voiceover artists, too. (Hollywood Reporter $)

4 The days of twitter.com are over
The platform’s urls had retained its old moniker. But no more. (The Verge)

5 The aviation industry is desperate for greener fuels
The future of their businesses depends on it. (FT $)
+ A new report has warned there’s no realistic or scalable alternative. (The Guardian)
+ Everything you need to know about the wild world of alternative jet fuels. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The time for a superconducting supercomputer is now
We need to overhaul how we compute. Superconductors could be the answer. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ What’s next for the world’s fastest supercomputers. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How AI destroyed a once-vibrant online art community
DeviantArt used to be a hotbed of creativity. Now it’s full of bots. (Slate $)
+ This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it. (MIT Technology Review)

8 TV bundles are back in a big way
Streaming hasn’t delivered on its many promises. (The Atlantic $)

9 This creator couple act as “digital parents” to their fans in China
Jiang Xiuping and Pan Huqian’s loving clips resonate with their million followers. (Rest of World)
+ Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business. (MIT Technology Review)

10 We’re addicted to the exquisite pain of sharing memes
If your friend has already seen it, their reaction could ruin your day. (GQ)

Quote of the day

“It was a good idea, but unfortunately people took advantage of it and it brought out their lewd side. People got carried away.”

—Aaron Cohen, who visited the video portal connecting New York and Dublin, is disappointed that the art installation was shut down after enthusiastic users took things too far, he tells the Guardian.

The big story

Psychedelics are having a moment and women could be the ones to benefit

August 2022

Psychedelics are having a moment. After decades of prohibition, they are increasingly being employed as therapeutics. Drugs like ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin mushrooms are being studied in clinical trials to treat depression, substance abuse, and a range of other maladies.

And as these long-taboo drugs stage a comeback in the scientific community, it’s possible they could be especially promising for women. Read the full story.

—Taylor Majewski

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Is it possible to live by the original constitution in present day New York City? The answer is yes: if you don’t mind being bombarded with questions.
+ These Balkan recipes sound absolutely delicious.
+ The Star Wars: The Phantom Menace backlash is mind boggling to this day.
+ Love to party? Get yourself to these cities, stat.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

This grim but revolutionary DNA technology is changing how we respond to mass disasters

Last August, a wildfire tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui. The list of missing residents climbed into the hundreds, as friends and families desperately searched for their missing loved ones. But while some were rewarded with tearful reunions, others weren’t so lucky.
Over the past several years, as fires and other climate-change-fueled disasters have become more common and more cataclysmic, the way their aftermath is processed and their victims identified has been transformed.

The grim work following a disaster remains—surveying rubble and ash, distinguishing a piece of plastic from a tiny fragment of bone—but landing a positive identification can now take just a fraction of the time it once did, which may in turn bring families some semblance of peace swifter than ever before. Read the full story.

—Erika Hayasaki

OpenAI and Google are launching supercharged AI assistants. Here’s how you can try them out.

This week, Google and OpenAI both announced they’ve built supercharged AI assistants: tools that can converse with you in real time and recover when you interrupt them, analyze your surroundings via live video, and translate conversations on the fly. 

Soon you’ll be able to explore for yourself to gauge whether you’ll turn to these tools in your daily routine as much as their makers hope, or whether they’re more like a sci-fi party trick that eventually loses its charm. Here’s what you should know about how to access these new tools, what you might use them for, and how much it will cost. 

—James O’Donnell

Last summer was the hottest in 2,000 years. Here’s how we know.

The summer of 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere was the hottest in over 2,000 years, according to a new study released this week.

There weren’t exactly thermometers around in the year 1, so scientists have to get creative when it comes to comparing our climate today with that of centuries, or even millennia, ago. 

Casey Crownhart, our climate reporter, has dug into how they figured it out. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

A wave of retractions is shaking physics

Recent highly publicized scandals have gotten the physics community worried about its reputation—and its future. Over the last five years, several claims of major breakthroughs in quantum computing and superconducting research, published in prestigious journals, have disintegrated as other researchers found they could not reproduce the blockbuster results. 

Last week, around 50 physicists, scientific journal editors, and emissaries from the National Science Foundation gathered at the University of Pittsburgh to discuss the best way forward. Read the full story to learn more about what they discussed.

—Sophia Chen

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Google has buried search results under new AI features  
Want to access links? Good luck finding them! (404 Media)
+ Unfortunately, it’s a sign of what’s to come. (Wired $)
+ Do you trust Google to do the Googling for you? (The Atlantic $)
+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Cruise has settled with the pedestrian injured by one of its cars
It’s awarded her between $8 million and $12 million. (WP $)
+ The company is slowly resuming its test drives in Arizona. (Bloomberg $)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Microsoft is asking AI staff in China to consider relocating
Tensions between the countries are rising, and Microsoft worries its workers could end up caught in the cross-fire. (WSJ $)
+ They’ve been given the option to relocate to the US, Ireland, or other locations. (Reuters)
+ Three takeaways about the state of Chinese tech in the US. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Car rental firm Hertz is offloading its Tesla fleet
But people who snapped up the bargain cars are already running into problems. (NY Mag $)

5 We’re edging closer towards a quantum internet
But first we need to invent an entirely new device. (New Scientist $)
+ What’s next for quantum computing. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Making computer chips has never been more important
And countries and businesses are vying to be top dog. (Bloomberg $)
+ What’s next in chips. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Your smartphone lasts a lot longer than it used to
Keeping them in good working order still takes a little work, though. (NYT $)

8 Psychedelics could help lessen chronic pain
If you can get hold of them. (Vox)
+ VR is as good as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Scientists are plotting how to protect the Earth from dangerous asteroids
Smashing them into tiny pieces is certainly one solution. (Undark Magazine)
+ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Elon Musk still wants to fight Mark Zuckerberg 
The grudge match of the century is still rumbling on. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“This road map leads to a dead end.” 

—Evan Greer, director of advocacy group Fight for the Future, is far from impressed with US Senators’ ‘road map’ for new AI regulations, they tell the Washington Post.

The big story

The two-year fight to stop Amazon from selling face recognition to the police 

June 2020

In the summer of 2018, nearly 70 civil rights and research organizations wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos demanding that Amazon stop providing Rekognition, its face recognition technology, to governments. 

Despite the mounting pressure, Amazon continued pushing Rekognition as a tool for monitoring “people of interest”. But two years later, the company shocked civil rights activists and researchers when it announced that it would place a one-year moratorium on police use of the software. Read the full story.

—Karen Hao

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This old school basketball animation is beyond cool.
+ Your search for the perfect summer read is over: all of these sound fantastic.
+ Analyzing the color theory in Disney’s Aladdin? Why not!
+ Never buy a bad cantaloupe again with these essential tips.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google’s Astra is its first AI-for-everything agent

What’s happening: Google is set to launch a new system called Astra later this year. It promises that it will be the most powerful, advanced type of AI assistant it’s ever launched. 

What’s an agent? The current generation of AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, can retrieve information and offer answers, but that is about it. But this year, Google is rebranding its assistants as more advanced “agents,” which it says could show reasoning, planning, and memory skills and are able to take multiple steps to execute tasks. 

The big picture: Tech companies are in the middle of a fierce competition over AI supremacy, and  AI agents are the latest effort from Big Tech firms to show they are pushing the frontier of development. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Technology is probably changing us for the worse—or so we always think

Do we use technology, or does it use us? Do our gadgets improve our lives or just make us weak, lazy, and dumb? These are old questions—maybe older than you think. You’re probably familiar with the way alarmed grown-ups through the decades have assailed the mind-rotting potential of search engines, video games, television, and radio—but those are just the recent examples.

Here at MIT Technology Review, writers have grappled with the effects, real or imagined, of tech on the human mind for over a century. But while we’ve always greeted new technologies with a mixture of fascination and fear, something interesting always happens. We get used to it. Read the full story.

—Timothy Maher

MIT Technology Review is celebrating our 125th anniversary with an online series that draws lessons for the future from our past coverage of technology. Check out this piece from the series by David Rotman, our editor at large, about how fear AI will take our jobs is nothing new.

Hong Kong is safe from China’s Great Firewall—for now

Last week, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal granted an injunction that permits the city government to go to Western platforms like YouTube and Spotify and demand they remove the protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” because the government claims it has been used for sedition.

Aside from the depressing implications for pro-democracy movements’ decline in Hong Kong, this lawsuit has also been an interesting case study of the local government’s complicated relationship with internet control. Although it’s tightening its grip, it’s still wary of imposing full-blown ‘Great Firewall’ style censorship. Read the full story to find out why.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech and power in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Ilya Sutskever is leaving OpenAI  
Where its former chief scientist goes next is anyone’s guess. (NYT $)
+ It’s highly likely Sutskever’s new project will be focussed on AGI. (WP $)
+ Read our interview with Sutskever from last October. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The US AI roadmap is here
Senators claim it’s the “broadest and deepest” piece of AI legislation to date. (WP $)
+ What’s next for AI regulation in 2024? (MIT Technology Review)

3 A real estate mogul has made a bid to acquire TikTok
Frank McCourt has thrown his hat into the ring to own the company’s US business. (WSJ $)
+ The depressing truth about TikTok’s impending ban. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Neuralink’s brain implant issues are nothing new
Insiders claim that the firm has known about problems with the implant’s wires for years. (Reuters)

5 Wannabe mothers are finding sperm donors on Facebook 
The industry’s sky-high fees are driving women to the social network. (NY Mag $)
+ I took an international trip with my frozen eggs to learn about the fertility industry. (MIT Technology Review)

6 We’re getting a better idea of how long you can expect to lose weight on Wegovy
But we still don’t know how long people have to keep taking the drug to maintain it. (Ars Technica)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)

7 What do DNA tests for the masses really achieve?
Most customers don’t really need to know if they’re genetically predisposed to hate cilantro or not. (Bloomberg $)

8 How to save rainforests from wildfires
Even lush green spaces aren’t safe from flames. (Hakai Magazine)
+ The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Memestocks are mounting a major comeback
It’s like 2021 all over again. (Vox)

10 Mark Zuckerberg’s just turned 40
It looks like his new rapper look is here to stay. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“His brilliance and vision are well known; his warmth and compassion are less well known but no less important.”

—Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, offers a measured response to the news that Ilya Sutskever is leaving the company in a post on X.

The big story

How to measure all the world’s fresh water

December 2021

The Congo River is the world’s second-largest river system after the Amazon. More than 75 million people depend on it for food and water, as do thousands of species of plants and animals. The massive tropical rainforest sprawled across its middle helps regulate the entire Earth’s climate system, but the amount of water in it is something of a mystery.

Scientists rely on monitoring stations to track the river, but what was once a network of some 400 stations has dwindled to just 15. Measuring water is key to helping people prepare for natural disasters and adapt to climate change—so researchers are increasingly filling data gaps using information gathered from space. Read the full story.

—Maria Gallucci

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The Cookie Monster had no right to go this hard!
+ It’s time to make product design great again. But how, exactly?
+ The universe is humming all the time, but no one really knows why.
+ Who here remembers the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES?

Pastel cities trapped in a timeless future-past. Empty apartments drenched in nostalgia. Classic convertibles speeding into a low-res sunset. Femme fatales and mutated monsters doing battle. Deep, dark dungeons and glittering star ships floating in space. All captured in a eerie palette of 4096 colours and somehow, you're sure, from some alternate 1980s world you can't quite remember... Drawn painstakingly one pixel at a time, with a palette of 4096 possible colours, pushing the limits of these 80's era machines memory, these early graphic artists and hackers alike have left an indelible mark on the world of digital art and internet culture, only to be forgotten in the passing of time. But what made this boring business computer from Japan so special?

The strange world of Japan's PC-98 computer [contains some NSFW pixel art] / More striking imagery: Incredible pictures from an era of games we never got to experience [CW: flashing lights] - Tumblr: High quality [SFW] pixel art from PC-98 games - Pixelation.org: The Art of PC98 - Amino: The world of PC-98 Pixel Art - Galleries from @noirlac, @item, and @densetsu.ch

A downloadable pack of over 7,000 PC-98 images and GIFs [check the current page for v4, coming soon-ish] Video: PC-98: Japan's Own Era of Early PC Gaming [CW: flashing lights] Video: Over 50 NEC PC-98 Games In Under 30 Minutes TVTropes has an extensive primer on the platform followed by a long list of game articles Music: A selection of unique PC-98 tracks by composer Takeaki Watanabe Hardware: Restoring & Learning All About The NEC PC-9821 [transcript included!] DIY: PC-98 Emulation For Beginners A collection of PC-98 image files for use with an emulator

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

OpenAI’s new GPT-4o lets people interact using voice or video in the same model

The news: OpenAI just debuted GPT-4o, a new kind of AI model that you can communicate with in real time via live voice conversation, video streams from your phone, and text. The model is rolling out over the next few weeks and will be free for all users through both the GPT app and the web interface, according to the company.

How does it differ to GPT-4? GPT-4 also gives users multiple ways to interact with OpenAI’s AI offerings. But it siloed them in separate models, leading to longer response times and presumably higher computing costs. GPT-4o has now merged those capabilities into a single model to deliver faster responses and smoother transitions between tasks.

The big picture: The result, the company’s demonstration suggests, is a conversational assistant much in the vein of Siri or Alexa—but capable of fielding much more complex prompts. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

What to expect at Google I/O

Google is holding its I/O conference today, May 14, and we expect them to announce a whole new slew of AI features, further embedding it into everything it does.

There has been a lot of speculation that it will upgrade its crown jewel, Search, with generative AI features that could, for example, go behind a paywall. Google, despite having 90% of the online search market, is in a defensive position this year. It’s racing to catch up with its rivals Microsoft and OpenAI, while upstarts such as Perplexity AI have launched their own versions of AI-powered search to rave reviews.

While the company is tight-lipped about its announcements, we can make educated guesses. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä 

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

Get ready for EmTech Digital 

If you want to learn more about how Google plans to develop and deploy AI, come and hear from its vice president of AI, Jay Yagnik, at our flagship AI conference, EmTech Digital. We’ll hear from OpenAI about its video generation model Sora too, and Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, will also join MIT Technology Review’s executive editor Amy Nordrum for an exclusive interview on stage. 

It’ll be held at the MIT campus and streamed live online next week on May 22-23. Readers of The Download get 30% off tickets with the code DOWNLOADD24—register here for more information. See you there!

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 US senators are preparing to unveil their ‘AI roadmap’ 
The guidelines, which aren’t legislation, will cost billions of dollars to implement. (WP $)
+ What’s next for AI regulation. (MIT Technology Review)

2 It’s going to get much more expensive to import tech from China
The Biden administration has hiked tariffs on batteries, EVs and semiconductors. (FT $)
+ Three takeaways about the state of Chinese tech in the US. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The NYC mayor wants to equip the subway with gun-detection tech 
Even though the firm maintains its detectors aren’t designed for that environment. (Wired $)
+ The maker’s relationship with Disney appears to have been a key factor in the decision. (The Verge)
+ Can AI keep guns out of schools? (MIT Technology Review)

4 A Chinese crypto miner has been forced to abandon its facility in Wyoming
The US said it was too close to an Air Force base and a data center doing work for the Pentagon. (Bloomberg $)
+ Microsoft first flagged the mine to authorities last year. (NYT $)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)

5 App Stores are big business
And governments want to rein them in. (Economist $)

6 How social media ads attract networks of predators
Audience tools highlight how platforms’ algorithms direct them to pictures of children. (NYT $)

7 Enterprising Amazon workers are using bots to nab time off slots
Employees are using automated scripts to gain an edge over their colleagues. (404 Media)

8 Dating app Bumble is ditching its ads criticizing celibacy
Critics say the billboards undermined daters’ freedom of choice. (WSJ $)
+ The platform is in a state of flux right now. (NY Mag $)

9 Buying digital movies is a risky business
What happens if the platform you bought them on shuts down? (The Guardian)

10 The New York-Dublin video portal has been temporarily shut down
Who could have predicted that people would behave inappropriately? (BBC)
+ There have been some heartwarming interactions too, though. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Rewatched Her last weekend and it felt a lot like rewatching Contagion in Feb 2020.”

—Noam Brown, an OpenAI researcher, reflects on X about the vast changes the company’s new companion AI model GPT-4o could usher in.

The big story

I took an international trip with my frozen eggs to learn about the fertility industry

September 2022

—Anna Louie Sussman

Like me, my eggs were flying economy class. They were ensconced in a cryogenic storage flask packed into a metal suitcase next to Paolo, the courier overseeing their passage from a fertility clinic in Bologna, Italy, to the clinic in Madrid, Spain, where I would be undergoing in vitro fertilization.

The shipping of gametes and embryos around the world is a growing part of a booming global fertility sector. As people have children later in life, the need for fertility treatment increases each year.

After paying for storage costs for years, at 40 I was ready to try to get pregnant. And transporting the Bolognese batch served to literally put all my eggs in one basket. Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)+ Bayley the sheepadoodle really does look just like Snoopy.
+ The secret to better sleep? Setting a consistent wake-up time (and sticking to it.)
+ Going Nemo-spotting in the Great Barrier Reef sounds pretty amazing.
+ Here’s exactly what the benefits of eating colorful fruit and veg are, broken down by color.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What’s next in chips

Thanks to the boom in artificial intelligence, the world of chips is on the cusp of a huge tidal shift. There is heightened demand for chips that can train AI models faster and ping them from devices like smartphones and satellites, enabling us to use these models without disclosing private data. Governments, tech giants, and startups alike are racing to carve out their slices of the growing semiconductor pie. 

James O’Donnell, our AI reporter, has dug into the four trends to look for in the year ahead that will define what the chips of the future will look like, who will make them, and which new technologies they’ll unlock. Read on to see what he found out.

Eric Schmidt: Why America needs an Apollo program for the age of AI

—Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. He is currently cofounder of  philanthropic initiative Schmidt Futures.

The global race for computational power is well underway, fueled by a worldwide boom in artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s Sam Altman is seeking to raise as much as $7 trillion for a chipmaking venture. Tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon are building AI chips of their own. 

The need for more computing horsepower to train and use AI models—fueling a quest for everything from cutting-edge chips to giant data sets—isn’t just a current source of geopolitical leverage (as with US curbs on chip exports to China). It is also shaping the way nations will grow and compete in the future, with governments from India to the UK developing national strategies and stockpiling Nvidia graphics processing units. 

I believe it’s high time for America to have its own national compute strategy: an Apollo program for the age of AI. Read the full story.

AI systems are getting better at tricking us

The news: A wave of AI systems have “deceived” humans in ways they haven’t been explicitly trained to do, by offering up untrue explanations for their behavior or concealing the truth from human users and misleading them to achieve a strategic end. 

Why it matters: Talk of deceiving humans might suggest that these models have intent. They don’t. But AI models will mindlessly find workarounds to obstacles to achieve the goals that have been given to them. Sometimes these workarounds will go against users’ expectations and feel deceitful. Above all, this issue highlights how difficult artificial intelligence is to control, and the unpredictable ways in which these systems work.  Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Why thermal batteries are so hot right now

A whopping 20% of global energy consumption goes to generate heat in industrial processes, most of it using fossil fuels. This often-overlooked climate problem may have a surprising solution in systems called thermal batteries, which can store energy as heat using common materials like bricks, blocks, and sand.

We are holding an exclusive subscribers-only online discussion digging into what thermal batteries are, how they could help cut emissions, and what we can expect next with climate reporter Casey Crownhart and executive editor Amy Nordrum.

We’ll be going live at midday ET on Thursday 16 May. Register here to join us!

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 These companies will happily sell you deepfake detection services
The problem is, their capabilities are largely untested. (WP $)
+ A Hong Kong-based crypto exchange has been accused of deepfaking Elon Musk. (Insider $)+ It’s easier than ever to make seriously convincing deepfakes. (The Guardian)
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Apple is close to striking a deal with OpenAI 
To bring ChatGPT to iPhones for the first time. (Bloomberg $)

3 GPS warfare is filtering down into civilian life
Once the preserve of the military, unreliable GPS causes havoc for ordinary people. (FT $)
+ Russian hackers may not be quite as successful as they claim. (Wired $)

4 The first patient to receive a genetically modified pig’s kidney has died
But the hospital says his death doesn’t seem to be linked to the transplant. (NYT $)
+ Synthetic blood platelets could help to address a major shortage. (Wired $)
+ A woman from New Jersey became the second living recipient just weeks later. (MIT Technology Review)

5 This weekend’s solar storm broke critical farming systems 
Satellite disruptions temporarily rendered some tractors useless. (404 Media)
+ The race to fix space-weather forecasting before the next big solar storm hits. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The US can’t get enough of startups
Everyone’s a founder now. (Economist $)
+ Climate tech is back—and this time, it can’t afford to fail. (MIT Technology Review)

7 What AI could learn from game theory
AI models aren’t reliable. These tools could help improve that. (Quanta Magazine)

8 The frantic hunt for rare bitcoin is heating up
Even rising costs aren’t deterring dedicated hunters. (Wired $)

9 LinkedIn is getting into games
Come for the professional networking opportunities, stay for the puzzles. (NY Mag $)

10 Billions of years ago, the Moon had a makeover
And we’re only just beginning to understand what may have caused it. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“Human beings are not billiard balls on a table.”

—Sonia Livingstone, a psychologist, explains why it’s so hard to study the impact of technology on young people’s mental health to the Financial Times.

The big story

How greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

April 2019

In March 2011, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project between his country and the United Arab Emirates. At the time, the plant was the single biggest nuclear reactor deal in history.

But less than a decade later, Korea is dismantling its nuclear industry, shutting down older reactors and scrapping plans for new ones. State energy companies are being shifted toward renewables. What went wrong? Read the full story.

—Max S. Kim

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The Comedy Pet Photography Awards never disappoints.
+ This bit of Chas n Dave-meets-Eminem trivia is too good not to share (thanks Charlotte!)
+ Audio-only video games? Interesting…
+ Trying to learn something? Write it down.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google helped make an exquisitely detailed map of a tiny piece of the human brain

The news: A team led by scientists from Harvard and Google has created a 3D, nanoscale-resolution map of a single cubic millimeter of the human brain. Although the map covers just a fraction of the organ, it is currently the highest-resolution picture of the human brain ever created.

How they did it: To make a map this finely detailed, the team had to cut the tissue sample into 5,000 slices and scan them with a high-speed electron microscope. Then they used a machine-learning model to help electronically stitch the slices back together and label the features.

Why it matters: Many other brain atlases exist, but most provide much lower-resolution data. At the nanoscale, researchers can trace the brain’s wiring one neuron at a time to the synapses, the places where they connect. And scientists hope it could help them to really understand how the human brain works, processes information, and stores memories. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

To learn more about the burgeoning field of brain mapping, check out the latest edition of The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

Hong Kong is targeting Western Big Tech companies in its ban of a popular protest song

It wasn’t exactly surprising when on Wednesday, May 8, a Hong Kong appeals court sided with the city government to take down “Glory to Hong Kong” from the internet.

The trial, in which no one represented the defense, was the culmination of a years-long battle over a song that has become the unofficial anthem for protesters fighting China’s tightening control and police brutality in the city.

It remains an open question how exactly Big Tech will respond. But the ruling is already having an effect beyond Hong Kong’s borders: just hours afterwards, videos of the anthem started to disappear from YouTube. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI is poised to release its Google search competitor
And it could make an appearance as early as Monday. (Reuters)
+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. (MIT Technology Review)

2 America’s healthcare system is highly vulnerable to hacks
A recent cyberattack that knocked hospital patient records offline is the latest example. (WP $)

3 TikTok will start automatically labeling AI-generated user content
It’s a global first for social media platforms. (FT $)
+ The watermarking scheme will work on content created on other platforms. (The Guardian)
+ Why watermarking AI-generated content won’t guarantee trust online. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Bankrupt FTX is confident it can repay the full $11 billion it owes
Thanks in part to bitcoin’s perpetual boom-bust cycle. (The Guardian)
+ Sam Bankman-Fried’s newest currency? Rice. (Insider $)

5 What is Alabama’s lab-grown meat ban really about?
It’s less about plants and more about political agendas. (Wired $)
+ They’re banning something that doesn’t really exist. (Vox)
+ How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The future of work is offshore
Even cashiers can be based thousands of miles from their customers. (Vox)
+ ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like. (MIT Technology Review)

7 US data centers are facing a tax break backlash
In reality, they create fewer jobs than lobbyists would have you believe. (Bloomberg $)
+ Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Mexico’s political candidates are misreading the room
They’re dancing on TikTok instead of making serious policy declarations. (Rest of World)
+ Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections. (MIT Technology Review)

9 AI could help you to make that tight connecting flight
The days of missing a connection by minutes could be numbered. (NYT $)

10 These AR glass look… interesting
Lighter, thinner, higher quality—but even dorkier. (The Verge)
+ They don’t induce headaches, either. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“It’s like a kick in the gut.”

—Duncan Freer, a seller on Amazon, is unhappy about the retail giant imposing new charges that shift even more costs onto merchants, he tells Bloomberg.

The big story

How tracking animal movement may save the planet

February 2024

Animals have long been able to offer unique insights about the natural world around us, acting as organic sensors picking up phenomena invisible to humans. Canaries warned of looming catastrophe in coal mines until the 1980s, for example.

These days, we have more insight into animal behavior than ever before thanks to technologies like sensor tags. But the data we gather from these animals still adds up to only a relatively narrow slice of the whole picture. 

This is beginning to change. Researchers are asking: What will we find if we follow even the smallest animals? What could we learn from a system of animal movement, continuously monitoring how creatures big and small adapt to the world around us? It may be, some researchers believe, a vital tool in the effort to save our increasingly crisis-plagued planet. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford 

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Big congratulations to the ocean’s zooplankton and phytoplankton, who are currently experiencing a springtime baby boom.
+ Homemade seafood stock may sound like a faff, but it’s easier than you think.
+ Coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just fine—how the UK became utterly, eternally obsessed with Mr Brightside.
+ Ducks love peas, who knew?

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google DeepMind’s new AlphaFold can model a much larger slice of biological life

What’s new: Google DeepMind has released an improved version of its biology prediction tool, AlphaFold, that can predict the structures not only of proteins but of nearly all the elements of biological life.

How they did it: AlphaFold 3’s larger library of molecules and higher level of complexity required improvements to the underlying model architecture. So DeepMind turned to diffusion techniques, which have been steadily improving in recent years and power image and video generators. It works by training a model to start with a noisy image and then reduce that noise bit by bit until an accurate prediction emerges—a method that allows AlphaFold 3 to handle a much larger set of inputs.

Why it matters: It’s a development that could help accelerate drug discovery and other scientific research. And the tool is already being used to experiment with identifying everything from more resilient crops to new vaccines. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

Why EV charging needs more than Tesla

Tesla, one of the biggest electric vehicle makers in the world, laid off its entire charging team last week. 

The timing of the move is baffling. We desperately need many more EV chargers to come online as quickly as possible, and Tesla was in the midst of opening its charging network to other automakers and establishing its technology as the de facto standard in the US. Now, we’re already seeing new charging sites canceled because of this move.

Casey Crownhart, our climate reporter, has dug into why the charging meltdown at Tesla could slow progress on EVs in the US overall, and ultimately, the whole situation shows why climate technology needs a whole lot more than Tesla. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The first Neuralink implant in a human has run into difficulty
A number of threads in Noland Arbaugh’s brain came out, interrupting the data flow. (WSJ $)
+ Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces. (MIT Technology Review)

2 A British toddler has had her hearing restored
Opal Sandy, who was born deaf, can now hear unaided following gene therapy treatment. (BBC)
+ Some deaf children in China can hear after gene therapy treatment. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Is America ready for its next nuclear age?
Holtec, a nuclear waste storage manufacturer, is set on powering new reactors. (Bloomberg $)
+ Advanced fusion reactors could create nuclear weapons in weeks. (New Scientist $)
+ How to reopen a nuclear power plant. (MIT Technology Review)

4 TikTok employees are worried about their future prospects
Advertisers and creators are starting to ask questions, but nobody has the answers. (The Information $)

5 The US has unmasked a notorious Russian hacker
But he’s unlikely to be brought to justice any time soon. (Bloomberg $)

6 Baidu has reignited criticism of China’s toxic tech work culture
After its head of PR told staff she could ruin their careers. (FT $)
+ WhatApp has started mysteriously working for some users in China. (Bloomberg $)

7 The US Marines have equipped robot dogs with gun systems
What could possibly go wrong? (Ars Technica)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Inside the rise and rise of the sexualized web
The relentless nudification of everything is exhausting. (The Atlantic $)
+ OpenAI is looking into creating responsible AI porn. (Wired $)
+ The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent. (MIT Technology Review)

9 An always-on video portal is connecting NYC and Dublin
It’s just a matter of time until someone ends up offended. (TechCrunch)

10 This lyrics site buckled as fans rushed to document rap beef
Enthusiastic volunteers desperate to dissect Kendrick Lamar’s latest lyrics caused Genius to crash temporarily. (NYT $)
+ Lamar’s feud with rapper Drake has transcended music. (The Atlantic $)
+ If you have no idea what’s going on, check out this potted history. (NY Mag $)

Quote of the day

“By the end of the second day, you’re like: Trust no one.” 

—Dana Lewis, an election worker in Arizona, describes the unsettling claims she’s dealt with during an AI training exercise designed to help spot electoral fraud to the Washington Post.

The big story

The future of open source is still very much in flux

August 2023

When Xerox donated a new laser printer to MIT in 1980, the company couldn’t have known that the machine would ignite a revolution.

While the early decades of software development generally ran on a culture of open access, this new printer ran on inaccessible proprietary software, much to the horror of Richard M. Stallman, then a 27-year-old programmer at the university.

A few years later, Stallman released GNU, an operating system designed to be a free alternative to one of the dominant operating systems at the time: Unix. The free-software movement was born, with a simple premise: for the good of the world, all code should be open, without restriction or commercial intervention.

Forty years later, tech companies are making billions on proprietary software, and much of the technology around us is inscrutable. But while Stallman’s movement may look like a failed experiment, the free and open-source software movement is not only alive and well; it has become a keystone of the tech industry. Read the full story.

—Rebecca Ackermann

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It’s the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend: come on the UK!
+ Thank you for the music, Steve Albini. Legendary producer, remarkable poker player.
+ On a deadline? Let this inspirational playlist soothe your nerves.
+ It’s like Kontrabant 2 never went away.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business

Once a week, Sun Kai has a video call with his mother, and they discuss his day-to-day life. But Sun’s mother died five years ago, and the person he’s talking to isn’t actually a person, but a digital replica he made of her—a moving image that can conduct basic conversations. They’ve been talking for a few years now.

There are plenty of people like Sun who want to use AI to preserve, animate, and interact with lost loved ones as they mourn and try to heal. The market is particularly strong in China, where at least half a dozen companies are now offering such technologies and thousands of people have already paid for them.

But some question whether interacting with AI replicas of the dead is truly a healthy way to process grief, and it’s not entirely clear what the legal and ethical implications of this technology may be. Still, if only 1% of Chinese people can accept AI cloning of the dead, that’s still a huge market. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

To read more about China’s flourishing market for deepfakes that clone the dead, check out the latest edition of China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat

Fixing our collective meat problem is one of the trickiest challenges in addressing climate change—and for some baffling reason, the world seems intent on making the task even harder.

The latest example occurred last week, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the production, sale, and transportation of cultured meat across the Sunshine State. 

The good news is the world is making some real progress in developing meat substitutes that increasingly taste like, look like the traditional versions, whether they’ve been developed from animal cells or plants. 

If they catch on and scale up, it could make a real dent in emissions—with the bonus of reducing animal suffering, environmental damage, and the spillover of animal disease into the human population. The bad news is we can’t seem to take the wins when we get them. Read the full story.

—James Temple

The way whales communicate is closer to human language than we realized

The news: Sperm whales are fascinating creatures. They possess the biggest brain of any species, and are highly social. But there’s also a lot we don’t know about them, including what they may be trying to say to one another when they communicate using a system of short bursts of clicks, known as codas. Now, new research suggests that sperm whales’ communication is actually much more expressive and complicated than previously thought.

How they did it: Researchers used statistical models to analyze whale codas and managed to identify a structure to their language that’s similar to features of the complex vocalizations humans use. Their findings represent a tool future research could use to decipher not just the structure but the actual meaning of whale sounds. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI has created a deepfake detector
But it’s only sharing it with a handful of disinformation researchers. (NYT $)
+ It also doesn’t work 100% of the time, to no one’s surprise. (WSJ $)+ OpenAI is working on a search feature for ChatGPT, apparently. (Bloomberg $)
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Technology Review)

2 TikTok is suing the US government
In a bid to block the law that could force its parent company to sell it. (WSJ $)
+ TikTok’s algorithm could be rebuilt if necessary, says the former US secretary. (Bloomberg $)

3 Boeing has called off its first crewed space flight
An anomaly on the rocket’s pressure regulation valve was to blame. (NBC News)
+ It’s unlikely to take off until Friday at the earliest. (WP $)
+ Elon Musk doesn’t see a current use for AI at SpaceX. (Insider $)

4 The US is cracking down on chip exports to Huawei
Intel and Qualcomm will be curbed from doing business with the Chinese firm. (WP $)
+ Why it’s so hard for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A Chinese scam ring is duping international shoppers
Its fake designer web shops have been operating for close to a decade. (The Guardian)

6 It takes a while to diagnose someone with depression 
But researchers are interested in harnessing our devices to speed the process up. (Vox)
+ Here’s how personalized brain stimulation could treat depression. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This hacking technique steals data via your computer’s processor
Even when it’s running software that’s been blocked from the internet. (New Scientist $)
+ Microsoft has created an AI model that doesn’t need the internet. (Bloomberg $)

8 There’s space metals in them thar asteroids
Mining companies are scrambling to strike it big up in space. (Undark Magazine)
+ The first-ever mission to pull a dead rocket out of space has begun. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Ticketmaster’s ‘untransferable’ tickets are anything but
Where there’s a will, scalpers will find a way. (404 Media)

10 Tesla fans in India have been waiting eight years for their cars
Without even so much as an apology. (Rest of World)

Quote of the day

“Lol mom the AI got you too, BEWARE!”

—Singer Katy Perry shares how her own mother fell for an AI-generated image of Perry in an elaborate gown seemingly attending the Met Gala earlier this week, 404 Media reports.

The big story

Novel lithium-metal batteries will drive the switch to electric cars 

February 2021

For all the hype and hope around electric vehicles, they still make up only about 2% of new car sales in the US, and just a little more globally.

For many buyers, they’re simply too expensive, their range is too limited, and charging them isn’t nearly as quick and convenient as refueling at the pump. All these limitations have to do with the lithium-ion batteries that power the vehicles.

But QuantumScape, a Silicon Valley startup is working on a new type of battery that could finally make electric cars as convenient and cheap as gas ones. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These little mice are having the best time in their custom-built pub.
+ Leonel Vasquez’s sonic sculptures are very cool.
+ Bob Dylan doesn’t care about attaining perfection—and neither should you.
+ Tongue twisters have been tripping us up for centuries. Here’s a look back over the history of eight of the most famous.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Scientists are trying to get cows pregnant with synthetic embryos

About a decade ago, biologists started to observe that stem cells, left alone in a walled plastic container, will spontaneously self-assemble and try to make an embryo. These structures, sometimes called “embryo models” or embryoids, have gradually become increasingly realistic.

The University of Florida is trying to create a large animal starting only from stem cells—no egg, no sperm, and no conception. They’ve transferred “synthetic embryos,” artificial structures created in a lab, to the uteruses of eight cows in the hope that some might take.

At the Florida center, researchers are now attempting to go all the way. They want to make a live animal. If they do, it wouldn’t just be a totally new way to breed cattle. It could shake our notion of what life even is. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Job titles of the future: AI prompt engineer

The role of AI prompt engineer attracted attention for its high-six-figure salaries when it emerged in early 2023. Companies define it in different ways, but its principal aim is to help a company integrate AI into its operations. 

Danai Myrtzani of Sleed, a digital marketing agency in Greece, describes herself as more prompter than engineer. She joined the company in March 2023 as one of two experts on its new experimental-AI team, and has helped develop a tool that generates personalized LinkedIn posts for clients. Here’s what she has to say about her work. 

—Charlie Metcalfe

The story is from the current print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is on the fascinating theme of Build. If you don’t already, subscribe now to receive future copies once they land.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Apple has been working on its own secretive chip project
Its new chip is likely to focus on running, rather than training, AI models. (WSJ $)
+ The US will sink $285 million into digital twin chip research. (The Verge)
+ This US startup makes a crucial chip material and is taking on a Japanese giant. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The US campus protests are unfolding on Twitch
The platform, best known for video game streaming, is gaining traction among young people dissatisfied with the mainstream media. (WP $)
+ Rubber bullets are seriously dangerous, and can kill their targets. (Slate $)

3 China and the US will meet to discuss AI arms controls
It’s America’s first real step into an entire new realm of 21st century diplomacy. (NYT $)
+ To avoid AI doom, learn from nuclear safety. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Russia is plotting violent sabotage across Europe
Experts are unsure if the Kremlin is getting sloppier, or Western detection methods are improving. (FT $)
+ Autocrats are attempting to discredit liberalism across the world. (The Atlantic $)
+ China is believed to be behind a cyberattack on the UK defense ministry. (Bloomberg $)
+ Ukraine’s foreign ministry has revealed an AI spokesperson. (The Guardian)

5 NASA refuses to let Voyager 1 die
The space agency is remotely hacking the space probe in the hope of fixing it. (IEEE Spectrum) 

6 CRISPR’s progress is hampered by genetics research’s lack of diversity
Many genetic databases and biobanks are highly unrepresentative of the wider population. (Vox)
+ I received the new gene-editing drug for sickle-cell disease. It changed my life. (MIT Technology Review)

7 This app is helping fishermen in South Africa sell their wares
Abalobi is a real-time marketplace that also helps to monitor fish populations. (The Guardian)

8 Nintendo’s next console is coming
The Switch went on sale in 2017. But what’s coming next? (Reuters)
+ We may never fully know how video games affect our well-being. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How tech is supercharging rap beefs
Social media and platforms like YouTube are creating conflicts out of thin air. (Wired $)

10 An MMA fighter-turned TikTok food critic is saving struggling restaurants
Keith Lee’s viral reviews are turning around the fortunes of small businesses. (Bloomberg $)
+ Is TikTok in its flop era? Some younger users think so. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“You want to be on the golf course like, ‘Hey, I own some SpaceX.’”

—Jeff Parks, chief executive of investment firm Stack Capital, tells the New York Times how obtaining shares in certain companies has become something of a status symbol.

The big story

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

October 2023

The problem of plastic waste hides in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation is shocking. To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic. 72% of the plastic we make ends up in landfills or the environment. Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled. 

To make matters worse, plastic production is growing dramatically; in fact, half of all plastics in existence have been produced in just the last two decades. Production is projected to continue growing, at about 5% annually. 

So what do we do? Sadly, solutions such as recycling and reuse aren’t equal to the scale of the task. The only answer is drastic cuts in production in the first place. Read the full story. 

—Douglas Main

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It’s the day after the Met Gala! Time to judge all the outfits.
+ We love you, Lola the therapy sausage dog.
+ Forgot tomatoes—this summer is all about growing cucamelons.
+ This prehistoric themed house party is on a whole other level.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance

Last week, Moderna and Merck launched a large clinical trial in the UK of a promising new cancer therapy: a personalized vaccine that targets a specific set of mutations found in each individual’s tumor. This study is enrolling patients with melanoma. But the companies have also launched a phase III trial for lung cancer. And earlier this month BioNTech and Genentech announced that a personalized vaccine they developed in collaboration shows promise in pancreatic cancer, which has a notoriously poor survival rate.

Drug developers have been working for decades on vaccines to help the body’s immune system fight cancer, without much success. But promising results in the past year suggest that the strategy may be reaching a turning point. Will these therapies finally live up to their promise? Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech and health newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

How we transform to a fully decarbonized world

—Deb Chachra is a professor of engineering at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, and the author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World

Just as much as technological breakthroughs, it’s that availability of energy that has shaped our material world. The exponential rise in fossil-fuel usage over the past century and a half has powered novel, energy-intensive modes of extracting, processing, and consuming matter, at unprecedented scale.

But now, the cumulative environmental, health, and social impacts of this approach have become unignorable. We can see them nearly everywhere we look, from the health effects of living near highways or oil refineries to the ever-growing issue of plastic, textile, and electronic waste. 

Decarbonizing our energy systems means meeting human needs without burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The good news is that a world powered by electricity from abundant, renewable, non-polluting sources is now within reach. Read the full story.

The story is from the current print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is on the fascinating theme of Build. If you don’t already, subscribe now to receive future copies once they land.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 US adversaries are exploiting the university protests for their own gain
Russia, China and Iran are amplifying the conflicts to stoke political tensions online. (NYT $)
+ Universities are under intense political scrutiny. (Vox)
+ The Biden administration’s patience with protestors appears to have run out. (The Atlantic $)

2 China is preparing to launch an ambitious moon mission
Its bid to bring back samples from the far side of the moon would be a major leap forward for its national space program. (CNN)
+ It would be the first time any country managed to pull it off, too. (WP $)

3 We don’t know how Big Tech’s AI investments will affect profits  
Profits are up—but for how long? (The Information $)
+ Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech. (MIT Technology Review)

4 An Australian facial recognition firm suffered a data breach
It demonstrates the importance of safeguarding personal biometric data properly. (Wired $)

5 China’s race to create a native ChatGPT is heating up
Four startups are locked in intense competition to emulate OpenAI’s success. (FT $)
+ Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

6 One of America’s biggest podcasts is chock-full of misleading information
A cohort of scientists have raised concerns with Andrew Huberman’s show’s omission of key scientific details. (Vox)

7 Recyclable circuit boards could help us cut down on e-waste
Because conventional circuits are an environmental menace. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ If you fancy giving a supercomputer a second home, here’s your chance. (Wired $)
+ Why recycling alone can’t power climate tech. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Facebook has become the zombie internet
The social network ain’t so social these days. (404 Media)

9 Boston Dynamics loves freaking us out
We’ve been obsessed with their uncanny videos for more than a decade. (The Atlantic $)
+ But robots might need to become more boring to be useful. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Human models are letting AI do all the hard work
They’re signing over the rights to their likeness and raking in the passive income. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“They’re slow as Christmas getting things done.”

—Jerry Whisenhunt, general manager of Pine Telephone Company in Oklahoma, explains his frustration with Washington bureaucrats who ordered providers like him to remove China-made equipment from their networks, without providing funding, he tells the Washington Post.

The big story

Zimbabwe’s climate migration is a sign of what’s to come

December 2021

Julius Mutero has spent his entire adult life farming a three-hectare plot in Zimbabwe, but has harvested virtually nothing in the past six years. He is just one of the 86 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who the World Bank estimates will migrate domestically by 2050 because of climate change.

In Zimbabwe, farmers who have tried to stay put and adapt have found their efforts woefully inadequate in the face of new weather extremes. Droughts have already forced tens of thousands from their homes. But their desperate moves are creating new competition for water in the region, and tensions may soon boil over. Read the full story.

—Andrew Mambondiyani

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Some breads are surprisingly easy to make—but all equally delicious.
+ Aww, these frogs sure love their baby tadpoles.
+ Trees are wonderful. These books celebrate all they do for us.
+ We’re all praying for the safe return of Wally the emotional support alligator.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has a vision for how AI tools will become enmeshed in our daily lives. 

During a sit-down chat with MIT Technology Review in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he described how he sees the killer app for AI as a “super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I’ve ever had, but doesn’t feel like an extension.”

In the new paradigm, as Altman sees it, AI will be capable of helping us outside the chat interface and taking real-world tasks off our plates. Read more about Altman’s thoughts on the future of AI hardware, where training data will come from next, and who is best poised to create AGI.

—James O’Donnell

A US push to use ethanol as aviation fuel raises major climate concerns

Eliminating carbon pollution from aviation is one of the most challenging parts of the climate puzzle, simply because large commercial airlines are too heavy and need too much power during takeoff for today’s batteries to do the job. 

But one way that companies and governments are striving to make progress is through the use of various types of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which are derived from non-petroleum sources and promise to be less polluting than standard jet fuel.

This week, the US announced a push to help its biggest commercial crop, corn, become a major feedstock for SAFs. It could set the template for programs in the future that may help ethanol producers generate more and more SAFs. But that is already sounding alarm bells among some observers. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Three takeaways about the current state of batteries

Batteries have been making headlines this week. First, there’s a new special report from the International Energy Agency all about how crucial batteries are for our future energy systems. The report calls batteries a “master key,” meaning they can unlock the potential of other technologies that will help cut emissions.

Second, we’re seeing early signs in California of how the technology might be earning that “master key” status already by helping renewables play an even bigger role on the grid. 

Our climate reporter Casey Crownhart has rounded up the three things you need to know about the current state of batteries—and what’s to come. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 These tech moguls are planning how to construct AI rules for Trump
They helped draft and promote TikTok ban legislation—and AI is next on their agenda. (WP $)
+ Ted Kaouk is the US markets’ regulator’s first AI officer. (WSJ $)+ A new AI security bill would create a record of data breaches. (The Verge)
+ Here’s where AI regulation is heading. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Crypto’s grifters insist they’ve learned their lesson
But the state of the industry suggests they’ll make the same mistakes over again. (Bloomberg $)

3 Good luck tracking down these AI chips
South Korean chip supplier SK Hynix says it’s sold out for the year. (WSJ $)
+ It’s almost fully booked throughout 2025, too. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why it’s so hard for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Universal Music Group has struck a deal with TikTok 
The label’s music was pulled from the platform three months ago. (Variety $)
+ Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Drake are among its high-profile roster. (The Verge)

5 Ukraine is bootstrapping its own killer-drone industry
Effectively creating air-bound bombs in lieu of more sophisticated long-range missiles. (Wired $)
+ Mass-market military drones have changed the way wars are fought. (MIT Technology Review)

6  The US asylum border app is stranding vulnerable migrants
Its scarce appointments leave asylum seekers with little choice but to pay human trafficking groups. (The Guardian)
+ The new US border wall is an app. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Things aren’t looking good for Volocopter
The flying taxi startup is holding crisis talks with investors. (FT $)
+ These aircraft could change how we fly. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Describing quantum systems is a time-consuming process
A new algorithm could help to dramatically speed things up. (Quanta Magazine)

9 What Reddit’s ‘Am I the Asshole?’ forum can teach philosophers
It’s an undoubtedly brave endeavor. (Vox)

10 The web’s home page refuses to die
Social media is imploding, but the humble website prevails. (New Yorker $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Whomever they choose, they king-make.”

— Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, describes the stranglehold Apple exercises over the companies vying to make its default search engine for iPhone, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

Can Afghanistan’s underground “sneakernet” survive the Taliban?

November 2021

When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Mohammad Yasin had to make some difficult decisions very quickly. He began erasing some of the sensitive data on his computer and moving the rest onto two of his largest hard drives, which he then wrapped in a layer of plastic and buried underground.

Yasin is what is locally referred to as a “computer kar”: someone who sells digital content by hand in a country where a steady internet connection can be hard to come by, selling everything from movies, music, mobile applications, to iOS updates. And despite the dangers of Taliban rule, the country’s extensive “sneakernet” isn’t planning on shutting down. Read the full story.

—Ruchi Kumar

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ There is nothing more terrifying than a ‘boy room.’
+ These chocolate limes look beyond delicious (and seriously convincing!) ‍
+ Drake is beefing with everyone—but why?
+ Here’s how to calm that eternal to-do list in your head.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Inside the quest to map the universe with mysterious bursts of radio energy

When our universe was less than half as old as it is today, a burst of energy that could cook a sun’s worth of popcorn shot out from somewhere amid a compact group of galaxies. Some 8 billion years later, radio waves from that burst reached Earth and were captured by a sophisticated low-frequency radio telescope in the Australian outback. 

The signal, which arrived in June 2022, and lasted for under half a millisecond, is one of a growing class of mysterious radio signals called fast radio bursts. In the last 10 years, astronomers have picked up nearly 5,000 of them. This one was particularly special: nearly double the age of anything previously observed, and three and a half times more energetic. 

No one knows what causes fast radio bursts. They flash in a seemingly random and unpredictable pattern from all over the sky. But despite the mystery, these radio waves are starting to prove extraordinarily useful. Read the full story.

—Anna Kramer

The depressing truth about TikTok’s impending ban

Trump’s 2020 executive order banning TikTok came to nothing in the end. Yet the idea—that the US government should ban TikTok in some way—never went away. It would repeatedly be suggested in different forms and shapes. And eventually, on April 24, 2024, things came full circle with the bill passed in Congress and signed into law.

A lot has changed in those four years. Back then, TikTok was a rising sensation that many people didn’t understand; now, it’s one of the biggest social media platforms. But if the TikTok saga tells us anything, it’s that the US is increasingly inhospitable for Chinese companies. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech and policy in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Changpeng Zhao has been sentenced to just four months in prison
The crypto exchange founder got off pretty lightly after pleading guilty to a money-laundering violation. (The Verge)+ The US Department of Justice had sought a three-year sentence. (The Guardian)

2 Tesla has gutted its charging team
Which is extremely bad news for those reliant on its massive charging network. (NYT $)
+ And more layoffs may be coming down the road. (The Information $)
+ Why getting more EVs on the road is all about charging. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A group of newspapers joined forces to sue OpenAI 
It comes just after the AI firm signed a deal with the Financial Times to use its articles as training data for its models. (WP $)
+ Meanwhile, Google is working with News Corp to fund new AI content. (The Information $)
+ OpenAI’s hunger for data is coming back to bite it. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Worldcoin is thriving in Argentina
The cash it offers in exchange for locals’ biometric data is a major incentive as unemployment in the country bites. (Rest of World)
+ Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Bill Gates’ shadow looms large over Microsoft
The company’s AI revolution is no accident. (Insider $)

6 It’s incredibly difficult to turn off a car’s location tracking
Domestic abuse activists worry the technology plays into abusers’ hands. (The Markup)
+ Regulators are paying attention. (NYT $)

7 Brain monitors have a major privacy problem
Many of them sell your neural data without asking additional permission. (New Scientist $)
+ How your brain data could be used against you. (MIT Technology Review)

8 ECMO machines are a double-edged sword
They help keep critically ill patients alive. But at what cost? (New Yorker $)

9 How drones are helping protect wildlife from predators
So long as wolves stop trying to play with the drones, that is. (Undark Magazine)

10 This plastic contains bacteria that’ll break it down
It has the unusual side-effect of making the plastic even stronger, too. (Ars Technica)
+ Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I have constantly been looking ahead for the next thing that’s going to crush all my dreams and the stuff that I built.”

—Tony Northrup, a stock image photographer, explains to the Wall Street Journal generative AI is finally killing an industry that weathered the advent of digital cameras and the internet.

The big story

A new tick-borne disease is killing cattle in the US

November 2021

In the spring of 2021, Cynthia and John Grano, who own a cattle operation in Culpeper County, Virginia, started noticing some of their cows slowing down and acting “spacey.” They figured the animals were suffering from a common infectious disease that causes anemia in cattle. But their veterinarian had warned them that another disease carried by a parasite was spreading rapidly in the area.

After a third cow died, the Granos decided to test its blood. Sure enough, the test came back positive for the disease: theileria. And with no treatment available, the cows kept dying.

Livestock producers around the US are confronting this new and unfamiliar disease without much information, and researchers still don’t know how theileria will unfold, even as it quickly spreads west across the country. Read the full story.

—Britta Lokting

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This Instagram account documenting the weird and wonderful world of Beanie Babies is the perfect midweek pick-me-up.
+ Challengers is great—but have you seen the rest of the best sports films?
+ This human fruit machine is killing me.
+ Evan Narcisse is a giant in the video games world.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The robot race is fueling a fight for training data

We’re interacting with AI tools more directly—and regularly—than ever before. Interacting with robots, by way of contrast, is still a rarity for most. But experts say that’s on the cusp of changing. 

Roboticists believe that, using new AI techniques, they can unlock more capable robots that can move freely through unfamiliar environments and tackle challenges they’ve never seen before.

But something is standing in the way: lack of access to the types of data used to train robots so they can interact with the physical world. It’s far harder to come by than the data used to train the most advanced AI models, and that scarcity is one of the main things currently holding progress in robotics back.

As a result, leading companies and labs are in fierce competition to find new and better ways to gather the data they need. It’s led them down strange paths, like using robotic arms to flip pancakes for hours on end. And they’re running into the same sorts of privacy, ethics, and copyright issues as their counterparts in the world of AI. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

My deepfake shows how valuable our data is in the age of AI

—Melissa Heikkilä

Deepfakes are getting good. Like, really good. Earlier this month I went to a studio in East London to get myself digitally cloned by the AI video startup Synthesia. They made a hyperrealistic deepfake that looked and sounded just like me, with realistic intonation. The end result was mind-blowing. It could easily fool someone who doesn’t know me well.

Synthesia has managed to create AI avatars that are remarkably humanlike after only one year of tinkering with the latest generation of generative AI. It’s equally exciting and daunting thinking about where this technology is going. But they raise a big question: What happens to our data once we submit it to AI companies? Read the full story.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 AI startups without products can still raise millions
How some of them plan to make money is unclear, but that doesn’t deter investors. (WSJ $)+ Those large AI models are wildly expensive to run. (Bloomberg $)
+ AI hype is built on high test scores. Those tests are flawed. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The EU says Meta isn’t doing enough to counter Russian disinformation
So it’s launching formal proceedings against the company ahead of EU elections. (The Guardian)
+ Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Meet the humans fighting back against algorithmic curation
The solution could, ironically, lie with different kinds of algorithms. (Wired $)

4 An AI blood test claims to diagnose postpartum depression
It says the presence of a gene that links moods more closely to hormonal changes is an indicator. (WP $)
+ An AI system helped to save lives in a hospital trial. (New Scientist $)

5 Tesla secretly tested its autonomous driving tech in San Francisco
Which hints that its previous ‘general solutions’ approach fell short. (The Information $)
+ Robotaxis are here. It’s time to decide what to do about them. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Why egg freezing has failed to live up to its hype
We’re finally getting a clearer picture of how effective the procedure is. (Vox)
+ I took an international trip with my frozen eggs to learn about the fertility industry. (MIT Technology Review)

7 NASA has finally solved a long-standing solar mystery 
The sun’s corona is far hotter than its surface. But why? (Quanta Magazine)

8 Do dating apps actually help you find your soulmate?
Chemistry and a great relationship are difficult to quantify. (The Guardian)
+ Here’s how the net’s newest matchmakers help you find love. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Online messaging has come a long way
BBS, anyone? (Ars Technica)

10 The three-year search for a synth-heavy pop song is over 
…But its origins are seedier than you’d expect. (404 Media)

Quote of the day

“This is the Oppenheimer Moment of our generation.”

—Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s foreign minister, warns against granting AI too much autonomy on the battlefield during a summit in Vienna, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation

August 2023

PowerPoint is everywhere. It’s used in religious sermons; by schoolchildren preparing book reports; at funerals and weddings. In 2010, Microsoft announced that PowerPoint was installed on more than a billion computers worldwide. 

But before PowerPoint, 35-millimeter film slides were king. They were the only medium for the kinds of high-impact presentations given by CEOs and top brass at annual meetings for stockholders, employees, and salespeople. 

Known in the business as “multi-image” shows, these presentations required a small army of producers, photographers, and live production staff to pull off. Read this story to delve into the fascinating, flashy history of corporate presentations. 

—Claire L. Evans

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This is some seriously committed egg flipping.
+ How to spend time and make precious memories with the people you love.
+ Gen Z is on the move: to the US Midwest apparently.
+ Cool: these novels were all inspired by the authors’ day jobs.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Here’s the defense tech at the center of US aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan

After weeks of drawn-out congressional debate over how much the United States should spend on conflicts abroad, President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion aid package into law last week.

The bill will send a significant quantity of supplies to Ukraine and Israel, while also supporting Taiwan with submarine technology to aid its defenses against China. It’s also sparked renewed calls for stronger crackdowns on Iranian-produced drones. 

James O’Donnell, our AI reporter, spoke to Andrew Metrick, a fellow with the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank, to discuss how the spending bill provides a window into US strategies around four key defense technologies with the power to reshape how today’s major conflicts are being fought. Read the full story.

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review Explains: a series delving into the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.

Hear more about how AI intersects with hardware

Hear first-hand from James in our latest subscribers-only Rountables session, as he walks news editor Charlotte Jee through the latest goings-on in his beat, from rapid advances in robotics to autonomous military drones, wearable devices, and tools for AI-powered surgeries Register now to join the discussion tomorrow at 11:30am ET.

Check out some more of James’ reporting:

+ Inside a Californian startup’s herculean efforts to bring a small slice of the chipmaking supply chain back to the US.

+ An OpenAI spinoff has built an AI model that helps robots learn tasks like humans. But can it graduate from the lab to the warehouse floor? Read the full story.

+ Watch this robot as it learns to stitch up wounds all on its own.

+ A new satellite will use Google’s AI to map methane leaks from space. It could help to form the most detailed portrait yet of methane emissions—but companies and countries will actually have to act on the data.

This creamy vegan cheese was made with AI

Most vegan cheese falls into an edible uncanny valley full of discomforting not-quite-right versions of the real thing. But machine learning is ushering in a new age of completely vegan cheese that’s much closer in taste and texture to traditional fromage.

Several startups are using AI to design plant-based foods including cheese, training algorithms on datasets of ingredients with desirable traits like flavor, scent, or stretchability. Then they use AI to comb troves of data to develop new combinations of those ingredients that perform similarly. But not everyone in the industry is bullish about AI-assisted ingredient discovery. Read the full story.

—Andrew Rosenblum

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Tesla has struck a deal to bring its self-driving tech to China 
It’ll use mapping and navigation functions from native self-driving car company Baidu. (WSJ $)
+ Tesla is facing at least eight legal cases over the tech in the next year. (WP $)
+ It’s also struggling with a major union issue in Sweden. (Bloomberg $)
+ Baidu’s self-driving cars have been on Beijing’s streets for years. (MIT Technology Review)

 2 OpenAI will train its models on a paywalled British newspaper’s articles
ChatGPT will include links to Financial Times articles in its future responses. (FT $)
+ We could run out of data to train AI language programs. (MIT Technology Review)

3 This summer could be our hottest yet
Extreme weather events are likely to be on the horizon across the globe. (Vox)
+ One of the biggest untapped resources of renewable energy? Tidal power. (Undark Magazine)
+ Here’s how much heat your body can take. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The UK institute that helped popularize effective altruism has shut down
The controversial philosophies it championed are extremely divisive. (The Guardian)
+ Inside effective altruism, where the far future counts a lot more than the present. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Human soldiers aren’t sure how to feel about their robot counterparts
Some teams get attached to their bots. Others hate them. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The US and China are locked in a race to build ultrafast submarines
But China’s claims that it’s made a laser breakthrough may be overblown. (Insider $)

7 Recruiters are fighting an influx of AI job applications
Tech roles are few and far between, and generative AI is making it easier to mass-apply for what’s available. (Wired $)
+ African universities aren’t preparing graduates for work in the age of AI. (Rest of World)

8 This firm uses a robotic arm to chisel marble sculptures
But it still needs a helping hand from humans. (Bloomberg $)

9 Our email accounts are modern day diaries
It’s an instantly-searchable record of our lives. (NY Mag $)

10 TikTok has fallen in love with Super 8 cameras
Even though they’re prohibitively expensive. (WSJ $)
+ Gen Z is ditching smartphones in favor of simpler devices. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“I have little in common with people who take cold plunges and want to live forever.”

—Ethan Mollick, a business school professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advises major companies and policymakers about AI, insists he is far from the Silicon Valley tech bro stereotype to the Wall Street Journal.

The big story

How big science failed to unlock the mysteries of the human brain

August 2021

In September 2011, Columbia University neurobiologist Rafael Yuste and Harvard geneticist George Church made a not-so-modest proposal: to map the activity of the entire human brain.

That knowledge could be harnessed to treat brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia, depression, and traumatic brain injury, and help answer one of the great questions of science: How does the brain bring about consciousness?

A decade on, the US project has wound down, and the EU project faces its deadline to build a digital brain. So have we begun to unwrap the secrets of the human brain? Or have we spent a decade and billions of dollars chasing a vision that remains as elusive as ever? Read the full story.

—Emily Mullin

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I hope Fat Albert the polar bear is doing well.
+ Classic novels can’t please everyone—even if they’re classics for a reason.
+ Turns out we may have been mishearing Neil Armstrong’s famous first words as he set foot on the moon.
+ Hang onto those DVDs, you never know when Netflix is going to fail you.

Chatbot answers are all made up. This new tool helps you figure out which ones to trust.

The news: Large language models are famous for their ability to make things up—in fact, it’s what they’re best at. But their inability to tell fact from fiction has left many businesses wondering if using them is worth the risk. A new tool created by Cleanlab, an AI startup spun out of a quantum computing lab at MIT, is designed to give high-stakes users a clearer sense of how trustworthy these models really are. 

How it works: The Trustworthy Language Model gives any output generated by a large language model a score between 0 and 1, according to its reliability. This lets people choose which responses to trust and which to throw out. In other words: a BS-o-meter for chatbots.

Why it matters: Cleanlab hopes that its tool will make large language models more attractive to businesses worried about how much stuff they invent. But while the approach could be useful, it’s unlikely to be perfect. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

My biotech plants are dead

—Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review’s senior biotech editor

Six weeks ago, I pre-ordered the “Firefly Petunia,” a houseplant engineered with genes from bioluminescent fungi so that it glows in the dark. 

After years of writing about anti-GMO sentiment in the US and elsewhere, I felt it was time to have some fun with biotech. These plants are among the first direct-to-consumer GM organisms you can buy, and they certainly seem like the coolest.

But when I unboxed my two petunias this week, they were in bad shape, with rotted leaves. And in a day, they were dead crisps. My first attempt to do biotech at home is a total bust, and it cost me $84, shipping included. But, although my petunias have perished, others are having success right out of the box. Read the full story.

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech and health newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 ByteDance insists it won’t sell its US TikTok business
It claims that reports it plans to sell the platform without its recommendation algorithm are untrue. (WSJ $)
+ In fact, it seems like ByteDance is doubling down on its ownership. (FT $)
+ The ban is extremely unpopular among prospective young voters. (Vox)

2 Big Tech needs to work out how to make money from AI 

They’ve optimistically sunk billions into systems that aren’t yet money makers. (WP $)
+ But Google and Microsoft claim they’ve already figured out how to cash in. (Wired $)
+ Prominent tech leaders have joined the US government’s AI advisory board. (WSJ $)

3 China controls nearly all of the world’s EV graphite supply
Which makes it virtually impossible for automakers to qualify for US EV subsidies, according to South Korea. (FT $)
+ Singapore’s push into EVs isn’t resonating with car owners. (Rest of World)
+ How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies. (MIT Technology Review)

4 A Baltimore high school teacher created an audio deepfake to smear his boss
The fake clip of the school’s principal contained racist and antisemitic comments. (NYT $)
+ The teacher has been arrested. (NBC News)

5 The first personalized mRNA vaccine for melanoma is being trialed in the UK
Hundreds of patients will receive the vaccine in a bid to combat the cancer. (The Guardian)
+ The next generation of mRNA vaccines is on its way. (MIT Technology Review)

6 We could be closer than ever to curbing climate change
Clean energy sources are on the rise, and efficiency is growing. (Vox)
+ Want less mining? Switch to clean energy. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Russia vetoed a UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space
While China abstained from the vote. (Ars Technica)
+ How to fight a war in space (and get away with it) (MIT Technology Review)

8 Spyware developers could be barred from entering the US
The State Department wants to impose visa restrictions on them. (The Verge)

9 LinkedIn is full of weird AI images now
The junky pictures that first went viral on Facebook are seeping into the professional network. (404 Media)
+ LinkedIn is also home to a new wave of ghostwriters. (Insider $)

10 No Airbnb? No problem
New Yorkers are coming up with innovative ways to get around a crackdown. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“It’s a little corner of happy in a really, really tough world right now.”

—Kristie Carnevale, a BookTok creator, explains to the Washington Post why she’s so upset at the prospect of the US government banning TikTok.

The big story

Eight ways scientists are unwrapping the mysteries of the human brain

August 2021

There is no greater scientific mystery than the brain. It’s made mostly of water; much of the rest is largely fat. Yet this roughly three-pound blob of material produces our thoughts, memories, and emotions. It governs how we interact with the world, and it runs our body.

Increasingly, scientists are beginning to unravel the complexities of how it works and understand how the 86 billion neurons in the human brain form the connections that produce ideas and feelings, as well as the ability to communicate and react. 

Here’s our whistle-stop tour of some of the most cutting-edge research—and why it’s important. Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Watch out, watch out, there’s aquatic spiders about.
+ I don’t know who needs to hear this, but your air fryer is a scam.
+ Insects are important. Here’s how to create a little haven for them, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden.
+ Check out these top tips for keeping your computer running as smoothly as possible.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary

Until now, AI-generated videos of people have tended to have some stiffness, glitchiness, or other unnatural elements that make them pretty easy to differentiate from reality.

For the past several years, AI video startup Synthesia has produced these kinds of AI-generated avatars. But today it launches a new generation, its first to take advantage of the latest advancements in generative AI, and they are more realistic and expressive than anything we’ve seen before.

While today’s release means almost anyone will now be able to make a digital double, before the technology went public, Synthesia agreed to make one of Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter.

This technological progress signals a much larger shift. Increasingly, so much of what we see on our screens is generated (or at least tinkered with) by AI, and it is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish what is real from what is not. And this threatens our trust in everything we see, which could have very dangerous consequences. Read the full story and check out the synthetic version of Melissa.

Want less mining? Switch to clean energy.

Political fights over mining and minerals are heating up, and there are growing concerns about how to source the materials the world needs to build new energy technologies. 

But low-emissions energy sources, including wind, solar, and nuclear power, have a smaller mining footprint than coal and natural gas, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute released today.

The report’s findings add to a growing body of evidence that technologies used to address climate change will likely lead to a future with less mining than a world powered by fossil fuels. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

In the climate world, hydrogen is perhaps the ultimate multi-tool. It can be used in fuel cells or combustion engines and is sometimes called the Swiss Army knife for cleaning up emissions. But the reality today is that hydrogen is much more of a climate problem than a solution. To find out why, check out the latest edition of The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

A new kind of gene-edited pig kidney was just transplanted into a person

The news: A month ago, Richard Slayman became the first living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig. Now, a team of researchers from NYU Langone Health reports that Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from New Jersey, has become the second.

Why it matters: Pisano’s new kidney came from pigs that carry just a single genetic alteration—to eliminate a specific sugar called alpha-gal, which can trigger immediate organ rejection. In the coming weeks, doctors will be monitoring Pisano closely for signs of organ rejection. If it’s successful, researchers hope the approach could make scaling up the production of pig organs simpler. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

Almost every Chinese keyboard app has a security flaw that reveals what users type

In a nutshell: Almost all keyboard apps used by Chinese people around the world share a security loophole that makes it possible to spy on what users are typing.

Why it’s a big deal: The vulnerability, which allows the keystroke data that these apps send to the cloud to be intercepted, has existed for years and could have been exploited by cybercriminals and state surveillance groups, according to researchers at the Citizen Lab, a technology and security research lab affiliated with the University of Toronto. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Meta’s AI push is only just beginning
The company plans to sink $40 billion into its AI projects this year alone—but it hasn’t worked out how to make money from them yet. (Insider $)
+ The news didn’t go down well with Meta’s investors. (The Information $)+ Mark Zuckerberg isn’t ready to give up on the metaverse just yet. (FT $)

2 US chipmaker Micron has been given a major boost
To the tune of $13.6 billion in government funding. (FT $)
+ It could be several months before the money arrives, though. (Bloomberg $)

3 A nuclear fusion experiment has overcome two major barriers
But we don’t know if the operative ‘sweet spot’ it identified could be replicated in larger reactors. (New Scientist $)
+ The next generation of nuclear reactors is getting more advanced. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The US wants Binance’s founder to spend three years in prison
However, lawyers for Changpeng Zhao argue he shouldn’t go to prison at all. (CoinDesk)
+ The cryptocurrency exchange is attempting to distance itself from its former CEO. (NYT $)

5 Nvidia is gobbling up promising-looking startups
It’s in the company’s interests to reduce the high costs of running AI models. (The Information $)

6 In Saudi Arabia, AI is the new oil
And US tech giants are scrambling to get involved. (NYT $)

7 The Earth is rotating more slowly than it used to
You can blame climate change for the gradual slowdown. (Economist $)
+ Three climate technologies breaking through in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

8 These men are repatriating colonial artifacts in audacious digital heists
Their work raises urgent questions about cultural ownership and appropriation. (The Guardian)
+ AI is bringing the internet to submerged Roman ruins. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Robocalls are one of life’s nuisances
David Frankel has spent an impressive 12 years trying to stop them. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Call centers’ days could be numbered, thanks to the rise of AI. (FT $)

10 Seaweed could be a rich resource of precious minerals 
A new project is hoping to get some answers. (Hakai Magazine)

Quote of the day

“No patient should be a guinea pig, and no nurse should be replaced by a robot.”

—Cathy Kennedy, co-president of the California Nurses Association, criticizes the creep of AI into healthcare without safeguards, 404 Media reports.

The big story

The rise of the tech ethics congregation

August 2023

Just before Christmas last year, a pastor preached a gospel of morals over money to several hundred members of his flock. But the leader in question was not an ordained minister, nor even a religious man.

Polgar, 44, is the founder of All Tech Is Human, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting ethics and responsibility in tech. His congregation is undergoing dramatic growth in an age when the life of the spirit often struggles to compete with cold, hard, capitalism.

Its leaders believe there are large numbers of individuals in and around the technology world, often from marginalized backgrounds, who wish tech focused less on profits and more on being a force for ethics and justice. But attempts to stay above the fray can cause more problems than they solve. Read the full story.

—Greg M. Epstein

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Roger Federer sounds like an all-round nice guy.
+ This list of the year’s most anticipated tours is making me excited for summer.
+ If only all cakes were this artistic.
+ What are you waiting for—now’s the time to make reservations at the world’s hottest new restaurants.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Introducing: the Build issue

Building is a popular tech industry motif—especially in Silicon Valley, where “Time to build” has become something of a call to arms. Yet the future is built brick by brick from the imperfect decisions we make in the present. 

We don’t often recognize that the seeming steps forward we are taking today could be seen as steps back in the years to come. Sometimes the things we don’t do, or the steps we skip, have bigger implications than the actions we do take.

These are the themes we delve into in our Build issue. Check out these stories from the magazine:

Check out these stories from the magazine:

+ Our cover story from Melissa Heikkilä investigates whether the AI boom is going to usher in robotics’ very own ChatGPT moment.

+ Louisiana’s homes are sinking. Can a government-led project build the area up and out of crisis?

+ Axiom Space and other commercial companies are betting they can build private structures to replace the International Space Station.

+ A fascinating look at the serious weird history of brainwashing, and how America became obsessed with waging psychic war against China.

+ Why the rise of generative AI means we need a new term to replace ‘user.’

+ AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened?

+ How we transform to a fully decarbonized world. A world powered by electricity from abundant, renewable resources is now within reach.

This is just a small selection of what’s on offer. Subscribe if you don’t already to check out the whole thing. Enjoy!

This solar giant is moving manufacturing back to the US

Whenever you see a solar panel, most parts of it probably come from China. The US invented the technology and once dominated its production, but over the past two decades, government subsidies and low costs in China have led most of the solar manufacturing supply chain to be concentrated there.

But the US government is trying to change that. Through high tariffs on imports and hefty domestic tax credits, it is trying to make the cost of manufacturing solar panels in the US competitive enough for companies to want to come back and set up factories.

To understand its chances of success, MIT Technology Review spoke to Shawn Qu, founder and chairman of long-standing solar firm Canadian Solar. After decades of mostly manufacturing in Asia, Canadian Solar is pivoting back to the US. He told Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, why he sees a real chance for a solar industry revival. 

To learn more about the state of Chinese tech in the US, including climate tech stars, check out the latest edition of China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech, policy and power in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The US Senate has passed the bill that could ban TikTok 
It could either force parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok, or face a national ban. (WP $)
+ Senators insist that TikTok’s ownership poses a real threat to the US. (FT $)+ But ByteDance is highly unlikely to complete a sale within the narrow timeframe. (Reuters)
+ Here’s what’s likely to happen next. (NYT $)

2 The AI industry is desperate for more data centers
Demand is so high, it’s causing a shortage of essential components. (WSJ $)
+ Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Hackers are testing cyberattacks in developing nations
Africa, Asia and South America are targeted before they move onto richer countries. (FT $)
+ Australia is worried that AI is supercharging online extremist activity. (Bloomberg $)

4 Google has pushed back its plan to phase out cookies—again
It’s the third time the company has delayed the project. (Bloomberg $)

5 How General Motors spied on its customers
It tracked driving data and sold it to the insurance industry. (NYT $)
+ The advertising industry is kicking its heels as it waits. (WSJ $)
+ China’s car companies are turning into tech companies. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How AI could help to make sense of complicated theories
String theory, anyone? (Quanta Magazine)
+ Is it possible to really understand someone else’s mind? (MIT Technology Review)

7 The NFL is diving into big data
When it comes to optimizing sporting performance, knowledge is power. (Knowable Magazine)

8 A new industry is trying to game Reddit with AI-generated product promo
It’s the kind of sneaky approach the Reddit community famously hates. (404 Media)
+ A GPT-3 bot posted comments on Reddit for a week and no one noticed. (MIT Technology Review)

9 AI beauty pageants are a thing now
Which surely undermines the point of beauty contests. (The Guardian)

10 X’s latest trend is infuriating
Look down at my keyboard? Absolutely not. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“If the Chinese government wants data on Americans, they don’t need TikTok to get it.”

—Alan Z. Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota, reflects on the US Senate’s decision to pressure ByteDance into selling TikTok or face a national ban, Platformer reports.

The big story

The lucky break behind the first CRISPR treatment

December 2023

The world’s first commercial gene-editing treatment is set to start changing the lives of people with sickle-cell disease. It’s called Casgevy, and it was approved last November in the UK.

The treatment, which will be sold in the US by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, employs CRISPR, which can be easily programmed by scientists to cut DNA at precise locations they choose.

But where do you aim CRISPR, and how did the researchers know what DNA to change? That’s the lesser-known story of the sickle-cell breakthrough. Read more about it.

—Antonio Regalado

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The Monument Valley games are lovely, if you’ve never played them, and their music is particularly poignant.
+ There’s nothing more satisfying than a good pressure washer video.
+ Have you ever found your doppelganger in an art gallery? These people have.
+ Replacing beef with fish in classic recipes—with surprisingly tasty results.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Why new proposals to restrict geoengineering are misguided

—Daniele Visioni is a climate scientist and assistant professor at Cornell University

The public debate over whether we should consider intentionally altering the climate system is heating up, as the dangers of climate instability rise and more groups look to study technologies that could cool the planet.

Such interventions, commonly known as solar geoengineering, may include releasing sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere to cast away more sunlight, or spraying salt particles along coastlines to create denser, more reflective marine clouds.  

The growing interest in studying the potential of these tools has triggered corresponding calls to shut down the research field, or at least to restrict it more tightly. But such rules would hinder scientific exploration of technologies that could save lives and ease suffering as global warming accelerates—and they might also be far harder to define and implement than their proponents appreciate. Read the full story.

This architect is cutting up materials to make them stronger and lighter

As a child, Emily Baker loved to make paper versions of things. It was a habit that stuck. Years later, studying architecture in graduate school, she was playing around with some paper and scissors when she made a striking discovery.

By making a series of cuts and folds in a sheet of paper, Baker found she could produce two planes connected by a complex set of thin strips. Without the need for an adhesive, this pattern created a surface that was thick but lightweight. Baker named her creation Spin-Valence. 

Structural tests later showed that an individual tile made this way, and rendered in steel, can bear more than a thousand times its own weight. Baker envisions using the technique to make shelters or bridges that are easier to transport and assemble following a natural disaster—or to create lightweight structures that could be packed with supplies for missions to outer space. Read the full story.

—Sofi Thanhauser

This story is for subscribers only, and is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live tomorrow, on the theme of Build. If you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands.

Three things we learned about AI from Emtech Digital London

Last week, MIT Technology Review held its inaugural Emtech Digital conference in London. It was a great success, full of brain-tickling insights about where AI is going next. 

Here are the three main things Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter, took away from the conference.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 US child protection agencies are inundated with AI-created abuse images
And their systems are struggling to spot real children who could be helped. (WP $)
+ A new report is urging tech platforms to improve how such material is reported. (The Verge)
+ Legislation that could overhaul problems in the reporting pipelines is in motion. (WSJ $)

2 A startup edited human DNA using generative AI 
It aims to make the new wave of CRISPR faster and more powerful. (NYT $)
+ Forget designer babies. Here’s how CRISPR is really changing lives. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Amazon is shutting down one of its drone delivery programs in California
Just two years after it launched. (The Verge)

4 There’s no room in China’s tech sector for over-35s
Ageism is rife as companies overlook workers they worry may have home commitments. (FT $)
+ One of China’s most successful cultural exports? Bubble tea. (Bloomberg $)

5 Measuring ocean waves and currents is hard
Luckily, a new kind of sensor-rich buoy that communicates with satellites is one solution. (IEEE Spectrum)

6 Recycling plastic has been a colossal failure
Can ‘advanced recycling’ finally crack it? (New Scientist $)
+ Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How to make your home as energy-efficient as possible
Appliances are much better than they used to be, but you may still have to make sacrifices. (Vox)

8 Captchas are getting tougher to solve
Machines are getting better at cracking them, so the bar is raised for humans. (WSJ $)
+ Death to captchas. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Good luck getting a restaurant reservation these days
Pesky bots and convoluted online booking systems are wrecking our dinners. (New Yorker $)

10 Muting annoying accounts makes social media so much better
Seriously, try it and thank me later. (The Guardian)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I, for one, welcome our new Taylor Swift overlords.” 

—A member of a Reddit community for typewriter enthusiasts jokes about how the group might swell rapidly after Taylor Swift referenced the machines in her new album, 404 Media reports.

The big story

This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future

January 2024

In June last year, Talon, an exploratory mining company, submitted a proposal to Minnesota state regulators to begin digging up as much as 725,000 metric tons of raw ore per year, mainly to unlock the rich and lucrative reserves of high-grade nickel in the bedrock.

Talon is striving to distance itself from the mining industry’s dirty past, portraying its plan as a clean, friendly model of modern mineral extraction. It proclaims the site will help to power a greener future for the US by producing the nickel needed to manufacture batteries for electric cars and trucks, but with low emissions and light environmental impacts.

But as the company has quickly discovered, a lot of locals aren’t eager for major mining operations near their towns. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ What a wonderful piece of music!
+ Weighted blanket devotees swear by them—but what does the science say?
+ Donald Nelson is on a mission to restore sharks’ reputations following decades of persecution.
+ Meanwhile, a British boy has won a European championship with his uncanny impression of a seagull.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

These artificial snowdrifts protect seal pups from climate change

For millennia, during Finland’s blistering winters, wind drove snow into meters-high snowbanks along Lake Saimaa’s shoreline, offering prime real estate from which seals carved cave-like dens to shelter from the elements and raise newborns.

But in recent decades, these snowdrifts have failed to form in sufficient numbers, as climate change has brought warming temperatures and rain in place of snow, decimating the seal population.

For the last 11 years, humans have stepped in to construct what nature can no longer reliably provide. Human-made snowdrifts, built using handheld snowplows, now house 90% of seal pups. They are the latest in a raft of measures that have brought Saimaa’s seals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

Matthew’s story is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live this Wednesday April 24, on the theme of Build. If you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands.

Politics in the AI era

2024 is a banner year for elections across the world, and it arrives just as AI advances come thick and fast. This collision of events raises a crucial question: how will the rise of AI change politics?

Join MIT Technology Review Editor in Chief Mat Honan and Executive Editor Amy Nordrum for a LinkedIn Live event where they’ll explore the impact of political influencers and deepfakes, and unpack industry insights and predictions. Register here to tune in at 1pm ET tomorrow.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Inside the movement to create AI models without guardrails 
These ‘anti-woke’ systems often introduce more problems than solutions. (WSJ $)
+ Do AI systems need to come with safety warnings? (MIT Technology Review)

2 California wants to force Google and Meta to compensate news publishers
Unsurprisingly, they’re not taking the so-called ‘link tax’ lying down. (WP $)
+ Japan’s regulators have accused Google of anticompetitive behavior. (Bloomberg $)

3 China is planning on becoming the global leader for flying cars
Its regulators are beavering away to green-light projects as quickly as possible. (FT $)
+ The aviation industry is still weathering the backlash over Boeing’s issues. (Vox)
+ These aircraft could change how we fly. (MIT Technology Review)

4 TikTok’s top lawyer is stepping down
Amid the company’s highly-publicized legal tussle with the US government. (The Information $)
+ The US Senate is expected to vote on its proposed ban bill this week. (The Guardian)

5 A huge cyberattack revealed Finnish people’s psychotherapy records
The fallout was likened to the trauma of a terrorist attack. (Bloomberg $)

6 A UK sex offender has been banned from using AI tools
In the first known legal case of its kind. (The Guardian)
+ Catching bad content in the age of AI. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The internet is rife with scams
They’re so convincing, even experts are falling for them. (NYT $)
+ How culture drives foul play on the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The future of AI gadgets is probably just phones
The Ai Pin’s savage reviews look like an omen. (The Verge)

9 Spare a thought for Nvidia’s engineers
A million dollars doesn’t go too far these days, according to one worker. (Insider $)

10 This camera produced AI-generated poetry instead of photos
Is a picture really worth a thousand words? (TechCrunch)
+ A Salvador Dalí AI lobster telephone has gone on display in Florida. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“Politics is being treated as a four-letter word and pushed out of the public square.”

—Eric Wilson, managing partner at Republican campaign tech incubator Startup Caucus, laments Meta’s decision to treat politics as less of a priority on its platforms to the Washington Post.

The big story

Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Floyd’s murder 

March 2022

Law enforcement agencies in Minnesota have been carrying out a secretive, long-running surveillance program targeting civil rights activists and journalists in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

Run under a consortium known as Operation Safety Net, the program was set up in spring 2021, ostensibly to maintain public order as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial for Floyd’s murder.

But an investigation by MIT Technology Review reveals that the initiative expanded far beyond its publicly announced scope to include expansive use of tools to scour social media, track cell phones, and amass detailed images of people’s faces. Read the full story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley & Sam Richards

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These cats have a bright pottery-making career ahead of them.
+ You just can’t escape British workwear these days.
+ It’s never too late to take up something you love.
+ The first-ever model of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise NCC-1701 has been returned to the family of series creator Gene Roddenberry.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Beyond Neuralink: Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces

In the world of brain-computer interfaces, it can seem as if one company sucks up all the oxygen in the room. Last month, Neuralink posted a video to X showing the first human subject to receive its brain implant, which will be named Telepathy. The recipient, a 29-year-old man who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, played computer chess, moving the cursor around with his mind.

Neuralink’s announcement of a first-in-human trial made a big splash not because of what the man was able to accomplish—scientists demonstrated using a brain implant to move a cursor in 2006—but because the technology is so advanced.

But Neuralink isn’t the only company developing brain-computer interfaces to help people who have lost the ability to move or speak. Read on to take a look at some of the companies developing brain chips, their progress, and their different approaches to the technology.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly health and biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

It’s time to retire the term “user”

People have been called “users” for a long time; it’s a practical shorthand enforced by executives, founders, operators, engineers, and investors ad infinitum.

Often, it is the right word to describe people who use software: a user is more than just a customer or a consumer. Sometimes a user isn’t even a person; corporate bots are known to run accounts on Instagram and other social media platforms, for example.

But “users” is also unspecific enough to refer to just about everyone. It can accommodate almost any big idea or long-term vision. We use—and are used by—computers and platforms and companies. Though “user” seems to describe a relationship that is deeply transactional, many of the technological relationships in which a person would be considered a user are actually quite personal. That being the case, is “user” still relevant? Read the full story.

—Taylor Majewski

This story is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on April 24. If you don’t already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands.

Three ways the US could help universities compete with tech companies on AI innovation

—Ylli Bajraktari, CEO of nonprofit the Special Competitive Studies Project, Tom Mitchell, the Founders University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Daniela Rus,  a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT

The ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically improve our lives. Yet ensuring that America and other democracies can help shape the trajectory of this technology requires going beyond the tech development taking place at private companies.

Research at universities drove the AI advances that laid the groundwork for the commercial boom we are experiencing today. But large AI models require such vast computational power and such extensive data sets that private companies have replaced academia at the frontier of AI. Here’s a few ideas for how the US could empower its universities to remain alongside them at the forefront of AI research.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Bitcoin investors are eagerly awaiting the ‘halving’ 
The scheduled reduction in the number of newly produced bitcoin could mean their current holdings are worth even more. (FT $)
+ The halving is due to start in the early hours of Saturday morning. (NYT $)
+ The event is the crypto equivalent of the Super Bowl. (Reuters)

2 Meta is integrating its AI into its social media apps
But LLMs and social platforms are dangerous bedfellows. (WP $)
+ Case in point: X’s Grok bot offers up fake news based on users’ jokes. (Ars Technica)
+ Meta launched its newest model, Llama 3, too. (WSJ $)
+ Big Tech is scrambling to make its AI as easy to use as possible. (The Information $)

3 The World Health Organization’s AI avatar struggles with health questions
The bot has been trained on outdated data, and it shows. (Bloomberg $)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China ordered Apple to pull Meta-owned apps from its App Store
Beijing is reportedly unhappy with ‘inflammatory’ Threads and WhatsApp content. (WSJ $)
+ The move is likely to worsen the already-tense relations between the US and China. (FT $)

5 University students are turning to cyber crime to make money
A major phishing site recruited fraudsters to scam tens of thousands of victims. (The Guardian)

6 Your brainwaves are a hot commodity
Tech firms are hungry for neural data, and legislators in Colorado are concerned. (Vox)
+ Data doesn’t get much more personal than this. (NYT $)

7 Deepfakes are making romance scams even more convincing
In the past, a video call confirmed you were speaking to a human. Not anymore. (Wired $)
+ Bans on deepfakes take us only so far—here’s what we really need. (MIT Technology Review)

8 A Netflix true crime documentary contained AI images of an alleged murderer
The AI-generated pictures seek to portray the accused as a fun-loving teen. (404 Media)
+ It looks like Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing worked. (FT $)

9 Product recommendations ruined the internet
Google thinks it can fix it with, err, more product recommendations. (NY Mag $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

10 How tech can help us fight back against locusts
The insects are serious pests. (Economist $)
+ How robotic honeybees and hives could help the species fight back. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“What in the Black Mirror is this?!”

—An anonymous member of a Facebook parenting group reacts to Meta’s AI chatbot claiming it has a child who is both gifted and challenged academically, 404 Media reports.

The big story

The humble oyster could hold the key to restoring coastal waters. Developers hate it.

October 2023

Carol Friend has taken on a difficult job. She is one of the 10 people in Delaware currently trying to make it as a cultivated oyster farmer.

Her Salty Witch Oyster Company holds a lease to grow the mollusks as part of the state’s new program for aquaculture, launched in 2017. It has sputtered despite its obvious promise.

Five years after the first farmed oysters went into the Inland Bays, the aquaculture industry remains in a larval stage. Oysters themselves are almost mythical in their ability to clean and filter water. But human willpower, investment, and flexibility are all required to allow the oysters to simply do their thing—particularly when developers start to object. Read the full story.

—Anna Kramer

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I think we’ve all felt these heightened emotions in these locations at least once.
+ Hold onto your jackets, there are thieves about!
+ As any dog owner will tell you, our furry friends are even smarter than we think.
+ Chickpeas are just so versatile.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

Hydrogen trains could revolutionize how Americans get around

Like a mirage speeding across the dusty desert outside Pueblo, Colorado, the first hydrogen-fuel-cell passenger train in the United States is getting warmed up on its test track. It will soon be shipped to Southern California, where it is slated to carry riders on San Bernardino County’s Arrow commuter rail service before the end of the year.

The best way to decarbonize railroads is the subject of growing debate among regulators, industry, and activists. The debate is partly technological, revolving around whether hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, or overhead electric wires offer the best performance for different railroad situations. But it’s also political: a question of the extent to which decarbonization can, or should, usher in a broader transformation of rail transportation.

In the insular world of railroading, this hydrogen-powered train is a Rorschach test. To some, it represents the future of rail transportation. To others, it looks like a big, shiny distraction. Read the full story.

—Benjamin Schneider

This story is for subscribers only, and is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on April 24, on the theme of Build. If you don’t already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands.

Researchers taught robots to run. Now they’re teaching them to walk

We’ve all seen videos over the past few years demonstrating how agile humanoid robots have become, running and jumping with ease. We’re no longer surprised by this kind of agility—in fact, we’ve grown to expect it.

The problem is, these shiny demos lack real-world applications. When it comes to creating robots that are useful and safe around humans, the fundamentals of movement are more important. 

As a result, researchers are using the same techniques to train humanoid robots to achieve much more modest goals. They believe it will lead to more robust, reliable two-legged machines capable of interacting with their surroundings more safely—as well as learning much more quickly. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

How to build a thermal battery

Thermal energy storage is a convenient way to stockpile energy for later. This could be crucial in connecting cheap but inconsistent renewable energy with industrial facilities, which often require a constant supply of heat. It’s so promising, MIT Technology Review’s readers chose it as an honorary 11th technology in our annual list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies.

Casey Crownhart, our climate reporter, wrote about why this technology is having a moment, and where it might wind up being used, in a story published earlier this week. Now, she’s dug into what it takes to make a thermal battery, and why there are so many different types.

Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Amazon posed as a small retail business to snoop on its rivals
It used competitors’ payment and logistics data to inform its own operations. (WSJ $)+ The company insists its cashierless tech is powered by AI, not humans. (The Verge)

2 Landlords are asking prospective renters for 3D scans of their faces
And in many cases, if you don’t consent, you can’t tour the property alone. (The Markup)
+ The coming war on the hidden algorithms that trap people in poverty. (MIT Technology Review)

3 India’s elections will be a major test of AI literacy
AI-generated videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are addressing voters by name. (NYT $)
+ Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The US National Guard will use Google’s AI to analyze disaster zones
Just in time for the summer wildfire season. (WP $)
+ The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes. (MIT Technology Review)

5 OpenAI’s GPT-4 outperformed junior doctors in analyzing eye conditions
But a lot more work would be needed before deploying it in a clinical setting. (FT $)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Digitizing the real world is a long, tedious process
Engines originally developed for video games are bridging the uncanny valley. (New Yorker $)

7 AI is unlikely to improve the welfare of factory-farmed livestock 
While AI tools could make farming more efficient, it probably won’t make it humane. (Undark Magazine)
+ How CRISPR is making farmed animals bigger, stronger, and healthier. (MIT Technology Review)

8 What happens after you trade in your old iPhone
Spoiler: not all of them end up in industrial shredders. (Bloomberg $)

9 A Hollywood agency is dabbling with AI clones of its A-list talent
Crucially, the stars own their digital doubles. (The Information $)
+ How Meta and AI companies recruited striking actors to train AI. (MIT Technology Review)

10 The next Oprah will be crowned on TikTok 
Self-help book stars reach gigantic audiences hungry for self-actualization. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“We will be attacked.” 

—Franz Regul, head of cyberattack preparations for the 2024 Paris Olympics, is grimly prepared for what he sees as the inevitable, he tells the New York Times.

The big story

The race to produce rare earth materials

January 2024

Abandoning fossil fuels and adopting lower-­carbon technologies are our best options for warding off the accelerating threat of climate change. And access to rare earth elements, key ingredients in many of these technologies, will partly determine which countries will meet their goals for lowering emissions.

Some nations, including the US, are increasingly worried about whether the supply of those elements will remain stable. As a result, scientists and companies alike are intent on increasing access and improving sustainability by exploring secondary or unconventional sources. Read the full story.

— Mureji Fatunde

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Maru the golden retriever has popped up in more than 1,000 Google Street View shots, on the beautiful island of Jukdo.
+ How about a bit of experimental music for a Thursday? (Thanks Mark!)
+ It’s just as the Beach Boys intended!
+ How to get a better night’s sleep without breaking the bank.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

The great commercial takeover of low-Earth orbit

NASA designed the International Space Station to fly for 20 years. It has lasted six years longer than that, though it is showing its age, and NASA is currently studying how to safely destroy the space laboratory by around 2030. 

The ISS never really became what some had hoped: a launching point for an expanding human presence in the solar system. But it did enable fundamental research on materials and medicine, and it helped us start to understand how space affects the human body. 

To build on that work, NASA has partnered with private companies to develop new, commercial space stations for research, manufacturing, and tourism. If they are successful, these companies will bring about a new era of space exploration: private rockets flying to private destinations. They’re already planning to do it around the moon. One day, Mars could follow. Read the full story.

— David W. Brown

This story is for subscribers only, and is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on April 24, on the theme of Build. If you don’t already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands.

Why it’s so hard for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient

Inside most laptop and data center chips today, there’s a tiny component called ABF. It’s a thin insulating layer around the wires that conduct electricity. And over 90% of the materials around the world used to make this insulator are produced by a single Japanese company named Ajinomoto.

As our AI reporter James O’Donnell explained in his story last week, Ajinomoto figured out in the 1990s that a chemical by-product from the production of the seasoning powder MSG can be used to make insulator films, which proved to be essential for high-performance chips. And in the 30 years since, the company has totally dominated ABF supply.

Within China, at least three companies are developing similar insulator products to rival Ajinomoto’s. For decades, the fact that the semiconductor supply chain was in a few companies’ hands was seen as a strength, not a problem. But now, both the US and Chinese governments increasingly see it as a problem to be fixed. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech and policy within China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Starlink is cracking down on internet thieves
Users have been connecting to its services from countries where it’s not licensed to operate. (WSJ $)
+ Antarctica’s history of isolation is ending—thanks to Starlink. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Microsoft has invested more than $1 billion into an Abu Dhabi AI firm 
The company, called G42, recently cut its links with its Chinese hardware supplier. (FT $)
+ Behind Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s push to get AI tools in developers’ hands. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How wartime British scientists worked how how to keep humans alive underwater
Their extraordinary findings played a key part in making D-Day a success. (Wired $)

4 The longevity movement is full of contradictory arguments
But who really wants to live forever anyway? (New Yorker $)
+ The quest to legitimize longevity medicine. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Audiobooks are a hit with Spotify subscribers
But they’re limited to 15 hours’ of listening per month. (Bloomberg $)

6 Farewell to Atlas the robot
Boston Dynamics’ dancing, backflipping humanoid robot is retiring after 11 years in the spotlight. (The Verge)
+ Is robotics about to have its own ChatGPT moment? (MIT Technology Review)

7 Everything is so expensive these days
And covert personalized pricing systems are set to make things even pricier. (The Atlantic $)
+ It turns out Gen Z is a lot richer than their elders. (Economist $)

8 Amazon is a swamp of trashy ebooks
They were a problem before the AI boom, but generative AI has made the issue significantly worse. (Vox)

9 TikTok’s hottest product is industrial-grade glycine from China
The amino acids are feeding the platform’s insatiable appetite for ironic obsessions. (WP $)

10 Behold—the straw that won’t give you wrinkles
Unsurprisingly, it’s the kind of nonsense that will take off on social media. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“People can giggle and say, ‘Oh, look, there’s Brutus plunging a knife into the back of Julius Caesar.'”

—Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, describes his vision of future history classes enabled by VR, Axios reports.

The big story

What is death?

November 2023

Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries. We are here until, suddenly, like a light switched off, we are gone.

But while this idea of death is pervasive, evidence is building that it is an outdated social construct, not really grounded in biology. Dying is in fact a process—one with no clear point demarcating the threshold across which someone cannot come back.

Scientists and many doctors have already embraced this more nuanced understanding of death. And as society catches up, the implications for the living could be profound. Read the full story. 

—Rachel Nuwer

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This Switch bread has a cute lil secret.
+ If you’re one of life’s poor navigators, fear not—you’re not alone.
+ Trying to sell your home? Don’t paint your front door these colors.
+ This is a fascinating look at the science behind entering the state of creative flow.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened?

When police departments first started buying and deploying bodycams in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a decade ago, activists hoped it would bring about real change.

Years later, despite what’s become a multibillion-dollar market for these devices, the tech is far from a panacea. Most of the vast reams of footage they generate go unwatched.  Officers often don’t use them properly. And if they do finally provide video to the public, it’s often selectively edited, lacking context and failing to tell the complete story.

A handful of AI startups see this problem as an opportunity to create what are essentially bodycam-to-text programs for different players in the legal system, mining this footage for misdeeds. But like the bodycams themselves, the technology still faces procedural, legal, and cultural barriers to success. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

Three reasons robots are about to become more way useful

The holy grail of robotics since the field’s beginning has been to build a robot that can do our housework. But for a long time, that has just been a dream. While roboticists have been able to get robots to do impressive things in the lab, these feats haven’t translated to the messy realities of our homes.

Thanks to AI, this is now changing. Robots are starting to become capable of doing tasks such as folding laundry, cooking and unloading shopping baskets, which not too long ago were seen as almost impossible tasks. 

In our most recent cover story for the MIT Technology Review print magazine, senior AI reporter Melissa Heikkilä looked at how robotics as a field is at an inflection point. 

A really exciting mix of things are converging in robotics research, which could usher in robots that might—just might—make it out of the lab and into our homes. Read the three reasons why robotics is on the brink of having its own “ChatGPT moment.”

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 AI startups are covertly developing their chatbots using OpenAI data
Which raises questions about why investors are paying them, exactly. (The Information $)
+ Training an AI model is seriously expensive. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ We could run out of data to train AI language programs. (MIT Technology Review)

2 SpaceX is running rings around its competition
But for how much longer is unclear. (WP $)

3 Why the dream of flying cars refuses to die
Hundreds of startups are committed to making the fantastical vehicles a reality. (New Yorker $)
+ These aircraft could change how we fly. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The future of advanced chips hangs on how they’re packaged
Stacking semiconductors closely together makes them more efficient. (FT $)
+ Why China is betting big on chiplets. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Meta is working on a new VR product for schools
It’s part of the company’s latest foray into populating the metaverse. (Bloomberg $)
+ How many schools will be able to afford it, though? (The Verge)
+ Welcome to the oldest part of the metaverse. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The US government keeps giving Microsoft free passes
It keeps buying the company’s products, despite a series of cybersecurity failures. (Wired $)

7 We don’t know what taking Ozempic for 20 years could do to someone
We should look at how we treat diabetes as a cautionary tale. (The Atlantic $)
+ Hundreds of drugs are in short supply across the US. (Ars Technica)

8 How to save a coral reef
Reefs in East Asia are thriving when others are struggling to survive. (Vox)
+ The race is on to save coral reefs—by freezing them. (MIT Technology Review)

9 What it’s like to eat at an autonomous restaurant 
CaliExpress in Los Angeles encourages its customers to “pay with your face.” (The Guardian)
+ An Argentine startup gives gig workers coffee in exchange for their data. (Rest of World)

10 We may be living in a colossal cosmic void
If it can be proved, it would upend everything we know about the cosmos. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“They have created an amazing edifice that’s built on a foundation of sand.”

—Dan Hunter, a professor of law at King’s College London, tells the Economist that the first wave of companies to cash in on the AI boom are anxiously awaiting a rash of lawsuits from the rights holders of the data their models were trained on. 

The big story

Responsible AI has a burnout problem

October 2022

Margaret Mitchell had been working at Google for two years before she realized she needed a break. Only after she spoke with a therapist did she understand the problem: she was burnt out.

Mitchell, who now works as chief ethics scientist at the AI startup Hugging Face, is far from alone in her experience. Burnout is becoming increasingly common in responsible AI teams.

All the practitioners MIT Technology Review interviewed spoke enthusiastically about their work: it is fueled by passion, a sense of urgency, and the satisfaction of building solutions for real problems. But that sense of mission can be overwhelming without the right support. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Give this vacuum cleaner a Coachella slot, stat.
+ Here’s how philosophy can make your life easier.
+ Moving across continents is no mean feat.
+ How on earth is Pokémon Pinball 35 years old!?

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How to stop a state from sinking

In a 10-month span between 2020 and 2021, southwest Louisiana saw five climate-related disasters, including two destructive hurricanes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, more storms are coming, and many areas are not prepared.

But some government officials and state engineers are hoping there is an alternative: elevation. The $6.8 billion Southwest Coastal Louisiana Project is betting that raising residences by a few feet, coupled with extensive work to restore coastal boundary lands, will keep Louisianans in their communities.

Ultimately, it’s something of a last-ditch effort to preserve this slice of coastline, even as some locals pick up and move inland and as formal plans for managed retreat become more popular in climate-­vulnerable areas across the country and the rest of the world. Read the full story.

—Xander Peters

This story is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on April 24, packed with stories on the theme ‘Build’. If you don’t subscribe already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands.

How thermal batteries are heating up energy storage

We need heat to make everything from steel bars to ketchup packets. Today, a whopping 20% of global energy demand goes to producing heat used in industry, and most of that heat is generated by burning fossil fuels. In an effort to clean up industry, a growing number of companies are working to supply that heat with a technology called thermal batteries.

It’s such an exciting idea that MIT Technology Review readers have officially selected thermal batteries as the reader’s choice addition to our 2024 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Here’s a closer look at what all the excitement is about.

—Casey Crownhart

If thermal batteries have piqued your interest, take a look at the rest of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies, which we revealed earlier in the year.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Crypto miners are bracing themselves to lose out on billions of dollars
The forthcoming ‘halving’ software update will slash the amount they can earn each day. (Bloomberg $)
+ Beware the inevitable crypto scams. (Wired $)

2 Blind people could benefit from artificial vision
Current trials are small, but promising. (Wired $)
+ A new implant for blind people jacks directly into the brain. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Overzealous porn blockers are sabotaging US students’ homework 
Schools’ systems have blocked access to everything from NASA’s site to suicide prevention resources. (The Markup)
+ Teachers in Denmark are using apps to audit their students’ moods. (MIT Technology Review)

4 What do chief AI officers do, exactly?
Firms are rushing to hire them, but no two roles are identical. (FT $)

5 Behind the scenes, EV batteries are getting better
The new and improved cells should make it into cars on sale within the next five years. (WSJ $)
+ A US senator is agitating for a ban on Chinese-made EVs. (Ars Technica)
+ Meet the new batteries unlocking cheaper electric vehicles. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Pumping oxygen into the ocean could revitalize ‘dead zones’
In the hopes of bringing local ecosystems back to life. (The Atlantic $)

7 Millions of people catch Tuberculosis each year
A new vaccine could help to fight the disease, which is both preventable and treatable. (Vox)
+ These AI-powered apps can hear the cause of a cough. (MIT Technology Review)

8 AI is ruining beloved movies
That’s according to film aficionados, who hate the technology’s sharp, polished look. (NYT $)

9 Color analysis has had a 21st century makeover
The ‘80s way of working out which shades suit you best is a TikTok sensation. (WP $)
+ An in-person consultation could set you back $500. (NYT $)

10 Neopets is back!
Millennials are logging back on to hang out with virtual pets they created 20 years ago. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“If you were wondering what they’re using to train GPT-5, well, now you know.”

—John Levine, creator of a site designed to trap web crawling bots, explains his site has received millions of pings from OpenAI bots over recent days, as they indiscriminately hoover up internet data used to train AI models, 404 Media reports.

The big story

How robotic honeybees and hives could help the species fight back

October 2022

Something was wrong, but Thomas Schmickl couldn’t put his finger on it. It was 2007, and the Austrian biologist was spending part of the year at East Tennessee State University. During his daily walks, he realized that insects seemed conspicuously absent.

Schmickl, who now leads the Artificial Life Lab at the University of Graz in Austria, wasn’t wrong. Insect populations are indeed declining or changing around the world.

Robotic bees, he believes, could help both the real thing and their surrounding nature. Read the full story.

—Elizabeth Preston

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These artistic cookies are healing my soul.
+ Would you like to listen to the whole of Rubber Soul, but it’s just the bass and drums? Of course you would.
+ It’s French toast—but not as we know it.
+ Take me to all of these beaches immediately.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

A brief, weird history of brainwashing

On a spring day in 1959, war correspondent Edward Hunter testified before a US Senate subcommittee investigating “the effect of Red China Communes on the United States.”

Hunter discussed a new concept to the American public: a supposedly scientific system for changing people’s minds, even making them love things they once hated.

Much of it was baseless, but Hunter’s sensational tales still became an important part of the disinformation and pseudoscience that fueled a “mind-control race” during the Cold War. US officials prepared themselves for a psychic war with the Soviet Union and China by spending millions of dollars on research into manipulating the human brain.

But while the science never exactly panned out, residual beliefs fostered by this bizarre conflict continue to play a role in ideological and scientific debates to this day. Read the full story.

—Annalee Newitz

This US startup makes a crucial chip material and is taking on a Japanese giant

It can be dizzying to try to understand all the complex components of a single computer chip: layers of microscopic components linked to one another through highways of copper wires. 

Zooming in further, there’s one particular type of insulating material placed between the chip and the structure beneath it; this material, called dielectric film, is produced in sheets as thin as white blood cells.

For 30 years, a single Japanese company called Ajinomoto has made billions producing this particular film. Competitors have struggled to outdo them, and today Ajinomoto’s products are used in everything from laptops to data centers. 

Now, a startup based in Berkeley, California, is embarking on a herculean effort to dethrone Ajinomoto and bring this small slice of the chipmaking supply chain back to the US. But success is far from guaranteed. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

The effort to make a breakthrough cancer therapy cheaper

CAR-T therapies, created by engineering a patient’s own cells to fight cancer, are typically reserved for people who have exhausted other treatment options. But last week, the FDA approved Carvykti, a CAR-T product for multiple myeloma, as a second-line therapy. That means people are eligible to receive Carvykti after their first relapse.

While this means some multiple myeloma patients in the US will now get earlier access to CAR-T, the vast majority of patients around the globe still won’t get CAR-T at all. These therapies are expensive—half a million dollars in some cases. But do they have to be? Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly health and biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Humane’s AI Pin struggles with the most basic tasks
Which means it’s seriously unlikely to replace a smartphone any time soon. (NYT $)
+ The device needs to nail the fundamentals before it can be genuinely useful. (The Verge)
+ It seems to have a pretty severe overheating problem, too. (WP $)

2 China is pushing American chipmakers out of its telecoms systems
It’s confident its locally-produced chips are adequate replacements. (WSJ $)
+ How ASML took over the chipmaking chessboard. (MIT Technology Review)

3 OpenAI has reportedly fired two researchers for leaking
But for leaking what, we do not know. (The Information $)
+ Now we know what OpenAI’s superalignment team has been up to. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Repairing your iPhone might be about to get cheaper
At long last, Apple has approved used parts to fix devices. (WP $)
+ But the policy only applies to the iPhone 15. (NYT $)
+ The announcement coincides with Colorado considering a right-to-repair bill. (404 Media)

5 AI data centers have a serious overheating problem
A Japanese ceramics company thinks it has the answer. (FT $)

6 We could be nearing a turning point for geothermal energy
Tapping into the systems is expensive and complicated. But new projects are making headway. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Underground thermal energy networks are becoming crucial to the US’s energy future. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The US Space Force is preparing for the first military exercise in orbit
In which a spacecraft will chase down a satellite, before swapping roles. (Ars Technica)
+ An exploding star released the brightest-ever burst of light in 2022. (BBC)
+ The first-ever mission to pull a dead rocket out of space has just begun. (MIT Technology Review)

8 You shouldn’t rely on TikTok for tax advice
You almost definitely can’t claim your pet as a work expense. (The Guardian)
+ You probably shouldn’t trust virtual influencers either. (The Information $)

9 San Francisco’s Metro system still runs on floppy discs
And it still works just fine—for now. (Wired $)

10 Dyson’s AR app highlights all the dusty spots you’ve missed
If you think your home is clean, think again. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“Murphy’s law states that ‘anything that can go wrong will go wrong.’ That pretty much sums up my first three days with Humane’s Ai Pin.”

—Journalist Raymond Wong expresses his frustration at trying to get Humane’s Ai Pin, a device touted as the future of mobile computing, to do pretty much anything, Inverse reports.

The big story

Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible

October 2023

Since the 1970s, we’ve sent a lot of big things to Mars. But when NASA successfully sent twin Mars Cube One spacecraft, the size of cereal boxes, to the red planet in November 2018, it was the first time we’d ever sent something so small.

Just making it this far heralded a new age in space exploration. NASA and the community of planetary science researchers caught a glimpse of a future long sought: a pathway to much more affordable space exploration using smaller, cheaper spacecraft. Read the full story.

—David W. Brown

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ In adorable news: a science teacher hosted dozens of his former pupils after he promised them they’d watch the eclipse together all the way back in 1978.
+ Congratulations to Trigger, a guide dog who fathered so many guide puppies (more than 300!), he’s been given the nickname the Dogfather.
+ We’re all getting older, so we may as well embrace it.
+ These hyraxes love tea so much, they could become honorary UK citizens.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Is robotics about to have its own ChatGPT moment?

Henry and Jane Evans are used to awkward houseguests. For more than a decade, the couple, who live in Los Altos Hills, California, have hosted a slew of robots in their home.

In 2002, at age 40, Henry had a massive stroke, which left him with quadriplegia and an inability to speak. While they’ve experimented with many advanced robotic prototypes in a bid to give Henry more autonomy, it’s one recent model that works in tandem with AI models that has made the biggest changes—helping to brush his hair, and opening up his relationship with his granddaughter.

A new generation of scientists and inventors believes that the previously missing ingredient of AI can give robots the ability to learn new skills and adapt to new environments faster than ever before. This new approach, just maybe, can finally bring robots out of the factory and into our homes. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Melissa’s story is from the next magazine issue of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on April 24, on the theme of Build. If you don’t subscribe already, sign up now to get a copy when it lands.

The inadvertent geoengineering experiment that the world is now shutting off

The news: When we talk about climate change, the focus is usually on the role that greenhouse-gas emissions play in driving up global temperatures, and rightly so. But another important, less-known phenomenon is also heating up the planet: reductions in other types of pollution.

In a nutshell: In particular, the world’s power plants, factories, and ships are pumping much less sulfur dioxide into the air, thanks to an increasingly strict set of global pollution regulations. Sulfur dioxide creates aerosol particles in the atmosphere that can directly reflect sunlight back into space or act as the “condensation nuclei” around which cloud droplets form. More or thicker clouds, in turn, also cast away more sunlight. So when we clean up pollution, we also ease this cooling effect.  

Why it matters: Cutting air pollution has unequivocally saved lives. But as the world rapidly warms, it’s critical to understand the impact of pollution-fighting regulations on the global thermostat as well. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Election workers are worried about AI 
Generative models could make it easier for election deniers to spam offices. (Wired $)
+ Eric Schmidt has a 6-point plan for fighting election misinformation. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Apple has warned users in 92 countries of mercenary spyware attacks
It said it had high confidence that the targets were at genuine risk. (TechCrunch)

3 The US is in desperate need of chip engineers
Without them, it can’t meet its lofty semiconductor production goals. (WSJ $)
+ Taiwanese chipmakers are looking to expand overseas. (FT $)
+ How ASML took over the chipmaking chessboard. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Meet the chatbot tutors
Tens of thousands of gig economy workers are training tomorrow’s models. (NYT $)
+ Adobe is paying photographers $120 per video to train its generator. (Bloomberg $)
+ The next wave of AI coding tools is emerging. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ The people paid to train AI are outsourcing their work… to AI. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The Middle East is rushing to build AI infrastructure
Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE see sprawling data centers as key to becoming the region’s AI superpower. (Bloomberg $)

6 Political content creators and activists are lobbying Meta
They claim the company’s decision to limit the reach of ‘political’ content is threatening their livelihoods. (WP $)

7 The European Space Agency is planning an artificial solar eclipse
The mission, due to launch later this year, should provide essential insight into the sun’s atmosphere. (IEEE Spectrum)

8 How AI is helping to recover Ireland’s marginalized voices
Starting with the dung queen of Dublin. (The Guardian)
+ How AI is helping historians better understand our past. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Video game history is vanishing before our eyes
As consoles fall out of use, their games are consigned to history too. (FT $)

10 Dating apps are struggling to make looking for love fun
Charging users seems counterintuitive, then. (The Atlantic $)
+ Here’s how the net’s newest matchmakers help you find love. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“We’re women sharing cool things with each other directly. You want it to go back to men running QVC?”

—Micah Enriquez, a successful ‘cleanfluencer,’ who shares cleaning tips and processes with her followers, feels criticism leveled at such content creators has a sexist element, she tells New York Magazine.

The big story

Is it possible to really understand someone else’s mind?

November 2023

Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a hulking fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks.

None of this, of course, can be done without your consent; for the foreseeable future, your thoughts will remain your own, if you so choose. But if you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain.

More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity.

But as exciting as the idea of extracting a movie from someone’s brain activity may be, it is a highly limited form of “mind reading.” To really experience the world through your eyes, scientists would have to be able to infer not just what film you are watching but also what you think about it, and how it makes you feel. And these interior thoughts and feelings are far more difficult to access. Read the full story.

—Grace Huckins

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Intrepid archaeologists have uncovered beautiful new frescos in the ruins of Pompeii.
+ This doughy jellyfish sure looks tasty.
+ A short rumination on literary muses, from Zelda Fitzgerald to Neal Cassady.
+ Grammar rules are made to be broken.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Generative AI can turn your most precious memories into photos that never existed

As a six-year-old growing up in Barcelona, Spain, during the 1940s, Maria would visit a neighbor’s apartment in her building when she wanted to see her father. From there, she could try and try to catch a glimpse of him in the prison below, where he was locked up for opposing the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

There is no photo of Maria on that balcony. But she can now hold something like it: a fake photo—or memory-based reconstruction, as the Barcelona-based design studio Domestic Data Streamers puts it—of the scene that a real photo might have captured.The studio uses generative image models, such as OpenAI’s DALL-E, to bring people’s memories to life.

The fake snapshots are blurred and distorted, but they can still rewind a lifetime in an instant. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Why China’s regulators are softening on its tech sector

Understanding the Chinese government’s decisions to bolster or suppress a certain technology is always a challenge. Why does it favor this sector instead of that one? What triggers officials to suddenly initiate a crackdown? The answers are never easy to come by.

Angela Huyue Zhang, a law professor in Hong Kong, has some suggestions. She spoke with Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, on how Chinese regulators almost always swing back and forth between regulating tech too much and not enough, how local governments have gone to great lengths to protect local tech companies, and why AI companies in China are receiving more government goodwill than other sectors today. Read the full story.

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

+ Read more about Zeyi’s conversation with Zhang and how to apply her insights to AI here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 We need new ways to evaluate how safe an AI model is
Current assessment methods haven’t kept pace with the sector’s rapid development. (FT $)
+ Do AI systems need to come with safety warnings? (MIT Technology Review)

2 Japan has grand hopes of rebuilding its fallen chip industry 
And a small farming town has a critical role to play. (NYT $)
+ Google is working on its own proprietary chips to power its AI. (WSJ $)
+ Intel also unveiled a new chip to rival Nvidia’s stranglehold on the industry. (Reuters)

3 Russia canceled the launch of its newest rocket
The failure means the country is lagging further behind its space rivals in China and the US. (Bloomberg $)
+ The US is retiring one of its most powerful rockets, the Delta IV Heavy. (Ars Technica)

4 Gaming giant Blizzard is returning to China
After hashing out a new deal with long-time partner NetEase. (WSJ $)

5 Volkswagen converted a former Golf factory to produce all-electric vehicles
Its success suggests that other factories could follow suit without major job losses. (NYT $)
+ Three frequently asked questions about EVs, answered. (MIT Technology Review)

6 OpenAI is limbering up to fight numerous lawsuits
By hiring some of the world’s top legal minds to fight claims it breached copyright law. (WP $)
+ AI models that are capable of “reasoning” are on the horizon—if you believe the hype. (FT $)
+ OpenAI’s hunger for data is coming back to bite it. (MIT Technology Review)

7 San Francisco’s marshlands urgently need more mud
A new project is optimistic that dumping sediment onto the bay floor can help. (Hakai Magazine)
+ Why salt marshes could help save Venice. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Scientists are using eDNA to track down soldiers’ remains
Unlike regular DNA, it’s the genetic material we’re all constantly shedding. (Undark Magazine)
+ How environmental DNA is giving scientists a new way to understand our world. (MIT Technology Review)

9 We may have finally solved a cosmic mystery
However, not all cosmologists are in agreement. (New Scientist $)

10 Social media loves angry music
Extreme emotions require a similarly intense soundtrack. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“I would urge everyone to think of AI as a sword, not just a shield, when it comes to bad content.”

—Nick Clegg, Meta’s global affairs chief, plays up AI’s ability to prevent the spread of misinformation rather than propagate it, the Guardian reports.

The big story

Inside China’s unexpected quest to protect data privacy

August 2020

In the West, it’s widely believed that neither the Chinese government nor Chinese people care about privacy. In reality, this isn’t true.

Over the last few years the Chinese government has begun to implement privacy protections that in many respects resemble those in America and Europe today.

At the same time, however, it has ramped up state surveillance. This paradox has become a defining feature of China’s emerging data privacy regime, and raises a serious question: Can a system endure with strong protections for consumer privacy, but almost none against government snooping? Read the full story.

—Karen Hao

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The rare, blind, hairy mole is a sight to behold.
+ When science fiction authors speak, the world listens.
+ Great, now the cat piano is going to be stuck in my head all day.
+ How to speak to just about anyone—should you want to, that is.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Why the Chinese government is sparing AI from harsh regulations—for now

The way China regulates its tech industry can seem highly unpredictable. The government can celebrate the achievements of Chinese tech companies one day and then turn against them the next.

But there are patterns in how China approaches regulating tech, argues Angela Huyue Zhang, a law professor at Hong Kong University and author of the new book High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. 

Chinese policies almost always follow a three-phase progression: a lax approach where companies are given relative flexibility to expand and compete, sudden harsh crackdowns that slash profits, and eventually a new loosening of restrictions. 

Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, recently spoke with Zhang about her new book and how to apply her insights to China’s tech industry, including significant new sectors like artificial intelligence. Read the full story.

If you’re interested in China’s approach to regulation, why not check out:

+ How China is regulating robotaxis. The self-driving vehicles are only accessible in a few Chinese cities so far, but national regulations have started to rein them in. Read the full story.

+ Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024, from a potential new law to zooming in on copyright and safety reviews.

+ China is escalating its war on kids’ screen time. Here’s what Beijing’s new restrictions on child internet use mean for privacy protection. Read the full story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Kremlin-linked trolls worked to undermine US support for Ukraine 
And it seems they’ve had plenty of success with that strategy. (WP $)
+ Russia has started using the same drones as Ukrainian forces. (New Yorker $)
+ Ukraine is fighting back with sophisticated AI systems. (Economist $)
+ Here’s how you can avoid being sucked into sharing falsehoods about the war online. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Tesla settled a lawsuit over a fatal autopilot crash
Just months before it unveils its take on a robotaxi. (NYT $)
+ The move avoids a lengthy jury trial dissecting Tesla’s autopilot software. (WP $)
+ Embattled robotaxi firm Cruise is set to resume testing in Phoenix. (Bloomberg $)

3 Taiwanese manufacturers are considering opening overseas HQs
In a bid to protect themselves in the event of an attack from China. (FT $)
+ The US has launched a program to connect startups with Taiwanese peers. (Bloomberg $)

4 Can you watch an eclipse on a Vision Pro headset?
With additional eclipse glasses, sure. That doesn’t mean you should, though. (The Verge)
+ Yesterday’s North American solar eclipse looked pretty amazing. (Wired $)
+ If you missed it: don’t worry. You don’t have to wait too long. (Vox)

5 India’s electric rickshaws have eclipsed EVs in popularity
They’re powering the country’s electric revolution. (Rest of World)
+ Europe’s best-selling Chinese EV maker has a surprising name. (MIT Technology Review)

6 No one uses domain names anymore
Social media murdered the need for a personal website, and the web is worse for it. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

7 We’re getting closer to working out how to treat long covid
And blood could be the answer. (New Scientist $)
+ Scientists are finding signals of long covid in blood. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Fans of a Japanese virtual pop star are furious
After their idol appeared in 2D on a screen during a concert, not as a hologram. (404 Media)

9 TikTok deals in radical candor
Soul-baring confessions equate to big views. But is it wise to bare it all? (The Guardian)
+ TikTok has confirmed it’s working on an app to rival Instagram. (TechCrunch)
+ Meanwhile, the company’s US workers aren’t able to sell their shares. (FT $)

10 Please, no more journal apps
Big Tech is hellbent on churning them out, whether we want them or not. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“We tried. Total disaster.”

—Jonathon Narvey, chief executive of Mind Meld, a Vancouver-based public relations agency, laments the company’s brief foray into generative AI to the Wall Street Journal.

The big story

Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again.

October 2023

The problem of plastic waste hides in plain sight, a ubiquitous part of our lives we rarely question. But a closer examination of the situation is shocking. 

To date, humans have created around 11 billion metric tons of plastic. 72% of the plastic we make ends up in landfills or the environment. Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled. 

To make matters worse, plastic production is growing dramatically; in fact, half of all plastics in existence have been produced in just the last two decades. Production is projected to continue growing, at about 5% annually. 

So what do we do? Sadly, solutions such as recycling and reuse aren’t equal to the scale of the task. The only answer is drastic cuts in production in the first place. Read the full story. 

—Douglas Main

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ If you’ve always wanted to watch The Social Network but never had the time, boy do I have the gif for you.
+ How one medieval monk set about crowdsourcing the world’s most accurate map.
+ Artist Keith Haring loved creating to music. His foundation has created playlists of his favorite mixtapes—and they’re certified bangers.
+ The James Webb Space Telescope has made an intriguing space discovery: alcohol.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

A conversation with Dragoș Tudorache, the politician behind the AI Act

Dragoș Tudorache is one of the most important players in European AI policy. He is one of the two lead negotiators of the AI Act in the European Parliament—the first sweeping AI law of its kind in the world, which will enter into force this year.

Shepherding the Act into its final form has been a wild ride, with intense negotiations, the rise of ChatGPT, lobbying from tech companies, and a flip-flopping by some of Europe’s largest economies. But now, as it’s passed into law, Tudorache’s job on it is done and dusted, and he has no regrets. 

Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter, sat down with Tudorache at an AI conference just outside Brussels to hear more about why he believes the landmark law will change the AI sector for the better. Check out the rest of their conversation.

Dragoș Tudorache will be speaking at Emtech Digital London on April 16-17. It’s the first time our flagship AI conference has come to the UK. It’s not too late to get in-person and digital tickets—and Download readers are entitled to an exclusive discount. We’d love to see you there!

This story appears in The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

To read more about why the AI Act is such a game changer, take a look at:

+Five things you need to know about the AI Act—and what comes next.

+ Here’s what the Act is likely to change, and, crucially, what it won’t. Read the full story.

How to safely watch and photograph the total solar eclipse

If you’re living in the United States, Mexico, or Canada, there’s a good chance you’ll get to witness the total solar eclipse taking place today, when the moon will pass directly between Earth and the sun.

Wherever you are, here’s everything you need to know about safely watching—and photographing—the natural phenomenon. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

+ Did you know that MIT Technology Review was documenting eclipses as far back as 125 years ago? And, while much has changed in science and society since 1900, the thrill of a total solar eclipse has not. Read the full story from the archive.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Big Tech is cutting corners to gobble up new AI training data
Negotiating licenses with copyrighted data holders takes too long, so tech giants are taking matters into their own hands. (NYT $)
+ Meanwhile, the same giants are richer than ever before. (WSJ $)
+ We could run out of data to train AI language programs. (MIT Technology Review)

2 US lawmakers want to give consumers power over their personal data
If passed, the proposed law would overhaul how internet companies collect user data. (WP $)
+ It would also create a national registry of data brokers. (Wired $)

3 AI accessibility tools are making the internet worse for blind users
The unreliable aids are causing more harm than good. (FT $)

4 Today’s total eclipse is a major test for the US power grid 
Operators hope to learn lessons they can apply to unforecasted solar blackouts. (Vox)
+ Good luck getting an Airbnb booking in the path of totality. (Economist $)
+ Spare a thought for us in the UK: our next total eclipse isn’t until 2090. (New Scientist $)

5 Neuralink appears to care more about investors than helping disabled people
And society isn’t sure how it feels about the devices. (The Atlantic $)
+ Elon Musk wants more bandwidth between people and machines. Do we need it? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Google wants to kill cold calls
A new button could allow users to automatically look up unknown numbers. (The Verge)

7 NASA finally knows what knocked is Voyager 1 spacecraft offline
After five long months of it transmitting nonsensical rubbish. (Ars Technica)

8 Uber’s e-bike fleet just keeps growing
Where its rivals have faltered, Lime continues to prosper. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why New York City is testing battery swapping for e-bikes. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Spotify is generating playlists using AI prompts
The AI Playlist feature draws from LLMs and its understanding of your own musical tastes. (TechCrunch)
+ A Disney director tried—and failed—to use an AI Hans Zimmer to create a soundtrack. (MIT Technology Review)

10 We’re probably not going to find aliens by analyzing planetary gasses
Unfortunately, it’s one of the only techniques at our disposal. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“I won’t dance. Promise.”

—German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announces the launch of his TikTok account as Europe’s politicians attempt to engage younger audiences, Reuters reports.

The big story

Are we alone in the universe?

November 2023

The quest to determine if anyone or anything is out there has gained greater scientific footing over the past 50 years. Back then, astronomers had yet to spot a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know the galaxy is teeming with a diversity of worlds.

We’re now getting closer than ever before to learning how common living worlds like ours actually are. New tools, including artificial intelligence, could help scientists look past their preconceived notions of what constitutes life. Read the full story.

—Adam Mann

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Mount Etna is blowing perfect smoke rings into the sky.
+ Mmm, delicious space!
+ Every week should start with a frog in a hat.
+ Bonnie Tyler is gearing up for another busy day: every time there’s an eclipse, her phone blows up.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How to safely watch and photograph the total solar eclipse

On April 8, the moon will pass directly between Earth and the sun, creating a total solar eclipse across much of the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Although total solar eclipses occur somewhere in the world every 18 months or so, this one is unusual because tens of millions of people in North America will likely witness it, from Mazatlán in Mexico to Newfoundland in Canada.

Here’s how to safely watch—and photograph—the natural phenomenon, even if you don’t have a fancy camera to hand. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

What you need to know about new bird flu infections

A dairy worker in Texas tested positive for avian influenza this week. But this new human case of bird flu—the second ever reported in the United States—isn’t cause for panic. The individual’s illness was mild, and they are already recovering. There’s still no evidence that the virus is spreading person to person.

However, the rash of recent infections among livestock is unsettling. Last month, goats in Minnesota tested positive. And avian influenza has now been confirmed in dairy cows in Texas, Michigan, Kansas, New Mexico, and Idaho. In some of those cases, the virus appears to have spread between cows. 

Here’s what we know about this new outbreak and what people are doing to prepare for further spread. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly health and biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Influencers are being deepfaked without their consent
The eerie AI clones appear in disinformation campaigns and product promotion videos. (FT $)
+ Chinese groups are pushing fake AI images to inflame election debate. (Bloomberg $)
+ Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Big Tech wants to work out how AI will affect jobs
The world’s biggest firms are working together to study the AI boom’s impact on the sector’s workers. (WP $)
+ Even Elon Musk is stunned at the state of the war for AI talent. (WSJ $)
+ How ChatGPT will revolutionize the economy. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Apple has laid off more than 600 workers
Just weeks after deciding to finally ax its electric car project. (WSJ $)

4 YouTube’s rules prohibit using its videos to train OpenAI’s Sora model
…but OpenAI says it doesn’t know whether it did or not. (Bloomberg $)
+ How three filmmakers created Sora’s latest stunning videos. (MIT Technology Review)

5 One man took down North Korea’s internet single handedly
Now he’s urging the US to flex its hacking muscles. (Wired $)

6 New York City’s chatbot is encouraging users to break the law
It’s also offering up inaccurate, unreliable advice. (Reuters)
+ Why Big Tech’s bet on AI assistants is so risky. (MIT Technology Review) 

7 TikTok is going on a massive marketing blitz to fight a potential ban
With a little help from some nuns. (NYT $)

8 China is betting big on EV battery swapping
No charger? No problem. (Rest of World)
+ How 5-minute battery swaps could get more EVs on the road. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 The Sims filled millennials’ heads with dreams of home ownership
For some of us, virtual houses are the closest we’re ever going to get. (Slate $)

10 Gen Z’s favorite food? Perpetual stew
How a hearty meal two months in the making became a viral sensation. (The Economist $)

Quote of the day

“A peaceful and quiet Sunday is not undermined by the sale of a bottle of milk and a box of cream.”

—German politician Stefan Naas tells the Financial Times why he’s opposed to a recent legal decision that decrees automated “robot shops” should be forced to close on Sundays too.

The big story

We’ve never understood how hunger works. That might be about to change.

January 2024

When you’re starving, hunger is like a demon. It awakens the most ancient and primitive parts of the brain, then commandeers other neural machinery to do its bidding until it gets what it wants. 

Although scientists have had some success in stimulating hunger in mice, we still don’t really understand how the impulse to eat works. Now, some experts are following known parts of the neural hunger circuits into uncharted parts of the brain to try and find out.

Their work could shed new light on the factors that have caused the number of overweight adults worldwide to skyrocket in recent years. And it could also help solve the mysteries around how and why a new class of weight-loss drugs seems to work so well. Read the full story.

—Adam Piore

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It is a truth universally acknowledged that cats do not like wearing hats.
+ I think I speak for everyone when I say I’m not sure that Titanic II is a good idea.
+ Conway Library’s photographic archive is fully online, if you fancy a browse.
+ Shaving soap: weirdly soothing.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The hard lessons of Harvard’s failed geoengineering experiment

In March 2017, at a small summit in Washington, DC, two Harvard professors, David Keith and Frank Keutsch, laid out plans to conduct what would have been the first solar geoengineering experiment in the stratosphere.

The basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that by spraying certain particles high above the planet, humans could reflect some amount of sunlight back into space as a means of counteracting climate change. But critics have argued that an intervention that could tweak the entire planet’s climate system is too dangerous to study in the real world.

The single, small balloon experiment came to represent all of these fears—and, in the end, it was more than the researchers were prepared to take on. Last month, a decade after the project was first proposed, Harvard officially announced the project’s termination. So what went wrong? And what does that failure say about the latitude that researchers have to explore such a controversial subject? Read the full story.

—James Temple

Why the lifetime of nuclear plants is getting longer

The average age of reactors in nuclear power plants around the world is creeping up. In the US, which has more operating reactors than any other country, the average reactor is 42 years old. Nearly 90% of reactors in Europe have been around for 30 years or more. 

Older reactors, especially smaller ones, have been shut down in droves due to economic pressures, particularly in areas with other inexpensive sources of electricity, like cheap natural gas. But there could still be a lot of life left in older nuclear reactors. 

Extending the lifetime of existing nuclear plants could help cut emissions and is generally cheaper than building new ones. So just how long can we expect nuclear power plants to last? Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Your solar eclipse questions, answered

On Monday, April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America. It’ll be the last one visible from the mainland United States until 2044. Join MIT Technology Review at 4pm ET tomorrow for a fun (and free!) LinkedIn Live session dedicated to answering all of your burning solar eclipse questions ahead of this spectacular celestial event.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Google is considering charging for its AI-powered search 
In what would be the biggest-ever shake-up of its search engine business. (FT $)
+ Google has never paywalled any element of search before now. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Israel used AI to identify 37,000 potential Palestinian targets 
The system rapidly processed masses of data to list men it said were linked to Hamas. (The Guardian)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Banks and financial services are being targeted by deep fakes
Bad actors are increasingly turning to AI to impersonate customers and steal money. (WSJ $)

4 Microsoft claims to have made the most reliable quantum computer yet
It’s able to correct its own errors, which is a significant step forward. (New Scientist $)
+ Quantum computing is taking on its biggest challenge: noise. (MIT Technology Review)

5 X is restoring blue checks to influential users 
Much to the surprise of the account holders. (WP $)

6 NASA is taking moon buggy design suggestions
Three companies are locked in competition to build the futuristic vehicles. (NYT $)
+ The rovers will operate even when astronauts are not on the moon. (WP $)
+ Future space food could be made from astronaut breath. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Cryptographers explain how they cracked the Zodiac Killer cipher
After it stumped experts for 51 years. (404 Media)

8 Chinese netizens are mourning deceased loved ones with AI
Through digital avatars and audio voice recreations. (The Guardian)
+ Mourners would do well to temper their expectations of these grief tools. (Undark Magazine)
+ Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Cultured quail meat has been approved for sale in Singapore
It’s the brainchild of the same company that created a wooly mammoth meatball. (Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s what a lab-grown burger tastes like. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Brands are worried that ChatGPT hates them
A negative write-up from the chatbot definitely falls in the ‘bad publicity’ category. (Fast Company $)

Quote of the day

“It has eaten our world. It will eat everyone else’s world.”

—Bill Boulding, dean of Duke’s Fuqua School, explains to the Wall Street Journal why business schools have been forced into integrating AI into every aspect of their teaching.

The big story

Millions of coders are now using AI assistants. How will that change software?

December 2023

Two weeks into the coding class he was teaching at Duke University in North Carolina this spring, Noah Gift told his students they’d no longer be working with Python, one of the most popular entry-level programming languages. Instead, they’d be using an AI tool called Copilot, a turbocharged autocomplete for computer code, to use Rust, a language that was newer, more powerful, and much harder to learn.

Gift isn’t alone. Ask a room of programmers if they use Copilot, and many now raise a hand. Like ChatGPT with education, Copilot is up-ending an entire profession by giving people new ways to perform old tasks.

With Microsoft and Google about to embed similar AI models into office software used by billions around the world, it’s worth asking exactly what these tools do for programmers. And just how big a difference will they make? Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Sydney’s annual duck fashion show is the sartorial event of the season.
+ A night out with a Robbie Williams tribute act, who could ask for more?
+ This innovative interpretation of Star Wars’ Imperial March is very funny.
+ The world’s largest hot dog is coming to Times Square—kind of.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The race to fix space-weather forecasting before next big solar storm hits

As the number of satellites in space grows, and as we rely on them for increasing numbers of vital tasks on Earth, the need to better predict stormy space weather is becoming more and more urgent. 

Scientists have long known that solar activity can change the density of the upper atmosphere. But it’s incredibly difficult to precisely predict the sorts of density changes that a given amount of solar activity would produce. 

Now, experts are working on a model of the upper atmosphere to help scientists to improve their models of how solar activity affects the environment in low Earth orbit. If they succeed, they’ll be able to keep satellites safe even amid turbulent space weather, reducing the risk of potentially catastrophic orbital collisions. Read the full story.

—Tereza Pultarova

How to reopen a nuclear power plant

A shut-down nuclear power plant in Michigan could get a second life thanks to a $1.52 billion loan from the US Department of Energy. If successful, it will be the first time a shuttered nuclear power plant reopens in the US.  

Palisades Power Plant shut down on May 20, 2022, after 50 years of generating low-carbon electricity. But the plant’s new owner thinks economic conditions have improved in the past few years and plans to reopen by the end of next year.

A successful restart would be a major milestone for the US nuclear fleet, and help inch the country closer to climate goals. But reopening isn’t as simple as flipping on a light switch. Here’s what it takes to reopen a nuclear power plant. 

—Casey Crownhart

Threads is giving Taiwanese users a safe space to talk about politics

For months, Threads has been the most downloaded app in Taiwan, as users flock to the platform to talk about politics and more. On the platform itself, Taiwanese users are also belatedly realizing their influence when they see that comments under popular accounts, like a K-pop group, come mostly from fellow Taiwanese users.

But why did Threads succeed in Taiwan when it has failed in so many other places? Zeyi Yang, our China reporter, has dug into the surprising reasons why. Read the full story.

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things happening in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Taiwan’s deadly earthquake highlights how vulnerable chip supplies are
Major manufacturers were forced to halt production. (FT $)
+ It could have significant implications for AI firms who rely on the chips. (Bloomberg $)
+ The chip patterning machines that will shape computing’s next act. (MIT Technology Review)

2 How to get an AI model to break its ethical rules
Repetitive questions are key to tricking systems into breaking their own guidelines. (TechCrunch)
+ Text-to-image AI models can be tricked into generating disturbing images. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Microsoft has been lambasted for its shoddy cybersecurity
Its lapses led to hackers from China infiltrating US officials’ emails. (WP $)

4 We shouldn’t have to rely on pig kidney transfers
Unfortunately, human donors are in short supply. (Vox)
+ The entrepreneur dreaming of a factory of unlimited organs. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Europe’s alternative iPhone app stores require a lot of work
You’d have to be a very patient fan of emulators to make the installation process worthwhile. (The Verge)

6 X has hired a new head of safety
Kylie McRoberts has her work cut out. (WSJ $)
+ She is X’s third safety head since Elon Musk took over. (NBC News)
+ The platform is currently swamped with pornographic content. (Bloomberg $)

7 Partisan fake news sites have overtaken local newspaper sites in the US
And we’re likely to see even more of them as the election approaches. (FT $)
+ Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Caregivers are going viral on TikTok
Some viewers think it’s sweet—but others worry it’s exploitative. (NYT $)
+ Dementia content gets billions of views on TikTok. Whose story does it tell? (MIT Technology Review)

9 What 13th century Native North Americans can teach us about climate change
Communities developed entirely new strategies to cope. (The Atlantic $)
+ Inside the fight to protect the Amazon. (New Yorker $)

10 Inside the retro gaming revival
For younger gamers, old is most definitely cool. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“We’ve facilitated this common ground that people have. Not to be too heady about it, because it’s just sticks.”

—Boone Hogg, co-creator of the wildly popular Instagram account Official Stick Review, reflects on why such a simple concept has resonated with so many people to the New York Times.

The big story

How Meta and AI companies recruited striking actors to train AI

October 2023

Between July and September last year, actors in the US were invited to participate in an unusual research project, designed to capture their voices, faces, movements, and expressions.

The project, which coincided with Hollywood’s historic strikes, was run by London-based emotion AI company Realeyes and Meta. The information captured from the actors was fed into an AI database to better understand and express human emotions. 

Many actors across the industry worry that AI could be used to replace them, whether or not their exact faces are copied. And in this case, by providing the facial expressions that will teach AI to appear more human, study participants may in fact have been the ones inadvertently training their own potential replacements. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Gen Z loves Nirvana—and so do we (thanks Charlotte!)
+ Tune in for some lo-fi Succession beats.
+ If you’re hoping to get a glimpse of some cherry blossom this spring, these are the best places to head to.
+ I love these teeny tiny mushrooms!

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How ASML took over the chipmaking chessboard

On a drab Monday February morning in California, at the drab San Jose Convention Center, attendees of the SPIE Advanced Lithography and Patterning Conference gathered to hear tech industry luminaries extol the late Gordon Moore, Intel’s cofounder and first CEO, who passed in March last year. 

Moore is best known for pioneering Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so. But if Moore deserves credit for creating the law that drove the progress of the industry, it is Dutch company ASML, which makes the machines that in turn let manufacturers produce the most advanced computer chips in the world, that deserves much of the credit for ensuring that progress remains possible. 

Yet that also means the pressure is on. ASML has to continue making sure chipmakers can keep pace with the law. Will that be possible? Read the full story.

—Mat Honan & James O’Donnell

Why Threads is suddenly popular in Taiwan

For most people around the world, Meta’s text-based social network Threads is a platform they likely haven’t thought about for months. But for Liu, a design professional in Taipei, it’s where she’s receiving unprecedented attention. 

She’s not the only person feeling this surge of popularity. Threads has dominated app-store download charts in Taiwan for months. Prominent officials have set up accounts, and it’s become the most popular platform among young people. But Threads’ unexpected success on the island is complex, and precarious. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

A conversation with OpenAI’s first artist in residence

Alex Reben’s work is often absurd, sometimes surreal: a mash-up of giant ears imagined by DALL-E and sculpted by hand out of marble; critical burns generated by ChatGPT that thumb the nose at AI art. But its message is relevant to everyone. Reben is interested in the roles humans play in a world filled with machines, and how those roles are changing.

Reben is OpenAI’s first artist in residence, and is also now director of technology and research at Stochastic Labs, a nonprofit incubator for artists and engineers in Berkeley, California. He spoke with our AI editor Will Douglas Heaven about the unresolved tension between art and technology, and the future of human creativity. Read the full interview.

It’s easy to tamper with watermarks from AI-generated text

The news: Watermarks for AI-generated text are easy to remove and can be stolen and copied, rendering them useless, researchers have found. They say these kinds of attacks discredit watermarks and can fool people into trusting text they shouldn’t. 

Why it matters: Watermarking works by inserting hidden patterns in AI-generated text, which allow computers to detect that the text comes from an AI system. They’re a fairly new invention, but they have already become a popular (and, as it turns out, deeply flawed) solution for fighting AI-generated misinformation and plagiarism. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Google has agreed to delete billions of records
After a class action accused the company of misleading Incognito Mode users over how it tracked them. (NYT $)
+ The move could end up costing Google billions in additional lawsuits. (WP $)
+ It’s an exceptionally busy legal year for the tech giant. (WSJ $)

2 Brain-cell transplants could help treat epilepsy 
It’s early days, but it’s looking like a breakthrough for stem-cell technology. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The UK and US have signed an AI safety risk partnership
It outlines how to pool technical know-how, talent and other information. (FT $)
+ The countries will perform a joint testing exercise on a public AI model. (Reuters)
+ Do AI systems need to come with safety warnings? (MIT Technology Review)

4  The US is urging South Korea to restrict chip exports to China
Officials in Seoul are mulling over the request ahead of the G7 summit in June. (Bloomberg $)
+ How to build a GPU with one trillion transistors. (IEEE Spectrum)

5 AI is making search engines dumber
And that’s a serious problem when we’re supposed to rely on them. (WP $)
+ Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis is fed up of AI grifting. (FT $)
+ OpenAI has deemed its own voice cloning tool too risky to release. (The Guardian)
+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. (MIT Technology Review)

6 The ability to repair your own car is under threat
And the rapid rise of proprietary auto software is to blame. (404 Media)
+ Argentina’s EV lithium drive is benefiting everyone but Argentina. (Rest of World)

7 A sinking “ghost ship” is likely to have caused a major internet outage
After it was attacked by Houthi rebels. (Wired $)

8 The web is too small for data-hungry AI models
In the hunt for untapped resources, AI-generated data could fill the void. (WSJ $)
+ We could run out of data to train AI language programs. (MIT Technology Review)

9 It ain’t easy being a diehard DVD fan
Streaming services are unreliable. But is building an extensive DVD library the answer? (The Guardian)

10 These smart contact lenses are powered by blinking
They harvest energy from both light and their wearer’s tears. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“Maybe retention editing is like the impressionist period for YouTube.”

—Nick Cicero, who teaches social media and digital marketing at Syracuse University, reflects on the demise of ‘retention editing,’ a flashy, attention-grabbing style of video editing that appears to be dying out, he tells the Washington Post.

The big story

Meet the wounded veteran who got a penis transplant

October 2019

Penis transplantation is a radical frontier of modern medicine: extremely rare, expensive, and difficult to perform. Grafting a penis from a deceased donor onto a living recipient is a chaotic amalgamation that entails stitching millimeters-wide blood vessels and nerves with minuscule sutures.

Ray, a military veteran, lost his genitals in a bomb blast while he was on patrol in Afghanistan—eight years before he got the call to say the hospital had a donor penis ready for him. The procedure would be the most extensive penis transplant ever performed, and the first for a military veteran anywhere in the world. Read the full story.

—Andrew Zaleski

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Your odds of winning the current whopping Powerball jackpot? A miserable 1 in 292.2 million.
+ It’s not too late to indulge in an Easter hot chocolate.
+ Spoon cam is a sweet little window into how zoo animals eat.
+ The Vienna Opera Ball looks completely bonkers.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What’s next for generative video

When OpenAI revealed its new generative video model, Sora, last month, it invited a handful of filmmakers to try it out. This week the company published the results: seven surreal short films that leave no doubt that the future of generative video is coming fast.

The first batch of models that could turn text into video appeared in late 2022, from companies including Meta, Google, and video-tech startup Runway. It was a neat trick, but the results were grainy, glitchy, and just a few seconds long.

Fast-forward 18 months, and the best of Sora’s high-definition, photorealistic output is so stunning that some breathless observers are predicting the death of Hollywood. But fears of misuse are growing too. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

Interested in learning more about how filmmakers are already using Sora? Check out how three of them are already experimenting with it to create stunning videos—and find out what they told us they believe is coming next.

What to expect if you’re expecting a plug-in hybrid

Plug-in hybrid vehicles should be the mashup that the auto industry needs right now. They can run a short distance on a small battery or take on longer drives with fuel, cutting emissions without asking people to commit to a fully electric vehicle.

But all that freedom can come with a bit of a complication: plug-in hybrids are what drivers make them. That can wind up being a bad thing because people tend to use electric mode less than expected, meaning emissions from the vehicles are higher than anticipated, as I covered in my latest story.

So are you a good match for a plug-in hybrid? Here’s what you should know about the vehicles.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Sam Bankman-Fried will be sentenced today 
Undeterred, he’s said to be doling out crypto advice from prison. (Bloomberg $)
+ Attorneys argue he’d commit more fraud if he could. (The Guardian)
+ SBF’s particular brand of effective altruism deserves equal scrutiny. (Wired $)
+ Inside effective altruism, where the far future counts a lot more than the present. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The White House wants federal agencies to check AI for bias  
The policy requires departments to verify that AI tools won’t put Americans at risk. (Wired $)

3 New York City is welcoming robotaxis
But only if they’re accompanied by human safety drivers. (The Verge)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Kate Middleton conspiracy theories are still going 
Conspiracy theorists have convinced themselves her recent video has been AI-manipulated. (WP $)

5 How Palmer Luckey pivoted from VR wunderkind to AI surveillance mogul
He’s selling advanced weapons systems he’s likened to the atomic bomb. (FT $)
+ It’s still an uphill slog for startups to win Pentagon contracts. (The Information $)
+ Why business is booming for military AI startups. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How do your political views compare to a chatbot’s?
AI models’ political leanings matter—particularly when we know so little about how they’re trained. (NYT $)
+ The number of extremists doxxing executives is on the rise. (Bloomberg $)
+ AI language models are rife with different political biases. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Antarctica is melting
But the world’s attention is fixed on the Arctic. (Economist $)
+ How Antarctica’s history of isolation is ending—thanks to Starlink. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Europe’s longest hyperloop test track is now open
Although its top speeds are far from what it’s supposed to be capable of. (The Guardian)

9 Moving home is a colossal pain
But AI tool Yembo could help to take away some of the effort. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 The record for the most accurate clock has been broken
The clock could tick for 40 billion years without making a mistake. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money.”

—The US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which charged Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2022, criticizes the disgraced founder in a sentencing memorandum, Reuters reports.

The big story

Minneapolis police used fake social media profiles to surveil Black people

April 2022

The Minneapolis Police Department violated civil rights law through a pattern of racist policing practices, according to a damning report by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. 

The report found that officers stop, search, arrest, and use force against people of color at a much higher rate than white people, and covertly surveilled Black people not suspected of any crimes via social media. 

The findings are consistent with MIT Technology Review’s investigation of Minnesota law enforcement agencies, which has revealed an extensive surveillance network that targeted activists in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. Read the full story.

—Tate Ryan-Mosley and Sam Richards

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Take a look at the winners of this year’s World Nature Photography Awards—they’re pretty special.
+ Homemade stock is well worth the effort, apparently.
+ Doctors are warning people in the UK not to eat a whole Easter egg in one go this weekend, but we can’t make any promises.
+ There’s gold in them thar Shropshire hills!

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.

Plug-in hybrids are supposed to be the best of both worlds—the convenience of a gas-powered car with the climate benefits of a battery electric vehicle. But new data suggests that some official figures severely underestimate the emissions they produce.

According to new real-world driving data from Europe, plug-in hybrids produce roughly 3.5 times the emissions official estimates suggest. The difference is largely linked to driver habits: people tend to charge plug-in hybrids and drive them in electric mode less than expected.

It’s important to close the gap between expectations and reality not only for individuals’ sake, but also to ensure that policies aimed at cutting emissions have the intended effects. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Four things you need to know about China’s AI talent pool 

In 2019, MIT Technology Review covered a report that shined a light on how fast China’s AI talent pool was growing. Its main finding was pretty interesting: the number of elite AI scholars with Chinese origins had multiplied by 10 in the previous decade, but relatively few of them stayed in China for their work. The majority moved to the US. 

Now the think tank behind the report has published an updated analysis, showing how the makeup of global AI talent has changed since—during a critical period when the industry has shifted significantly and become the hottest technology sector. Here are the four main things you need to know about the global AI talent landscape today. 

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things happening in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

AI could make better beer. Here’s how.

The news: Crafting a good-tasting beer is a difficult task. Big breweries select hundreds of trained tasters to test their new products. But running such sensory tasting panels is expensive, and perceptions of what tastes good can be highly subjective.

New AI models could help to lighten the load—accurately identifying not only how highly consumers will rate a certain Belgian beer, but also what kinds of compounds brewers should be adding to make the beer taste better.

Why it matters: These kinds of models could help food and drink manufacturers develop new products or tweak existing recipes to better suit the tastes of consumers, which could help save a lot of time and money. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Inside Silicon Valley’s intense AI talent wars
Companies are throwing $1 million compensation packages at top-tier candidates. (WSJ $)
+ The AI hype train is showing no signs of slowing. (Insider $)

2 Hydropower usage is falling in the Western US
The amount of hydropower generated in the region last year was the lowest in more than 20 years. (The Verge)
+ A startup is plotting the world’s largest ocean geoengineering plant. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Emissions hit a record high in 2023. Blame hydropower. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Israel is conducting mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza
Facial recognition cameras are identifying civilians from lists of wanted persons. (NYT $)

4 Online conspiracy theories are spreading about the Baltimore bridge disaster
Unfounded theories are proliferating unchecked on X. (NBC News)
+ Entire narratives are playing out on Reddit, too. (404 Media)
+ X use in the US is in free fall. (The Guardian)

5 A Samsung-backed AI image platform generates non-consensual porn
Certain prompts easily circumvent the AI’s guardrails. (404 Media)
+ Text-to-image AI models can be tricked into generating disturbing images. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Apple has struck a major Chinese media deal for its Vision Pro
Tencent has agreed to make its apps available for the headset. (The Information $)
+ iPhone shipments are falling in China, according to new data. (Bloomberg $)
+ These minuscule pixels are poised to take augmented reality by storm. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Meta snooped on Snapchat’s traffic
In a bid to try and gain a competitive advantage. (TechCrunch) 

8 Accounting software isn’t exactly sexy
But it can be incredibly lucrative—in Sweden, at least. (FT $)
+ The software industry is asking for more government support in the UK. (Reuters)

9 AI is threatening foreign language education
Fewer people are learning other languages, and automatic translation is on the rise. (The Atlantic $)

10 Inside the search for quantum gravity
If one scientist’s theory is correct, we could discover gravitational rainbows. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“The toilet isn’t quite done flushing here in the crypto industry.”

—Adam Jackson, co-founder of talent network Braintrust, tells Bloomberg why crypto funds seeking an injection of cash may be left disappointed.

The big story

Inside the decades-long fight over Yahoo’s misdeeds in China

December 2023

When you think of Big Tech these days, Yahoo is probably not top of mind. But for Chinese dissident Xu Wanping, the company still looms large—and has for nearly two decades.   

In 2005, Xu was arrested for signing online petitions relating to anti-Japanese protests. He didn’t use his real name, but he did use his Yahoo email address. Yahoo China violated its users’ trust—providing information on certain email accounts to Chinese law enforcement, which in turn allowed the government to identify and arrest some users. 

Xu was one of them; he would serve nine years in prison. Now, he and five other Chinese former political prisoners are suing Yahoo and a slate of co-defendants—not because of the company’s information-sharing (which was the focus of an earlier lawsuit filed by other plaintiffs), but rather because of what came after. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ When is a hedgehog not a hedgehog? When it’s a hat bobble.
+ Biff from Back to the Future has had enough of answering all the big questions.
+ Paris’ annual waiter race is chef’s kiss.
+  These BMX kitties are the sweetest of the sweet.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How Adobe’s bet on non-exploitative AI is paying off

Since the beginning of the generative AI boom, there has been a fight over how large AI models are trained. In one camp sit tech companies such as OpenAI that claim it is “impossible” to train AI without copyrighted data. And in the other camp are artists who argue that AI companies have taken their intellectual property without consent or compensation.

Adobe is pretty unusual in siding with the latter group, with an approach that stands out as an example of how generative AI products can be built without scraping copyrighted data from the internet. It released its image-generating model Firefly, which is integrated into its popular photo editing tool Photoshop, one year ago.

In an exclusive interview with MIT Technology Review, Adobe’s AI leaders are adamant this is the only way forward. At stake is not just the livelihood of creators, they say, but our whole information ecosystem. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

How AI is changing the way we work

AI is fundamentally transforming the nature of work for people and the organizations that employ them.

We’re holding a free LinkedIn Live session about how AI is changing the way we work at midday ET today, delving into everything from the economic impacts on employers to the new jobs being created—or lost. Register here to join the conversation—our editors and reporters are looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Meet the MIT Technology Review AI team in London

The UK is home to AI powerhouse Google DeepMind, a slew of exciting AI startups, and some of the world’s best universities. It’s also where a sizable chunk of the MIT Technology Review team live, including our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and senior AI reporter Melissa Heikkilä (and me!)

We’re gathering some of the brightest minds in AI in Europe for our flagship AI conference, EmTech Digital, in London on April 16 and 17. Our speakers include top figures from the likes of Meta, Google DeepMind, AI avatar company Synthesia, and NVIDIA. Read more about what you can expect in the latest edition of The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter, and register for the event itself here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Florida has approved a law banning children under 14 from social media
It’s one of the most restrictive measures a US state has passed to date. (NYT $)
+ Social platforms will be required to delete existing accounts belonging to under-14s. (WP $)
+ Child online safety laws will actually hurt kids, critics say. (MIT Technology Review)

2 AI could make society much, much richer
Economists are excited by its potential, but not everyone agrees. (Vox)
+ ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like. (MIT Technology Review) 

3 The US and UK have sanctioned Chinese state-sponsored hackers
A 14-year hacking campaign targeted critics, politicians and businesses. (WP $)
+ British politicians are being urged by spies to use disappearing messages. (FT $)

4 The US Supreme Court is set to hear its first post-Roe abortion case
It’s considering whether access to abortion pills should be restricted even further. (The Economist $)
+ The stakes for abortion rights couldn’t be higher. (Wired $)
+ The country’s anti-abortion movement is affecting access to IVF, too. (Vox)

5 X has lost a lawsuit against an anti-hate speech nonprofit
The US judge dismissed it as a ‘vapid’ attempt to punish the group. (The Guardian)

6 Things are looking up for FTX customers
It’s looking like they’ll get a lot more money back than originally thought. (FT $)

7 You can’t opt out of Google Search’s chatbot anymore
The company wants feedback, and it wants it now. (Ars Technica)
+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. (MIT Technology Review)

8 How drones are becoming a valuable tool for animal rights activists
Eyes in the skies can help them to uncover wrongdoing on a colossal scale. (The Guardian)
+ The robots are coming. And that’s a good thing. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Even spies need a good coworking space
Specialist offices designed for dealing with highly sensitive information are on the rise. (Bloomberg $)

10 Meta is hiring AI researchers without even interviewing them
Even Mark Zuckerberg is getting involved and messaging would-be candidates himself. (The Information $)

Quote of the day

“There are holes a mile deep in this guy’s resume, but he’s managed to figure out how to take his chess pieces and move them correctly.”

—A disgruntled startup founder takes aim at the hype surrounding OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Insider reports.

The big story

What happens when you donate your body to science

October 2022

Rebecca George doesn’t mind the vultures that complain from the trees that surround the Western Carolina University body farm. George studies human decomposition, and part of decomposing is becoming food. Scavengers are welcome.

George, a forensic anthropologist, places the body of a donor in the Forensic Osteology Research Station—known as the FOREST. This is Enclosure One, where donors decompose naturally above ground. Nearby is Enclosure Two, where researchers study bodies that have been buried in soil. She is the facility’s curator, and monitors the donors—sometimes for years—as they become nothing but bones.

In the US, about 20,000 people or their families donate their bodies to scientific research and education each year. Whatever the reason, the decision becomes a gift. Western Carolina’s FOREST is among the places where watchful caretakers know that the dead and the living are deeply connected, and the way you treat the first reflects how you treat the second. Read the full story.

—Abby Ohlheiser

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ If you fancy trying to spot the solar eclipse on 8 April, these cities are your best bet.
+ Huge relief in Scotland, after a stolen gorilla statue was recovered after a year on the loose.
+ Rollercoaster Tycoon is the game that shaped a generation.
+ Nothing but respect for Ilia Malinin, the American teenage figure skater who delivered a winning performance this weekend to the Succession theme tune.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The tech industry can’t agree on what open source AI means. That’s a problem.

Suddenly, “open source” is the latest buzzword in AI circles. Meta has pledged to create open-source artificial general intelligence. And Elon Musk is suing OpenAI over its lack of open-source AI models. 

Meanwhile, a growing number of tech leaders and companies are setting themselves up as open-source champions. 

But there’s a fundamental problem—no one can agree on what “open-source AI” means. In theory, it promises a future where anyone can take part in the technology’s development. That could accelerate innovation, boost transparency, and give users greater control over systems that could soon reshape many aspects of our lives. 

But what even is it? What makes an AI model open source, and what disqualifies it? Whatever the answers are, they could have significant ramifications for the future. Read the full story.

—Edd Gent

Apple researchers explore dropping “Siri” phrase & listening with AI instead

The news: Researchers from Apple are probing whether it’s possible to use artificial intelligence to detect when a user is speaking to a device like an iPhone, thereby eliminating the technical need for a trigger phrase like “Siri,” according to a new paper.

How they did it: Researchers trained a large language model using both speech captured by smartphones as well as acoustic data from background noise to look for patterns that could indicate when they want help from the device. The results were promising—the model, which was built in part with a version of OpenAI’s GPT-2, was able to make more accurate predictions than audio-only or text-only models, and improved further as the size of the models grew larger. 

Why it matters: The paper is one of a number of recent signals that Apple, which is perceived to be lagging behind other tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Facebook in the artificial intelligence race, is planning to incorporate more AI into its products. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell & Eileen Guo

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The European Union is wasting no time applying new rules to Big Tech 
It’s using the recently-passed Digital Markets Act to investigate Apple, Meta and Google. (FT $)
+ They could face a fine of 10% of their annual turnover. (Reuters)
+ The EU has also just passed a law to rein in various uses of AI—here’s what you need to know. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The Pentagon wants to build a disposable drone army
It’s a stark departure from the military’s traditional tactics. (Vox)
+ Mass-market military drones have changed the way wars are fought.  (MIT Technology Review)

3 Americans are selling old bitcoin mining computers
Newer machines are more efficient, and companies want to keep costs down. (Bloomberg $)+ China is phasing US-made chips out of its government computers. (FT $)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)

4 We’re (probably) surrounded by mysterious ghost particles
Now CERN has greenlit a new project to prove whether they actually exist. (BBC)
+ Inside the hunt for new physics at the world’s largest particle collider. (MIT Technology Review)

5 X is desperately trying to court creators
But big name social stars are reluctant to get involved. (WSJ $)

6 China is a hotbed of AI talent
While the majority of top chatbots were developed in the US, China is creating the next generation of researchers. (NYT $)
+ Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Inside the fight to decarbonize software
The green software engineering movement is fast gaining momentum. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Making an image with generative AI uses as much energy as charging your phone. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The number of landlines in the US is falling
But millions of people still rely on them, especially in emergencies. (WP $)

9 Want honest style advice? Give Xiaohongshu a try
The Chinese lifestyle app is a breath of fresh air for Americans fed up with polite but unhelpful suggestions. (WSJ $)
+ It’s making some serious cash, too. (FT $)

10 A major drama is tearing birdwatching’s most popular apps apart
Two men are locked in competition over who was first to observe 10,000 species. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

 “You’re going to get things that people perceive as being safe. Nobody wants to play safe. Nobody says, ‘This is a good, predictable game.’”

— Saxs Persson, a vice president at video game maker Epic Games, laments how the industry is being forced into avoiding taking risks amid mass layoffs and slow growth, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

How big technology systems are slowing innovation 

February 2022 

In 2005, years before Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa came on the scene, two startups—ScanSoft and Nuance Communications—merged to pursue a burgeoning opportunity in speech recognition. The new company developed powerful speech-processing software and grew rapidly for almost a decade. Then suddenly, around 2014, it stopped growing.

Nuance’s story is far from unique. In all major industries and technology domains, startups are facing unprecedented obstacles, and growing much more slowly than comparable companies did in the past. And it will take not only strong antitrust enforcement to reverse the trend, but a fundamental loosening of restrictions like non-compete agreements and intellectual property rights. Read the full story.

—James Bessen

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The Getty Museum has released tens of thousands of images of artworks into the public domain, including paintings by Vincent van Gogh.
+ A magician reveals how those sleight of hand tricks in films and TV really work.
+ Artist Sho Shibuya has painted a sunrise on the front page of the New York Times since 2020, and the results are incredible.
+ If you’re in the US or UK, keep an eye out for the Northern lights tonight!

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets

This week I have a mystery for you. It’s the story of how a team of researchers traced a covid variant in Wisconsin from a wastewater plant to six toilets at a single company. But it’s also a story about privacy concerns that arise when you use sewers to track rare viruses back to their source.

That virus likely came from a single employee who happened to be shedding an enormous quantity of a very weird variant. The researchers would desperately like to find that person.

But what if that person doesn’t want to be found? And is there an ethical obligation to try to learn what we can so that we can try to help people who are harboring these viruses? Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

This startup wants to fight growing global dengue outbreaks with drones

The world is grappling with dengue epidemics, with 100 to 400 million cases worldwide every year, an eightfold increase since 20 years ago, according to the World Health Organization.

A startup in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the countries being hit the hardest by dengue outbreaks, has a possible solution: drones that release sterile male mosquitoes. 

Scientists have previously released sterile mosquitoes in a bid to cut the number of insects being born—and ultimately the number of cases of mosquito-borne diseases. However, they faced the hurdle of getting into the nooks and crannies of the neighborhoods where stagnant water often collects, and mosquitoes lay their eggs. Drones could help them overcome it. Read the full story.

—Jill Langlois

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The US is suing Apple
Regulators have accused it of abusing its iPhone dominance. (FT $)
+ They’ve been looking into the company’s antitrust record since at least 2019. (The Guardian)
+ The tech giant is having a rough 2024 so far. (NYT $)
+ The lawsuit could force Apple to cooperate better with other smartphone makers. (Vox)

2 The United Nations promise to promote safe, trustworthy AI
But who enforces that, and how, remains to be seen. (WP $)
+ The AI Act is done. Here’s what will (and won’t) change. (MIT Technology Review)

3 What it’s like to receive a brain-computer implant
Jeffrey Keefer, who has Parkinson’s, agreed to having the device temporarily applied to the surface of his brain. (WSJ $)
+ Former Neuralink workers think the firm is taking unnecessary risks. (Vox)
+ How it feels to have a life-changing brain implant removed. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Tragic news stories drove readers to donate thousands of dollars
The only problem is, the victims didn’t exist. (NBC News)
+ Surveillance company Flock Safety claims to have solved 10% of reported US crime. Did it really? (404 Media)

5 We’re still waiting for AI we’re willing to pay for
We enjoy mucking around with generative AI—but we don’t want to fork out to use it. (Bloomberg $)

6 A British-Italian company claims to have discovered a better way to mine bitcoin
But crypto experts smell a rat. (FT $)
+ Ethereum moved to proof of stake. Why can’t Bitcoin? (MIT Technology Review)

7 Brands dependent on TikTok are getting anxious
There isn’t really another app or platform that would generate the same kind of sales. (NYT $)
+ US lawmakers are being targeted by angry TikTok devotees. (WP $)
+ Nvidia is selling its own version of the viral Stanley cup. (Insider $)

8 Care robots haven’t lived up to their hype
In some cases, they can hinder instead of help. (The Atlantic $)
+ Inside Japan’s long experiment in automating elder care. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Theories of reality are seriously confusing
But some of them are much more consequential than others. (New Scientist $)
+ What is death? (MIT Technology Review)

10 How Pixar’s software changed movie making forever
Starting with the stone cold classic Toy Story. (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“Buy your mom an iPhone.”

—Apple CEO Tim Cook’s response to a customer complaining they were unable to send their mother certain videos because she used an Android smartphone, the Verge reports.

The big story

How AI is helping historians better understand our past

April 2023

Historians have started using machine learning to examine historical documents, including astronomical tables like those produced in Venice and other early modern cities.

Proponents claim that the application of modern computer science to the past helps draw connections across a broader swath of the historical record than would otherwise be possible, correcting distortions that come from analyzing history one document at a time.

But it introduces distortions of its own, including the risk that machine learning will slip bias or outright falsifications into the historical record. Read the full story.

—Moira Donovan

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The way sea sponges pump water is really quite amazing.
+ Over in Australia, they’re (almost) mistaking new bug species for bird poo.
+ I never thought I’d be transfixed by a bed making competition, but here we are.
+ Meet the people dedicated to watching films at double-speed.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

There is a new most expensive drug in the world. Price tag: $4.25 million

The news: There is a new most expensive drug ever—a gene therapy that costs as much as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and more than the average person will earn in a lifetime. Lenmeldy is a gene treatment for metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and was approved in the US on Monday. Its maker, Orchard Therapeutics, says the $4.25 million wholesale cost reflects the value the treatment has for patients and families.

Why it matters:  MLD is a nerve disorder that strikes toddlers, quickly robbing them of their ability to speak and walk. Around half die, the others live on in a vegetative state. But it’s incredibly rare, affecting only around 40 kids a year in the US. The extreme rarity of such diseases is what’s behind the soaring price-tags of new gene therapies, and why selling the newest DNA treatment could be a shaky business. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

New York City’s plan to stop e-bike battery fires

Walk just a few blocks in New York City and you’ll likely spot an electric bike zipping by. They have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially among delivery drivers. But the e-bike influx has caused a wave of fires sparked by their batteries, some of them deadly.

Now, the city wants to fight those fires with battery swapping. A pilot program will provide a small number of delivery drivers with alternative options to power up their e-bikes, including swapping stations that supply fully charged batteries on demand. 

Proponents say the program could lay the groundwork for a new mode of powering small electric vehicles in the city, one that’s convenient and could reduce the risk of fires. But the road to fire safety will likely be long and winding given the sheer number of batteries we’re integrating into our daily lives, in e-bikes and beyond. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

To learn more about New York City’s battery swapping ambitions, check out the latest edition of The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Reddit is set to go public today
Its vocal users have wreaked havoc on Wall Street in the past. Will they again? (Bloomberg $)
+ Redditors are understandably wary of what the future could hold. (WP $)
+ That future is increasingly looking like it’ll involve a lot of AI. (The Information $)
+ It’s one of the few online spaces that still fosters community. (NYT $) 

2 Neuralink shared a video of its first patient playing games with his brain implant
Noland Arbaugh, who is quadriplegic, called the surgical procedure “super easy.” (The Verge)
+ But he also acknowledged that the chip wasn’t perfect. (Insider $)
+ Elon Musk wants more bandwidth between people and machines. Do we need it? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Russian disinformation campaigns are rippling across Europe
Its deepfake videos are designed to erode public trust ahead of the European parliament elections in June. (FT $)
+ Eric Schmidt has a 6-point plan for fighting election misinformation. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The ‘room-temperature superconductor’ physicist engaged in research misconduct
At least four papers co-written by Ranga Dias have now been retracted by the journals that published them. (WSJ $)

5 The US government has awarded its biggest chip grant to date
Intel is the lucky recipient of $8.5 billion to build and expand its US facilities. (NYT $)
+ Intel’s planning to spend an eye watering $100 billion in total. (Reuters)

6 A record number of people died trying to enter to US in 2022
Surveillance has a body count. (The Verge)
+ The new US border wall is an app. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Wherever you go, you’re being tracked across the web
But you might not realize just how extensive that tracking really is. (Wired $)

8 Poverty porn is YouTube’s latest fixation
It treats deprivation as depressing shock-content. (Vox)

9 China is betting on these spacecraft to collect moon samples
While one has already launched, another four are set to follow. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 Fitbit’s future is looking increasingly uncertain
Die-hard fans are losing patience with its owner Google’s recent changes. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“I can’t wait to short the s*** outta this!”

—A Reddit user reacts to the news of the company’s IPO on the infamous r/wallstreetbets Subreddit, Vox reports.

The big story

Running Tide is facing scientist departures and growing concerns over seaweed sinking for carbon removal

June 2022

Running Tide, an aquaculture company based in Portland, Maine, hopes to set tens of thousands of tiny floating kelp farms adrift in the North Atlantic. The idea is that the fast-growing macroalgae will eventually sink to the ocean floor, storing away thousands of tons of carbon dioxide in the process.

The company has raised millions in venture funding and gained widespread media attention. But it struggled to grow kelp along rope lines in the open ocean during initial attempts last year and has lost a string of scientists in recent months, sources with knowledge of the matter tell MIT Technology Review. What happens next? Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Aww, this duck is absolutely adorable
+ Hiking in India seems a pretty worthwhile way to spend your time.
+ Kim Gordon and Chloe Sevigny: two people who know a thing or two about being cool.
+ These behind the scenes shots of A Streetcar Named Desire are very cool.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

A wave of drugs dreamed up by AI is on its way

Alex Zhavoronkov has been messing around with artificial intelligence for more than a decade. In 2016, the programmer and physicist was using AI to rank people by looks and sort through pictures of cats.

Now he says his company, Insilico Medicine, has created the first “true AI drug” that’s advanced to a test of whether it can cure a fatal lung condition in humans.

Popular forms of AI can draw pictures and answer questions. But there’s a growing effort to get AI to dream up cures for awful diseases, too. The problem they are solving, however, is an old one. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Google DeepMind’s new AI assistant helps elite soccer coaches get even better

The news: Soccer teams are always looking to get an edge over their rivals. They might want to add a new AI assistant developed by Google DeepMind to their arsenal. It can suggest tactics for soccer set-pieces that are even better than those created by professional club coaches.

How it works: The system, called TacticAI, works by analyzing a dataset of 7,176 corner kicks taken by players for Liverpool FC, one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world. It uses predictive and generative AI models to analyze each scenario and produce recommendations and predictive outcomes. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Chinese platforms are cracking down on influencers selling AI lessons

Over the last year, a few Chinese influencers have made millions of dollars peddling short video lessons on AI, profiting off people’s fears about the as-yet-unclear impact of the new technology on their livelihoods. 

But the platforms they thrived on have started to turn against them. Just a few weeks ago, WeChat and Douyin began suspending, removing, or restricting their accounts. While influencers on these platforms have been turning people’s anxiety into traffic and profits for a long time, the latest actions show how Chinese social platforms are trying to contain the damage before it goes too far. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things happening in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is joining Microsoft 
He’ll head up the company’s consumer arm, developing AI-infused products. (Bloomberg $)
+ Suleyman will leave his startup, Inflection AI, along with a load of its staff. (NYT $)
+ Inflection’s investors won’t be left out of pocket, though. (The Information $)
+ Check out our interview with Suleyman about why he thinks generative AI is just a phase. (MIT Technology Review)

2 China is sending a satellite to the dark side of the moon
It’ll play a crucial role in the country’s bid to leapfrog the US in moon exploration. (Reuters)
+ Some scientists aren’t sure if exploring Mars is a wise investment. (Undark Magazine)

3 Anonymous career site Glassdoor exposed its users’ real names
Which, unsurprisingly, has upset users who posted honest reviews of their former workplaces. (Ars Technica)

4 The concrete industry has a major carbon problem
Now, emission-capturing formulas could make a difference. (Wired $)
+ The climate solution beneath your feet. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Artists who use AI are more productive
But, crucially, they’re less original. (New Scientist $)
+ This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Saudi Arabia is poised to become an AI superpower
To the tune of a $40 billion sinking fund. (NYT $)
+ We’re just five years away from artificial general intelligence, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, at least. (TechCrunch)
+ Google DeepMind wants to define what counts as artificial general intelligence. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Brace yourself—dynamic pricing is coming
Emboldened by Uber’s surge pricing model, other businesses want in. (Vox)

8 Indonesia’s ebike shops are dicing with danger 
They’re creating souped-up batteries that prioritize power over safety. (Rest of World)
+ Three things to love about batteries. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Did you just poke me on Facebook?
The social network has quietly restored one of its weirdest features. (Insider $)

10 This unknown Swedish composer has racked up more Spotify plays than ABBA
Johan Röhr is the mastermind behind more than 650 different artists on the platform. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“It feels very self-centered. Everyone is like, ‘I’ve got somewhere to be, out of my way.’”

—Tamara Siemering, an actor who recently moved to Los Angeles, explains her shock at the city’s driving culture as it tries to embrace autonomous cars, the New York Times reports.

The big story

Inside the enigmatic minds of animals

October 2022

More than ever, we feel a duty and desire to extend empathy to our nonhuman neighbors. In the last three years, more than 30 countries have formally recognized other animals—including gorillas, lobsters, crows, and octopuses—as sentient beings.

A trio of books from Ed Yong, Jackie Higgins, and Philip Ball detail creatures’ rich inner worlds and capture what has led to these developments: a booming field of experimental research challenging the long-standing view that animals are neither conscious nor cognitively complex. Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ One for fans of The Strokes: a thread of cool references throughout their artwork.
+ A Japanese pig cafe sounds like a pretty relaxing place to hang out.
+ If Dolly Parton was Welsh, this is what Jolene would sound like.
+ A happy belated Nowruz to all those who celebrate!

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

The AI Act is done. Here’s what will (and won’t) change

After three years, the AI Act, the EU’s new sweeping AI law, jumped through its final bureaucratic hoop last week when the European Parliament voted to approve it.

But the reality is that the hard work starts now. The law will enter into force in May, and people living in the EU will start seeing changes by the end of the year. Regulators will need to get set up in order to enforce the law properly, and companies will have between up to three years to comply with the law.

Here’s what you need to know about what will (and crucially won’t) change after then—from the types of AI uses that will be banned, to a new era of AI transparency. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

To read more about the AI regulations, take a look at:

+Five things you need to know about the EU’s new AI Act. Why the new rules will effectively turn the EU into the world’s AI police. Read the full story.

+ Here’s why it was such a difficult Act for the EU’s governing bodies to agree on.

+ Four lessons from 2023 that tell us where AI regulation is going this year—and why it matters.

+ How judges rather than politicians could help to dictate AI rules in America.

How AI taught Cassie the two-legged robot to run and jump

If you’ve watched Boston Dynamics’ slick videos of robots running, jumping and doing parkour, you might have the impression robots have learned to be amazingly agile. In fact, these robots are still coded by hand, and would struggle to deal with new obstacles they haven’t encountered before.

However, a new method of teaching robots to move could help to deal with new scenarios, through trial and error—just as humans learn and adapt to unpredictable events.

Researchers used an AI technique called reinforcement learning to help a two-legged robot nicknamed Cassie to run 400 meters, over varying terrains, and execute standing long jumps and high jumps, without being trained explicitly on each movement. Their approach taught the robot to generalize and respond in new scenarios, instead of freezing like its predecessors may have done. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Nvidia has unveiled a slew of AI chips
They’re faster, larger, and a lot more powerful. (WSJ $)
+ A quick primer on why these chips matter so much. (Bloomberg $)
+ The company plans on making itself integral to the future of autonomous cars, too. (Reuters)
+ It’s the hottest stock in town. (WP $)

2 Meta has offered to slash the price of its ad-free subscription service
In a bid to appease privacy regulators in Europe. (Reuters)

3 We’re edging closer to a global cybersecurity standard for smart home tech
Not all gadgets are equally secure. A universal standard could help. (The Verge)

4 Carmaker Fisker has paused making EVs
Things aren’t looking too good for the embattled company—and money is tight. (Wired $)
+ Why the world’s biggest EV maker is getting into shipping. (MIT Technology Review)

5 No one knows why electroconvulsive therapy works
But new research suggests that zapping a brain with electricity may help to restore balance between excitation and inhibition. (Quanta Magazine)
+ Here’s how personalized brain stimulation could treat depression. (MIT Technology Review)

6 How generative AI is warping Google’s search results
Its Search Generative Experience is still working out what to prioritize. (Insider $)
+ We are hurtling toward a glitchy, spammy, scammy, AI-powered internet. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Scientists have created a synthetic blood-clotting drug
The most common version, called heparin, is traditionally made using pig intestines. (New Scientist $)
+ AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Gig workers don’t get proper time to rest between jobs
So this is what they do instead. (Rest of World)
+ What TikTok can learn from Uber. (Slate $)

9 AI-generated waffle is cropping up in academic journals
Certain phrases are a dead giveaway to ChatGPT’s involvement. (404 Media)
+ YouTube has added an AI content labeling tool to its services. (The Verge)

10 Sony can’t shift its newest VR headset
It’s got a massive backlog of units, because they just aren’t selling. (Bloomberg $)
+ VR headsets can be hacked with an Inception-style attack. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“If you think of the internet ecosystem as a colander with a million holes in it, I don’t know why they think plugging one of those tiny holes is going to fix these problems.”

— Calli Schroeder, global privacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, tells Bloomberg why the US government’s obsession with banning TikTok is misdirected.

The big story

One city’s fight to solve its sewage problem with sensors

April 2021

In the city of South Bend, Indiana, wastewater from people’s kitchens, sinks, washing machines, and toilets flows through 35 neighborhood sewer lines. On good days, just before each line ends, a vertical throttle pipe diverts the sewage into an interceptor tube, which carries it to a treatment plant where solid pollutants and bacteria are filtered out.

As in many American cities, those pipes are combined with storm drains, which can fill rivers and lakes with toxic sludge when heavy rains or melted snow overwhelms them, endangering wildlife and drinking water supplies. But city officials have a plan to make its aging sewers significantly smarter. Read the full story. 

—Andrew Zaleski

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These kind wildlife workers in Virginia really went above and beyond to look after an orphaned fox kit.
+ This version of Smells Like Teen Spirit is banging.
+ Techno, techno, techno! Why Berlin’s clubbing culture has been placed under Unesco protection.
+ Enjoy a bit of John Denver this morning, for no reason other than it’s a wonderful song.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology

The quest to legitimize longevity medicine

On a bright chilly day last December, a crowd of doctors and scientists gathered at a research institute atop a hill in Novato, California. Their goal is to help people add years to their lifespans, and to live those extra years in good health. But the meeting’s participants had another goal as well: to be recognized as a credible medical field.

For too long, modern medicine has focused on treating disease rather than preventing it, they say. They believe that it’s time to move from reactive healthcare to proactive healthcare. And to do so in a credible way—by setting “gold standards” and medical guidelines for the field. These scientists and clinicians see themselves spearheading a revolution in medicine.

But proponents recognize the challenges ahead. Clinicians disagree on how they should assess and treat aging. And without standards and guidelines, there is a real risk that some clinics could end up not only failing to serve their clients, but potentially harming them. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Harvard halts its long-planned atmospheric geoengineering experiment

Harvard researchers have ceased a long-running effort to conduct a small geoengineering experiment in the stratosphere, following repeated delays and public criticism.

The basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that the world might be able to counteract global warming by spraying tiny particles in the atmosphere that could scatter sunlight. Proponents of solar geoengineering research argue we should investigate the concept because it may significantly reduce the dangers of climate change.

But critics argue that even studying the possibility of solar geoengineering eases the societal pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They also fear such research could create a slippery slope that increases the odds that nations or rogue actors will one day deploy it, despite the possibility of dangerous side-effects. Read the full story.

—James Temple

This self-driving startup is using generative AI to predict traffic

The news: Self-driving company Waabi is using a generative AI model to help predict the movement of vehicles. The new system was trained on troves of data from lidar sensors, which use light to sense how far away objects are.

How it works: If you prompt the model with a situation, like a driver recklessly merging onto a highway at high speed, it predicts how the surrounding vehicles will move, then generates a lidar representation of 5 to 10 seconds into the future. 

Why it matters: While autonomous driving has long relied on machine learning to plan routes and detect objects, some companies and researchers are now betting that generative AI — models that take in data of their surroundings and generate predictions — will help bring autonomy to the next stage. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The Biden administration’s social media battle has reached the Supreme Court
Justices will hear arguments over whether officials violated the First Amendment when they told platforms to remove alleged misinformation. (The Hill)
+ It highlights the difficulties in defining free speech in the internet age. (NYT $)
+ What constitutes censorship is in the eye of the beholder. (WP $)

2 SpaceX is building a spy satellite network for US intelligence
And China isn’t happy about it. (Reuters)
+ Chinese automakers are equipping electric cars with camera drones. (Wired $)

3 Apple is facing an AirTags stalking lawsuit
The company’s bid to have the claims overturned was dismissed. (Bloomberg $)+ Google is failing to enforce its own ban on ads for stalkerware. (MIT Technology Review)

4 How a county in South Carolina is waging a war to connect rural America
Broadband providers are reluctant to lay fiber optic cable in “unprofitable areas.” (The Guardian)

5 Ukraine is convinced that US satellite imagery is guiding Russian missiles
Its military believes Russia’s strikes are too precise to be random. (The Atlantic $)
+ It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Sam Bankman-Fried is facing up to 110 years in prison
But a sentence between 40 and 50 years is more likely. (NYT $)

7 AI is getting uncannily good at creating pro-level songs
Startup Suno’s model works in tandem with ChatGPT to create songs indistinguishable from human creations. (Rolling Stone $)
+ Why is Slack’s hold music so darn catchy? (Wired $)
+ These impossible instruments could change the future of music. (MIT Technology Review)

8 An airplane’s Wi-Fi is generally pretty safe
But there are extra-cautious steps you can take. (WSJ $)

9 Gen Z is over quiet quitting
Younger workers are quitting their jobs loudly, and in front of an online audience. (FT $)
+ Keynes was wrong. Gen Z will have it worse. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Never trust AI’s assertion that a mushroom is safe to eat
Mushroom identification apps just aren’t reliable enough—so don’t risk finding out the hard way. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“I simply swiped right on individuals in the industry I aspire to join.”

—Jade Liang, a master’s student in Shanghai, tells NBC News why China’s increasingly tough labor market is driving the country’s young jobseekers to an unusual hiring avenue: dating apps.

The big story

After 25 years of hype, embryonic stem cells are still waiting for their moment​

August 2023

In 1998, researchers isolated powerful stem cells from human embryos. It was a breakthrough, since these cells are the starting point for human bodies and have the capacity to turn into any other type of cell—heart cells, neurons, you name it.

National Geographic would later summarize the incredible promise: “the dream is to launch a medical revolution in which ailing organs and tissues might be repaired” with living replacements. It was the dawn of a new era. A holy grail. Pick your favorite cliché—they all got airtime.

Yet today, more than two decades later, there are no treatments on the market based on these cells. Not one. Our biotech editor Antonio Regalado set out to investigate why, and when that might change. Here’s what he discovered.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I like the look of this humongous blueberry.
+ This Reddit community for submitting photos of yourself caught unawares by delivery drivers is very funny.
+ This beautifully detailed Mario cookie is a work of art.
+ Belgium’s new soccer away kit is a fitting tribute to the one and only Tintin.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Africa’s push to regulate AI starts now

In Tanzania, farmers are using an AI-assisted app that works in their native language of Swahili to detect a devastating cassava disease before it spreads. In South Africa, computer scientists have built machine learning models to analyze the impact of racial segregation in housing. And in Nairobi, Kenya, AI classifies images from thousands of surveillance cameras perched on lampposts in the bustling city’s center.

The projected benefit of AI adoption on Africa’s economy is tantalizing. Estimates suggest that four African countries alone—Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa—could rake in up to $136 billion worth of economic benefits by 2030 if businesses there begin using more AI tools.

Now, the African Union—made up of 55 member nations—is preparing an ambitious AI policy that envisions an Africa-centric path for the development and regulation of this emerging technology. But debates on when AI regulation is warranted and concerns about stifling innovation could pose a roadblock, while a lack of AI infrastructure could hold back the technology’s adoption. Read the full story.

—Abdullahi Tsanni

Brazil is fighting dengue with bacteria-infected mosquitos

As dengue cases continue to rise in Brazil, the country is facing a massive public health crisis. The viral disease, spread by mosquitoes, has sickened more than a million Brazilians in 2024 alone, overwhelming hospitals.

The dengue crisis is the result of the collision of two key factors. This year has brought an abundance of wet, warm weather, boosting populations of the mosquitoes that spread dengue. It also happens to be a year when all four types of dengue virus are circulating. Few people have built up immunity against them all.   

Brazil is busy fighting back—with help from the World Mosquito Program, it’s essentially vaccinating mosquitoes against giving humans disease. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 China is likely to block a forced sale of TikTok 
It looks like authorities would rather it was banned in the US instead. (WSJ $)
+ The question is, who can afford it? (Vox)
+ TikTok isn’t really helping itself. (NYT $)
+ The debate is heading towards the courts. (WP $)

2 It was third time lucky for SpaceX’s Starship rocket
The world’s largest rocket finally reached orbit on its third attempt. (Economist $)

3 The majority of AI chatbots can be hacked to leak their responses
With the exception of Google’s Gemini, major chatbots are vulnerable to a sneaky side channel attack. (Ars Technica)
+ Three ways AI chatbots are a security disaster. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Russia is borrowing from China’s online censorship playbook
Ahead of Russia’s elections, its authorities have cracked down on circumvention tools. (NYT $)
+ The end of anonymity online in China. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Vast swathes of Africa are struggling to connect to the internet
A mysterious series of faults in four subsea cables is to blame. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s one of the most severe outages in recent years. (The Guardian)
+ An AI-powered phone is certainly one solution for internet blackouts. (Reuters)

6 A second Gamergate harassment campaign is gaining traction
A Montreal indie gamesmaker is its latest target. (Wired $)

7 AI is making it easier than ever to sell products on Amazon
Whether the AI-generated listings are correct or not remains to be seen, though. (The Verge)

8 How an Uber Eats worker took on its algorithm—and won
Train the algorithm, or the algorithm will train you. (FT $)
+ Banned gig economy workers are renting accounts from their colleagues. (Rest of World)
+ What Luddites can teach us about resisting an automated future. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How to turn electronic waste into gold 
A protein sponge makes extracting the precious metal surprisingly simple. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 What it’s like to let an AI bot swipe Tinder for you
Don’t get your hopes up. (404 Media)

Quote of the day

“When you see other people’s good things, you must find ways to own them.”

—Wang Wenbin, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, criticizes what he calls America’s “robber’s logic” towards TikTok, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

This US company sold iPhone hacking tools to UAE spies

September 2021

When the United Arab Emirates paid over $1.3 million for a powerful and stealthy iPhone hacking tool in 2016, the monarchy’s spies—and the American mercenary hackers they hired—put it to immediate use.

The tool exploited a flaw in Apple’s iMessage app to enable hackers to completely take over a victim’s iPhone. It was used against hundreds of targets in a vast campaign of surveillance and espionage whose victims included geopolitical rivals, dissidents, and human rights activists. 

MIT Technology Review can confirm the exploit was developed and sold by an American firm named Accuvant—shedding new light on the role played by American companies and mercenaries in the proliferation of powerful hacking capabilities around the world. Read the full story.

—Patrick Howell O’Neill

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ All hail Muhamed the mathematically-minded German horse.
+ How many of the Great American Novels have you read? (Atlantic $)
+ Folded scrambled eggs, or fancy omelet?
+ If you’ve ever teared up in a yoga class, you’re not alone.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

An AI that can play Goat Simulator is a step toward more useful machines

The news: A new AI agent from Google DeepMind can play different games, including ones it has never seen before such as Goat Simulator 3, a fun action game with exaggerated physics. Unlike earlier game-playing AI systems, which mastered only one game or could only follow single goals or commands, this new agent is able to play a variety of different games, including Valheim and No Man’s Sky. 

How they did it: Researchers were able to get it to follow text commands to play seven different games and move around in three different 3D research environments. They trained it on lots of examples of humans playing video games, alongside keyboard and mouse input and annotations of what the players did. Then they used an AI technique called imitation learning to teach the agent to play games as humans would.

Why it’s a big deal: It’s a step toward more generalized AI that can transfer skills across multiple environments—and this sort of knowledge transfer between games represents a significant milestone for AI research. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

Methane leaks in the US are worse than we thought

What’s happening: Methane emissions in the US are worse than scientists previously estimated, a new study has found. The research represents one of the most comprehensive surveys yet of methane emissions from US oil- and gas-producing regions, and found that  emissions were significantly higher than previously estimated.

The big picture: The study highlights the urgent need for new and better ways of tracking the powerful greenhouse gas. The problem is, it’s basically impossible to use just one instrument to measure all the different methane sources. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

To learn more about why methane emissions are still such a mystery, check out the latest edition of The Spark, our weekly climate newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The US has passed a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban 
But that still doesn’t mean it’ll happen. (Vox)
+ What happens next is anyone’s guess. (NYT $)
+ TikTok is insisting it’s a major contributor to US GDP. (WP $)
+…But the app itself loses several billion dollars a year. (The Information $)

2 Measles is resurging in the US
Vaccination rates are down, and outbreaks are on the rise. (The Atlantic $)
+ The very young and the immunocompromised are at the highest risk. (Vox)
+ How wastewater could offer an early warning system for measles. (MIT Technology Review)

3 SpaceX is limbering up for another Starship launch today
It’s hoping to demonstrate relighting a Raptor engine in space for the first time. (TechCrunch)+ It’s also the first time SpaceX is anticipating splashing down in the Indian Ocean. (Ars Technica)
+ Starlink has been denied permission to deploy new satellites in low orbit. (IEEE Spectrum)

4 China’s record on climate change is a mixed bag
On one hand, it’s a green tech hub. On the other, it’s still a massive pollutor. (Economist $)
+ The world’s biggest crude oil producer, though? That’d be the US. (Vox)
+ Emissions hit a record high in 2023. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Black women who blow the whistle on tech malpractice face higher risks
They’re forced to weather considerably more scrutiny and abuse than their white counterparts. (The Markup)
+ Inside Timnit Gebru’s last days at Google. (MIT Technology Review)

6 A child extortion network has been hiding in plain sight online
The sprawling ecosystem of predators spreads across major platforms, who have failed to stamp the groups out. (Wired $) 

7 Commercial safes can be bypassed by secret backdoor codes
And the US Department of Defense wants to keep it quiet. (404 Media)

8 We’re entering the age of moon mining
The moon is rich in Helium-3, an isotope that could fuel nuclear reactors. (WP $)
+ Here’s how we could mine the moon for rocket fuel. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Facebook Marketplace is the last good thing about the social network
If you can swerve the scams, that is. (NYT $)

10 Neil Young’s music is returning to Spotify
But the man himself is—characteristically—unhappy about it. (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“TikTok is banned in China. So, we’re going to emulate the Chinese communists by banning it in our country?”

—US Senator Rand Paul makes his feelings on the proposed TikTok ban clear in an interview with The Hill.

The big story

California’s coming offshore wind boom faces big engineering hurdles

December 2022

Last December, dozens of companies fought for the right to lease the first commercial wind power sites off the coast of California in an auction that could kick-start the state’s next clean energy boom.

The state has an ambitious goal: building 25 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2045. That’s equivalent to nearly a third of the state’s total generating capacity today, or enough to power 25 million homes.

But, among other tests, the plans are facing a daunting geological challenge: the continental shelf drops steeply just a few miles off the California coast. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards are truly jaw-dropping.
+ This scarf-printing process is weirdly soothing to watch.
+ Today, on Albert Einstein’s birthday, why not take the time to brush up on the theory of relativity?
+ Curb Your Enthusiasm: ranked. Do you agree?

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Let’s not make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media

—Nathan E. Sanders is a data scientist and an affiliate with the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and a fellow and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School.

A decade ago, social media was celebrated for sparking democratic uprisings in the Arab world and beyond. Now front pages are splashed with stories of social platforms’ role in misinformation, business conspiracy, malfeasance, and risks to mental health. 

Today, tech’s darling is artificial intelligence. Like social media, it has the potential to change the world in many ways, some favorable to democracy. But at the same time, it has the potential to do incredible damage to society.

There is a lot we can learn about social media’s unregulated evolution over the past decade that directly applies to AI companies and technologies. These lessons can help us avoid making the same mistakes with AI that we did with social media. Read the full story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Google is restricting its Gemini chatbot from answering election queries 
Out of an “abundance of caution.” (The Guardian)
+ Gemini will recommend users try Google Search for election questions instead. (Reuters)
+ Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Kate Middleton conspiracy theories are gaining traction
Everyone is rapidly becoming a royal truther, much to the Palace’s dismay. (The Atlantic $)
+ Here’s a list of everything that was wrong with the infamous photo. (Wired $)
+ The scandal reflects our increasing mistrust of what’s shared online. (The Verge)

3 The pressure is mounting on TikTok to find new owners
It might be the most logical way to avoid an outright ban in the States. (Economist $)
+It’s the undisputed social media success story of the past few years. (WP $)

4 Bitcoin fever is officially back, baby
But we still don’t know what it’s worth, exactly. (Wired $)
+ The cryptocurrency has passed yet another milestone. (Cointelegraph)

5 AI computing costs an arm and a leg
So the UK is launching a new program to try and slash costs. (FT $)

6 Donald Trump approached Elon Musk about buying Truth Social
It appears the pair have stayed in closer contact than was previously known. (WP $)
+ Trump has admitted helping the billionaire in unspecified ways. (CNBC)

7 The simple solution to combat the junkification of the internet
Prioritizing human creations is one way to cut through the AI-generated spam. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

8 A nurse wore Apple’s Vision Pro headset during a spinal surgery operation
It helped them prepare and to select the right assistive tools. (Insider $)
+ These minuscule pixels are poised to take augmented reality by storm. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Gen Z doesn’t want to pay for dating apps
And who can blame them? (NYT $)
+ Bumble is considering dropping the requirement for women to message first. (Insider $)

10 Inside the US Patent’s Office’s wonderfully weird collection
For decades, inventors were required to submit whacky models with their patent ideas. (New Yorker $)

Quote of the day

“Close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy.”

—Amazon instructs its fulfillment center workers to practice mindfulness during shifts, 404 Media reports.

The big story

How sounds can turn us on to the wonders of the universe

June 2023

Astronomy should, in principle, be a welcoming field for blind researchers. But across the board, science is full of charts, graphs, databases, and images that are designed to be seen.

So researcher Sarah Kane, who is legally blind, was thrilled three years ago when she encountered a technology known as sonification, designed to transform information into sound. Since then she’s been working with a project called Astronify, which presents astronomical information in audio form. 

For millions of blind and visually impaired people, sonification could be transformative—opening access to education, to once unimaginable careers, and even to the secrets of the universe. Read the full story.

—Corey S. Powell

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It’s time to get into metal detecting (no really, it is!)
+ Meanwhile, over on Mars…
+ A couple in the UK decided to get married on a moving train, because why not?
+ Even giant manta rays need a little TLC every now and again.