MIT Technology Review

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Hey! Welcome back to China Report. If you happen to be in Cambridge, MA, this week, come meet me at EmTech, MIT Technology Review’s big annual event. I’m going to host a few…

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article. In late 2020, a large box arrived at Juan Gilbert’s office at the University of Florida. The computer science professor had been looking for this kind of product for months. Previous orders had yielded poor results. This time, though, he was optimistic. Gilbert drove…

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. Elon Musk’s plans to revive Vine face one big problem: the reason it closed originally Good news, everyone: Vine is (probably) coming back. The much beloved short-form-video-sharing app ran from just 2012 to…

To receive The Algorithm newsletter in your inbox every Monday, sign up here. Welcome to the Algorithm! It’s never been more important for companies to ensure that their AI systems function safely, especially as new laws to hold them accountable kick in. The responsible AI teams they set up to do that are supposed to be a priority,…

Good news, everyone: Vine is (probably) coming back. The much beloved wacky short-form-video-sharing app had a short life in the limelight from 2012 to 2017, when it was cut off in its prime (as many would have it). That’s helped ensure that it holds a space in many millennials’ hearts as the last glorious stand…

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 befriend a crow The crows play hide-and-seek with Nicole Steinke after her older kids head to school. She feeds a family of the birds from her apartment balcony in Alexandria, Virginia,…

The crows play hide-and-seek with Nicole Steinke after her older kids head to school. She feeds a family of the birds from her apartment balcony in Alexandria, Virginia, twice daily (usually peanuts, but walnuts and cashews are valued treats). Once there’s no food left, they’ll look for her as she walks around her neighborhood. When…

It was in 2009 when the power of Twitter really became evident. As some Iranians tweeted through the country’s elections during a media blackout, the site began to emerge as a critical tool of global activists. Later movements, including the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the Movement for Black Lives, relied on Twitter to disseminate information…

For a long time, it was worth it to stay on Twitter because Twitter had the power to change your life. I broke big on Twitter more than 10 years ago with a hashtag, #solidarityisforwhitewomen, and Twitter was great for my career. It gave me access to a global audience and allowed me unprecedented access…

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. Responsible AI has a burnout problem 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…

Margaret Mitchell had been working at Google for two years before she realized she needed a break. “I started having regular breakdowns,” says Mitchell, who founded and co-led the company’s Ethical AI team. “That was not something that I had ever experienced before.” Only after she spoke with a therapist did she understand the problem:…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. Would you eat lab-grown meat? Plenty of companies have set out to generate meat products from muscle and fat cells cultured in vats—around 80 at the last count. The promise is huge.…

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 new federal funding will mean for making batteries The US is on a climate tech spending spree. Over the past year, federal action has set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Welcome back to The Spark! The US is on a climate tech spending spree. Over the past year, federal action has set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for energy and climate. Now,…

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 Mortality Issue From the moment you’re born, the one thing you can be completely certain of is that you will die. But what if aging isn’t inevitable, after all? And if…

Hi. How are you? I have some news. You’re going to die. We’re all going to die. I’ve been thinking about this not only because we’ve been putting this issue, the Mortality issue, together but also because I’ve hit one of those arbitrary milestones in life. Which is to say I turn 50 this month. …

EVs are being touted as the solution to our climate crisis—but are they? In the fall of 2021, President Joe Biden made a stop in Detroit to promote the Democrats’ infrastructure bill and the electric-vehicle rollout being touted by the administration as a key measure to address the climate crisis. But his visit showed exactly…

Everything dies: people, machines, civilizations. Perhaps we can find some solace in knowing that all the meaningful things we’ve learned along the way will survive. But even knowledge has a life span. Documents fade. Art goes missing. Entire libraries and collections can face quick and unexpected destruction. Surely, we’re at a stage technologically where we…

Kirin Sinha ’14 remembers the first time she worked with augmented reality (AR) as a student at MIT. With a friend and fellow engineer, she built the Ironman desk—a computer system and AI technology that uses holographic projections controlled by hand movements and voice commands. Today, she is the founder and CEO of Illumix, a…

When you think of rum, what comes to mind? A strawberry daiquiri? A piña colada with a cocktail umbrella? Marc-Kwesi Farrell ’03 thinks there is a lot more to rum than that, and he’s on a mission to reinvent the spirit as a versatile, top-shelf drink. “If you look at rum today, it is saddled…

Imagine you’re an automobile manufacturer. You have warehouse after warehouse full of parts. You’d like to use some of those parts in a new model and save on design and production costs. But you can’t find those parts through a text search. You don’t know what they’re called. Often the only record of them is…

Tornadoes form in 10 seconds or less. So Howie Blue­stein ’70, SM ’72, PhD ’76, a storm chaser for 40-plus years, is working with colleagues to build a new radar system that can scan nearly all of a storm’s volume in 15 seconds—and help forecasters quickly determine its potential to spawn life-threatening conditions. “This is…

On the surface, writing and engineering don’t seem to have much in common. But the link between the two is more than apparent to Suzanne Lane ’85, who’s been director of MIT’s Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication (WRAP) program since 2013. “I made our program’s motto ‘Building tomorrow’s world in words,’” she says. “Writing and…

When Baldwin Lee ’72 was five years old, his father told him he’d be going to MIT. The oldest male child in a Chinese immigrant family, he did as he was told, becoming valedictorian of Brooklyn Tech and enrolling at the Institute in 1968. The intense focus on science and technology felt suffocating, however, and…

Your MIT alumni benefits One of the most important MIT benefits alumni can access is the MITAA’s Infinite Connection (IC) web portal. With an IC account, you can search MIT’s online alumni directory and connect with alumni from your region, industry, course, living group, and more. You can also stay connected to other alumni by…

Close your eyes and, for a moment, imagine you know two languages. For any noun you can think of—object, feeling, place—two words exist where a monolingual brain comes up with only one. When speaking, reading, or writing, your brain must decide which of those words to use—an added task on top of the language processing…

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about what’s happening in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Welcome back to China Report. Take a deep breath. The Chinese Communist Party Congress news cycle is (basically) over. There are many significant things from the high-level political assembly to talk about, mostly around understanding…

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 want to make you young again A little over 15 years ago, scientists at Kyoto University in Japan made a remarkable discovery. When they added just four proteins to a skin…

A little over 15 years ago, scientists at Kyoto University in Japan made a remarkable discovery. When they added just four proteins to a skin cell and waited about two weeks, some of the cells underwent an unexpected and astounding transformation: they became young again. They turned into stem cells almost identical to the kind…

Machine learning could help develop new types of metals with useful properties, such as resistance to extreme temperatures and rust, according to new research. This could be useful in a range of sectors—for example, metals that perform well at lower temperatures could improve spacecraft, while metals that resist corrosion could be used for boats and…

To receive The Algorithm in your inbox every Monday, sign up here. Welcome to The Algorithm! Considering how powerful AI systems are, and the roles they increasingly play in helping to make high-stakes decisions about our lives, homes, and societies, they receive surprisingly little formal scrutiny. That’s starting to change, thanks to the blossoming field of AI audits.…

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 US Navy wants swarms of thousands of small drones The US Navy is working on ways to build, deploy, and control thousands of small drones that are able to flock together to…

The US Navy is working on ways to build, deploy, and control thousands of small drones that are able to flock together to overwhelm anti-aircraft defenses with sheer numbers, budget documents reveal. The conflict in Ukraine has proved the worth of small drones, including consumer quadcopters, which have carried out reconnaissance, guided artillery fire, and…

The emerald jewel wasp’s unusual arrival into the world—bursting from the body of a zombified cockroach it has eaten from the inside—ranks among nature’s most gruesome miracles. To give her larvae the best start in life, the mother wasp, an inch-long parasite clad in oil-slick iridescent armor, attacks her prey, spearing it once with her…

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. Starlink signals can be reverse-engineered to work like GPS—whether SpaceX likes it or not For years, Todd Humphreys has been trying to persuade SpaceX to tweak its Starlink constellation to also offer ultra-precise…

Todd Humphreys’s offer to SpaceX was simple. With a few software tweaks, its rapidly growing Starlink constellation could also offer precise position, navigation, and timing. The US Army, which funds Humphreys’s work at the University of Texas at Austin, wanted a backup to its venerable, and vulnerable, GPS system. Could Starlink fill that role? When…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. Hello, and welcome back to the Checkup! This week I found myself back in the classroom, sitting on a small plastic chair and carefully noting down what the teacher told me. It was…

This piece is from our forthcoming mortality-themed issue, available from 26 October. If you want to read it when it comes out, you can subscribe to MIT Technology Review for as little as $80 a year. On a recent evening, I sat at home scrolling through my Twitter feed, which—since I’m a philosopher who studies AI and…

The US federal government is spending big on batteries and electric vehicles. As part of that spending spree, President Joe Biden and the Department of Energy have just announced $2.8 billion in awards to companies involved in producing the minerals and other materials that go into the batteries. The funding will go to 20 projects,…

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. Bill Gates’s energy venture fund is plowing more money into climate adaptation The news: Bill Gates’s climate-oriented venture capital fund is expanding its mission, adding adaptation to its investment categories and establishing a…

AI systems are deployed all the time, but it can take months or even years until it becomes clear whether, and how, they’re biased. The stakes are often sky-high: unfair AI systems can cause innocent people to be arrested, and they can deny people housing, jobs, and basic services. Today a group of AI and…

What happens when we lose weight? This is really a question about how our bodies store and use the energy we need to function. In general, we store backup energy in fat cells that are distributed around the body, some in the abdomen around the organs (visceral fat) and some under the skin (subcutaneous fat);…

Twenty years have passed since I first met Aubrey de Grey, the man with the Methuselah beard. Back then he was already a True Believer in the quest for immortality. But he wasn’t famous, or notorious, yet; he wasn’t Aubrey!, as he would soon become to his fans in the anti-aging crowd. And he wasn’t…

Bill Gates’s climate-oriented venture capital fund is expanding its mission, adding adaptation to its investment categories and establishing a later-stage fund to help clean-tech startups begin building plants and scaling up their technologies. The announcement came at the end of the firm’s Breakthrough Energy Summit in Seattle on October 19. To date, Breakthrough has been…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Hello hello! This week in The Spark, we’re taking a look back at one of my favorite sessions from our ClimateTech conference last week, from a chapter we called “Cleaning Your Plate.” In…

Bill Gates, John Kerry, and US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm all struck positive notes at an energy summit in Seattle this week hosted by Gates’s climate-focused venture fund, Breakthrough Energy. With caveats. Government policy is accelerating clean energy projects. The cost of renewables continues to fall. Huge sums of private and public capital are pouring…

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 debate over whether aging is a disease rages on Last October, word began to spread among researchers that the World Health Organization was considering a change to its International Classification of Diseases,…

“I am quitting because I’m tired,” Alex Hanna wrote on February 2, her last day on Google’s Ethical AI team. She felt that the company, and the tech industry as a whole, did little to promote diversity or mitigate the harms its products had caused to marginalized people. “In a word, tech has a whiteness…

Last year, over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, Kiran Rabheru eagerly joined a call with officials from the World Health Organization (WHO). Word had spread of a change coming to the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a catalogue used to standardize disease diagnosis worldwide. In an upcoming revision, the plan was to replace the diagnosis of…