MIT Technology Review

In April of last year, a freelance photojournalist named J.D. Duggan was covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, when things took a disturbing turn. A few days earlier, a police officer in Brooklyn Center had shot and killed 20 year-old Daunte Wright, and a community wounded and incensed by George…

A completely paralyzed man has been able to communicate entire sentences using a device that records his brain activity. The man was able to train his mind to use the device, which was implanted in his brain, to ask for massages, soup, and beer, and to watch films with his son. It is the first…

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. Russia may resort to even more desperate tactics in Ukraine, Biden has warned Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons is a “clear sign” Russia is considering using its own against…

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 Download: Activists are targeting Russians with open-source ‘protestware’ The news: The largest bank in Russia has warned its users to stop updating any software due to the threat of “protestware,” open source software…

Russia’s biggest bank has warned its users to stop updating software due to the threat of “protestware”: open-source software projects whose authors have altered their code in opposition to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Most of the protestware simply displays anti-war, pro-Ukrainian messages when it is run, but at least one project had malicious code added…

As global viewers waited with bated breath in early February to see whether Japanese figure skater Hanyu Yuzuru would nail a legendary quadruple axel during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, it was likely that few would have considered the amount of behind-the-scenes work needed to bring those images to their screens. The Olympic Winter Games…

Despite public assertions that it had gone dormant, a multi-agency task force consisting of federal, state, and local police that was created to monitor protests in Minnesota during the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin continued to operate in secret after the trial’s conclusion, according to emails and documents examined by MIT Technology…

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. Russia is risking the creation of a “splinternet”—and it could be irreversible Cut off: Russia’s disconnection from the online services of the West has been abrupt and severe. Facebook has been blocked…

Russia’s disconnection from the online services of the West has been as abrupt and complete as its disconnection from real-world global trade routes. Facebook has been blocked entirely by Russian authorities, while Twitter is almost completely cut off. Many more companies have voluntarily withdrawn from the Russian market—including Apple, Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix, and others. Russia…

Psychedelic drugs have long been touted as possible treatments for mental-health disorders like depression and PTSD. But very little is really known about what these substances actually do to our brains—and it can be hard to find out. Understanding how they work could help unlock their potential. Some scientists are using AI to figure it…

Few today won’t agree that sustainability is important not only to the future of the planet and society but to business practices as well. And approaches are evolving beyond designing products to be used as long as possible. “If we’re going to design a product or use a product, we’re thinking from the very first…

Like many people, Aeden felt helpless when Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. He was a 23-year-old based in the UK with no connection to the country, but he was good at open-source intelligence gathering, which involves scouring the web to collect publicly available data. So he put his hand up to volunteer for investigation…

Creating localized experiences across multiple geographies can be difficult for multinational technology companies. Take HP Inc., for example. As a global manufacturer of personal computers and print devices, HP Inc. tackles challenges to provide localized products and services to cities around the world. HP’s Asia-Pacific division alone plays host to over 3,000 employees from more…

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 news: China reported 5,370 new covid cases today, the biggest one-day increase since the pandemic began, and more than double the number reported yesterday. It’s a tiny proportion of China’s population of 1.4…

Every decade or so, we achieve a new generation of communication technology. Many of us remember 2G phones and about 10 years later 3G, then 4G. Now, we are watching the rollout of 5G, which is going to usher in a paradigm shift in the way we use and think about communication technology at both…

Thermo Fisher Scientific is known for its equipment used in a variety of industries—from biosciences to environmental—but the company is also an application developer. An increasing number of instruments can be remotely monitored and managed through the company’s Connect platform, while data is collected and analyzed through more than 40 different modules and applications. Managing…

Manufacturers of all kinds share similar challenges when moving to the cloud. When your mission is to create the most advanced technology independently, regardless of what you’re developing, it’s only possible when you team up with the right partners. Mate Rimac, CEO of Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Technology, builder of the fastest electric hypercars in…

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. Western officials are increasingly worried that Russia is preparing to use chemical weapons to attack Ukraine, then spread disinformation that the attack came from the Ukrainians themselves. On NBC’s ‘Meet the…

Today, March 11, 2022, marks two years since covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. We’ve had lockdowns, vaccines, and arguments about how to move forward and live with this virus. We’ve watched the pandemic through numbers and data and memorials to the many lives lost, officially now over six million. It…

Deep in the ocean, below the reach of wind-driven currents but well above the seafloor, lies an in-between world—the eerily still midwaters, dominated by alien-looking, gelatinous life forms. Here ctenophores swim about using glittering comb-legs, colonies of siphonophore clones stretch a hundred feet long, and giant larvaceans secrete elaborate mucus structures. These strange inhabitants of the…

Running a healthcare system is like juggling bees. Millions of moving pieces—from mobile clinics to testing kits—need to be in the right places at the right time. That’s even harder to do in countries with limited resources and endemic disease. But getting stuff where it’s needed is a problem big companies deal with all the…

Fueled by innovations in AI, IoT, and blockchain, digital transformation has been accelerating rapidly across industries. But as the world’s data is growing at the edge, the stark differences in digital equity and inclusion have become clear. Access to technology, underrepresentation within tech companies, and bias within technology itself contribute to this stark digital divide,…

Russia’s war on Ukraine’s cities, civilians, and critical infrastructure has exposed a troubling vulnerability in the escalating conflict: the aging and isolated Ukrainian power sector. The nation is effectively an energy island after disconnecting from the Belarusian and Russian electricity systems as the invasion began, requiring it to generate nearly all its own electricity. The…

Across industries and geographies, the pandemic has triggered a paradigm shift in the way companies—and their employees—conduct day-to-day business. The move to work-from-home and hybrid work models has increased the need for collaboration to facilitate communication and innovation from remote locations, and to keep teams connected and engaged when in-person meetings are difficult or impossible.…

Targeted ads follow us around the internet, pitching us everything from meme-based T-shirts to Mahabis slippers wherever we go. Now the power of tracking pixels and pop-up ads is being used to try to tell ordinary Russians what’s really happening during the invasion of Ukraine. “We’ve seen the powerful role that civil society can play…

The market for NFTs—tokens that represent digital art, music, videos, and the like—soared last year to $44 billion. This brought a lot of attention to Ethereum, the blockchain network where most NFTs are bought and sold. It also brought a lot of attention to something else: the massive energy wastefulness of cryptocurrency mining. Blockchains don’t…

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 a year ago, ostensibly to maintain public order as…

As Russia poured troops into Ukraine, the besieged country’s government was already thinking about a different way to strike back. On February 26, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov launched the “IT Army of Ukraine”—an unprecedented invitation to the world’s hackers to go on the offensive against Russia for his country. The IT Army is…

A variety of researchers have highlighted the potential to leverage nature to combat climate change, by planting trees or growing crops to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But a bleak new report from the UN’s climate panel stresses that relying heavily on these approaches could present real risks as well. The nearly 4,000-page…

The “most advanced piece of malware” that China-linked hackers have ever been known to use was revealed today. Dubbed Daxin, the stealthy back door was used in espionage operations against governments around the world for a decade before it was caught. But the newly discovered malware is no one-off. It’s yet another sign that a…

Russia has stunned the world with the speed of its advance through Ukraine this week. Part of the reason it’s overwhelmed its neighbor so quickly, beyond the shock timing, is the vast imbalance between the two countries’ military resources. At $6 billion, Ukraine’s defense budget is just 10% of Russia’s, according to the Stockholm International…

The fast-paced online coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Wednesday followed a pattern that’s become familiar in other recent crises that have unfolded around the world. Photos, videos, and other information are posted and reshared across platforms much faster than they can be verified. The result is that falsehoods are mistaken for truth…

The US Justice Department is ending its controversial China Initiative and will pivot to a new strategy to counter threats from nation states, it announced February 24. The program began under the Trump administration as an effort to root out economic espionage, but drew criticism for falling short of that stated goal while increasingly focusing…

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine spooked energy markets this week, amid fears that the escalating conflict and ensuing sanctions could disrupt global fossil-fuel supplies. Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of petroleum, natural gas, and coal, so any actions that curtail exports could have global ripple effects, pushing…

Composer Nina C. Young felt the tug of music from a young age, listening to church bells outside her home in New York. She wrote letters to Santa begging for a synthesizer and later balanced violin lessons with listening to the rock band Radiohead. When she was 16, she recalls, an accompanist told her, “You’ve…

After 27 years as an aviation officer in the US Army, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pedro Almeida believes that all we need to know about leadership can be learned in kindergarten. “Be kind, treat people with respect,” says Almeida, who retired as a colonel in 2015 and is now chief operations officer of…

n April 2020, with covid-19 infection rates surging across the northeastern United States, Connecticut governor Ned Lamont tapped Albert Ko ’81 to cochair the advisory group that would ultimately draft the state’s pandemic response. Ko, chair of the epidemiology department at the Yale School of Public Health, had already served on pandemic committees at the…

How do you create a visual and messaging identity that not only reflects more than 150 years of MIT graduates but is also forward-thinking enough to represent the generations of alumni to come? That was the question the Alumni Association asked itself when beginning a rebranding process in 2019, aiming to deliver on one of…

Art and Sandy Reidel say the personal connections they have made at MIT inspire their ongoing support for the Institute, specifically for programs that instill leadership skills in students. “MIT is an incredible collection of wonderful individuals,” Art says. “We support MIT because we are confident it is a way to maximize the positive impact…