MIT Technology Review

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week was the week chatbot-powered search engines were supposed to arrive. The big idea is that these AI bots would upend our experience of searching the web by generating chatty answers…

Many software projects emerge because—somewhere out there—a programmer had a personal problem to solve. That’s more or less what happened to Graydon Hoare. In 2006, Hoare was a 29-year-old computer programmer working for Mozilla, the open-source browser company. Returning home to his apartment in Vancouver, he found that the elevator was out of order; its…

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 biohacking company is using a crypto city to test controversial gene therapies Last year, biotech startup Minicircle started recruiting participants for a clinical trial of gene therapy. But several details made it…

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. Recommendation algorithms sort most of what we see online and determine how posts, news articles, and accounts you follow are prioritized on digital platforms. In the…

The advertisement—posted on Mirror, a Web3 publishing platform, in March last year—outlined an eye-catching if perhaps confusing proposal: “Access NFTs for a follistatin plasmid phase I clinical trial in Prospera ZEDE, Honduras.” The ad had been posted by a biotech startup called Minicircle, which was recruiting participants for a clinical trial of gene therapy. But…

When the Mexica people left their ancestral land of Aztlán in search of a new home, they were following orders from the sun god Huitzilopochtli. In 1325, the god’s prophecy brought them to a salty swamp at the lowest dip of the Valley of Mexico. “Among the reeds and bushes they spotted an eagle perched…

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 prosthetics break the mold with third thumbs, spikes, and superhero skins Traditionally, prosthetics designers have looked to the human body for inspiration. Prosthetics were seen as replacements for missing body parts; hyper-realistic…

Many mornings, Dani Clode wakes up, straps a robotic thumb to one of her hands, and gets to work, poring through reams of neuroscience data, sketching ideas for new prosthetic devices, and thinking about ways to augment the human body. Clode works as a specialist at the University of Cambridge’s Plasticity Lab, which studies the…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. How worried should we be about bird flu? Some have warned that avian flu will be the next deadly pandemic. Others have said the risk is no different from what it was…

Imagine that you were provided no-cost fertility treatment and also offered a free DNA test to gauge which of those little IVF embryos floating in a dish stood the best chance of getting into a top college someday. Would you have the test performed? If you said yes, you’re among about 40% percent of Americans…

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. ChatGPT is everywhere. Here’s where it came from We’ve reached peak ChatGPT. Released in December as a web app by the San Francisco–based firm OpenAI, the chatbot exploded into the mainstream almost overnight. …

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. I’ve come across some pretty wild technologies aimed at fighting climate change. Hydrogen-powered planes, underwater mining robots, and nuclear fusion reactors—each could play a role in cutting down on greenhouse-gas emissions. But there…

When Kyle Cornforth first walked into IDEO’s San Francisco offices in 2011, she felt she had entered a whole new world. At the time, Cornforth was a director at the Edible Schoolyard Project, a nonprofit that uses gardening and cooking in schools to teach and to provide nutritious food. She was there to meet with…

Tech Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more here. We’ve reached peak ChatGPT. Released at the end of November as a web app by the San Francisco–based firm OpenAI, the chatbot exploded into the mainstream almost overnight. According to…

From AI-powered platforms that can detect abnormal activities in supermarkets, to edge servers helping preserve biodiversity in remote locations, today’s technologies drive innovation in ways never before imaginable. “Innovation serves the purpose of making our life better, our work more productive, and our planet more sustainable,” says Yang Yuanqing, CEO and chairman of Lenovo. Technology…

For enterprises looking to shift from hardware investments to services and beyond, a change in technology and data infrastructure could be key. One approach is a focus on the “New IT,” a term coined by Lenovo, that features five elements: client, edge and cloud, network, and intelligence to meet business goals. “The mission of the…

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. Neuroscientists listened in on people’s brains for a week. They found order and chaos. The news: Our brains exist in a state somewhere between stability and chaos as they help us make sense…

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. First of all, I’m still processing the whole “Chinese spy balloon” saga, which, from start to finish, took over everyone’s brains for just about 72 hours and has been one of the weirdest recent events…

For over a decade, we’ve heard that small reactors could be a big part of nuclear power’s future. Because of their size, small modular reactors (SMRs) could solve some of the major challenges of traditional nuclear power, making plants quicker and cheaper to build and safer to operate. That future may have just gotten a…

Our brains exist in a state somewhere between stability and chaos as they help us make sense of the world, according to recordings of brain activity taken from volunteers over the course of a week. As we go from reading a book to chatting with a friend, for example, our brains shift from one semi-stable…

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 original startup behind Stable Diffusion has launched a generative AI for video What’s happened: Runway, the generative AI startup that co-created last year’s breakout text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, has released an AI…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week, OpenAI unveiled a tool that can detect text produced by its AI system ChatGPT. But if you’re a teacher who fears the coming deluge of ChatGPT-generated essays, don’t get the party…

Runway, the generative AI startup that co-created last year’s breakout text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, has released an AI model that can transform existing videos into new ones by applying any style specified by a text prompt or reference image. In a demo reel posted on its website, Runway shows how its software, called Gen-1, can…

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. When my dad was sick, I started Googling grief. Then I couldn’t escape it. —Tate Ryan-Mosley, senior tech policy reporter I’ve always been a super-Googler, coping with uncertainty by trying to learn as…

I’ve always been a super-Googler, coping with uncertainty by trying to learn as much as I can about whatever might be coming. That included my father’s throat cancer. Initially I focused on the purely medical. I endeavored to learn as much as I could about molecular biomarkers, transoral robotic surgeries, and the functional anatomy of…

Popular image generation models can be prompted to produce identifiable photos of real people, potentially threatening their privacy, according to new research. The work also shows that these AI systems can be made to regurgitate exact copies of medical images and copyrighted work by artists. It’s a finding that could strengthen the case for artists…

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 Indian health-care workers use WhatsApp to save pregnant women Across India, an all-women cadre of 1 million community health-care workers are responsible for making public health care accessible to people from remote…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. What is the value of a human organ? It’s a question that’s been on my mind since I heard about a disturbing proposed change to the law in Massachusetts that would allow…

Hirabai Koli’s medical reports were normal—but she wasn’t happy. She had been monitoring her weight over the first two months of her pregnancy, and she surprised community health-care worker Suraiyya Terdale when she asked why she wasn’t gaining more. (To protect her safety and private health information, Koli is being identified by a pseudonym.) “It…

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 CRISPR could help save crops from devastation caused by pests For decades, the grape-growers of California have battled Pierce’s Disease, a nasty infection which causes vines to wither. The arrival of an…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. No piece of media shaped me more than the mid-2000s TV show MythBusters. In the show, a band of special-effects pros tested out myths from TV shows or popular knowledge, like: Can a…

Central California grape-grower Steve McIntyre was familiar with Pierce’s Disease. But that did not prepare him for what he saw when he visited his brother’s Southern California citrus and avocado farm in 1998. The disease, which causes vines to wither and grapes to deflate like old balloons, had long existed in California. But the infection…

Organizations rely on networks to power their work. But managing the myriad applications and data that a business depends on is not without its challenges. That’s where networking services come in. Think of networking services—like Azure Networking Services—as technology’s orchestra conductor. Instead of closely studying sheet music, understanding the skills of dozens of musicians, and…

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 the Supreme Court ruling on Section 230 could end Reddit as we know it When the Supreme Court hears a landmark case on Section 230 later in February, all eyes will be…

We live in an age where the concept of being an entrepreneur is increasingly broad. It’s often hard to slot occupations—hosting a podcast, driving for Uber, even having an OnlyFans account—into the traditional definitions of employment vs. entrepreneurship. Of course, this is not a strictly Western phenomenon; it’s happening all over the world. And in…

When the Supreme Court hears a landmark case on Section 230 later in February, all eyes will be on the biggest players in tech—Meta, Google, Twitter, YouTube. A legal provision tucked into the Communications Decency Act, Section 230 has provided the foundation for Big Tech’s explosive growth, protecting social platforms from lawsuits over harmful user-generated…

The dodo bird was big, flightless, and pretty good eating. All that helps explain why it went extinct around 1662, just 150 years after European sailing ships found Mauritius, the island in the Indian Ocean where the bird once lived. Now a US biotechnology company says it plans to bring the dodo back into existence.…

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. We have enough materials to power the world with renewable energy The news: Powering the world with renewable energy will take a lot of raw materials. The good news is, when it comes…

Powering the world with renewable energy will take a lot of raw materials. The good news is, when it comes to aluminum, steel, and rare-earth metals, there’s plenty to go around, according to a new analysis. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, world leaders set a goal to keep global warming under 1.5 °C, and reaching…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. In the last week there has been a lot of talk about whether journalists or copywriters could or should be replaced by AI. Personally, I’m not worried. Here’s why. So far, newsrooms have pursued…

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. Mass-market military drones have changed the way wars are fought When the United States first fired a missile from an armed Predator drone at suspected Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan in November 2001,…

Mass-market military drones are one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2023. Explore the rest of the list here. When the United States first fired a missile from an armed Predator drone at suspected Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan on November 14, 2001, it was clear that warfare had permanently changed. During the…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. Egg freezing is on my mind. At 36, I’m at an age when many of my friends have had babies, and the few who haven’t are weighing up their options. If they…

A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on social media? This episode we go behind the scenes of an MIT Technology Review investigation that uncovered how sensitive photos taken by an AI powered vacuum were leaked and landed on the internet. Reporting: We meet: Credits: This episode was reported…

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. People are already using ChatGPT to create workout plans When I opened the email telling me I’d been accepted to run the London Marathon, I felt elated. And then terrified. Barely six months…

When I opened the email telling me I’d been accepted to run the London Marathon, I felt elated. And then terrified. Barely six months on from my last marathon, I knew how dedicated I’d have to be to keep running day after day, week after week, month after month, through rain, cold, tiredness, grumpiness, and…

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 ALS patient set a record for communicating via a brain implant The news: Eight years ago, a patient lost her power of speech because of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which causes…

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. This past Sunday was the Lunar New Year, the most important holiday for Chinese and several other Asian cultures. It’s difficult to celebrate this holiday with China Report readers, as I originally planned, when I…