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by Eswar Prasad on (#5Y34S)
Money is one of humankind’s most remarkable innovations. It makes it possible to trade products and services across great geographic distances, between people who may not know each other and have no particular reason to trust each other. It can even be used to transfer wealth and resources over time. Without money, trade and commerce—all…
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MIT Technology Review
| Link | https://www.technologyreview.com/ |
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| Updated | 2025-06-09 05:20 |
by Rhiannon Williams on (#5Y242)
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 fierce, messy fight over “healthy” sugar tech In a former insurance office building on the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia, a new kind of sugar factory is taking shape. The facility is…
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by Mark Harris on (#5Y1WW)
In a former insurance office building on the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia, a new kind of sugar factory is taking shape. The 48,000-square-foot facility is being developed by a startup called Bonumose, funded in part by Hershey. It uses a processed corn product called maltodextrin that is found in many junk foods. Like its notorious…
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by Elana Wilner on (#5XZVR)
To create sustainable business impact, AI capabilities need to be tailored and optimized to an industry or organization’s specific requirements and infrastructure model. Hear how customers’ challenges across industries can be addressed in any compute environment from the cloud to the edge with end-to-end hardware and software optimization. About the speakers Kavitha Prasad, VP &…
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by Elana Wilner on (#5XZVS)
The use of AI in finance is gaining traction as organizations realize the advantages of using algorithms to streamline and improve the accuracy of financial tasks. Step through use cases that examine how AI can be used to minimize financial risk, maximize financial returns, optimize venture capital funding by connecting entrepreneurs to the right investors;…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XZA2)
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 a Zambian morgue is exposing the real covid toll in Africa The morgue at Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital (UTH), near the center of Zambia’s capital, is not the most pleasant place to…
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by Jonathan W. Rosen on (#5XZ43)
The morgue at Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital (UTH), a sprawling brick facility near the center of Zambia’s capital, is not the most pleasant place to carry out a clinical study. Inside the cavernous interior, newly arrived bodies linger unattended—on rolling metal tables or on the concrete floor wrapped in blankets. Others lie stacked on open-air…
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by Nicole Silva on (#5XYQD)
Good data is the bedrock of a self-service data consumption model, which in turn unlocks insights, analytics, personalization at scale through AI. Yet many organizations face immense challenges setting up a robust data foundation. Dive into a pragmatic perspective on abstracting the complexity and untangling the conflicts in data management for better AI. About the…
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by David Moradi on (#5XY8P)
While digital accessibility awareness is growing — fueled by the rise of accessibility lawsuits, renewed efforts by the government, and diversity and inclusion initiatives—progress on making the internet more accessible to people with disabilities remains slow. Companies ranging from major health care corporations to small businesses with Shopify storefronts are struggling to make their websites…
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by MIT Technology Review Insights on (#5XY8Q)
In many areas of the world, environmental conditions are not conducive to traditional farming. Ensuring food security depends on continuous agricultural innovation, which has been part of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) mission since its founding, given the country’s arid conditions and little water. Smart Acres is one of the many companies exploring new sustainable…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XY0F)
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. Deception, exploited workers, and free cash: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users On a sunny morning last December, Iyus Ruswandi, a 35-year-old furniture maker in the village of Gunungguruh,…
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by Eileen Guo, Adi Renaldi on (#5XX34)
On a sunny morning last December, Iyus Ruswandi, a 35-year-old furniture maker in the village of Gunungguruh, Indonesia, was woken up early by his mother. A technology company was holding some kind of “social assistance giveaway” at the local Islamic elementary school, she said, and she urged him to go. Ruswandi joined a long line…
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by Will Douglas Heaven on (#5XX35)
When OpenAI revealed its picture-making neural network DALL-E in early 2021, the program’s human-like ability to combine different concepts in new ways was striking. The string of images that DALL-E produced on demand were surreal and cartoonish, but they showed that the AI had learned key lessons about how the world fits together. DALL-E’s avocado…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5XWRD)
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 battle is raging over long covid in children Before Jasmin got covid-19 last year, she was an especially active 10-year-old. She loved dancing, swimming, and gymnastics. “She was always upside-down, doing handstands,”…
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by Jessica Hamzelou on (#5XWMQ)
Before Jasmin got covid-19 last year, she was an especially active 10-year-old. She loved dancing, swimming, and gymnastics. “She was always upside-down, doing handstands,” says her mother, Binita Kane. Although she only had a mild case of the virus, she developed lasting, debilitating symptoms that kept her out of school. Jasmin, now 11, has abandoned…
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by MIT Technology Review Insights on (#5XVZQ)
For many people, the concept of directed energy, or lasers, conjures images of lightsabers and bank vault security systems—the stuff of Hollywood movies. However, the fact is, lasers are commonly used in everyday life applications, from surgery to optical communications. At Technology Innovation Institute’s (TII) Directed Energy Research Center (DERC), scientists and engineers are using…
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by Antonio Regalado on (#5XVZR)
The daring Chinese biophysicist who created the world’s first gene-edited children has been set free after three years in a Chinese prison. He Jiankui created shock waves in 2018 with the stunning claim that he’d altered the genetic makeup of IVF embryos and implanted them into a woman’s uterus, leading to the birth of twin…
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by James Temple, Casey Crownhart on (#5XVZS)
A bleak new report from the UN’s climate panel underscores the price the world is paying for the long delays in addressing global warming despite decades of warnings. Last year, worldwide energy-related carbon dioxide topped 36 billion tons, setting a new record as the global economy sprang back from the depths of the pandemic. As…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XR5A)
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. Droughts are cutting into California’s hydropower. Here’s what that means for clean energy. The droughts that swept across the western US in 2021 sparked wildfires and damaged crops. But the historic lack of…
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by Casey Crownhart on (#5XR15)
The droughts that swept across the western US in 2021 sparked wildfires and damaged crops. But the historic lack of water also had an impact on one of California’s key sources of renewable energy: hydropower. Electricity generation from California hydropower plants was down 48% from the 10-year average, according to new data from the Energy…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XPTQ)
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 startup wants to kick-start a molecular electronics revival In 2000, many hoped molecular electronics (using single molecules to create circuits and components) would leapfrog silicon-based circuitry to allow computer chips to keep…
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by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan on (#5XPKG)
In 1999, Rice University chemist Jim Tour co-founded Molecular Electronics Corporation, a company that aimed to use single molecules to make a new type of electronic memory. But Tour had even bigger dreams. In a 2000 story in Wired, he foretold a future in which molecular electronics would leapfrog silicon-based circuitry, allowing computer chips to…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XNKG)
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. Chatbots could one day replace search engines. Here’s why that’s a terrible idea. Large AI models can simulate natural language with remarkable realism. Trained on hundreds of books and much of the internet,…
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by James Temple on (#5XNDN)
The world’s oceans are amazing carbon sponges. They already capture a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide when surface waters react with the greenhouse gas in the air or marine organisms gobble it up as they grow. Their effectiveness has prompted growing hopes that we could somehow accelerate those natural processes to boost the amount the…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XMAD)
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 US oil-drilling hotspot is kicking out far more methane than we thought The news: One of the largest and fastest-growing oil production sites in the US is emitting far more methane than…
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by Will Douglas Heaven on (#5XM7Q)
At last year’s Google I/O, its annual showcase of new widgets and work-in-progress tech, CEO Sundar Pichai revealed his company’s “latest breakthrough in natural-language understanding”: a chatbot called LaMDA, designed to converse on any topic. He then gave a demo in which LaMDA answered questions about Pluto in natural language. The exchange showed off a…
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by Casey Crownhart on (#5XKDA)
One of the largest and fastest-growing oil production sites in the US is emitting far more methane than previously measured. It’s well known that oil and natural-gas production is a significant source of the powerful greenhouse gas: methane that is trapped underground leaks out from wells and pipelines, and it can also be released intentionally…
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by Jenn Webb on (#5XKB0)
Since the 1940s, scientists have studied ways to increase rainfall with the goal of increasing precipitation in arid and semi-arid climates. Today, that endeavor is making incredible leaps and bounds as scientists and engineers apply nanotechnology to improve the effectiveness of cloud seeding. “The global water shortage has continuously intensified by rapid population growth and…
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by Rhiannon Williams on (#5XK1H)
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. Quantum computing has a hype problem As a buzzword, quantum computing probably ranks only below AI in terms of hype. Large tech companies now have substantial research and development efforts in quantum computing.…
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by Sankar Das Sarma on (#5XJTD)
As a buzzword, quantum computing probably ranks only below AI in terms of hype. Large tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft now have substantial research and development efforts in quantum computing. A host of startups have sprung up as well, some boasting staggering valuations. IonQ, for example, was valued at $2 billion when…
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by MIT Technology Review Insights on (#5XJNG)
When it comes to computing ability, the general rule of thumb is more is better. Quantum computers promise to feed this hunger. Their immense processing power comes from their ability to store and handle significantly larger volumes of data than classical bit-driven computers. The result—a future quantum computer could, in theory, take minutes to solve…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5XGMB)
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 spoke to a radiation expert in Kyiv about the current nuclear accident risk Russian troops have been bringing death and destruction to Ukraine since they invaded on February 24. But there’s a…
by Charlotte Jee on (#5XFA5)
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. Ukraine claims it’s using facial recognition to identify dead Russian soldiers Ukraine has started using facial recognition technology to identify dead Russian soldiers, a senior government official has claimed. Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime…
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by Alli Chase on (#5XF2K)
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5XE23)
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 app Minnesota police used to collect data on journalists at protests Photojournalist J.D. Duggan was covering a protest in Minnesota in April 2021 when police officers surrounded him and others, and…
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by Sam Richards, Tate Ryan-Mosley on (#5XDQA)
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…
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by Jessica Hamzelou on (#5XCR7)
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…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5XCN6)
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…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5XB7Q)
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…
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by Patrick Howell O'Neill on (#5XB3M)
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…
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by MIT Technology Review Insights on (#5X7T0)
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…
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by Sam Richards, Tate Ryan-Mosley on (#5X7H5)
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…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5X74P)
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…
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by James Ball on (#5X6YF)
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…
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by Jessica Hamzelou on (#5X67Y)
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…
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by MIT Technology Review Insights on (#5X5ZM)
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…
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by Tanya Basu on (#5X5M2)
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…
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by Adobe on (#5X4R3)
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…
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by Charlotte Jee on (#5X4FK)
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…
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by Jenn Webb on (#5X3KW)
Thank you for joining us on “The cloud hub: From cloud chaos to clarity.” Thai Union streamlined its financial planning process to improve the visibility and effectiveness of its finance organization. They achieved this by implementing a business planning and consolidation platform on the cloud using a hybrid-agile methodology. Click here to continue.