MIT Technology Review

What if managers and leaders at companies focused on a new goal: to elevate the human experience? This paradigm shift is something Amelia Dunlop, chief experience officer at Deloitte Digital, advocates for. She and her team have worked hard to measure the amount of humanity in the workplace—a measurement that often depends on how much…

In the early days of the pandemic, as billions of dollars poured into the hunt for novel treatments and vaccines, veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch did what he’s always done: He went looking for an underdog. Since making a fortune as the founder of Infoseek, an early search engine that was the Google of…

One of the last messages that Vaiva Bezhan sent on Facebook Messenger on Monday afternoon, Central European Time, was a bit of a cliffhanger—and incredibly time sensitive. The Lithuanian photojournalist is co-organizer of the Afghan Support Group, one of many volunteer initiatives trying by any means possible to help evacuate vulnerable Afghans in the wake…

Sarah, a 36-year-old woman living in California, had lived with chronic depression for five years. She felt suicidal multiple times an hour and was unable to make decisions about basic questions like what to eat. Nothing she had tried to treat it, including electroconvulsive therapy, had helped. Then, in June 2020, she had an implant…

On September 28, Amazon introduced Astro, a “household robot.” Amazon’s launch video promises that the $999 robot, which is squat with two wheels and a rectangular screen that features two orbs for eyes, will be able to do things like watch your home or join impromptu dance parties. This being Amazon, there’s good reason to be…

We’re keeping track of the covid vaccine apps rolling out in the US and some of the ways people can now prove they’re vaccinated. But there’s a lot of conflicting and confusing information, and a lot of developers are vying to provide the go-to solution. Here, we’ve gathered answers to some common questions. The basics…

First protein folding, now weather forecasting: London-based AI firm DeepMind is continuing its run applying deep learning to hard science problems. Working with the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, DeepMind has developed a deep-learning tool called DGMR that can accurately predict the likelihood of rain in the next 90 minutes—one of weather forecasting’s toughest…

From chess to Jeopardy to e-sports, AI is increasingly beating humans at their own games. But that was never the ultimate goal. In this first episode of season three of In Machines We Trust, we dig into the symbiotic relationship between games and AI. We meet the big players in the space, and we take…

There’s never been more happening in space than there is today. Commercial activity has exploded over the past five years as private space companies have launched rockets, put satellites into orbit, and bid on missions to the moon. But some experts worry this surge of activity is getting too far ahead of international agreements governing who can do what in space. Most such policies were…

At first glance, JB, an artist based in Los Angeles, perhaps doesn’t look much like the picture on their driver’s license. For one thing, the ID photo is from a few years ago. Hair that was once long and dark is now buzzed and bleached. And there’s the fact that JB is transgender and has…

Pulling methane out of the atmosphere has the potential to help slow global warming in the next few decades—but researchers are still trying to figure out if it’s really feasible. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and human activities like natural-gas extraction and agriculture have more than doubled its concentration since the preindustrial era. Removing…

The US booster program is about to get underway, after the CDC backed additional shots for a large swath of the American public. The agency now recommends that people aged 65 years and older, adults in long-term care, and those over 50 with underlying medical conditions get a third Pfizer-BioNTech shot. (Those whose first shot…

The news: The White House is set to kick off its booster shot campaign today, after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky overruled her own agency’s advisors in favor of recommending third doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for frontline workers. Who gets it: There are three groups of Americans now eligible for…

A zero-day exploit—a way to launch a cyberattack via a previously unknown vulnerability—is just about the most valuable thing a hacker can possess. These exploits can carry price tags north of $1 million on the open market. And this year, cybersecurity defenders have caught the highest number ever, according to multiple databases, researchers, and cybersecurity…

For years, civil rights groups have accused the US Department of Justice of racial profiling against scientists of Chinese descent. Today, a new report provides data that may quantify some of their claims. The study, published by the Committee of 100, an association of prominent Chinese-American civic leaders, found that individuals of Chinese heritage were…

A version of this story was originally published at the COVID-19 Data Dispatch. It’s impossible to overstate how controversial school reopening has become in the US this past year. After a spring of universal Zoom school, opinions diverged: some administrators, parents, and scientists pushed to get kids back in classrooms, while others lobbied for covid…

In early 2021, Americans living on the East Coast got a sharp lesson on the growing importance of cybersecurity in the energy industry. A ransomware attack hit the company that operates the Colonial Pipeline—the major infrastructure artery that carries almost half of all liquid fuels from the Gulf Coast to the eastern United States. Knowing…

This article was produced in partnership with Type Investigations, where Eileen Guo is an Ida B. Wells Fellow, and is being co-published by MIT Technology Review and Consumer Reports. A few hours before dawn in early May of last year, four police officers were dispatched to an address that they had come to know: the…

Every 10 years, US astronomers have to make some tough decisions. Outlined in a plan called the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics, a set of studies produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, these decisions determine the next decade’s scientific priorities for the field. The Decadal Survey has set the stage for big leaps in space exploration since the early…

In late January, Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to give $100 million to promising carbon removal technologies, stirring the hopes of researchers and entrepreneurs. A few weeks later, Arin Crumley, a filmmaker who went on to develop electric skateboards, announced that a team was forming on Clubhouse, the audio app popular in Silicon Valley,…

In the run-up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by Eastern European troll farms. These pages were part of a larger network that collectively reached nearly half of all Americans, according to an internal company report, and…

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…

When 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968, it didn’t feel like a stretch to dream of lounging in a space hotel, sipping a martini while watching Earth drift by. This vision got a boost in the early 1980s, when the space shuttle program heralded a future of frequent and routine trips to orbit. And when the first…

At the end of August, KT Volkova got an abortion in central Texas, where they live. KT was nearly six weeks pregnant. “Time was of the essence,” they say. Just a few days later, on September 1, SB8 became law in Texas. SB8 effectively bans abortion in the state by making the procedure illegal when…

Last week Facebook released its new $299 “Ray-Ban Stories” glasses. Wearers can use them to record and share images and short videos, listen to music, and take calls. The people who buy these glasses will soon be out in public and private spaces, photographing and recording the rest of us, and using Facebook’s new “View”…

Calithera Biosciences is a small, Northern California immunotherapy company with a pipeline of drugs in various stages of premarket development for cancer and cystic fibrosis. Like any manufacturer creating complex new products, Calithera keeps track of lots of data. But unlike advanced technology companies in other fields, drug discovery companies have the US Food and…

Exposure notification apps were developed at the start of the pandemic, as technologists raced to help slow the spread of covid. The most common system was developed jointly by Google and Apple, and dozens of apps around the world were built using it—MIT Technology Review spent much of 2020 tracking them. The apps, which run…

Update: As of September 14, a day after this story published, Y posted a new notice saying it is now unavailable. We will continue to monitor the site for more changes. The website is eye-catching for its simplicity. Against a white backdrop, a giant blue button invites visitors to upload a picture of a face.…

The news: President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that will require millions of American workers to get vaccinated against covid-19. The order mandates all companies with more than 100 workers to require employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly. Employers will have to provide paid time off for employees to get their…

Quoting Vladimir Lenin, Bill Kanarick describes the tectonic industry shifts brought on by the pandemic: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” After months of hunkering down at home, consumers got used to online shopping, telehealth doctor’s appointments and contactless and curbside pickup, effectively doubling e-commerce sales in the…

The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program, so when an asteroid headed toward Earth with their name on it 65 million years ago, they had no warning and no way to defend themselves. We know how that turned out. Humans are, understandably, keen to avoid the same fate. Later this year, NASA will launch a…

Deliberate internet shutdowns enacted by governments around the world are increasing in frequency and sophistication, according to a recent report. The study, published by Google’s Jigsaw project with the digital rights nonprofit Access Now and the censorship measurement company Censored Planet, says internet shutdowns are growing “exponentially”: out of nearly 850 shutdowns documented over the…

The new Netflix docuseries about SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission can’t help but feel unfinished, precisely because the mission will not even launch until September 15 (from Kennedy Space Center in Florida). Inspiration4 is set to be the first all-civilian mission into orbit—meaning there won’t be trained astronauts who hail from a national astronaut corps. We’re talking…

A materials company in Alameda, California, has spent the last decade working to boost the energy stored in lithium-ion batteries, an advance that could enable smaller gadgets and electric vehicles with far greater range. Sila has developed silicon-based particles that can replace the graphite in anodes and hold more of the lithium ions that carry…

By the time Joe Rogan mentioned ivermectin as one ingredient in an experimental cocktail he was taking to treat his covid infection, the drug was a meme. In the days and weeks leading up to the hugely popular podcaster’s revelation, the drug had already become a flashpoint in the covid culture wars. Ivermectin isn’t some…

Hosted at an unprecedented time due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics (branded as Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, and officially called Games of the XXXII Olympiad) will be remembered for not just the extraordinary performances of the athletes, but also for being one of the most technologically advanced Games ever hosted. Cloud…

Cyberattacks know no geographical boundaries. In the past two years alone, the University Hospital Brno in the Czech Republic suffered a cyberattack during the covid-19 pandemic, forcing the medical facility to reroute patients and postpone surgery; South Africa’s major electricity supplier, City Power, fell victim to a ransomware attack, leaving many of Johannesburg’s residents without…

On the best of days, securing the networks, devices, and data of NTUC Enterprise is no easy task. The Singapore-based cooperative consists of nine business units, from food services to insurance, and serves more than 2 million customers in nearly 1,000 locations. When the 2020 coronavirus pandemic hit, it forced many of NTUC’s employees to…

The key to a successful cybersecurity strategy is knowing what you need to protect. Here’s the proof: half of companies surveyed by MIT Technology Review Insights and Palo Alto Networks have experienced a cyberattack originally from an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed digital asset, and another 19% expect to experience one eventually. Without a full…

Three weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg was chatting with host Gayle King on the television show CBS This Morning. Instead of sitting in a studio or using a videoconferencing app, however, the two of them were talking to each other in virtual reality. Zuckerberg was on prime time to introduce Horizons Workroom, a Facebook app that…

Alan Woodward lives out in the countryside, in rural southwest England. He jokes there are more four-legged than two-legged beings in the neighborhood. He’s a professor of computer science at the University of Surrey, and his work revolves heavily around cybersecurity, communications, and forensic computing. He needs good internet—and yet he’s never had much luck…

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in a theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used…

Floods killed at least two dozen people as Hurricane Ida swept through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania on the night of September 1. This devastation is on top of the 13 who died and the million who lost power when the storm hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last weekend. As the storm moved up…

NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully gathered a bit of rock and soil from Mars, which marks the first time a sample has ever been recovered on the planet. What happened: The rover drilled into a boulder called Rochette near Jezero Crater, successfully cutting out a finger-size core of rock and placing it in a titanium…

Global warming is underscoring the point, again and again and again, that the infrastructure in the US was built for the climate conditions of the past. Hurricane Ida, turbocharged by unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, plunged New Orleans into darkness after reportedly knocking out all eight of the transmission lines into the…

A year ago, vaccines to tackle the covid pandemic still seemed like a far-off idea. Today, though, doses have been delivered to almost 40% of the world’s people—and some are being asked to prove they’re among them, leading to the rise of so-called vaccine passports. The details of these credentials vary from place to place,…

By early August, dreams of hot vax summer had faded as the delta variant drove a surge in US covid cases. Just when many thought it couldn’t get worse, outlets reported a new strain they called “delta plus.” That name turned out to be misleading—delta hadn’t become extra threatening, and variants of the virus will…

As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan in mid-August, declaring the end of two decades of war, reports quickly circulated that they had also captured US military biometric devices used to collect data such as iris scans, fingerprints, and facial images. Some feared that the machines, known as HIIDE, could be used to help identify Afghans…

As covid-19 continues to evolve in the US, researchers are now developing the next generation of therapeutics, including a new approach that could help reduce the time it takes to recover from the disease. While existing treatments include antivirals, antibodies, and steroids, scientists in the US and Europe are now focusing on creating decoys of…

Like many students, Liri has had several part-time jobs. A 23-year-old in Israel, she does waitressing and bartending gigs in Tel Aviv, where she goes to university. She also sells cars, works in retail, and conducts job interviews and onboarding sessions for new employees as a corporate HR rep. In Germany. Liri can juggle so…