MIT Technology Review

The news: Facebook says it is setting up new internal teams to look for racial bias in the algorithms that drive its main social network and Instagram, according to the Wall Street Journal. In particular, the investigations will address the adverse effects of machine learning—which can encode implicit racism in training data—on Black, Hispanic, and…

An international group of researchers have identified 37 volcanic structures on Venus that were recently active and are likely still active today. The results, published Monday in Nature Geoscience, upend long-held assumptions that the second planet from the sun is largely dormant. What we thought: Unlike Earth, Venus doesn’t have plate tectonics that are constantly…

“Playing with GPT-3 feels like seeing the future,” Arram Sabeti, a San Francisco–based developer and artist, tweeted last week. That pretty much sums up the response on social media in the last few days to OpenAI’s latest language-generating AI. OpenAI first described GPT-3 in a research paper published in May. But last week it…

The UAE launched its Emirates Mars Mission on Monday, from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at 6:58 a.m. local time (Sunday evening US Eastern Time). If the mission successfully reaches Mars, the UAE will join a very small list of nations to have gone to the Red Planet. What’s the mission about? An orbital spacecraft named…

The concept: When we look at a chair, regardless of its shape and color, we know that we can sit on it. When a fish is in water, regardless of its location, it knows that it can swim. This is known as the theory of affordance, a term coined by psychologist James J. Gibson. It…

Earlier this week as a pandemic raged across the United States, residents were cut off from the only publicly available source of aggregated data on the nation’s intensive care and hospital bed capacity. When the Trump administration stripped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of control over coronavirus data, it also took that…

Yeshimabeit Milner was in high school the first time she saw kids she knew getting handcuffed and stuffed into police cars. It was February 29, 2008, and the principal of a nearby school in Miami, with a majority Haitian and African-American population, had put one of his students in a chokehold. The next day several…

Morgan Eckroth became famous on TikTok as morgandrinkscoffee. A 21-year-old barista and social-media manager for Tried & True Coffee in Corvallis, Oregon, she shares latte art, dramatic reenactments of customer interactions, and drink tutorials with her 4 million followers. Before the pandemic her content was pretty wholesome—she likes her job! But then in May, someone…

The news: Russian hackers targeted UK, US, and Canadian researchers developing coronavirus vaccines, according to a report from the United Kingdom, American, and Canadian intelligence services. The hackers: The Russian intelligence hacking group known as Cozy Bear or APT29 has been blamed. You might know Cozy from its many previous high-profile cyber-espionage ventures, most notably…

In February of last year, the San Francisco–based research lab OpenAI announced that its AI system could now write convincing passages of English. Feed the beginning of a sentence or paragraph into GPT-2, as it was called, and it could continue the thought for as long as an essay with almost human-like coherence. Now, the…

It’s been a banner year for solar observations so far. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii presented some of the best images ever taken of the sun, showing us a caramel-like surface where individual cells of plasma ooze up and down hypnotically. Not to be outdone, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission has just…

Joe Biden has raised the ambitions of his climate plan, in a clear sign his campaign is responding to demands for greater action among the progressive flank of his party. In a speech on Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president announced proposals to spend $2 trillion on clean-energy projects and eliminate carbon emissions from…

This story is part of our ongoing list of answers to the biggest questions our readers have about the coronavirus. That list is constantly updated, and you can check it out here. Since early in the pandemic, there’s been an interest in learning whether blood type has anything to do with who is more likely…

The news: We should prepare now for a potential new wave of coronavirus cases this winter, according to the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences. Health-care systems tend to struggle in winter anyway because infectious diseases spread faster as we spend more time in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, and because conditions like asthma, heart attacks, and…

Editor’s note: On July 14, 2020, the Trump administration said it would reverse an Immigration and Customs Enforcement rule that would have required foreign students to leave the US if they were taking all of their classes online. For decades, US policymakers have bet that the world’s best and brightest will endure a dysfunctional immigration…

Astronomers have found one of the largest structures in the known universe—a “wall” of galaxies that’s at least 1.4 billion light-years long. And given how close it is to us, it’s remarkable that we haven’t seen it before now. What happened: An international team of scientists reported the discovery of the South Pole Wall in…

We are at the very beginning of a medical revolution, fueled by our ability to analyze hitherto unheard-of amounts of data using artificial intelligence (AI). AI is enabling the development of smart medical devices that can address some of society’s most persistent and expensive health problems. Conditions such as heart arrhythmias, type 1 diabetes, celiac…

The lowdown: Immunity to covid-19 may be short-lived, according to a new longitudinal study of people who have caught the disease and recovered. The study: Researchers at King’s College London repeatedly tested 96 patients and health-care workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust for antibodies between March and June. All the participants were…

This was the week airborne transmission became a big deal in the public discussion about covid-19. Over 200 scientists from around the world cosigned a letter to the World Health Organization urging it to take seriously the growing evidence that the coronavirus can be transmitted through the air. WHO stopped short of redefining SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes…

When France launched its app for digital contact tracing, it looked like a possible breakthrough for the virus-ravaged country. After going live in June, StopCovid was downloaded by 2 million people in a short time, and digital affairs minister Cédric O said that “from the first downloads, the app helps avoid contamination, illness, and so…

This virtual panel session from MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Next conference takes an in-depth look at Deloitte and MIT Sloan Management Review’s recently released research, Opportunity Marketplaces, which sits at the center of this paradigm shift in business strategy, and asks: are you ready to fast forward and accelerate the future of work? This content was…

There’s a certain routine to logging on to the now-ubiquitous videoconference: join a screen of Brady Bunch–like squares, ping-ponging your gaze between speakers but mostly staring self-consciously at your own face. What started as a novelty of working at home is now an exhausting ordeal that can leave us feeling mentally wiped out. Microsoft thinks…

The news: A study of more than 17 million people in England has confirmed the various factors that are linked with an increase in a person’s risk of dying from covid-19: age; being male, Black, or from another ethnic minority background; or having underlying health conditions. It confirms a lot of previous research, but it’s…

Two companies have teamed up on a project that could provide a key test of our ability to use synthetic fuel, made from carbon dioxide captured from the air, to cut emissions from aviation. Carbon Engineering, a direct air capture company based in British Columbia, has signed a deal with Aerion, a startup based in…

A notorious hacker who made an estimated $1.5 million by stealing information from more than 300 companies and governments in 44 countries has been identified as a 37-year-old man from Kazakhstan. Known as Fxmsp, the hacker became famous in 2019 when he advertised access and source code for leading cybersecurity companies, amid claims that he…

The news: A group of 239 scientists from 32 countries have written an open letter to the World Health Organization arguing that covid-19 can be transmitted through the air. You might think we know that already, but most current guidance is based on the idea that covid-19 is transmitted via droplets expelled from an infected…

There’s no shortage of promises when it comes to AI. Some say it will solve all problems while others warn it will bring about the end of the world as we know it. Both positions regularly play out in Hollywood plotlines like Westworld, Carbon Black, Minority Report, Her, and Ex Machina. Those stories are compelling…

Are you hiding from covid-19? I am. The reason is simple: the high chance of death from the virus. I was reminded of the risk last week by this report from the New York City health department and Columbia University which estimated that on average, between March and May, the chance of dying if you get infected…

When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon took NASA astronauts to the ISS near the end of May, the launch brought back a familiar sight. For the first time since the space shuttle was retired, American rockets were launching from American soil to take Americans into space. Inside the vehicle, however, things couldn’t have looked more different. Gone was…

The news: An experimental covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech provoked immune responses in 45 healthy volunteers, according to a preprint paper on medRXiv. The levels of antibodies were up to 2.8 times the level of those found in patients who have recovered. The study randomly assigned 45 people to get either one…

In today’s business environment, strategic technology initiatives are driven by the need to grow with greater agility and adapt to rapidly changing commercial, environmental, and regulatory conditions. A new report, sponsored by Panduit, explores how IT leaders from a variety of industries are building intelligent infrastructure that provides a platform for innovation and insights. The…

In 1996 John Perry Barlow, cofounder of internet rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote “A declaration of the independence of cyberspace.” It begins: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the…

Ilan Gur always wanted to build things. But after finishing his PhD in material science at UC Berkeley, he says he “bounced around, feeling like a misfit.” He left the publish-or-perish world of academia, and burned through a few million dollars before realizing that venture capital isn’t the right way to fund applied research, either.…

The second quarter of 2020 launched many digital transformation projects that didn’t necessarily happen at the behest of chief innovation officers, but because of the wrecking ball of disruption known as covid-19. Even if companies did succeed at rapidly orienting operations and services to digital, the transformation journey is far from over—and that means procurement…

It’s troubling, though not surprising, to see covid-19 cases spiking across the American South and Southwest, where public officials delayed lockdowns, rushed to reopen businesses, or refused to require people to wear masks. But what’s the matter with California? The nation’s most populous state was the first to enact statewide shelter-in-place rules, took decisive steps…

The covid-19 pandemic has unleashed changes that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago. In February, it seemed unthinkable the entire white-collar workforce of many countries would soon be working solely from home. It seemed unthinkable air travel would plummet by 96%, or millions of migrant workers in India would be forced to undertake a…

Covid-19 has been disruptive and bewildering for everyone, but especially for children. In the UK and in most US states, schools closed in March. Many of them will keep their doors shut until the fall. That’s six months without the normality of a school day, not to mention a significant break without any formal education…

The news: Early on Monday, Reddit banned r/The_Donald, a once-notorious pro-Trump forum, for repeated rule-breaking. CEO Steve Huffman announced that it was just one of 2,000 subreddits banned by the site as it institutes rule changes designed to make the platform less accommodating to hateful and abusive communities. The other news: Later in the day,…

On Monday, India banned TikTok and dozens of other apps made in China, escalating tension between the countries two weeks after a long-simmering border dispute in the Himalayas turned deadly. The news: In a statement, India said the apps “engaged in activities which [are] prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security…

The coronavirus pandemic has led to enhanced health-care collaboration, innovation, and increased use of digital technologies. Telehealth enables doctors to safely connect with patients virtually and monitor them remotely, whether in different cities or down the hall. And smarter and smaller medical devices are producing better outcomes for patients—a disruption is sensed, like low blood…

“We have the greatest testing program anywhere in the world,” US President Donald Trump told reporters on June 23. “We test better than anybody in the world. Our tests are the best in the world, and we have the most of them. By having more tests, we find more cases.” Trump went on to say…

Astronomers from Caltech have reported that they’ve observed a collision between two black holes. Normally such an event is invisible, but this time a more massive black hole sitting nearby helped illuminate the other two as they collided. If confirmed, the findings, published in Physical Review Letters, would be the first optical observations ever made…

The virus “I am very wary of simplistic projections about the ongoing outbreak based solely off of its current growth patterns” —Maimuna Majumder, SM ’15, PhD ’18, faculty, Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program, and research associate, Harvard Medical School (ABC News, March 16) “Closing schools, bars, and movie theaters are good measures, but not…

Even before president Trump’s executive order on June 22, the US was already bucking global tech immigration trends. Over the past five years, as other countries have opened up their borders to highly skilled technical people, the US has maintained—and even restricted—its immigration policies, creating a bottleneck for meeting domestic demand for tech talent. Now…

The news: US Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by federal law enforcement agencies. Specifically, it would make it illegal for any federal agency or official to “acquire, possess, access, or use” biometric surveillance technology in the US. It would also require state and local law…

When it comes to supporting DevOps initiatives, mainframe technology—introduced in the early 1950s—isn’t likely to be the first to come to mind. This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff. Yet combining the processing power of mainframe computing with…

In 2015, alarmed by an escalating civil war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia led an air campaign against the country to defeat what it deemed a threatening rise of Shia power. The intervention, launched with eight other largely Sunni Arab states, was meant to last only a few weeks, Saudi officials had said. Nearly five years…

It’s an old story by now—cloud is the computing of the future. What has become evident in recent years, however, is cloud has established itself as the computing of the present—and the agile IT architecture it has enabled is critical to any organization’s efforts to increase efficiency and business resilience. In other words, transitioning IT…

Generals always fight the last war, runs the military aphorism. Politicians have also drawn heavily from battlefield lexicon in framing the fight against covid-19, but they too are at risk of leaning on outdated concepts and responses based on past crises that bear limited resemblance to the pandemic. With a vaccine likely to be many…

Jess Whittlestone at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and her colleagues published a comment piece in Nature Machine Intelligence this week arguing that if artificial intelligence is going to help in a crisis, we need a new, faster way of doing AI ethics, which they call ethics…