MIT Technology Review

The world’s largest industrial robot maker, Fanuc, is developing robots that use reinforcement learning to figure out how to do things.

Throughout history, communications have mainly been ephemeral. We need to be sure we can preserve that freedom.

The first games for Oculus Rift are pretty sweet, though some can cause motion sickness.

Quanttus spent several years trying to track blood pressure at the wrist, but doing so appears to be even more difficult than the company thought.

Quanttus spent several years trying to track blood pressure at the wrist, but doing so appears to be even more difficult than the company thought.

8i is trying to bring real people into virtual reality for more immersive experiences, from films to yoga classes.

The FBI’s demands on Apple have got security experts thinking about how to make it harder for the government to secretly coerce software companies.

A company is developing apartment buildings with sensors, automated appliances, and the ability to learn an owner’s habits.

The Bank of England asked researchers to invent a digital currency with a more centralized design.

U.K.-based startup Babylon will launch an app later this year that will listen to your symptoms and provide medical advice. Will it help or hinder the health-care system?

New homework assignments at 7 p.m., corrections due by midnight: how teachers, parents, and students in some schools in China are using WeChat to perpetuate round-the-clock pressure.

Startup Skydio has developed a more sophisticated autopilot for drones. Beyond obstacle avoidance, it lets an aircraft orient itself and navigate through busy areas.

Either you let law enforcement get into encrypted devices and run the risk of letting others find a similar way in, or you don’t.

A law professor who backs Apple in its case against the FBI says it would be dangerous for the company to win on First Amendment grounds.

Schott can make a sheet of glass thinner than your hair and half a kilometer long that bends, but doesn’t yet fold.

Some Latin American cities could soon begin releasing millions of mosquitoes developed with funding from Bill Gates.

CRISPR offers an easy, exact way to alter genes to create traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance.

A new book reopens a notorious case of bungled science in the Soviet Union.

Genetically engineered immune cells are saving the lives of cancer patients. That may be just the start.

An online store for information about your genes will make it cheap and easy to learn more about your health risks and predispositions.

Powerful speech technology from China’s leading Internet company makes it much easier to use a smartphone.

An online store for information about your genes will make it cheap and easy to learn more about your health risks and predispositions.

Politicians are trying to recruit technology companies to help fight ISIS. Does it make sense?

Politicians are trying to recruit technology companies to help fight ISIS. Does it make sense?

Rockets that land. T Cells that crush cancer. A gigafactory for solar power. See our picks for the technologies solving big problems in 2016.

Tactonic is making pressure-sensing mats that can tell how you move your toes, which could make for more immersive VR exploration.

A breakthrough technology from neuroscience might allow blind people to see a monochromatic world.

We don’t know how to make software that learns without explicit instruction—but we need to if dreams of humanlike AI are to come true.

Genetically modified mosquitoes seem to stop the spread of disease—but will Brazil, or anyone else, pay for them?

GM mosquitoes seem to work—but will Brazil, or anyone else, pay for them?

A study of the system that powers Bitcoin concludes that it cannot become widely used without a major redesign.

What is the potential of machine art, and can it truly be described as creative or imaginative?

What is the potential of machine art, and can it truly be described as creative or imaginative?

With Here earbuds from Doppler Labs, you’re in control of your aural environment, and it’s pretty sweet.

Two high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors under construction in Shandong will make up the first commercial-scale plant of its type in the world.

Two high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors under construction in Shandong will make up the first commercial-scale plant of its type in the world.

The next U.S. government looks set to inherit the ongoing fight over whether the government should rein in encryption.

A new class of experimental therapies is emerging from the study of how the community of microörganisms in your body contributes to disease.

Fear of the Zika virus could generate support for gene drives, a radical technology able to make species go extinct.

A major technological shift is needed in the next few years if computer chips are to keep improving.

Some hedge funds boast that AI algorithms make their trading decisions—but these systems might be more conventional than they seem.

Researchers have begun human clinical trials for a device, inspired by woodpeckers, that’s meant to keep the brain from moving around so much inside the skull when it gets hit.

A challenge by DARPA asks scientists to develop ways to record from a million neurons at a time.

If virtual reality is going to be truly immersive, holding a game controller could be distracting. Companies will instead try to let you control the action with your eyes, head, or fingers.

Researchers have begun to understand the economic and social damage caused by climate change.

A nanomaterials chemist has figured out a good way to mimic leaves and turn water and carbon dioxide into things we need.

One cognitive scientist thinks the leading approach to machine learning can be improved by ideas gleaned from studying children.