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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. Google DeepMind’s new AI systems can now solve complex math problems AI models can easily generate essays and other types of text. However, they’re nowhere near as good at solving math problems, which…

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. What does the genome do? You might have heard that it is a blueprint for an organism. Or that it’s a bit like a recipe. But building an…

Recorded on July 25, 2024 CRISPR Babies: Six years later Speakers: He Jiankui, CRISPR Pioneer, Antonio Regalado, senior editor for biomedicine, and Mat Honan, editor in chief Gene editing can correct or improve the DNA of human embryos, essentially opening the door to “technological evolution” of our species. But in 2018, a premature attempt to…

Since the beginning of the generative AI boom, content creators have argued that their work has been scraped into AI models without their consent. But until now, it has been difficult to know whether specific text has actually been used in a training data set.  Now they have a new way to prove it: “copyright…

The US is continuing its decades-long effort to commercialize a technology that converts sunlight into heat, funding a series of new projects using that energy to brew beer, produce low-carbon fuels, or keep grids running. On July 25, the Department of Energy will announce it is putting $33 million into nine pilot or demonstration projects…

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. PsiQuantum plans to build the biggest quantum computing facility in the US Quantum computing firm PsiQuantum is partnering with universities and a national lab to build the largest US-based quantum computing facility in…

The quantum computing firm PsiQuantum is partnering with the state of Illinois to build the largest US-based quantum computing facility, the company announced today.  The firm, which has headquarters in California, says it aims to house a quantum computer containing up to 1 million quantum bits, or qubits, within the next 10 years. At the…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Truckers have to transport massive loads long distances, every single day, under intense time pressure—and they rely on the semi-trucks they drive to get the job done. Their diesel engines spew not…

AI models work by training on huge swaths of data from the internet. But as AI is increasingly being used to pump out web pages filled with junk content, that process is in danger of being undermined. New research published in Nature shows that the quality of the model’s output gradually degrades when AI trains…

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 to access Chinese LLM chatbots across the world Hundreds of Chinese large language models have been released since the government started permitting AI companies to open up their models for the general…

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. I’ve talked a lot about Chinese large language models in this newsletter, and I’ve managed to try out quite a few of them in the past year. But many people, especially those…

Semi-trucks move over 11 billion tons of freight in the US each year, spewing greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants along the highways as they go.    Shifting these and other heavy-duty trucks to zero-emissions technologies will be a challenge—even more so than for smaller vehicles, since larger vehicles require bigger batteries and more powerful chargers. One…

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. AI companies promised to self-regulate one year ago. What’s changed? One year ago, seven leading AI companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—committed with the White House to a set voluntary commitments…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Yesterday, on July 21, President Joe Biden announced he is stepping down from the race against Donald Trump in the US presidential election. But AI nerds may remember that exactly a…

MIT Technology Review’s How To series helps you get things done. Hundreds of Chinese large language models have been released since the government started permitting AI companies to open up their models for the general public to play around with in the summer of 2023.  For users in the West, finding these Chinese models and trying them…

One year ago, on July 21, 2023, seven leading AI companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—committed with the White House to a set of eight voluntary commitments on how to develop AI in a safe and trustworthy way. These included promises to do things like improve the testing and transparency around AI systems,…

Researchers from Google have built a new weather prediction model that combines machine learning with more conventional techniques, potentially yielding accurate forecasts at a fraction of the current cost.  The model, called NeuralGCM and described in a paper in Nature today, bridges a divide that’s grown among weather prediction experts in the last several years. …

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 terrible complexity of technological problems The philosopher Karl Popper once argued that there are two kinds of problems in the world: clock problems and cloud problems. As the metaphor suggests, clock problems…

MIT Technology 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. Windows PCs have crashed in a major IT outage around the world, bringing airlines, major banks, TV broadcasters, health-care providers, and other businesses to a standstill. Airlines including United,…

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 widespread Windows outage is affecting airlines, banks, and TV broadcasters What’s happening? Windows PCs have crashed around the world, bringing airlines, major banks, TV broadcasters, healthcare providers and other businesses to a…

This August, strange balloons will drift high above Colorado. These airy aircraft, launched from the back of a pickup truck, will be equipped with sensors that can measure heat on the ground, pinpointing new wildfire outbreaks from above.  The company behind the balloons, called Urban Sky, also plans to use them to  understand conditions on…

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. A couple of years ago, I spat into a little plastic tube, stuck it in the post, and waited for a company to analyze markers on my DNA…

If the last five years have taught businesses with complex supply chains anything, it is that resilience is crucial. In the first three months of the covid-19 pandemic, for example, supply-chain leader Amazon grew its business 44%. Its investments in supply chain resilience allowed it to deliver when its competitors could not, says Sanjeev Maddila,…

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. What’s next for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is one of the world’s safest, most productive rockets. But a rare engine malfunction on July 11 prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Corporate climate claims can be confusing—and sometimes entirely unintuitive.  Tech giants Amazon and Google both recently released news about their efforts to clean up their climate impact. Both were a mixed bag,…

MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is one of the world’s safest, most productive rockets. But now it’s been grounded: A rare engine malfunction on July 11 prompted the US…

In the rhythm of our fast-paced lives, most of us don’t stop to think about where electricity comes from or or how it powers homes, industries, and the technologies that connect people around the world. As populations and economies grow, energy demands are set to increase by 50% by 2050–challenging century-old energy systems to adapt…

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. Google, Amazon and the problem with Big Tech’s climate claims Last week, Amazon trumpeted that it had purchased enough clean electricity to cover the energy demands of all its global operations, seven years…

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. This week, we are taking a short break from China and turning to its neighbor South Korea instead. As K-pop sweeps the world and accumulates a massive, devout fan base, these fans…

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. Last week, Amazon trumpeted that it had purchased enough clean electricity to cover the energy demands of all the offices, data centers, grocery stores, and warehouses across 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. Music streaming can be a drag on the environment. These K-pop fans want to clean it up. K-pop fans have for years been known for their incredible organizing power. As their numbers have…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. It’s the simplest questions that are often the hardest to answer. That applies to AI, too. Even though it’s a technology being sold as a solution to the world’s problems, nobody…

On Valentine’s Day 2023, five K-pop fans came to a bustling street in the center of Seoul, one of them in a bee costume. Then they started dancing to “Candy” by the boy band NCT Dream and unfurled a banner with a message for Korea’s largest domestic music streaming platform: “Melon, let’s use 100% renewable…

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. AI can make you more creative—but it has limits Generative AI models have made it simpler and quicker to produce everything from text passages and images to video clips and audio tracks. But…

All of a sudden, it seems that AI is everywhere, from executive assistant chatbots to AI code assistants. But despite the proliferation of AI in the zeitgeist, many organizations are proceeding with caution. This is due to the perception of the security quagmires AI presents. For the emerging technology to reach its full potential, data…

Generative AI models have made it simpler and quicker to produce everything from text passages and images to video clips and audio tracks. Texts and media that might have taken years for humans to create can now be generated in seconds. But while AI’s output can certainly seem creative, do these models actually boost human…

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. Robot-packed meals are coming to the frozen-food aisle What’s happening: Advances in artificial intelligence are coming to your freezer, in the form of robot-assembled prepared meals. Chef Robotics, a San Francisco-based startup, has…

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.  I’ve just learned that July 11 is World Population Day. There are over 8 billion of us on the planet, and there’ll probably be 8.5 billion of us…

Advances in artificial intelligence are coming to your freezer, in the form of robot-assembled prepared meals.  Chef Robotics, a San Francisco–based startup, has launched a system of AI-powered robotic arms that can be quickly programmed with a recipe to dole out accurate portions of everything from tikka masala to pesto tortellini. After experiments with leading…

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. AI is poised to automate today’s most mundane manual warehouse task Before almost any item reaches your door, it traverses the global supply chain on a pallet. More than 2 billion pallets are…

Before almost any item reaches your door, it traverses the global supply chain on a pallet. More than 2 billion pallets are in circulation in the United States alone, and $400 billion worth of goods are exported on them annually. However, loading boxes onto these pallets is a task stuck in the past: Heavy loads…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Look on the bottom of a plastic water bottle or takeout container, and you might find a logo there made up of three arrows forming a closed loop shaped like a triangle.…

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. What is AI? AI is sexy, AI is cool. AI is entrenching inequality, upending the job market, and wrecking education. The AI boom will boost the economy, the AI bubble is about to…

As technology goes, the internet of things (IoT) is old: internet-connected devices outnumbered people on Earth around 2008 or 2009, according to a contemporary Cisco report. Since then, IoT has grown rapidly. Researchers say that by the early 2020s, estimates of the number of devices ranged anywhere from the low tens of billions to over…

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. There’s been so much news coming out of China’s autonomous-vehicle industry lately that it’s hard to keep track. The government is finally allowing Tesla to bring its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature to…

Internet nastiness, name-calling, and other not-so-petty, world-altering disagreements AI is sexy, AI is cool. AI is entrenching inequality, upending the job market, and wrecking education. AI is a theme-park ride, AI is a magic trick. AI is our final invention, AI is a moral obligation. AI is the buzzword of the decade, AI is marketing…

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. Can AI help me plan my honeymoon? —Melissa Heikkilä I’m getting married later this summer and am feverishly planning a honeymoon together with my fiancé. It has been at times overwhelming trying to…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. I’m getting married later this summer and am feverishly planning a honeymoon together with my fiancé. It has been at times overwhelming trying to research and decide between what seem like…

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 to use AI to plan your next vacation Planning a vacation should, in theory, be fun. But it can also be time-consuming and stressful, particularly if you don’t know where to begin.…

MIT Technology Review‘s How To series helps you get things done. Planning a vacation should, in theory, be fun. But drawing up a list of activities for a trip can also be time consuming and stressful, particularly if you don’t know where to begin. Luckily, tech companies have been competing to create tools that can…