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 State of AI: How war will be changed forever —Helen Warrell & James O’Donnell It is July…
Welcome back to The State of AI, a new collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Every Monday, writers from both publications debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. In this conversation, Helen Warrell,…
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 the chance your plane will be hit by space debris? The risk of flights being hit…
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. In mid-October, a mysterious object cracked the windshield of a packed…
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. OpenAI’s new LLM exposes the secrets of how AI really works The news: ChatGPT maker OpenAI has built…
Earlier this week, the UK’s science minister announced an ambitious plan: to phase out animal testing. Testing potential skin irritants on animals will be stopped by the end of next year, according to a strategy released on Tuesday. By 2027, researchers…
ChatGPT maker OpenAI has built an experimental large language model that is far easier to understand than typical models. That’s a big deal, because today’s LLMs are black boxes: Nobody fully understands how they do what they do. Building a…
Google DeepMind has built a new video-game-playing agent called SIMA 2 that can navigate and solve problems in a wide range of 3D virtual worlds. The company claims it’s a big step toward more general-purpose agents and better real-world robots. …
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 changing how we quantify pain Researchers around the world are racing to turn pain—medicine’s most subjective…
Last week, we hosted EmTech MIT, MIT Technology Review’s annual flagship conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the course of three days of main-stage sessions, I learned about innovations in AI, biotech, and robotics. But as you might imagine, some of…
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 it’s like to be in the middle of a conspiracy theory (according to a conspiracy theory expert)…
For years, many chief information officers (CIOs) looked at VMware-to-cloud migrations with a wary pragmatism. Manually mapping dependencies and rewriting legacy apps mid-flight was not an enticing, low-lift proposition for enterprise IT teams. But the calculus for such decisions has…
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 quest to find out how our bodies react to extreme temperatures Climate change is subjecting vulnerable people…
AI and quantum technologies are dramatically reconfiguring how cybersecurity functions, redefining the speed and scale with which digital defenders and their adversaries can operate. The weaponization of AI tools for cyberattacks is already proving a worthy opponent to current defenses.…
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. Why it’s so hard to bust the weather control conspiracy theory It was October 2024, and Hurricane Helene…
Welcome to The State of AI, a new collaboration between the Financial Times and MIT Technology Review. Every Monday for the next six weeks, writers from both publications will debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. This…
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 first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch Vanguard feels and smells like a…
This week, we heard that Tom Brady had his dog cloned. The former quarterback revealed that his Junie is actually a clone of Lua, a pit bull mix that died in 2023. Brady’s announcement follows those of celebrities like Paris…
Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides…
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 conspiracy theories infiltrated the doctor’s office As anyone who has googled their symptoms and convinced themselves that…
Picture it: I’m minding my business at a party, parked by the snack table (of course). A friend of a friend wanders up, and we strike up a conversation. It quickly turns to work, and upon learning that I’m a…
The US- and UK-based company Quantinuum today unveiled Helios, its third-generation quantum computer, which includes expanded computing power and error correction capability. Like all other existing quantum computers, Helios is not powerful enough to execute the industry’s dream money-making algorithms,…
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. Why the for-profit race into solar geoengineering is bad for science and public trust —David Keith is the…
This year, we’ve seen a real-time experiment playing out across the technology industry, one in which AI’s software engineering capabilities have been put to the test against human technologists. And although 2025 may have started with AI looking strong, the…
Last week, an American-Israeli company that claims it’s developed proprietary technology to cool the planet announced it had raised $60 million, by far the largest known venture capital round to date for a solar geoengineering startup. The company, Stardust, says…
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 AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time —Will Douglas Heaven, senior AI editor Are…
The State of AI is a collaboration between the Financial Times & MIT Technology Review examining the ways in which AI is reshaping global power. Every Monday for the next six weeks, writers from both publications will debate one aspect…
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. Here’s the latest company planning for gene-edited babies The news: A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured…
Demand for copper is surging, as is pollution from its dirty production processes. The founders of one startup, Still Bright, think they have a better, cleaner way to generate the copper the world needs. The company uses water-based reactions, based…
A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured $30 million to form a public-benefit company to study how to safely create genetically edited babies, marking the largest known investment into the taboo technology. The new company, called Preventive, is being…
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. Why do so many people think the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia? Quick question: Does…
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the season of the sniffles. As the weather turns, we’re all spending more time indoors. The kids have been back at school for a couple of months. And cold germs are…
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. Introducing: the new conspiracy age Everything is a conspiracy theory now. Conspiracists are all over the White House,…
Bill Gates doesn’t shy away or pretend modesty when it comes to his stature in the climate world today. “Well, who’s the biggest funder of climate innovation companies?” he asked a handful of journalists at a media roundtable event last…
According to internet listicles, the animated sitcom The Simpsons has predicted the future anywhere from 17 to 55 times. “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” the newly sworn-in President Lisa Simpson declared way back…
The timing was eerie. On November 21, 1963, Richard Hofstadter delivered the annual Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford University. Hofstadter was a professor of American history at Columbia University who liked to use social psychology to explain political history, the…
In this exclusive subscirber-only ebook you’ll learn how the emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next. by James O’Donnell and Casey Crownhart…
Four years is a lifetime when it comes to artificial intelligence. Since the first edition of this study was published in 2021, AI’s capabilities have been advancing at speed, and the advances have not slowed since generative AI’s breakthrough. For…
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. DeepSeek may have found a new way to improve AI’s ability to remember The news: An AI model…
Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Just about all businesses these days seem to…
An AI model released by Chinese AI company DeepSeek uses new techniques that could significantly improve AI’s ability to “remember.” Released last week, the optical character recognition (OCR) model works by extracting text from an image and turning it into…
The market is officially three years post ChatGPT and many of the pundit bylines have shifted to using terms like “bubble” to suggest reasons behind generative AI not realizing material returns outside a handful of technology suppliers. In September, the…
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 will never build a sex robot,” says Mustafa Suleyman Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, is trying…
Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, is trying to walk a fine line. On the one hand, he thinks that the industry is taking AI in a dangerous direction by building chatbots that present as human: He worries that people…
A few weeks ago, I set out on what I thought would be a straightforward reporting journey. After years of momentum for AI—even if you didn’t think it would be good for the world, you probably thought it was powerful…
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. I tried OpenAI’s new Atlas browser but I still don’t know what it’s for —Mat Honan OpenAI rolled…
OpenAI rolled out a new web browser last week called Atlas. It comes with ChatGPT built in, along with an agent, so that you can browse, get direct answers, and have automated tasks performed on your behalf all at the…
Right now, MIT alumni and friends are voicing their support for: America’s scientific and technological leadership Merit-based admissions and affordable education Advances that increase US health, security, and prosperity Our community is standing up for MIT and its mission to…
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 carbon removal? After years of growth that spawned hundreds of startups, the nascent carbon removal…
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. In the early 2020s, a little-known aquaculture company in Portland, Maine,…
How are you feeling? I’m genuinely interested in the well-being of all my treasured Checkup readers, of course. But this week I’ve also been wondering how science and technology can help answer that question—especially when it comes to pain. In the…
As organizations weave AI into more of their operations, senior executives are realizing data engineers hold a central role in bringing these initiatives to life. After all, AI only delivers when you have large amounts of reliable and well-managed, high-quality…
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 is about to conduct the biggest real-world test of aluminum as a zero-carbon fuel Found Energy,…
Rondo Energy just turned on what it says is the world’s largest thermal battery, an energy storage system that can take in electricity and provide a consistent source of heat. The company announced last week that its first full-scale system…
The crushed-up soda can disappears in a cloud of steam and—though it’s not visible—hydrogen gas. “I can just keep this reaction going by adding more water,” says Peter Godart, squirting some into the steaming beaker. “This is room-temperature water, and…
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. Introducing: the body issue We’re thrilled to share the latest edition of MIT Technology Review magazine, digging into…
At the southern tip of San Francisco Bay, surrounded by the tech giants Google, Apple, and Microsoft, sits the historic NASA Ames Research Center. Its rich history includes a grab bag of fascinating scientific research involving massive wind tunnels, experimental…
Embryologists are the scientists behind the scenes of in vitro fertilization who oversee the development and selection of embryos, prepare them for transfer, and maintain the lab environment. They’ve been a critical part of IVF for decades, but their job…
It’s late August in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, and people are filling a large hall at one of Africa’s biggest gatherings of minds in AI and machine learning. The room is draped in white curtains, and a giant screen blinks with…
Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman This science fiction book series confronted me with existential questions like “Are we alone in the universe?” and “Do I actually like LitRPG??” (LitRPG—which stands for “literary role-playing game”—is a relatively new genre that…
Every Monday, more than a hundred members of Giovanni Traverso’s Laboratory for Translational Engineering (L4TE) fill a large classroom at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for their weekly lab meeting. With a social hour, food for everyone, and updates across disciplines…
When the Palestinian stem-cell scientist Jacob Hanna was stopped while entering the US last May, airport customs agents took him aside and held him for hours in “secondary,” a back office where you don’t have your passport and can’t use…
Chatbots today are everything machines. If it can be put into words—relationship advice, work documents, code—AI will produce it, however imperfectly. But the one thing that almost no chatbot will ever do is stop talking to you. That might seem…
Download the pattern for Dancing Ribbons here. Yoder recommends printing the pattern on paper in between normal printer paper and cardstock in weight, making sure it folds in straight lines (not too thick), folds back and forth easily on the…
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 retina implant lets people with vision loss do a crossword puzzle The news: Science Corporation—a competitor to…
Science Corporation—a competitor to Neuralink founded by the former president of Elon Musk’s brain-interface venture—has leapfrogged its rival after acquiring, at a fire-sale price, a vision implant that’s in advanced testing,. The implant produces a form of “artificial vision” that…
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. From slop to Sotheby’s? AI art enters a new phase In this era of AI slop, the idea…
It is a yellow blob with no brain, yet some researchers believe a curious organism known as slime mold could help us build more resilient cities. Humans have been building cities for 6,000 years, but slime mold has been around…
In this era of AI slop, the idea that generative AI tools like Midjourney and Runway could be used to make art can seem absurd: What possible artistic value is there to be found in the likes of Shrimp Jesus…
This week we had some terrifying news from the World Health Organization: Antibiotics are failing us. A growing number of bacterial infections aren’t responding to these medicines—including common ones that affect the blood, gut, and urinary tract. Get infected with…
Used in aviation, book and claim offers companies the ability to financially support the use of SAF even when it is not physically available at their locations. As companies that ship goods by air or provide air freight related services…
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 race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess An emerging field of science is…
Consider, if you will, the translucent blob in the eye of a microscope: a human blastocyst, the biological specimen that emerges just five days or so after a fateful encounter between egg and sperm. This bundle of cells, about the…
You live in a house you designed and built yourself. You rely on the sun for power, heat your home with a woodstove, and farm your own fish and vegetables. The year is 2025. This is the life of Marcin…
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. Big Tech’s big bet on a controversial carbon removal tactic Microsoft, JP MorganChase, and a tech company consortium…
Artificial intelligence has always promised speed, efficiency, and new ways of solving problems. But what’s changed in the past few years is how quickly those promises are becoming reality. From oil and gas to retail, logistics to law, AI is…
For years at Orchard Care Homes, a 23‑facility dementia-care chain in northern England, Cheryl Baird watched nurses fill out the Abbey Pain Scale, an observational methodology used to evaluate pain in those who can’t communicate verbally. Baird, a former nurse…
It’s the 25th of June and I’m shivering in my lab-issued underwear in Fort Worth, Texas. Libby Cowgill, an anthropologist in a furry parka, has wheeled me and my cot into a metal-walled room set to 40 °F. A loud…
Over the last century, much of the US pulp and paper industry crowded into the southeastern corner of the nation, setting up mills amid sprawling timber forests to strip the fibers from juvenile loblolly, long leaf, and slash pine trees.…
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 aging clocks can help us understand why we age—and if we can reverse it Wrinkles and gray…
From addictive algorithms to exploitative apps, data mining to misinformation, the internet today can be a hazardous place. Books by three influential figures—the intellect behind “net neutrality,” a former Meta executive, and the web’s own inventor—propose radical approaches to fixing…
Be honest: Have you ever looked up someone from your childhood on social media with the sole intention of seeing how they’ve aged? One of my colleagues, who shall remain nameless, certainly has. He recently shared a photo of a…
Amid the turbulence of the wider global economy in recent years, the pharmaceuticals industry is weathering its own storms. The rising cost of raw materials and supply chain disruptions are squeezing margins as pharma companies face intense pressure—including from countries 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. An Earthling’s guide to planet hunting The pendant on Rebecca Jensen-Clem’s necklace is composed of 36 silver hexagons…
The pendant on Rebecca Jensen-Clem’s necklace is only about an inch wide, composed of 36 silver hexagons entwined in a honeycomb mosaic. At the Keck Observatory, in Hawaii, just as many segments make up a mirror that spans 33 feet,…
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 do our bodies remember? “Like riding a bike” is shorthand for the remarkable way that our bodies…
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. “Like riding a bike” is shorthand for the remarkable way that our bodies…
Attentive readers might have noticed my absence over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to recover from a bout of illness. It got me thinking about the immune system, and how little I know about my own immune…
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 healthy am I? My immunome knows the score. Made up of 1.8 trillion cells and trillions more…
The story is a collaboration between MIT Technology Review and Aventine, a non-profit research foundation that creates and supports content about how technology and science are changing the way we live. It’s not often you get a text about the…
On Monday, we published our 2025 edition of Climate Tech Companies to Watch. This marks the third time we’ve put the list together, and it’s become one of my favorite projects to work on every year. In the journalism world,…
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 Trump administration may cut funding for two major direct-air capture plants The US Department of Energy appears…
The US Department of Energy appears poised to terminate funding for a pair of large carbon-sucking factories that were originally set to receive more than $1 billion in government grants, according to a department-issued list of projects obtained by MIT…
Kids have always played with and talked to stuffed animals. But now their toys can talk back, thanks to a wave of companies that are fitting children’s playthings with chatbots and voice assistants. It’s a trend that has particularly taken…
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 company is planning a lithium empire from the shores of the Great Salt Lake On a bright…
BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah – On a bright afternoon in August, the shore on the North Arm of the Great Salt Lake looks like something out of a science fiction film set in a scorching alien world. The desert sun…
Last week OpenAI released Sora, a TikTok-style app that presents an endless feed of exclusively AI-generated videos, each up to 10 seconds long. The app allows you to create a “cameo” of yourself—a hyperrealistic avatar that mimics your appearance and…