Why hydrogen is losing the race to power cleaner cars
Imagine a car that doesn’t emit any planet-warming gases—or any pollution at all, for that matter. Unlike the EVs on the roads today, it doesn’t take an hour or more to charge—just fuel up and go. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s the reality of vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. And…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/28/1089068/ev-hydrogen-race-cleaner-cars/
Journey to the eclipse
In 1900, the recently completed Hotel Fitzpatrick in Washington, Georgia, stood out for its grand Queen Anne architecture, but even more for its technology—it offered electricity, an elevator, and a telephone. When Alfred E. Burton, MIT’s first dean (1902–1921), chronicled his expedition to Washington to record a total solar eclipse for Technology Review, he noted…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/28/1088237/archives-solar-eclipse-2024-1900/
The first-ever mission to pull a dead rocket out of space has just begun
More than 9,000 metric tons of human-made metal and machinery are orbiting Earth, including satellites, shrapnel, and the International Space Station. But a significant bulk of that mass comes from one source: the nearly a thousand dead rockets that have been discarded in space since the space age began. Now, for the first time, a…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/27/1089065/first-mission-dead-rocket/
The Download: tiny TikTok-style soap operas, and how algorithms change us
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. China’s next cultural export could be TikTok-style short soap operas Until last year, Ty Coker, a 28-year-old voice actor who lives in Missouri, mostly voiced video games and animations. But in December, they…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/27/1089015/tiny-soap-operas-algorithms-change-us/
Algorithms are everywhere
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Like a lot of Netflix subscribers, I find that my personal feed tends to be hit or miss. Usually more miss. The movies and shows the algorithms recommend often seem less predicated on my viewing history and ratings, and more geared toward promoting whatever’s newly available. Still, when a superhero movie starring one of the…
Conversational AI revolutionizes the customer experience landscape
In the ever-evolving landscape of customer experiences, AI has become a beacon guiding businesses toward seamless interactions. While AI has been transforming businesses long before the latest wave of viral chatbots, the emergence of generative AI and large language models represents a paradigm shift in how enterprises engage with customers and manage internal workflows. “We…
The Download: Trump’s potential climate impact, and the end of cheap helium
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. Trump wants to unravel Biden’s landmark climate law. Here is what’s most at risk. President Joe Biden’s crowning legislative achievement was enacting the Inflation Reduction Act, easily the nation’s largest investment into addressing…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/26/1088958/climate-impact-trump-cheap-helium/
Wikimedia’s CTO: In the age of AI, human contributors still matter
Selena Deckelmann has never been afraid of people on the internet. With a TV repairman and CB radio enthusiast for a grandfather and a pipe fitter for a stepdad, Deckelmann grew up solving problems by talking and tinkering. So when she found her way to Linux, one of the earliest open-source operating systems, as a…
The era of cheap helium is over—and that’s already causing problems
MIT Technology Review is celebrating our 125th anniversary with an online series that draws lessons for the future from our past coverage of technology. In the nuclear magnetic resonance facility at Mississippi State University, three powerful magnets make it possible to see how atoms form bonds. Chemists there use the technology to design new polymers…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/25/1088930/global-helium-market-semiconductors/
The Download: Alabama’s embryo ruling impact, and remote learning for pre-schoolers
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 weird way Alabama’s embryo ruling takes on artificial wombs A ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court last week that frozen embryos count as children is sending “shock waves” through the fertility industry…
Tackling long-haul diseases
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MIT immunoengineer Michal “Mikki” Tal remembers the exact moment she had an insight that would change the trajectory of her research, getting her hooked on studying a long-neglected disease that leaves millions of Americans suffering without treatment. It was 2017, and she was a Stanford postdoc exploring connections between her immune regulation research and immuno-oncology,…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/23/1087617/tackling-long-haul-diseases/
The Download: Alabama’s embryo ruling impact, and remote learning for pre-schoolers
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 weird way Alabama’s embryo ruling takes on artificial wombs A ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court last week that frozen embryos count as children is sending “shock waves” through the fertility industry…
The weird way Alabama’s embryo ruling takes on artificial wombs
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 ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court last week that frozen embryos stored in labs count as children is sending “shock waves” through the fertility…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/23/1088851/alabama-court-embryo-artificial-wombs/
Yes, remote learning can work for preschoolers
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The other day some preschoolers were pretending to be one of their favorite Sesame Street characters, a baby goat named Ma’zooza who likes round things. They played with tomatoes—counting up to five, hiding one, and putting it back. A totally ordinary moment exploring shapes, numbers, and imagination. Except this version of Sesame Street—called Ahlan Simsim…
The Download: tracking animals, and biotech plants
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 tracking animal movement may save the planet Animals have long been able to offer unique insights about the natural world around us, acting as organic sensors picking up phenomena invisible to humans.…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/22/1088821/tracking-animals-biotech-plants/
Ready, set, grow: These are the biotech plants you can buy now
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This spring I am looking forward to growing some biotech in my backyard for the first time. It’s possible because of startups that have started selling genetically engineered plants directly to consumers, including a bright-purple tomato and a petunia that glows in the dark. This week, for $73, I ordered both by pressing a few…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/22/1088768/glowing-plant-lightbio-purple-tomato-norfolk/
How tracking animal movement may save the planet
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There was something strange about the way the sharks were moving between the islands of the Bahamas. Tiger sharks tend to hug the shoreline, explains marine biologist Austin Gallagher, but when he began tagging the 1,000-pound animals with satellite transmitters in 2016, he discovered that these predators turned away from it, toward two ancient underwater…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/22/1088116/internet-of-animals-movement-research-earth/
Three frequently asked questions about EVs, answered
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This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. For someone who does not own or drive a car, I sure do have a lot of thoughts about them. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about transportation in general,…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/22/1088800/ev-faqs/
Data at the center of business
With more than 5,000 branches across 48 states and 80 million customers, each with its own unique requirements to satisfy its customers’ financial needs, a clear data strategy is key for JPMorgan Chase. According to Mark Birkhead, firm-wide chief data officer at JPMorgan Chase, data analytics is the oxygen that breathes life into the firm…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/21/1087865/data-at-the-center-of-business/
The Download: deep diving, and virtual power plants in China
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. Meet the divers trying to figure out how deep humans can go Two hundred thirty meters into one of the deepest underwater caves on Earth, Richard “Harry” Harris knew that not far ahead…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/21/1088754/deep-diving-virtual-power-plants-china/