Supershoes are reshaping distance running
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The track at Moi University’s Eldoret Town Campus doesn’t look like a facility designed for champions. Its surface is a modest mix of clay and gravel, and it’s 10 meters longer than the standard 400. Runners use a classroom chair to mark the start and finish. Yet it’s as good a place as any to…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/25/1093520/supershoes-running-kenya-carbon-plate-shoes/
Roundtables: The Future of AI Games
Recorded on June 24, 2024 The Future of AI Games Speakers: Niall Firth, executive editor, and Allison Arieff, editorial director Generative AI is coming for games and redefining what it means to play. AI-powered NPCs that don’t need a script could make games—and other worlds—deeply immersive. This technology could bring an unprecedented expansiveness to video…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/24/1094190/roundtables-the-future-of-ai-games/
The Download: hyperrealistic deepfakes, and using math to shape wood
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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. Synthesia’s hyperrealistic deepfakes will soon have full bodies Startup Synthesia’s AI-generated avatars are getting an update to make them even more realistic: They will soon have bodies that can move, and hands that…
Meet the architect creating wood structures that shape themselves
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Humanity has long sought to tame wood into something more predictable. Sawmills manufacture lumber from trees selected for consistency. Wood is then sawed into standard sizes and dried in kilns to prevent twisting, cupping, or cracking. Generations of craftsmen have employed sophisticated techniques like dovetail joinery, breadboard ends, and pocket flooring to keep wood from…
Synthesia’s hyperrealistic deepfakes will soon have full bodies
Startup Synthesia’s AI-generated avatars are getting an update to make them even more realistic: They will soon have bodies that can move, and hands that gesticulate. The new full-body avatars will be able to do things like sing and brandish a microphone while dancing, or move from behind a desk and walk across a room.…
The Download: replacing animal testing, and underwater drones
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. Is this the end of animal testing? Animal studies are notoriously bad at identifying human treatments. Around 95% of the drugs developed through animal research fail in people, but until recently there was…
Should social media come with a health warning?
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. Earlier this week, the US surgeon general, also known as the “nation’s doctor,” authored an article making the case that health warnings should accompany social media. The goal:…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/21/1094075/should-social-media-come-with-a-health-warning/
Is this the end of animal testing?
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In a clean room in his lab, Sean Moore peers through a microscope at a bit of intestine, its dark squiggles and rounded structures standing out against a light gray background. This sample is not part of an actual intestine; rather, it’s human intestinal cells on a tiny plastic rectangle, one of 24 so-called “organs…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/21/1093419/animal-testing-organ-on-chip-research/
How underwater drones could shape a potential Taiwan-China conflict
A potential future conflict between Taiwan and China would be shaped by novel methods of drone warfare involving advanced underwater drones and increased levels of autonomy, according to a new war-gaming experiment by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The report comes as concerns about Beijing’s aggression toward Taiwan have been…
The Download: playing games with AI
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 generative AI could reinvent what it means to play To make them feel alive, open-world games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are inhabited by vast crowds of computer-controlled characters. These animated people—called…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/20/1094048/the-download-playing-games-with-ai/
How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play
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First, a confession. I only got into playing video games a little over a year ago (I know, I know). A Christmas gift of an Xbox Series S “for the kids” dragged me—pretty easily, it turns out—into the world of late-night gaming sessions. I was immediately attracted to open-world games, in which you’re free to…
The Download: video-generating AI, and Meta’s voice cloning watermarks
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 tested out a buzzy new text-to-video AI model from China You may not be familiar with Kuaishou, but this Chinese company just hit a major milestone: It’s released the first ever text-to-video…
The return of pneumatic tubes
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Pneumatic tubes were touted as something that would revolutionize the world. In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where the main character, Winston Smith, sits in a room peppered with pneumatic tubes that spit out orders for him to alter previously published news…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/19/1093446/pneumatic-tubes-hospitals/
Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech
Meta has created a system that can embed hidden signals, known as watermarks, in AI-generated audio clips, which could help in detecting AI-generated content online. The tool, called AudioSeal, is the first that can pinpoint which bits of audio in, for example, a full hourlong podcast might have been generated by AI. It could help…
Scaling green hydrogen technology for the future
Unlike conventional energy sources, green hydrogen offers a way to store and transfer energy without emitting harmful pollutants, positioning it as essential to a sustainable and net-zero future. By converting electrical power from renewable sources into green hydrogen, these low-carbon-intensity energy storage systems can release clean, efficient power on demand through combustion engines or fuel…
The Download: AI’s limitations
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 does AI hallucinate? The World Health Organization’s new chatbot launched on April 2 with the best of intentions. The virtual avatar named SARAH, was designed to dispense health tips about how to…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/18/1094001/the-download-ais-limitations/
Why artists are becoming less scared of AI
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Knock, knock. Who’s there? An AI with generic jokes. Researchers from Google DeepMind asked 20 professional comedians to use popular AI language models to write jokes and comedy performances. Their results…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/18/1093998/why-artists-becoming-less-scared-of-ai/
Why does AI hallucinate?
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. The World Health Organization’s new chatbot launched on April 2 with the best of intentions. A fresh-faced virtual avatar backed by GPT-3.5, SARAH (Smart AI Resource Assistant…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/18/1093440/what-causes-ai-hallucinate-chatbots/
The Download: artificial surf pools, and unfunny AI
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 cost of building the perfect wave For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave. While this hunt has taken surfers from…
The cost of building the perfect wave
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For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave. It’s not just a question of size, but also of shape, surface conditions, and duration—ideally in a beautiful natural environment. While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines reachable only by boat to swells breaking off…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/17/1093388/surf-pools-ocean-climate-change-water-scarcity/