The Download: safer space travel, and generative AI in video games
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. Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer? Long-distance space travel can wreak havoc on human health. There’s radiation and microgravity to contend with, as well as the…
Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer?
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. Recently, global news has been pretty bleak. So this week, I’ve decided to focus my thoughts beyond Earth’s stratosphere and well into space. A couple of weeks ago,…
The Download: a CRISPR patent battle, and the promise of tiny 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. Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to…
The Download: a CRISPR patent battle, and the promise of tiny 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. Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to…
Why Microsoft made a deal to help restart Three Mile Island
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Nuclear power is coming back to Three Mile Island. That nuclear power plant is typically associated with a very specific event. One of its reactors, Unit 2, suffered a partial meltdown in…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/
Want AI that flags hateful content? Build it.
Humane Intelligence, an organization focused on evaluating AI systems, is launching a competition that challenges developers to create a computer vision model that can track hateful image-based propaganda online. In partnership with Nordic counterterrorism group Revontulet, the bounty program opens September 26, is open to anyone who wants to compete, and promises $10,000 in prizes…
Roundtables: Putting AI’s Climate Impact Into Perspective
Recorded on September 25, 2024 Putting AI’s Climate Impact Into Perspective Speakers: David Rotman, Editor-at-large, Melissa Heikkilä, Senior AI Reporter, and James Temple, Sr Editor for Energy The rise of AI comes with a growing carbon footprint and an increased demand for electricity. Analysts project that AI could drive up data centers’ energy consumption by 160% this…
Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe
In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to overturn patents held by competitors by pointing out errors or inconsistencies. But now, in a surprise twist, the team that earned the Nobel Prize for developing CRISPR is asking to cancel two of their own…
A tiny new open-source AI model performs as well as powerful big ones
The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2), a research nonprofit, is releasing a family of open-source multimodal language models, called Molmo, that it says perform as well as top proprietary models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The organization claims that its biggest Molmo model, which has 72 billion parameters, outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4o, which is estimated…
The Download: how to connect the US’s grids, and OpenAI’s new voice mode
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 one developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids Michael Skelly hasn’t learned to take no for an answer. For much of the last 15 years, the energy entrepreneur has worked…
Why one developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids
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Michael Skelly hasn’t learned to take no for an answer. For much of the last 15 years, the Houston-based energy entrepreneur has worked to develop long-haul transmission lines to carry wind power across the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southwest, delivering clean electricity to cities like Albuquerque, Chicago, and Memphis. But so far, he has little…
OpenAI released its advanced voice mode to more people. Here’s how to get it.
OpenAI is broadening access to Advanced Voice Mode, a feature of ChatGPT that allows you to speak more naturally with the AI model. It allows you to interrupt its responses mid-sentence, and can also sense and interpret your emotions based on your tone of voice and adjust its responses accordingly. These features were teased back…
An AI script editor could help decide what films get made in Hollywood
Every day across Hollywood, scores of film school graduates and production assistants work as script readers. Their job is to find the diamonds in the rough from the 50,000 or so screenplays pitched each year and flag any worth pursuing further. Each script runs anywhere from 100 to 150 pages, and it can take half…
An AI script editor could help decide what films get made in Hollywood
Every day across Hollywood, scores of film school graduates and production assistants work as script readers. Their job is to find the diamonds in the rough from the 50,000 or so screenplays pitched each year and flag any worth pursuing further. Each script runs anywhere from 100 to 150 pages, and it can take half…
The Download: AI lessons for the US election, and our climate tech list is coming
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 the US can learn from the role of AI in other elections When the generative AI boom kicked off, one of the biggest concerns was that hyperrealistic deepfakes could be used to…
Coming soon: Our 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch
MIT Technology Review set out last year to recognize 15 companies from around the world that demonstrated they have a real shot at meaningfully driving down greenhouse-gas emissions and safeguarding society from the worst impacts of climate change. We’re excited to announce that we took up the task again this year and will publish our…
What the US can learn from the role of AI in other elections
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. That’s the approach bad state actors seem to have taken when it comes to how they mess with elections around the world. When the…
Addressing climate change impacts
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The reality of climate change has spurred enormous public and private investment worldwide, funding initiatives to mitigate its effects and to adapt to its impacts. That investment has spawned entire industries and countless new businesses, resulting in the creation of new green jobs and contributions to economic growth. In the United States, this includes the…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/23/1103998/addressing-climate-change-impacts/
The Download: EV subsidies risks, and introducing The Debrief
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. Some countries are ending support for EVs. Is it too soon? Sales of new electric vehicles in Germany have plummeted, dropping nearly 37% in July 2024 from the same month one year ago.…
Some countries are ending support for EVs. Is it too soon?
Sales of new electric vehicles in Germany have plummeted, dropping nearly 37% in July 2024 from the same month one year ago. One of the main reasons traces back to mid-December 2023, when the German government gave less than one week’s notice before ending its subsidy program for electric vehicles. The program had given drivers…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/23/1104247/ending-ev-subsidies/