November 21, 2024

China’s complicated role in climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. “Well, what about China?” This is a comment I get all the time on the topic of climate change, both in conversations and on whatever social media site is currently en vogue.…

August 2023

AI-powered BeFake is a real app, not a BeReal parody…and it has $3M in funding

August 31, 2023
BeFake, a social networking app that combines concepts from popular Gen Z app BeReal along with AI technology has netted itself $3 million in seed funding to create an AI-augmented social network. The app’s name, a clear reference to BeReal’s authentic photo sharing among friends, is meant to suggest it does the opposite. Instead of […]

Threads starts testing search feature in Australia and New Zealand

August 31, 2023
Threads launched one of the most anticipated features, a web version of the platform, last week. Now, Meta is testing another highly demanded feature for the social network — searching for posts. At the moment, users can only search for usernames on Threads. However, the company is working on bringing full-text search. It is already […]

Satgana appoints Anil Maguru as partner to back climate-tech startups in Europe, Africa

August 31, 2023
Europe-based climate-tech VC Satgana has appointed Anil Maguru, formerly an investment director at the firm, as its newest partner. Satgana, which emerged out of stealth last year, invests in climate startups in Europe and Africa. Maguru joined the VC firm at inception three years ago, starting as an analyst. At 28, he becomes one of […]

The Download: China’s AI chatbots go public, and how climate change is affecting hurricanes

August 31, 2023
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. Chinese ChatGPT alternatives just got approved for the general public The news: Baidu, one of China’s leading artificial-intelligence companies, has announced it’s opening up access to its ChatGPT-like large language model, Ernie Bot,…

3 Internet Stocks Worth Watching

August 31, 2023
With digitization gaining momentum worldwide, the rising internet penetration and supportive government initiatives to make the internet accessible to everyone provide ample growth opportunities to companies providing internet services. Hence,…

Microsoft unbundles Teams from Microsoft Office in Europe to appease regulators

August 31, 2023
Microsoft has announced that it will unbundle its Teams business collaboration software from its broader Office suite, following growing regulatory scrutiny and complaints filed by its rival Slack. The changes are effective from October 1 (a month from today), and come in various forms depending on the size of company. Enterprise customers in the European […]

iPhone camera app Obscura releases a new version with iPad support

August 31, 2023
Obscura, the iPhone camera app for pro users, has released a new major version called Obsucra 4 with support for the iPad. It also brings new features, such as dual reticule mode to have different points on the viewfinder for focus and exposure. Ben McCarthy, the developer of the app, launched the first version in […]

How climate change can supercharge hurricanes

August 31, 2023
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. When I was growing up near the US Gulf Coast, it was more common for my school to get called off for a hurricane than for a snowstorm.  So even though I…