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.…

September 2023

Europe is working to slow down the global expansion of Chinese EVs

September 26, 2023
The boom has finally been lowered on Chinese electric-vehicle companies. On September 13, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union speech to announce that the organization is launching an “anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles coming from China.”  The move—which could have serious ramifications for global automakers—has long been in…

GIC in talks to lead $40 million funding in India’s Vegrow

September 26, 2023
GIC is in talks to invest in the Indian startup Vegrow, which runs a business-to-business marketplace for fruits, two sources familiar with the matter said. The Singapore sovereign fund is evaluating leading a $40 million Series C funding round in Vegrow, the sources said. The talks, which have not finalized and so the terms could […]

Spotify launches Jam, a real-time collaborative playlist controlled by up to 32 people

September 26, 2023
Spotify is today introducing its latest social feature, Jam, which allows multiple people to blend their own musical tastes into a combined playlist. However, the new feature, which builds on technology previously used in multi-person playlists like Blend and Duo Mix, is designed for real-time listening among a group of people — like at a […]

Google is killing Gmail’s basic HTML view in 2024

September 26, 2023
Another day, another Google product goes to the graveyard. The company is sunsetting Gmail’s basic HTML view, which allows users to look at their emails in a barebones state, starting January 2024. The company updated its support page to reflect that Gmail will automatically switch to the Standard view after the deadline date. Users on Hacker […]

Telegram starts to look like a super app, echoing WeChat

September 26, 2023
Telegram, the popular messenger with 800 million monthly active users worldwide, is inching closer to adopting an ecosystem strategy that is reminiscent of WeChat’s super app approach. Certain aspects of the ecosystem will be decentralized with help from two heavyweights: Telegram’s crypto partner TON Foundation and WeChat’s owner Tencent. Telegram has been working on a […]

Amazon’s outgoing Echo head is Blue Origin’s new CEO

September 25, 2023
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith is retiring at the end of the year and his replacement is coming from Jeff Bezos’ other company. Dave Limp, an Amazon veteran who had planned to step down from his role as head of the company;s consumer devices division, is taking over the CEO spot. Limp, who was the […]

Ford halts work on $3.5B EV battery factory with China’s CATL

September 25, 2023
Ford confirmed Monday it has immediately stopped work at a $3.5 billion factory in Michigan that was supposed to make cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries using tech from China’s CATL. “We’re pausing work and limiting spending on construction on the Marshall project until we’re confident about our ability to competitively operate the plant,” Ford spokesperson […]

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

September 25, 2023
Why is it that so many companies that rely on monetizing the data of their users seem to be extremely hot on AI? If you ask Signal president Meredith Whittaker (and I did), she’ll tell you it’s simply because “AI is a surveillance technology.” On stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, Whittaker explained  her perspective that […]