April 4, 2025

The Download: what Trump’s tariffs mean for climate tech, and hacking AI agents

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’s tariffs will deliver a big blow to climate tech US president Donald Trump’s massive, sweeping tariffs sent global stock markets tumbling yesterday, setting the stage for a worldwide trade war and ratcheting…

February 2024

TikTok launches its ‘Add to Music app’ feature available in over 160 countries

February 22, 2024

TikTok announced today that it is launching its “Add to Music app” feature, which lets users add a song playing on a clip to services like Apple Music and Spotify, in 163 new countries. These new regions include Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Cambodia, Cameroon, Denmark, Egypt, Ghana, Guyana, Israel, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, […]

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Google pauses AI tool Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after historical inaccuracies

February 22, 2024

Google says it’s temporarily suspended the ability of Gemini, its flagship generative AI suite of models, to generate images of people while it works on updating the model to improve the historical accuracy of outputs. In a post on the social media platform X, the company announced what it couched as a “pause” on generating […]

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The Download: tracking animals, and biotech plants

February 22, 2024
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.…

Meta’s Oversight Board extends its scope to Threads

February 22, 2024

Meta’s external advisory group, its Oversight Board, announced today that it is expanding its scope to Threads along with Facebook and Instagram to scrutinize Meta’s content moderation decisions. This means if users on Threads are unsatisfied with Meta’s decision on issues like content or account takedown, they can appeal to the Oversight Board. “The Board’s […]

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Ready, set, grow: These are the biotech plants you can buy now

February 22, 2024
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…

Consolidation continues in micromobility as Cooltra snaps up Cityscoot

February 22, 2024

Paris’ commercial court has accepted Cooltra’s offer to acquire Cityscoot. These two companies provide shared electric mopeds that you can unlock and ride to go from one place to another. Cityscoot had been placed under court-ordered receivership several months ago. As interest rates hovered around 0% in Europe, micromobility startups thrived. Europe became the perfect […]

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How tracking animal movement may save the planet

February 22, 2024
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…

Watch this robot as it learns to stitch up wounds

February 22, 2024
An AI-trained surgical robot that can make a few stitches on its own is a small step toward systems that can aid surgeons with such repetitive tasks. A video taken by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, shows the two-armed robot completing six stitches in a row on a simple wound in imitation skin,…