November 21, 2024

The Download: AI replicas, and China’s climate role

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. AI can now create a replica of your personality Imagine sitting down with an AI model for a spoken two-hour interview. A friendly voice guides you through a conversation that ranges from your…

February 2024

India approves $15B in semiconductor plant investments

February 29, 2024

India has approved allocating up to $15.2 billion (1.26 trillion Indian rupees) to build three new semiconductor plants, including its first semiconductor fab facility — part of the country’s big bid to take on China, Taiwan and other countries in the chip race. Significantly, although AI chips are very much the talk of the industry […]

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Twodos is a simple to-do app that doesn’t remind you of your tasks

February 29, 2024

Listing tasks and to-dos is a very personal process. Some users like apps with intricate features so they can manage their tasks better, but another set of users get irritated exactly by feature overload. That’s why software developer Adam Whitcroft built a dead simple to-do app called Twodos that doesn’t remind you of your pending […]

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Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario-like games from scratch

February 29, 2024
OpenAI’s recent reveal of its stunning generative model Sora pushed the envelope of what’s possible with text-to-video. Now Google DeepMind brings us text-to-video games. The new model, called Genie, can take a short description, a hand-drawn sketch or a photo and turn it into a playable video game in the style of classic 2D platformers…

Why concerns over the sustainability of carbon removal are growing

February 29, 2024
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. There’s a looming problem in the carbon removal space. By one count, nearly 800 companies around the world are exploring a wide variety of methods for drawing planet-warming greenhouse gas out of…

Generative AI: Differentiating disruptors from the disrupted

February 29, 2024
Generative AI, though still an emergent technology, has been in the headlines since OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked a global frenzy in 2023. The technology has rapidly advanced far beyond its early, human-like capacity to enhance chat functions. It shows extensive promise across a range of use cases, including content creation, translation, image processing, and code writing.…

Popular video doorbells can be easily hijacked, researchers find

February 29, 2024

Several internet-connected doorbell cameras have a security flaw that allows hackers to take over the camera by just holding down a button, among other issues, according to research by Consumer Reports. On Thursday, the non-profit Consumer Reports published research that detailed four security and privacy flaws in cameras made by EKEN, a company based in […]

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How scientists are using quantum squeezing to push the limits of their sensors

February 29, 2024
When two black holes spiral inward and collide, they shake the very fabric of space, producing ripples in space-time that can travel for hundreds of millions of light-years. Since 2015, scientists have been observing these so-called gravitational waves to help them study fundamental questions about the cosmos, including the origin of heavy elements such as…

Meta’s Zuckerberg woos big tech in Asia to double down on AI chips

February 29, 2024

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is touring Asia countries this week, said in a meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday that Meta wants to beef up its cooperation with Samsung Electronics for AI chips to offset geopolitical risk issue in Taiwan, where TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chip manufacturer, is headquartered. […]

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Ex-Meta employees’ Aptos tests Hong Kong’s crypto appetite

February 29, 2024

Ever since Hong Kong legalized cryptocurrency trading last June, blockchain projects from the West have been paying more attention to the Asian financial hub. Aptos, the a16z-backed blockchain network developed by a group of former Meta employees, is one of them. Started by some of the original creators of Meta’s abandoned crypto payment project Diem, […]

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