February 6, 2025

The Download: AI companion dangers, and supersonic planes

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. An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it For the past five months, Al Nowatzki has been talking to an AI girlfriend, “Erin,” on…

Technology

Reframing digital transformation through the lens of generative AI

February 6, 2025
Enterprise adoption of generative AI technologies has undergone explosive growth in the last two years and counting. Powerful solutions underpinned by this new generation of large language models (LLMs) have been used to accelerate research, automate content creation, and replace clunky chatbots with AI assistants and more sophisticated AI agents that closely mimic human interaction.…

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

February 6, 2025
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As I’ve admitted in this newsletter before, I love few things more than getting on an airplane. I know, it’s a bold statement from a climate reporter because of all the associated…

XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians

February 5, 2025

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi  […]

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Supersonic planes are inching toward takeoff. That could be a problem.

February 5, 2025
Boom Supersonic broke the sound barrier in a test flight of its XB-1 jet last week, marking an early step in a potential return for supersonic commercial flight. The small aircraft reached a top speed of Mach 1.122 (roughly 750 miles per hour) in a flight over southern California and exceeded the speed of sound…

The Download: smart glasses in 2025, and China’s AI scene

February 5, 2025
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’s next for smart glasses For every technological gadget that becomes a household name, there are dozens that never catch on. This year marks a full decade since Google confirmed it was stopping…

What’s next for smart glasses

February 5, 2025
MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. For every technological gadget that becomes a household name, there are dozens that never catch on. This year marks a full decade since Google confirmed it…

Spyware maker Paragon confirms U.S. government is a customer

February 4, 2025

Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions confirmed to TechCrunch that it sells its products to the U.S. government and other unspecified allied countries. Paragon’s executive chairman John Fleming said in a statement to TechCrunch on Tuesday that, “Paragon licenses its technology to a select group of global democracies — principally, the United States and its allies.” […]

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Former Tesla engineer heading government agency reportedly outlines ‘AI-first strategy’

February 4, 2025

Thomas Shedd, the former Tesla engineer now serving as the director of Technology Transformation Services, reportedly outlined an “AI-first strategy” for the U.S. government department. According to a report from Wired citing multiple sources, the Musk ally described the plan to run the office like a “startup software company” during a Monday meeting. The New […]

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Four Chinese AI startups to watch beyond DeepSeek

February 4, 2025
The meteoric rise of DeepSeek—the Chinese AI startup now challenging global giants—has stunned observers and put the spotlight on China’s AI sector. Since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022, the country’s tech ecosystem has been in relentless pursuit of homegrown alternatives, giving rise to a wave of startups and billion-dollar bets.  Today, the race is dominated by…