Technology

MIT Technology Review’s How To series helps you get things done. Hundreds of Chinese large language models have been released since the government started permitting AI companies to open up their models for the general public to play around with in the summer of 2023.  For users in the West, finding these Chinese models and trying them…

One year ago, on July 21, 2023, seven leading AI companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—committed with the White House to a set of eight voluntary commitments on how to develop AI in a safe and trustworthy way. These included promises to do things like improve the testing and transparency around AI systems,…

Google DeepMind researchers have built a new weather prediction model that combines machine learning with more conventional techniques, potentially yielding accurate forecasts at a fraction of the current cost.  The model, called NeuralGCN and described in a paper in Nature today, bridges a divide that’s grown among weather prediction experts in the last several years. …

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. The terrible complexity of technological problems The philosopher Karl Popper once argued that there are two kinds of problems in the world: clock problems and cloud problems. As the metaphor suggests, clock problems…

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more here. Windows PCs have crashed in a major IT outage around the world, bringing airlines, major banks, TV broadcasters, health-care providers, and other businesses to a standstill. Airlines including United,…

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. A widespread Windows outage is affecting airlines, banks, and TV broadcasters What’s happening? Windows PCs have crashed around the world, bringing airlines, major banks, TV broadcasters, healthcare providers and other businesses to a…

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. A couple of years ago, I spat into a little plastic tube, stuck it in the post, and waited for a company to analyze markers on my DNA…

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 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is one of the world’s safest, most productive rockets. But a rare engine malfunction on July 11 prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to…