February 6, 2025

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for 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. 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…

Technology

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

March 4, 2024
Two years ago, Yuri Burda and Harri Edwards, researchers at the San Francisco–based firm OpenAI, were trying to find out what it would take to get a large language model to do basic arithmetic. They wanted to know how many examples of adding up two numbers the model needed to see before it was able…

Is there anything AI can’t do?

March 1, 2024

The current-generation AI technology is the tech equivalent of a toddler, and all the mediocre reviews various GenAI software is getting is tantamount to judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

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The Download: tech help for herders, and bacteria clean-ups

March 1, 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. Why shiny, high-tech solutions won’t solve one of Africa’s worst crises Herding— one of humanity’s most foundational ways of life—is a pillar of survival in West Africa’s Sahel. Migratory herders usher cattle between…

How some bacteria are cleaning up our messy water supply

March 1, 2024
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. The diabetes medication metformin has been touted as a miracle drug. Not only does it keep diabetes in check, but it can reduce inflammation, curb cancer,…

Why shiny, high-tech solutions won’t solve one of Africa’s worst crises

March 1, 2024
Hainikoye hits Accept and a young woman greets him in Hausa, a gravelly language spoken across West Africa’s Sahel region. She has three new cows, and wants to know: Does he have advice on getting them through the lean season? Hainikoye—a twentysomething agronomist who has “followed animals,” as Sahelians refer to herding, since he first…

A leaky database spilled 2FA codes for the world’s tech giants

February 29, 2024

A technology company that routes millions of SMS text messages across the world has secured an exposed database that was spilling one-time security codes that may have granted users’ access to their Facebook, Google and TikTok accounts. The Asian technology and internet company YX International manufactures cellular networking equipment and provides SMS text message routing […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Download: quantum squeezing, and a game-building AI model

February 29, 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 scientists are using quantum squeezing to push the limits of their sensors When two black holes spiral inward and collide, they shake the very fabric of space, producing ripples in space-time that…

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.…