Technology

In December 1947, three physicists at Bell Telephone Laboratories—John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain—built a compact electronic device using thin gold wires and a piece of germanium, a material known as a semiconductor. Their invention, later named the transistor (for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956), could amplify and switch electrical…

Iwnetim Abate is one of MIT Technology Review’s 2025 Innovators Under 35. Meet the rest of this year’s honorees.  “I’m the only one who wears glasses and has eye problems in the family,” Iwnetim Abate says with a smile as sun streams in through the windows of his MIT office. “I think it’s because of the…

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. Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite. —Jessica Hamzelou Earlier this week, my editor forwarded me a video of the leaders of Russia and China talking about immortality. “These days at…

Earlier this summer, I walked through the glassy lobby of a fancy office in London, into an elevator, and then along a corridor into a clean, carpeted room. Natural light flooded in through its windows, and a large pair of umbrella-like lighting rigs made the room even brighter. I tried not to squint as I…