February 5, 2025

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

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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Technology

Uruguay wants to use gene drives to eradicate devastating screwworms

February 16, 2024
On a warm, sunny day in Montevideo, Uruguay, the air is smogless and crisp. Inside a highly secured facility at the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) are a sophisticated gene gun, giant microscopes, and tens of thousands of gene-edited flies, their bright blue wings fluttering against the walls of their small, white, netted cages.…

The Download: impressive new AI capabilities

February 16, 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. OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora OpenAI has built a striking new generative video model called Sora that can take a short text description and turn it into a…

Anthropic takes steps to prevent election misinformation

February 16, 2024

Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Anthropic, the well-funded AI startup, is testing a technology to detect when users of its GenAI chatbot ask about political topics and redirect those users to “authoritative” sources of voting information. Called Prompt Shield, the technology, which relies on a combination of AI detection models and rules, shows […]

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How bacteria-fighting viruses could go mainstream

February 16, 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. Lynn Cole had a blood infection she couldn’t shake. For years, she was in and out of the hospital. Each time antibiotics would force the infection…

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

February 15, 2024
OpenAI has built a striking new generative video model called Sora that can take a short text description and turn it into a detailed, high-definition film clip up to a minute long. Based on four sample videos that OpenAI shared with MIT Technology Review ahead of today’s announcement, the San Francisco-based firm has pushed the…

VR sickness happens. Here’s how to avoid and treat it.

February 15, 2024

Over the past week, a number of people have reported returning their Vision Pros for a number of reasons, including issues around headset comfort and sickness. Returns are par for the course with any nascent technology. No matter how polished a first-generation product is upon release, there’s a very real sense in which it serves […]

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Responsible technology use in the AI age

February 15, 2024
The sudden appearance of application-ready generative AI tools over the last year has confronted us with challenging social and ethical questions. Visions of how this technology could deeply alter the ways we work, learn, and live have also accelerated conversations—and breathless media headlines—about how and whether these technologies can be responsibly used. Responsible technology use,…

Google’s new version of Gemini can handle far bigger amounts of data

February 15, 2024
Google DeepMind today launched the next generation of its powerful artificial intelligence model Gemini, which has an enhanced ability to work with large amounts of video, text, and images. It’s an advancement from the three versions of Gemini 1.0 that Google announced back in December, ranging in size and complexity from Nano to Pro to…

The Download: why batteries rock, and Apple’s VR headset returns problem

February 15, 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. Three things to love about batteries It’s hard to pick favorites when it comes to climate technologies. Really, anything that helps us get closer to tackling climate change is worth writing about, both…

Three things to love about batteries

February 15, 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. I wouldn’t exactly say I have favorites when it comes to climate technologies. Anything that could help us get closer to tackling climate change is worth writing about, both to share the…