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

How new magnets could accelerate climate action

January 31, 2024
The motor in your vacuum cleaner and the one in your electric vehicle likely have at least one thing in common: they both rely on powerful permanent magnets to function. And the materials for those magnets could soon be in short supply.  Permanent magnets can maintain a magnetic field on their own without an electric…

Why the world’s biggest EV maker is getting into shipping

January 30, 2024
Earlier this month, a massive ship picked up over 5,000 electric cars from two ports in northern and southern China. Five days later, it passed through Singapore, and it is now headed for India. However, its final destination is in Europe, where most of the cars will be sold.  The ship’s name is BYD Explorer…

The Download: how to combat deepfake porn, and Neuralink’s first implant

January 30, 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 ways we can fight deepfake porn Last week, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift, one of the world’s biggest pop stars, went viral online. Millions of people viewed nonconsensual deepfake porn of…

Semron wants to replace chip transistors with ‘memcapacitors’

January 30, 2024

A new Germany-based startup, Semron, is developing what it describes as “3D-scaled” chips to run AI models locally on smartphones, earbuds, VR headsets and other mobile devices Co-created by Kai-Uwe Demasius and Aron Kirschen, engineering graduates from the Dresden University of Technology, Semron’s chips use electrical fields to perform calculations instead of electrical currents — […]

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Dear Taylor Swift, we’re sorry about those explicit deepfakes

January 29, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Hi, Taylor. I can only imagine how you must be feeling after sexually explicit deepfake videos of you went viral on X. Disgusted. Distressed, perhaps. Humiliated, even.  I’m really sorry this is…

Three ways we can fight deepfake porn

January 29, 2024
Last week, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift, one of the world’s biggest pop stars, went viral online. Millions of people viewed nonconsensual deepfake porn of Swift on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. X has since taken the drastic step of blocking all searches for Taylor Swift to try to get…

Actionable insights enable smarter business buying

January 29, 2024
For decades, procurement was seen as a back-office function focused on cost-cutting and supplier management. But that view is changing as supply chain disruptions and fluctuating consumer behavior ripple across the economy. Savvy leaders now understand procurement’s potential to deliver unprecedented levels of efficiency, insights, and strategic capability across the business. However, tapping into procurement’s…

The Download: AI job panic, and concussion-preventing mouthguards

January 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. People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. It was 1938, and the pain of the Great Depression was still very real. Unemployment in the US was around…

People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before.

January 27, 2024
MIT Technology Review is celebrating our 125th anniversary with an online series that draws lessons for the future from our past coverage of technology.  It was 1938, and the pain of the Great Depression was still very real. Unemployment in the US was around 20%. Everyone was worried about jobs. In 1930, the prominent British…