Technology

It’s been a little over a week since we published Power Hungry, a package that takes a hard look at the expected energy demands of AI. Last week in this newsletter, I broke down the centerpiece of that package, an analysis I did with my colleague James O’Donnell. (In case you’re still looking for an…

Home services in India — whether it is cleaning, dishwashing, or laundry — have traditionally been offline and informally run. This has often resulted in delays and uncertainties for consumers, as well as inconsistent pay and job insecurity for workers. Recently, however, startups have begun viewing this area as ripe for transformation, leveraging technology to […]

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: The power and the pride OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT 3.5 set in motion an AI arms race that has changed the world. How that turns out for humanity is something we are…

In April, Paul Graham, the founder of the tech startup accelerator Y Combinator, sent a tweet in response to former YC president and current OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Altman had just bid a public goodbye to GPT-4 on X, and Graham had a follow-up question.  “If you had [GPT-4’s model weights ] etched on a…

A California-based company called Magrathea just turned on a new electrolyzer that can make magnesium metal from seawater. The technology has the potential to produce the material, which is used in vehicles and defense applications, with net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions. Magnesium is an incredibly light metal, and it’s used for parts in cars and planes, as…

In the U.S., two-thirds of the country’s 150,000 convenience stores are run by independent operators. Mom-and-pop shops, powered by personal relationships and local knowledge, are the backbone of the convenience sector. These neighborhood operators have long lacked the resources needed to compete with larger chains when it comes to technology, operations, and customer loyalty programs. …

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. Can nuclear power really fuel the rise of AI? In the AI arms race, all the major players say they want to go nuclear. Over the past year, the likes of Meta, Amazon,…

Four former Volkswagen executives received prison sentences Monday for their role in the emissions-cheating scandal that fundamentally transformed Europe’s car market. The verdict, delivered after a three-year trial in Braunschweig, Germany, marked the latest chapter in a 10-year-long saga that reshaped the continent’s relationship with diesel technology. Jens Hadler, who oversaw diesel engine development, received […]