Technology

The next generation of neural networks could live in hardware

December 20, 2024
Networks programmed directly into computer chip hardware can identify images faster, and use much less energy, than the traditional neural networks that underpin most modern AI systems. That’s according to work presented at a leading machine learning conference in Vancouver last week. Neural networks, from GPT-4 to Stable Diffusion, are built by wiring together perceptrons,…

Accelerating AI innovation through application modernization

December 19, 2024
Business applications powered by AI are revolutionizing customer experiences, accelerating the speed of business, and driving employee productivity. In fact, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan’s 2024 Global State of AI report, 89% of organizations believe AI and machine learning will help them grow revenue, boost operational efficiency, and improve customer experience. Take for…

The Download: digital twins, and where AI data really comes from

December 19, 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. Digital twins of human organs are here. They’re set to transform medical treatment. Steven Niederer, a biomedical engineer at the Alan Turing Institute and Imperial College London, has a cardboard box filled with…

Three pieces of good news on climate change in 2024

December 19, 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. The vibes in the climate world this year have largely been … less than great. Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit a new high, reaching 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024. This year is…

The Download: AI tracking birds, and a pig kidney transplant

December 18, 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. AI is changing how we study bird migration In a warming world, migratory birds face many existential threats. Scientists rely on a combination of methods to track the timing and location of their…

This is where the data to build AI comes from

December 18, 2024
AI is all about data. Reams and reams of data are needed to train algorithms to do what we want, and what goes into the AI models determines what comes out. But here’s the problem: AI developers and researchers don’t really know much about the sources of the data they are using. AI’s data collection…

AI is changing how we study bird migration

December 18, 2024
A small songbird soars above Ithaca, New York, on a September night. He is one of 4 billion birds, a great annual river of feathered migration across North America. Midair, he lets out what ornithologists call a nocturnal flight call to communicate with his flock. It’s the briefest of signals, barely 50 milliseconds long, emitted…

Roundtables: The Worst Technology Failures of 2024

December 17, 2024
Recorded on December 17, 2024 The Worst Technology Failures of 2024. Speakers: Antonio Regalado, senior editor for biomedicine, and Niall Firth, executive editor. MIT Technology Review publishes an annual list of the worst technologies of the year. This year, The Worst Technology Failures of 2024 list was unveiled live by our editors. Hear from MIT Technology…

A woman in the US is the third person to receive a gene-edited pig kidney

December 17, 2024
Towana Looney, a 53-year-old woman from Alabama, has become the third living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig.  Looney, who donated one of her kidneys to her mother back in 1999, developed kidney failure several years later following a pregnancy complication that caused high blood pressure. She started dialysis treatment in…