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

It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel

November 6, 2023
For as little as $0.12 per record, data brokers in the US are selling sensitive private data about active-duty military members and veterans, including their names, home addresses, geolocation, net worth, and religion, and information about their children and health conditions.  In a unsettling study published on Monday, researchers from Duke University approached 12 data…

The inside scoop on watermarking and content authentication

November 6, 2023
This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. On October 30, President Biden released his executive order on AI, a major move that I bet you’ve heard about by now. If you want…

Apple CEO Tim Cook says AI is a fundamental technology, confirms investments in generative AI

November 3, 2023

Apple CEO Tim Cook pushed back a bit at the notion that the company was behind in AI on yesterday’s Q4 earnings call with investors, as he highlighted technology developments that Apple had made recently that “would not be possible without AI.” Specifically, the exec pointed to new iOS 17 features like Personal Voice and […]

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The Download: NASA’s tiny spacecraft, and the RSV vaccine shortage

November 3, 2023
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. Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible Since the 1970s, we’ve sent a lot of big things to Mars. But when NASA successfully sent twin Mars Cube One spacecraft, the…

RSV is on the rise but preventative drugs are in short supply

November 3, 2023
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. Ahhh, fall. The leaves are changing. The air is crisp. And according to the CDC, RSV is on the rise. This year we were supposed to…

AI gains momentum in core manufacturing services functions

November 2, 2023
When considering the potential for AI systems to change manufacturing, Ritu Jyoti, global AI research lead at market-intelligence firm IDC, points to windmill manufacturers. To improve windmills before AI, she says, the company analyzed data from observing a functioning prototype, a process that took weeks. Now, the manufacturer has dramatically shortened the process using a…

The Download: cybercriminals’ Pacific paradise, and the carbon offset crash

November 2, 2023
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. How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime Tokelau, a string of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific, is so remote that it was the last place on…

The growing signs of trouble for global carbon markets

November 2, 2023
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. There are growing signs of trouble for the multibillion-dollar global carbon market, as investigative stories and studies continue to erode the credibility of the business world’s go-to tool for cleaning up climate…

How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime

November 2, 2023
Tokelau, a necklace of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific, is so remote that it was the last place on Earth to be connected to the telephone—only in 1997.  Just three years later, the islands received a fax with an unlikely business proposal that would change everything. It was from an early internet…