December 19, 2025

The Download: China’s dying EV batteries, and why AI doomers are doubling down

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. China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to bury their batteries. In the past decade, China has seen an EV boom, thanks in part to government support. Buying an electric…

Technology

The Download: playing games with AI

June 20, 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. How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play To make them feel alive, open-world games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are inhabited by vast crowds of computer-controlled characters. These animated people—called…

How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play

June 20, 2024
First, a confession. I only got into playing video games a little over a year ago (I know, I know). A Christmas gift of an Xbox Series S “for the kids” dragged me—pretty easily, it turns out—into the world of late-night gaming sessions. I was immediately attracted to open-world games, in which you’re free to…

PQShield secures $37M more for ‘quantum resistant’ cryptography

June 20, 2024

Malicious hacking is getting increasingly sophisticated, and that’s leading to a very clear trend in security technology. To keep people and organizations safe, security also has  to continue advancing its own complexity.  Security startup PQShield has gotten an early start on that concept with a focus on “post-quantum” cryptography: software and hardware solutions that, in […]

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France leads the pack for Generative AI funding in Europe, London has 3X the number of GenAI startups

June 19, 2024

Like it or hate it, artificial intelligence – especially generative AI – is the technology story of 2024. OpenAI, with its rollouts of viral services like ChatGPT and billions in funding, may have gobbled up the lion’s share of attention and money so far. But according to a new report out from top VC Accel […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Download: video-generating AI, and Meta’s voice cloning watermarks

June 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. I tested out a buzzy new text-to-video AI model from China You may not be familiar with Kuaishou, but this Chinese company just hit a major milestone: It’s released the first ever text-to-video…

The return of pneumatic tubes

June 19, 2024
Pneumatic tubes were touted as something that would revolutionize the world. In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where the main character, Winston Smith, sits in a room peppered with pneumatic tubes that spit out orders for him to alter previously published news…

I tested out a buzzy new text-to-video AI model from China

June 19, 2024
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. You may not be familiar with Kuaishou, but this Chinese company just hit a major milestone: It’s released the first text-to-video generative AI model that’s freely available for the public…

Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech

June 18, 2024
Meta has created a system that can embed hidden signals, known as watermarks, in AI-generated audio clips, which could help in detecting AI-generated content online.  The tool, called AudioSeal, is the first that can pinpoint which bits of audio in, for example, a full hourlong podcast might have been generated by AI. It could help…

Scaling green hydrogen technology for the future

June 18, 2024
Unlike conventional energy sources, green hydrogen offers a way to store and transfer energy without emitting harmful pollutants, positioning it as essential to a sustainable and net-zero future. By converting electrical power from renewable sources into green hydrogen, these low-carbon-intensity energy storage systems can release clean, efficient power on demand through combustion engines or fuel…

The Download: AI’s limitations

June 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. Why does AI hallucinate? The World Health Organization’s new chatbot launched on April 2 with the best of intentions. The virtual avatar named SARAH, was designed to dispense health tips about how to…