Technology

Why New York City is embracing low-tech solutions to hard problems

October 18, 2023
Every Tuesday, Jessica Ramgoolam heads down to the New Amsterdam branch of the New York City Public Library, sets up a small folding table, and takes a seat with her laptop. She lays out piles of paper flyers, and it’s clear she has information to share, like a fortune teller awaiting a passing seeker.  Just…

This microbe-filled pill could track inflammation in the gut

October 18, 2023
A blueberry-size pill that you swallow could let doctors measure signs of inflammatory bowel disease in the gut, helping spot it earlier and measure its progression in real time. Nearly 70,000 people a year in the US are diagnosed with IBD, a class of conditions that includes Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. Symptoms of this autoimmune…

When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?

October 17, 2023

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen posted a manifesto on the a16z website, calling for “techno-optimism” in a frenzied, 5,000-word blog post that somehow manages to re-invent Reaganomics, propose the colonization of outer space, and unironically answer a question with the phrase “QED.” Andreessen’s vision of techno-optimism could seem inspiring: he imagines a Libertarian-esque world where technology […]

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Nirvana nabs $57M to make AI inroads into commercial trucking insurance

October 17, 2023

Nirvana Insurance — an insurance startup taking a new approach to insurance products for commercial fleets using artificial intelligence, telematics, internet-of-things technology and 15 billion miles of trucking data to calculate risk models — is taking on something else: new funding. The startup has raised an all-equity Series B of $57 million, money that it […]

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The Download: fixing the internet, and detecting AI consciousness

October 17, 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 to fix the internet We’re in a very strange moment for the internet. We all know it’s broken. But there’s a sense that things are about to change. The stranglehold that the…

Why it’ll be hard to tell if AI ever becomes conscious

October 17, 2023
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Many people in AI will be familiar with the story of the Mechanical Turk. It was a chess-playing machine built in 1770, and it was so good its opponents were tricked…

How to fix the internet

October 17, 2023
We’re in a very strange moment for the internet. We all know it’s broken. That’s not news. But there’s something in the air—a vibe shift, a sense that things are about to change. For the first time in years, it feels as though something truly new and different might be happening with the way we…

Google lobbies against legally mandated age verification for minors

October 16, 2023

Google is challenging proposed laws that would require online services to implement age checks in a new framework that theorizes how technology companies should approach children’s safety online. The framework, titled the “Legislative Framework for Protecting Children and Teens Online,” is the tech giant’s response to congressional child online safety proposals. In its set of principles, […]

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WebSummit derailed by founder’s public fight with those supporting Israel in Hamas conflict

October 16, 2023

WebSummit, the big tech conference brand that runs events in several cities and whose 70,000 person flagship event in Lisbon is taking place next month, is running into a wall — a wall of outrage. Founders, investors and others from the technology community in Israel have gone ballistic over comments made by the founder and […]

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