Technology

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. This data set helps researchers spot harmful stereotypes in LLMs What’s new? AI models are riddled with culturally specific biases. A new data set, called SHADES, is designed to help developers combat the…

Kintsugi, a Silicon Valley-based startup that helps companies offload and automate their sales tax compliance, has raised $18 million in new funding led by global indirect tax technology solution provider Vertex. The startup plans to enable more small and medium businesses to use its AI-enabled capabilities for tax calculations and filings. The ongoing growth of […]

AI models are riddled with culturally specific biases. A new data set, called SHADES, is designed to help developers combat the problem by spotting harmful stereotypes and other kinds of discrimination that emerge in AI chatbot responses across a wide range of languages. Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at AI startup Hugging Face, led the…

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. The AI Hype Index: AI agent cyberattacks, racing robots, and musical models Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of…

Right now, despite its ubiquity, AI is seen as anything but a normal technology. There is talk of AI systems that will soon merit the term “superintelligence,” and the former CEO of Google recently suggested we control AI models the way we control uranium and other nuclear weapons materials. Anthropic is dedicating time and money…

Blink and you’ll miss it: a startup out of Finland is taking a new look at the market for prescription eyewear. Tapping into innovations in eye-tracking and liquid crystal lens technology, IXI is building low-power glasses that will invisibly, automatically adjust to account for Presbyopia (far-sightedness), for the wearer. Four years into its life, Hensinki-based […]

Most mortgage lenders would rather people didn’t pay off their mortgages early. After all, that’s that’s how they make their money. Indeed, overpayment is positively discouraged and sometimes even penalized. What if there were a solution that solved the technology behind it, alongside the financing arrangements? That’s the idea behind the Sprive fintech app. This […]

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 Chinese manufacturers are going viral on TikTok Since the video was posted earlier this month, millions of TikTok users have watched as a young Chinese man in a blue T-shirt sits beside…

Since the video was posted earlier this month, millions of TikTok users have watched as a young Chinese man in a blue T-shirt sits beside a traditional tea set and speaks directly to the camera in accented English: “Let’s expose luxury’s biggest secret.”  He stands and lifts what looks like an Hermès Birkin bag, one…

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. Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound Despite the geopolitical chaos and market collapses triggered by President Trump’s announcement of broad tariffs on international goods, some supporters still hope the strategy will…