July 4, 2025

The Download: India’s AI independence, and predicting future epidemics

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 India’s scramble for AI independence Despite its status as a global tech hub, India lags far behind the likes of the US and China when it comes to homegrown AI. That gap…

Technology

AI-powered 6G networks will reshape digital interactions

October 26, 2023
Sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks, underpinned by artificial intelligence (AI), are poised to combine communication and computing in a hyperconnected world of digital and physical experiences that will transform daily lives, experts predict. “In the past, we talked about internet of things, but with 6G, we talk about intelligent or smart internet of things,” says Qin…

How heat batteries promise a cleaner future in industrial manufacturing

October 26, 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. Welcome back to The Spark! I’m June Kim, a new fellow reporting on climate at Tech Review. Casey is off enjoying a well-deserved break, so this week I will be filling in…

The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals 

October 26, 2023
The PFAS sample slides around the inside of the plastic jar when I swirl it, dark and murky, like thin maple syrup. For many, these toxic so-called “forever chemicals” amount to something of a specter, having crept into our lives—and bodies—quietly for more than half a century. In the environment, PFAS are clear and odorless.…

ULA aims to launch Astrobotic lunar lander on Christmas Eve

October 26, 2023

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s first lunar lander is set to take off on United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket on Christmas Eve, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said. Bruno told the audience at the CNBC Technology Executive Council Summit that the rocket company is targeting between December 24 and December 26 for the first-ever Vulcan launch. “The […]

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Three people were gene-edited in an effort to cure their HIV. The result is unknown.

October 25, 2023
The gene-editing technology CRISPR has been used to change the genes of human babies, to modify animals, and to treat people with sickle-cell disease.  Now scientists are attempting a new trick: using CRISPR to permanently cure people of HIV.  In a remarkable experiment, a biotechnology company called Excision BioTherapeutics says it added the gene-editing tool…

The Download: introducing the Hard Problems issue

October 25, 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. Introducing: the Hard Problems issue For all of history we’ve turned to technology, again and again, to help us solve our hardest problems. It has made virtually all of human knowledge available to…

Job titles of the future: carbon accountant

October 25, 2023
His official title is vice president of regulated reporting solutions. But really, Billy Scherba is a carbon accountant. At Personifi, a platform for climate management, Scherba works with companies to measure, manage, and disclose their contributions to climate change. Carbon accountants help companies understand what data matters to their carbon footprint, how to collect that…

The grassroots push to digitize India’s most precious documents

October 25, 2023
On a bright sunny day in August, in a second-floor room at the Gandhi Bhavan Museum in Bengaluru, workers sit in front of five giant tabletop scanners, lining up books and flipping pages with foot pedals. The museum building houses the largest reference library for Gandhian philosophy in the state of Karnataka, and over the…

The quest to re-create nature’s strongest material

October 25, 2023
For a long time, spider silk held the top spot as the strongest biological material on the planet, inspiring researchers and startups worldwide to manufacture an artificial version. But not so long ago, spiders were pushed off their silky pedestal by the common limpet, a small marine snail dotting the shores of Western Europe.  When…

Shuffling the deck

October 24, 2023
When Andy Bloch ’91, SM ’92, graduated from MIT, he fully intended to use his degrees in electrical engineering. He got a job with a New York City startup, working on 3D stereo displays and other projects, until one day he got in an argument with his boss and was fired.  It was an early…