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

Tapping into the ocean to combat climate change

October 24, 2023
Chloe Dean traces her decision to go to graduate school to the day a wildfire blazed through southern Oregon. At the time, Dean was working as a lab technician at a hemp-processing startup in Oregon. She had studied environmental science as an undergraduate at the Oregon Institute of Technology but fell in love with chemistry.…

Superhero U

October 24, 2023
In a workshop filled with robotic limbs and several expensive cars, the clanging of a hammer rings out over the blasting sounds of AC/DC. Amid the clamor, a man with a glowing arc reactor in his chest is hard at work with help from J.A.R.V.I.S., an AI program of his own creation. On the man’s right…

Barbie meets Dr. Who

October 24, 2023
On the first day of fall class registration, a Barbie-themed TARDIS, the time-traveling spaceship from Doctor Who, appeared in the president’s office, courtesy of incoming first-years in Interphase EDGE/x, a scholar enrichment program run by the Office of Minority Education. Inside the “Barbis,” President Kornbluth found a web of mirrors and lights representing infinite space…

Tuning in

October 24, 2023
I’ve written to you before about the experience of reviewing young faculty up for promotion—in my very first week as the Institute’s president. It was an intoxicating introduction to the human potential of MIT.  Getting this kind of preview of MIT’s intellectual future was so inspiring I thought we ought to find a way to…

The Download: poisoning generative AI, and heat-storing batteries

October 24, 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. This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI What’s happening: A new tool lets artists make invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online…

Heat-storing batteries are scaling up to solve one of climate’s dirtiest problems

October 24, 2023
Today Antora Energy, a California-based thermal-battery startup, unveiled its plan to build its first large-scale manufacturing facility in San Jose. The announcement is a big step forward for thermal batteries (also known as heat batteries), an industry seeking to become a major player in the energy storage sector. Antora’s batteries store renewable energy as heat,…

Walmart and Outlier Ventures’ web3 accelerator launches with five startups

October 24, 2023

Walmart’s incubation arm, Store Nº8, and Outlier Ventures have joined forces to launch its web3 accelerator program, Store Nº8 Base Camp. TechCrunch got a first look at its cohort. The 12-week virtual incubator program brought in a flagship group of five companies that specialize in web3 marketing, advertising and improving payment technology, among other themes. […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

D-ID’s newest app uses AI to make videos from photographs

October 24, 2023

D-ID, the Tel Aviv-based startup best known as the tech behind those viral videos of animated family photos, is bringing its AI video technology to a new mobile app, launching today. Originally available as a web platform, D-ID’s Creative Reality Studio allows users to upload a still image and script and then turn that into […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

How this Turing Award–winning researcher became a legendary academic advisor

October 24, 2023
Every academic field has its superstars. But a rare few achieve superstardom not just by demonstrating individual excellence but also by consistently producing future superstars. A notable example of such a legendary doctoral advisor is the Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler. A dissertation was once written about his mentorship, and he advised Richard Feynman, Kip…