February 5, 2025

XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi  […]

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Technology

The surprising barrier that keeps the US from building all the housing it needs

October 31, 2024
Ahead of abortion access, ahead of immigration, and way ahead of climate change, US voters under 30 are most concerned about one issue: housing affordability. And it’s not just young voters who are identifying soaring rents and eye-watering home sale prices as among their top worries. For the first time in recent memory, the cost…

The Download: coping in a time of arrhythmia, and DNA data storage

October 30, 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. The arrhythmia of our current age   Arrhythmia means the heart beats, but not in proper time—a critical rhythm of life suddenly going rogue and unpredictable. It’s frightening to experience, but what if it’s…

An easier-to-use technique for storing data in DNA is inspired by our cells 

October 30, 2024
It turns out that you don’t need to be a scientist to encode data in DNA. Researchers have been working on DNA-based data storage for decades, but a new template-based method inspired by our cells’ chemical processes is easy enough for even nonscientists to practice. The technique could pave the way for an unusual but…

Cultivating the next generation of AI innovators in a global tech hub

October 29, 2024
A few years ago, I had to make one of the biggest decisions of my life: continue as a professor at the University of Melbourne or move to another part of the world to help build a brand new university focused entirely on artificial intelligence. With the rapid development we have seen in AI over…

The Download: mysterious exosomes, and AI’s e-waste issue

October 29, 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. Exosomes are touted as a trendy cure-all. We don’t know if they work. There’s a trendy new cure-all in town—you might have seen ads pop up on social media or read rave reviews…

Palmer Luckey’s vision for the future of mixed reality

October 29, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. War is a catalyst for change, an expert in AI and warfare told me in 2022. At the time, the war in Ukraine had just started, and the military AI business was…

Exosomes are touted as a trendy cure-all. We don’t know if they work.

October 29, 2024
There’s a trendy new cure-all in town—you might have seen ads pop up on social media or read rave reviews in beauty magazines. Exosomes are being touted as a miraculous treatment for hair loss, aging skin, acne, eczema, pain conditions, long covid, and even neurological diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That’s, of course, if you…

AI will add to the e-waste problem. Here’s what we can do about it.

October 28, 2024
Generative AI could account for up to 5 million metric tons of e-waste by 2030, according to a new study. That’s a relatively small fraction of the current global total of over 60 million metric tons of e-waste each year. However, it’s still a significant part of a growing problem, experts warn.  E-waste is the…

The Download: an interview with Palmer Luckey, and AI-assisted math tutors

October 28, 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. Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality Palmer Luckey has, in some ways, come full circle.  His first experience with virtual-reality headsets was as a teenage lab technician at a defense…