Technology

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 research center in Southern California, studying their potential to curb PTSD symptoms in veterans. He then built Oculus, sold it to Facebook for $2 billion, left Facebook after a highly public…

Mission-critical digital transformation projects too often end with a whimper rather than a bang. An estimated three-quarters of corporate transformation efforts fail to deliver their intended return on investment. Given the rapidly evolving technology landscape, companies often struggle to deliver short-term results while simultaneously reinventing the organization and keeping the business running day-to-day. Post-implementation, some…

Generative AI has the power to surprise in a way that few other technologies can. Sometimes that’s a very good thing; other times, not so good. In theory, as generative AI improves, this issue should become less important. However, in reality, as generative AI becomes more “human” it can begin to turn sinister and unsettling,…

The UK driverless-car startup Wayve is headed west. The firm’s cars learned to drive on the streets of London. But Wayve has announced that it will begin testing its tech in and around San Francisco as well. And that brings a new challenge: Its AI will need to switch from driving on the left to…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As a climate reporter, I’m all too aware of the greenhouse-gas emissions that come from food production. And yet, I’m not a vegan, and I do enjoy a good cheeseburger (at least…