Technology

The Download: farming on Mars, and lab robots

October 17, 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 quest to figure out farming on Mars Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from…

The quest to figure out farming on Mars

October 17, 2024
Once upon a time, water flowed across the surface of Mars. Waves lapped against shorelines, strong winds gusted and howled, and driving rain fell from thick, cloudy skies. It wasn’t really so different from our own planet 4 billion years ago, except for one crucial detail—its size. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth,…

Cloud transformation clears businesses for digital takeoff

October 16, 2024
In an age where customer experience can make or break a business, Cathay Pacific is embracing cloud transformation to enhance service delivery and revolutionize operations from the inside out. It’s not just technology companies that are facing pressure to deliver better customer service, do more with data, and improve agility. An almost 80-year-old airline, Cathay…

The Download: an intro to AI, and ChatGPT’s bias

October 16, 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. Intro to AI: a beginner’s guide to artificial intelligence from MIT Technology Review It feels as though AI is moving a million miles a minute. Every week, it seems, there are product launches,…

Super-light materials that help suppress EV battery fires just got a big boost

October 16, 2024
A company making fire-suppressing battery materials just got a $670.6 million loan commitment from the US Department of Energy. Aspen Aerogels makes insulating materials that can be layered inside an EV’s battery to prevent or slow heat and fires from spreading within the pack. The company is building a new factory in Georgia to produce…

OpenAI says ChatGPT treats us all the same (most of the time)

October 15, 2024
Does ChatGPT treat you the same whether you’re a Laurie, Luke, or Lashonda? Almost, but not quite. OpenAI has analyzed millions of conversations with its hit chatbot and found that ChatGPT will produce a harmful gender or racial stereotype based on a user’s name in around one in 1000 responses on average, and as many…

The Download: protecting farmworkers from heat, and AI’s Nobel Prize

October 15, 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 quest to protect farmworkers from extreme heat On July 21, 2024, temperatures soared in many parts of the world, breaking the record for the hottest day ever recorded on the planet. The…

 A data bottleneck is holding AI science  back, says new Nobel winner

October 15, 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. David Baker is sleep-deprived but happy. He’s just won the Nobel prize, after all.  The call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences woke him in the middle of the night.…