Technology

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. On September 28, California became the second US state to officially recognize the importance of mental privacy in state law. That pink, jelly-like, throbbing mass under your skull—a.k.a.…

“All right, so today we are going to dive deep into some cutting-edge tech,” a chatty American male voice says. But this voice does not belong to a human. It belongs to Google’s new AI podcasting tool, called Audio Overview, which has become a surprise viral hit.  The podcasting feature was launched in mid-September as…

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. AI-generated images can teach robots how to act Generative AI models can produce images in response to prompts within seconds, and they’ve recently been used for everything from highlighting their own inherent bias…

Generative AI models can produce images in response to prompts within seconds, and they’ve recently been used for everything from highlighting their own inherent bias to preserving precious memories. Now, researchers from Stephen James’s Robot Learning Lab in London are using image-generating AI models for a new purpose: creating training data for robots. They’ve developed…

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: 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch The urgency of addressing climate change has never been clearer. Emissions of planet-warming gases are at record highs, as are global temperatures.  All that extra heat…

NASA is poised to launch Europa Clipper, a $5.2 billion mission to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, as early as October 10. The spacecraft will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It will study Europa, a possible home for extraterrestrial life, through a series of flybys after reaching Jupiter…

First Solar is expanding production of its thin-film solar cells and opening new factories to meet a surge of demand. Meanwhile, it’s investing in perovskites—tiny crystalline materials that many view as a key solar technology of the future.  The world needs more electricity than ever, as the AI boom puts intense demand on data centers…

Large swaths of the global economy are nearly impossible to electrify but could run on low-emissions hydrogen, helping the world transition away from fossil fuels. Electric Hydrogen is working toward more efficient, affordable production of green hydrogen. Electric Hydrogen is striving to develop production methods that make it easier and more affordable to generate huge…

Pivot Bio is using genetically edited microbes to deliver just the right amount of nitrogen to crops, cutting climate emissions without reducing agricultural yields. The development of synthetic fertilizer was one of the great achievements of the last century, providing an abundant source of nitrogen that boosted crop yields and helped feed a growing global…