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

How “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online

September 2, 2024
As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems imitating them.  That’s a real problem when those systems are deployed for nefarious ends like spreading misinformation or conducting fraud, and it makes it a lot harder to trust what you encounter…

The race to replace the powerful greenhouse gas that underpins the power grid

September 2, 2024
The power grid is underpinned by a single gas that is used to insulate a range of high-voltage equipment. The problem is, it’s also a super powerful greenhouse gas, a nightmare for climate change. Sulfur hexafluoride (or SF6) is far from the most common gas that warms the planet, contributing around 1% of warming to…

The Download: monkey names, and smart masks for health monitoring

August 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. How machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals The news: Do animals have names? It seems so, after new research appears to have discovered that small monkeys called marmosets…

A new smart mask analyzes your breath to monitor your health

August 29, 2024
Your breath can give away a lot about you. Each exhalation contains all sorts of compounds, including possible biomarkers for disease or lung conditions, that could give doctors a valuable insight into your health. Now a new smart mask, developed by a team at the California Institute of Technology, could help doctors check your breath…

How machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals

August 29, 2024
Do animals have names? According to the poet T.S. Eliot, cats have three: the name their owner calls them (like George); a second, more noble one (like Quaxo or Cricopat); and, finally, a “deep and inscrutable” name known only to themselves “that no human research can discover.” But now, researchers armed with audio recorders and…

A prosthetic leg that feels like a real body part

August 29, 2024
When someone loses part of a leg, a prosthetic can make it easier to get around. But most prosthetics are static, cumbersome, and hard to move. Now a new neural interface developed by MIT researchers and colleagues connects a bionic lower limb to nerve endings in the thigh, allowing it to be controlled by the…

Architecting cloud data resilience

August 29, 2024
Cloud has become a given for most organizations: according to PwC’s 2023 cloud business survey, 78% of companies have adopted cloud in most or all parts of the business. These companies have migrated on-premises systems to the cloud seeking faster time to market, greater scalability, cost savings, and improved collaboration. Yet while cloud adoption is…

The Download: protecting tech workers, and Canada’s wildfire emissions

August 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. Kamala Harris should stand with tech workers, not their bosses —Stephen McMurtry is a Google Software Engineer and Communications Chair of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Tangled up in the contest to be the…

Kamala Harris should stand with tech workers, not their bosses

August 29, 2024
Tangled up in the contest to be the next US president, there is another battle brewing: Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Valley. In Donald Trump’s corner are venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, along with executives like Elon Musk. In the other are execs like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and SV Angel investing mogul…

Canada’s 2023 wildfires produced more emissions than fossil fuels in most countries

August 28, 2024
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Last year’s Canadian wildfires smashed records, burning about seven times more land in Canada’s forests than the annual average over the previous four decades. Eight firefighters were killed and 180,000 people displaced. …