Technology

US AI Safety Institute could face big cuts

February 22, 2025

The National Institute of Standards and Technology could fire as many as 500 staffers, according to multiple reports — cuts that further threaten a fledgling AI safety organization. Axios reported this week that the US AI Safety Institute (AISI) and Chips for America, both part of NIST, would be “gutted” by layoffs targeting probationary employees […]

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How automotive exec Crystal Brown founded CircNova, an AI drug discovery biotech

February 21, 2025

Tiny Michigan biotech startup CircNova has raised a $3.3 million seed round for its technology that uses AI to target so-called “circular RNA.” The development holds promise as a new method to quickly develop therapies for conditions that currently have no drug treatments. The new funding is also a victory lap for co-founder and CEO […]

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The Download: dismantling US science leadership, and reproductive care cuts

February 21, 2025
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 foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled Ever since World War II, the US has been the global leader in science and technology—and benefited immensely from it. Research fuels American innovation and…

Doctors and patients are calling for more telehealth. Where is it?

February 21, 2025
Maggie Barnidge, 18, has been managing cystic fibrosis her whole life. But not long after she moved out of her home state to start college, she came down with pneumonia and went into liver failure. She desperately wanted to get in touch with her doctor back home, whom she’d been seeing since she was diagnosed…

8,000 pregnant women may die in just 90 days because of US aid cuts

February 21, 2025
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. Yesterday marks a month since the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th US president. And what a month it has been. The Trump administration wasted no time…

The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled

February 21, 2025
Ever since World War II, the US has been the global leader in science and technology—and benefited immensely from it. Research fuels American innovation and the economy in turn. Scientists around the world want to study in the US and collaborate with American scientists to produce more of that research. These international collaborations play a…

Spotify partners with ElevenLabs to expand its library of AI-narrated audiobooks

February 20, 2025

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it now accepts audiobooks narrated using ElevenLabs’ AI voice technology. Given that ElevenLabs is currently among the most recognized AI audio providers, this new partnership is expected to boost the quantity of AI-narrated audiobooks on the platform. To upload an audiobook narrated by AI, authors need to download the file […]

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The Download: Microsoft’s quantum chip, and explaining rising energy demand

February 20, 2025
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. A new Microsoft chip could lead to more stable quantum computers Microsoft has announced that it’s made significant progress in its 20-year quest to make topological quantum bits, or qubits—a special approach to…