Technology

The rise of the data platform for hybrid cloud

August 19, 2024
Whether pursuing digital transformation, exploring the potential of AI, or simply looking to simplify and optimize existing IT infrastructure, today’s organizations must do this in the context of increasingly complex multi-cloud environments. These complicated architectures are here to stay—2023 research by Enterprise Strategy Group, for example, found that 87% of organizations expect their applications to…

The Download: preserving our digital lives, and X exits Brazil

August 19, 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 race to save our online lives from a digital dark age There is a photo of my daughter that I love. She is sitting, smiling, in our old back garden, chubby hands…

The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age

August 19, 2024
There is a photo of my daughter that I love. She is sitting, smiling, in our old back garden, chubby hands grabbing at the cool grass. It was taken in 2013, when she was almost one, on an aging Samsung digital camera. I originally stored it on a laptop before transferring it to a chunky…

The Download: what tomorrow holds for today’s babies, and replacing the brain

August 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. What the future holds for those born today Happy birthday, baby. You have been born into an era of intelligent machines. They have watched over you almost since your conception. They let your…

Escaping Spotify’s algorithm

August 16, 2024
Since the heyday of radio, records, cassette tapes, and MP3 players, the branding of sound has evolved from broad genres like rock and hip-hop to “paranormal dark cabaret afternoon” and “synth space,” and streaming has become the default. Radio DJs have been replaced by artificial intelligence, and the ritual of discovering something new is neatly…

What’s next for drones

August 16, 2024
MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Drones have been a mainstay technology among militaries, hobbyists, and first responders alike for more than a decade, and in that time the range available has skyrocketed.…

This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little

August 16, 2024
A US agency pursuing moonshot health breakthroughs has hired a researcher advocating an extremely radical plan for defeating death. His idea? Replace your body parts. All of them. Even your brain.  Jean Hébert, a new hire with the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is expected to lead a major new initiative around “functional…

Aging hits us in our 40s and 60s. But well-being doesn’t have to fall off a cliff.

August 15, 2024
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. This week I came across research that suggests aging hits us in waves. You might feel like you’re on a slow, gradual decline, but, at the molecular level,…