Technology

I just watched Biggie Smalls perform ‘live’ in the metaverse

December 17, 2022
For a moment on Friday, Biggie Smalls was the only man on stage. A spotlight shone on him and his red velvet suit, and, amid pre-recorded cheers, he rapped the lyrics to “Mo Money Mo Problems,” his orange sneakers swiveling to the beat. You wouldn’t be wrong to be confused. Smalls died in 1997 when…

Cruise’s autonomous driving tech comes under scrutiny from safety regulators

December 16, 2022

U.S. safety regulators have opened a preliminary investigation into the robotaxis developed and operated by GM self-driving subsidiary Cruise. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration said it opened the investigation after learning of incidents when these robotaxis “may have engaged in inappropriately hard braking or became immobilized while operating on public roads.” The preliminary investigation […]

Cruise’s autonomous driving tech comes under scrutiny from safety regulators by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

Twitter is a mess, so former employees are creating Spill as an alternative

December 16, 2022

Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown met during orientation on their first day working at Twitter. They didn’t know that just a few years later, they’d be building a social media platform of their own. “We were the only two Black guys in there, and we were like, ‘Hey, we’ll be friends!’” said Terrell, who […]

Twitter is a mess, so former employees are creating Spill as an alternative by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

Waymo opens Phoenix airport rides to the public, doubles downtown service area

December 16, 2022

Members of the general public will be able to take a Waymo robotaxi, with no human safety operator behind the wheel, between downtown Phoenix and Sky Harbor International Airport starting Friday. Waymo will also be doubling its service area in downtown Phoenix following an initial launch of driverless rides in the area to the public […]

Waymo opens Phoenix airport rides to the public, doubles downtown service area by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

The Download: generative AI, and psychedelic hype

December 16, 2022
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. Generative AI is changing everything. But what’s left when the hype is gone? It was clear that OpenAI was on to something. In late 2021, a small team of researchers was playing around…

Sam Altman: This is what I learned from DALL-E 2

December 16, 2022
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, has been at the heart of the San Francisco-based firm since co-founding it with Elon Musk and others in 2015. His vision for the future of AI and how to get there has shaped not only what OpenAI does, but also the direction in which AI research is heading in general.…

Artists can now opt out of the next version of Stable Diffusion

December 16, 2022
Artists are now able to opt out of the next version of one of the world’s most popular text-to-image AI generators, Stable Diffusion, the company behind it announced.  Stability.AI will work with Spawning, an organization founded by artist couple Mat Dryhurst and Holly Hendon who have built a website called HaveIBeenTrained, that allows artists to…

Generative AI is changing everything. But what’s left when the hype is gone?

December 16, 2022
It was clear that OpenAI was on to something. In late 2021, a small team of researchers was playing around with an idea at the company’s San Francisco office. They’d built a new version of OpenAI’s text-to-image model, DALL-E, an AI that converts short written descriptions into pictures: a fox painted by Van Gogh, perhaps,…

Mind-altering substances are being overhyped as wonder drugs

December 16, 2022
This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. For the past five years or so, barely a week has gone by without a study, comment, or press release about the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs landing in my inbox. Psychedelics…