February 6, 2025

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As I’ve admitted in this newsletter before, I love few things more than getting on an airplane. I know, it’s a bold statement from a climate reporter because of all the associated…

Technology

Detroit Police Department agrees to new rules around facial recognition tech

June 29, 2024

As part of a legal settlement, the Detroit Police Department has agreed to new guardrails limiting how it can use facial recognition technology. These new policies prohibit the police from arresting people based solely on the results of a facial recognition search, or on the results of photo lineups conducted immediately after a facial recognition […]

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The Download: AI video games’ research potential, and US government website redesigns

June 28, 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 AI video games can help reveal the mysteries of the human mind Video gaming companies are applying large language models to generate new game characters with detailed backstories—characters that could engage with…

How AI video games can help reveal the mysteries of the human mind

June 28, 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’ve been thinking about thought. It was all brought on by reading my colleague Niall Firth’s recent cover story about the use of artificial intelligence in…

As battery startups fail, Sila snaps up $375M in new funding

June 27, 2024

Amid a fraught environment for battery startups, Sila has raised $375 million to finish construction of a U.S. factory that will scale its next-generation battery technology for customers like Mercedes-Benz and Panasonic by the end of 2025. Sila, formerly known as Sila Nanotechnologies, is slated to finish construction of its Moses Lake, Washington plant in […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Download: the future of music AI, and climate tech funding

June 27, 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. Training AI music models is about to get very expensive AI music is suddenly in a make-or-break moment. On June 24, Suno and Udio, two startups that let you generate complete songs from…

These climate tech companies just got $60 million

June 27, 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. Some people track sports scores or their favorite artists’ tour set lists. Meanwhile, I’m just waiting to hear which climate tech startups are getting big funding awards from government agencies. It’s basically…

Training AI music models is about to get very expensive

June 27, 2024
AI music is suddenly in a make-or-break moment. On June 24, Suno and Udio, two leading AI music startups that make tools to generate complete songs from a prompt in seconds, were sued by major record labels alleging widespread copyright infringement. Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group claim the companies made use…

The Download: Introducing the Play issue

June 26, 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. Supershoes are reshaping distance running Since 2016, when Nike introduced the Vaporfly, a paradigm-­shifting shoe that helped athletes run more efficiently (and therefore faster), the elite running world has muddled through a period…

Why China’s dominance in commercial drones has become a global security matter

June 26, 2024
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Whether you’ve flown a drone before or not, you’ve probably heard of DJI, or at least seen its logo. With more than a 90% share of the global consumer market, this Shenzhen-based…