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

Meet the architect creating wood structures that shape themselves

June 24, 2024
Humanity has long sought to tame wood into something more predictable. Sawmills manufacture lumber from trees selected for consistency. Wood is then sawed into standard sizes and dried in kilns to prevent twisting, cupping, or cracking. Generations of craftsmen have employed sophisticated techniques like dovetail joinery, breadboard ends, and pocket flooring to keep wood from…

Synthesia’s hyperrealistic deepfakes will soon have full bodies

June 24, 2024
Startup Synthesia’s AI-generated avatars are getting an update to make them even more realistic: They will soon have bodies that can move, and hands that gesticulate. The new full-body avatars will be able to do things like sing and brandish a microphone while dancing, or move from behind a desk and walk across a room.…

OpenAI buys Rockset to bolster its enterprise AI

June 21, 2024

OpenAI has acquired a company, Rockset, building tools to drive real-time search and data analytics. In a post on its official blog, OpenAI said that it would integrate Rockset’s technology to “power [its] infrastructure across products.” Members of Rockset’s team will join OpenAI, and Rockset’s existing customers will be transitioned off of Rockset’s platform “gradually.” […]

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The Download: replacing animal testing, and underwater drones

June 21, 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. Is this the end of animal testing? Animal studies are notoriously bad at identifying human treatments. Around 95% of the drugs developed through animal research fail in people, but until recently there was…

Should social media come with a health warning?

June 21, 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.  Earlier this week, the US surgeon general, also known as the “nation’s doctor,” authored an article making the case that health warnings should accompany social media. The goal:…

Is this the end of animal testing?

June 21, 2024
In a clean room in his lab, Sean Moore peers through a microscope at a bit of intestine, its dark squiggles and rounded structures standing out against a light gray background. This sample is not part of an actual intestine; rather, it’s human intestinal cells on a tiny plastic rectangle, one of 24 so-called “organs…

How underwater drones could shape a potential Taiwan-China conflict

June 20, 2024
A potential future conflict between Taiwan and China would be shaped by novel methods of drone warfare involving advanced underwater drones and increased levels of autonomy, according to a new war-gaming experiment by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS).  The report comes as concerns about Beijing’s aggression toward Taiwan have been…