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

Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech

June 18, 2024
Meta has created a system that can embed hidden signals, known as watermarks, in AI-generated audio clips, which could help in detecting AI-generated content online.  The tool, called AudioSeal, is the first that can pinpoint which bits of audio in, for example, a full hourlong podcast might have been generated by AI. It could help…

Scaling green hydrogen technology for the future

June 18, 2024
Unlike conventional energy sources, green hydrogen offers a way to store and transfer energy without emitting harmful pollutants, positioning it as essential to a sustainable and net-zero future. By converting electrical power from renewable sources into green hydrogen, these low-carbon-intensity energy storage systems can release clean, efficient power on demand through combustion engines or fuel…

The Download: AI’s limitations

June 18, 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. Why does AI hallucinate? The World Health Organization’s new chatbot launched on April 2 with the best of intentions. The virtual avatar named SARAH, was designed to dispense health tips about how to…

Bitsening raises $25M for its high-resolution radar in autonomous driving

June 18, 2024

Self-driving vehicles rely on many sensors to detect objects and the world around them. The conventional approach is to work with cameras and lidars. But some tech companies and startups have built advanced high-resolution radar technology for autonomous vehicles, also known as 4D imaging radar.   Among them is a South Korea-based startup called bitsensing. The […]

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Why artists are becoming less scared of AI

June 18, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  An AI with generic jokes. Researchers from Google DeepMind asked 20 professional comedians to use popular AI language models to write jokes and comedy performances. Their results…

Why does AI hallucinate?

June 18, 2024
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. The World Health Organization’s new chatbot launched on April 2 with the best of intentions.  A fresh-faced virtual avatar backed by GPT-3.5, SARAH (Smart AI Resource Assistant…

The Download: artificial surf pools, and unfunny AI

June 17, 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 cost of building the perfect wave For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave.  While this hunt has taken surfers from…

The cost of building the perfect wave

June 17, 2024
For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave. It’s not just a question of size, but also of shape, surface conditions, and duration—ideally in a beautiful natural environment.  While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines reachable only by boat to swells breaking off…

What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines

June 17, 2024
AI is good at lots of things: spotting patterns in data, creating fantastical images, and condensing thousands of words into just a few paragraphs. But can it be a useful tool for writing comedy?   New research suggests that it can, but only to a very limited extent. It’s an intriguing finding that hints at the…