February 7, 2025

These documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda

Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government.  The payment reports have been…

Technology

Google DeepMind’s new AlphaFold can model a much larger slice of biological life

May 8, 2024
Google DeepMind has released an improved version of its biology prediction tool, AlphaFold, that can predict the structures not only of proteins but of nearly all the elements of biological life. It’s a development that could help accelerate drug discovery and other scientific research. The tool is currently being used to experiment with identifying everything…

The top 3 ways to use generative AI to empower knowledge workers 

May 8, 2024
Though generative AI is still a nascent technology, it is already being adopted by teams across companies to unleash new levels of productivity and creativity. Marketers are deploying generative AI to create personalized customer journeys. Designers are using the technology to boost brainstorming and iterate between different content layouts more quickly. The future of technology is exciting,…

Multimodal: AI’s new frontier

May 8, 2024
Multimodality is a relatively new term for something extremely old: how people have learned about the world since humanity appeared. Individuals receive information from myriad sources via their senses, including sight, sound, and touch. Human brains combine these different modes of data into a highly nuanced, holistic picture of reality. “Communication between humans is multimodal,”…

The Download: deepfakes of the dead, and why it’s time to embrace fake meat

May 8, 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. Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business Once a week, Sun Kai has a video call with his mother, and they discuss his day-to-day life. But Sun’s mother died…

China has a flourishing market for deepfakes that clone the dead

May 8, 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. If you could talk again to someone you love who has passed away, would you? For a long time, this has been a hypothetical question. No longer.  Deepfake technologies have evolved to…

The way whales communicate is closer to human language than we realized

May 7, 2024
Sperm whales are fascinating creatures. They possess the biggest brain of any species, six times larger than a human’s, which scientists believe may have evolved to support intelligent, rational behavior. They’re highly social, capable of making decisions as a group, and they exhibit complex foraging behavior.   But there’s also a lot we don’t know about…

Deepfakes of the dead are a growing Chinese business

May 7, 2024
Once a week, Sun Kai has a video call with his mother. He opens up about work, the pressures he faces as a middle-aged man, and thoughts that he doesn’t even discuss with his wife. His mother will occasionally make a comment, like telling him to take care of himself—he’s her only child. But mostly,…

Motional delays commercial robotaxi plans amid restructuring

May 7, 2024

Motional, the autonomous vehicle startup borne out of a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and automotive supplier Aptiv, will pause its commercial operations and delay plans to launch a driverless service as it undergoes a restructuring, TechCrunch has learned. The aim is make progress on technology and the business model, while preserving capital, according […]

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How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat

May 7, 2024
Fixing our collective meat problem is one of the trickiest challenges in addressing climate change—and for some baffling reason, the world seems intent on making the task even harder. The latest example occurred last week, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the production, sale, and transportation of cultured meat across the Sunshine…

The Download: synthetic cow embryos, and AI jobs of the future

May 7, 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. Scientists are trying to get cows pregnant with synthetic embryos About a decade ago, biologists started to observe that stem cells, left alone in a walled plastic container, will spontaneously self-assemble and try…