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

Scientists are trying to get cows pregnant with synthetic embryos

May 6, 2024
It was a cool morning at the beef teaching unit in Gainesville, Florida, and cow number #307 was bucking in her metal cradle as the arm of a student perched on a stool disappeared into her cervix. The arm held a squirt bottle of water. Seven other animals stood nearby behind a railing; it would…

The Download: the cancer vaccine renaissance, and working towards a decarbonized future

May 3, 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. Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance Last week, Moderna and Merck launched a large clinical trial in the UK of a promising new cancer therapy: a personalized vaccine that targets a specific set…

Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance

May 3, 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.  Last week, Moderna and Merck launched a large clinical trial in the UK of a promising new cancer therapy: a personalized vaccine that targets a specific set of…

Hubble Network makes Bluetooth connection with a satellite for the first time

May 2, 2024

Hubble Network has become the first company in history to establish a Bluetooth connection directly to a satellite — a critical technology validation for the company, potentially opening the door to connecting millions more devices anywhere in the world. The Seattle-based startup launched its first two satellites to orbit on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 ride-share mission in […]

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Danti’s natural language search engine for Earth data soars with $5M in new funding

May 2, 2024

Danti, an artificial intelligence company building a superpower search engine for Earth data, has brought on prominent defensive tech investor Shield Capital as it looks to scale its technology for government customers. Founded by Jesse Kallman in early 2023, Danti has developed a natural language search engine for data that has historically been highly siloed, […]

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

The Download: Sam Altman on AI’s killer function, and the problem with ethanol

May 2, 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. Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has a vision for how AI tools will become enmeshed in our daily lives.  During a…

Three takeaways about the current state of batteries

May 2, 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. Batteries are on my mind this week. (Aren’t they always?) But I’ve got two extra reasons to be thinking about them today.  First, there’s a new special report from the International Energy…

A US push to use ethanol as aviation fuel raises major climate concerns

May 1, 2024
Eliminating carbon pollution from aviation is one of the most challenging parts of the climate puzzle, simply because large commercial airlines are too heavy and need too much power during takeoff for today’s batteries to do the job.  But one way that companies and governments are striving to make some progress is through the use…

Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function

May 1, 2024
A number of moments from my brief sit-down with Sam Altman brought the OpenAI CEO’s worldview into clearer focus. The first was when he pointed to my iPhone SE (the one with the home button that’s mostly hated) and said, “That’s the best iPhone.” More revealing, though, was the vision he sketched for how AI…