March 5, 2026

The Download: an AI agent’s hit piece, and preventing lightning

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. Online harassment is entering its AI era Scott Shambaugh didn’t think twice when he denied an AI agent’s request to contribute to matplotlib, a software library he helps manage. Then things…

Why Chinese apps chose to film super-short soap operas in Southeast Asia

February 28, 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. TikTok has become an essential part of the digital landscape. Whether or not it’s ultimately banned in the United States (my bet is it won’t be), these short videos have transformed large…

Journey to the eclipse

February 28, 2024
In 1900, the recently completed Hotel Fitzpatrick in Washington, Georgia, stood out for its grand Queen Anne architecture, but even more for its technology—it offered electricity, an elevator, and a telephone. When Alfred E. Burton, MIT’s first dean (1902–1921), chronicled his expedition to Washington to record a total solar eclipse for Technology Review, he noted…

The citizen scientists chronicling a neglected but vital Mexican river

February 28, 2024
The city of Monterrey in northeastern Mexico is an industrial powerhouse that has rapidly devoured green space to make room for its 5.3 million people. The Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range around the city is still holding strong, though the hills are increasingly encroached on by the urban sprawl of skyscrapers, apartment buildings, industrial parks,…

Job title of the future: Climate equity specialist

February 28, 2024
Our world reflects a carbon divide, with the richest 10% of the population contributing half of net carbon emissions and the poorest 50% bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. So extreme is this climate inequality that marginalized communities are around five times more likely to be displaced by extreme disasters. This growing realization led…

This company makes wood products without trees

February 28, 2024
As she walks across Foray’s lab on the third floor of The Engine, Ashley Beckwith’s eyes brighten. Then, from an incubator, she pulls out petri dishes of wood-like cells that she and her team grew in the lab from black cottonwood plants. They envision turning those cells into wood-based perfumes, cosmetics, oils, and—someday—entire beams and…

MWC 2024: Nothing enters the budget range with Phone (2a)

February 28, 2024

Nothing isn’t one to be quiet about new releases. The London-based phone company’s media push largely relies on trickling out information about devices bit by bit. It’s been a solid strategy thus far (if a bit annoying as someone who covers this world), as so many of its announcements have been first-gen products, each generating […]

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Thrasio, once king of e-commerce aggregation, files for Ch.11

February 28, 2024

Thrasio, the U.S. start-up that raised billions of dollars and popularized the concept of e-commerce aggregation — buying up and restructuring dozens of smaller brands and third parties selling on marketplaces like Amazon in a bid for better economies of scale — has commenced a restructuring of its own. The company has filed for Chapter […]

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