November 8, 2024

The Download: AI vs quantum, and the future of reproductive rights in the US

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 AI could eat quantum computing’s lunch Tech companies have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that they’ll be a game changer for fields as diverse…

This smiling robot face made of living skin is absolute nightmare fuel

June 25, 2024

Giving robots a human-like exterior has been the standard for years — centuries even. But giving them actual, living skin that can be manipulated horrifying, slimy expressions? That’s new. The new work, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, is very much just an experiment. This will not be the face of your next […]

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OpenAI delays ChatGPT’s new Voice Mode

June 25, 2024

In May, when OpenAI first demoed a far more realistic, nearly-real-time conversational experience for its chatbot platform ChatGPT, called Voice Mode, the company said that the capability would roll out to paying ChatGPT users within a few weeks. Months later, OpenAI says that it needs more time. In a post on OpenAI’s official Discord server, […]

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

GM’s Cruise taps Xbox video game veteran as next CEO

June 25, 2024

GM’s Cruise has appointed Marc Whitten — a video game veteran who was a founding engineer at Xbox and Xbox Live— as CEO.  The Cruise CEO position has been vacant since December when co-founder Kyle Vogt resigned as part of a broader executive shakeup following an October 2 incident that saw a pedestrian run over […]

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

Stress test

June 25, 2024
Elizabeth Sajdel-Sulkowska was just three months old when Nazi soldiers set fire to her family’s home in the midst of the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944, as the Polish resistance attempted to seize control of the city from the Germans. When that revolt ultimately failed, the city was razed, and there was no time to…

Depression is different for women. One-size-fits-all drugs aren’t helping.

June 25, 2024
The trauma of an accident, an assault, abuse, or even simply losing someone we love can have long-term effects. For some, it can trigger mental illnesses. But what if, in the hours after the experience, you could take a pill that made you less likely to fall ill? And what if there were such a…

Fighting fatphobia

June 25, 2024
“I felt too fat to be a feminist in public.” The startling admission appears in the opening paragraph of Kate Manne’s new book, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia. With that single frank and sobering sentence, Manne, an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell, captures the pervasiveness of anti-fat bias—and its stifling impact.   Manne had…

SuperLimbs for astronauts

June 25, 2024
It’s hard not to laugh at NASA’s blooper reel of astronauts falling and bouncing in slow motion on the moon. But coping with inertia where gravity is one-sixth that of Earth is no laughing matter when you’re wearing a constricting space suit and need to finish an exhausting task. So mechanical engineering professor Harry Asada…

Artificial reefs could protect coastlines and marine life

June 25, 2024
In tropical waters, coral reefs shelter marine life and buffer islands from stormy seas—but these natural structures are threatened by the effects of climate change, which is also multiplying the extreme weather events that leave coastal communities vulnerable to flooding and erosion.  An MIT team now hopes to fortify coastlines with “architected” reefs—sustainable offshore structures…