June 20, 2025

Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab closes on $2B at $10B valuation

Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati, has closed a $2 billion seed round at a $10 billion valuation.

Designing the future of entertainment

February 13, 2025
An entertainment revolution, powered by AI and other emerging technologies, is fundamentally changing how content is created and consumed today. Media and entertainment (M&E) brands are faced with unprecedented opportunities—to reimagine costly and complex production workloads, to predict the success of new scripts or outlines, and to deliver immersive entertainment in novel formats like virtual…

Apple’s app tracking privacy framework could fall foul of German antitrust rules

February 13, 2025

Germany’s antitrust watchdog has been investigating Apple’s app privacy framework since 2022. On Thursday, releasing preliminary findings from this probe, the Bundeskartellamt (FCO) said it suspects the iPhone maker may not be treating third-party app developers as equally as the law requires. The antitrust watchdog said it believes Apple’s behavior could amount to self-preferencing. Apple […]

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Apptronik, which makes humanoid robots, raises $350M as category heats up

February 13, 2025

Apptronik, a University of Texas spin-out that was quietly building humanoid robots before it became quite so fashionable, on Thursday announced a $350 million Series A round of financing. B Capital and Capital Factory co-led the round, which also featured participation from Google, whose DeepMind division is partnering with Apptronik to deliver embodied AI for […]

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What a major battery fire means for the future of energy storage

February 13, 2025
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. A few weeks ago, a fire broke out at the Moss Landing Power Plant in California, the world’s largest collection of batteries on the grid. Although the flames were extinguished in a…

Telegram releases improved sticker search and video consumption features

February 13, 2025

Chat app Telegram, which became profitable last year, released new updates to its apps, including improved sticker search, choosing video covers, and the ability to copy videos at the current time. The company first released its AI-powered sticker search in December, which allowed you to look for stickers using natural language. However, it was limited […]

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Barcelona-based spyware startup Variston reportedly shuts down

February 13, 2025

Variston, a Barcelona-based spyware vendor, is reportedly being liquidated. Intelligence Online, a trade publication that covers the surveillance and intelligence industry, reported that a legal notice published in Barcelona’s registry on February 10 confirmed that Variston has gone into liquidation. This comes almost exactly a year after TechCrunch reported that Variston was in the process […]

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Former Oracle Cloud exec Don Johnson takes over as Docker’s new CEO

February 13, 2025

Developer tooling and containerization company Docker has a new CEO: Former Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) executive vice president Don Johnson (pictured above) landed in the hotseat starting Wednesday. Incumbent Scott Johnston will leave the company with immediate effect. During his eight-year spell at Oracle, Johnson was instrumental in transitioning the company from its legacy on-premise […]

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Motor neuron diseases took their voices. AI is bringing them back.

February 13, 2025
Jules Rodriguez lost his voice in October of last year. His speech had been deteriorating since a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2020, as the muscles in his head and neck progressively weakened along with those in the rest of his body. By 2024, doctors were worried that he might not be able…

The AI relationship revolution is already here

February 13, 2025
AI is everywhere, and it’s starting to alter our relationships in new and unexpected ways—relationships with our spouses, kids, colleagues, friends, and even ourselves. Although the technology remains unpredictable and sometimes baffling, individuals from all across the world and from all walks of life are finding it useful, supportive, and comforting, too. People are using…