Eight years ago, a patient lost her power of speech because of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which causes progressive paralysis. She can still make sounds, but her words have become unintelligible, leaving her reliant on a writing board or iPad to communicate. Now, after volunteering to receive a brain implant, the woman has been able to rapidly communicate phrases like “I don’t own my...
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. A few pieces of good news on climate change (and a reality check) When it comes to the climate, the picture can look bleak. Emissions of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Oh man, it’s brutal out there. One by one, the world’s richest tech companies have announced massive layoffs. Just last week, Alphabet announced it was laying off 12,000 people. There have been bruising rounds of layoffs at Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and...
RISC-V is one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2023. Explore the rest of the list here. Python, Java, C++, R. In the seven decades or so since the computer was invented, humans have devised many programming languages—largely mishmashes of English words and mathematical symbols—to command transistors to do our bidding. But the silicon switches in your...